Hey, humans. How's it going? Susan, Ruth here. Thanks.
Listening to another episode of Hey Human Podcast.
This is episode 364,
and I had a conversation with Sheena Brook.
Sheena is a powerhouse of resilience In
2022, hurricane Ian destroyed her home as a teen,
she endured gay conversion therapy.
Sheena comes back stronger from every obstacle thrown in her way.
The performing artist songwriter is a full-time tour musician and was
team Adam on NBC's The Voice. She's pint sized,
but I mean, when I say powerhouse, she's a powerhouse. She's whip smart,
she's determined, she's funny as all get out. She's sweet as can be.
And we had just such an, a really interesting, beautiful conversation.
We talk about shame and family and love and kindness,
and finding strength to be comfortable in one's own skin and just,
she's rad. So I'm really excited for you to hear this episode.
Check out hey human podcast.com for links.
And to learn more about my guests and the show, check out Susan ruth.com.
To learn more about me and my other artistic endeavors, follow Susan Ruth ism.
And hey, human podcast on social media. Find my albums on Spotify,
apple music, Amazon music, wherever you get your music.
And look for my album. All I ever wanted was everything.
Please check out my relationships and sex show with sexologist and healthcare
practitioner, Amara Edelman. It's on YouTube under Are We There yet?
Podcast show rate review, subscribe to Hey,
human podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast.
I wanna say specially thank you to the reviews that have come in
recently. There've been some really lovely messages, and I'm just,
it makes my day every time I read one, so thank you so much for that.
And I just finished the Ted Lasso season finale,
which of course I twittered about because I'm a nerd. And I, you know,
had to talk about my feelings on Twitter about Ted lasso.
Wow, what a show. And it, in order to just even handle the season finale,
just of it ending, because it, it meant so much to me, uh,
over the past three years.
It came out at a time when I think we were all feeling quite alone.
And it was such a ray of hope in such a dark time.
And to have it end was just, it was like saying goodbye to an old friend,
a new old friend, a a friend that you meet that is new,
but you felt like you've known your whole life. You know what I'm saying?
Anyway, I,
I went back and I watched the first episode or the first season and what did a
light, anyway, just wanted to get that out there. All right.
Thank you for listening. Be well, be kind, be love,
be supportive of each other. You know, we are all in this together.
Uh, just the more we put the good stuff into the world,
the stronger the good stuff will be, you know? So let's keep fighting for that.
All right, here we go. Sheena Brook, welcome to Hey, human.
Hi.
Hello.
How's it going?
Pretty good. How's it going with, you.
Know, chaotic, but great. Same.
Same.
It's, uh, chaos. Here we have two puppies,
which is like great and so much joy, but also like, what are we doing?
They're siblings. They're so cute. Like, so cute.
And they've really given my wife so much joy. Golden retrievers. Oh.
Lord. So they're super high energy.
Yeah, they actually, because they have each other. Well, we had one,
we got one Uhhuh . We used to have two golden retrievers.
We lost the last of the two March 1st.
I'm sorry.
Oh, thank you. It was like, tough. And we were like,
we're not getting another dog. And then, um, our friend said,
will you help me pick out a golden retriever? Because.
.
He loves the dog, loved our dog and wants one. So,
and we ended up going home with one too, which is fine.
And then the breeder called us and said, no one,
no one is wants this dog like he's big boy. But he said, they said, no,
you know, no one really, do you guys want him? And we were like, well, yeah,
we're not gonna, and it's actually been better because she,
they wear themselves out.
All right, let's get into it. You and I met in the Key West Songwriter festival.
Festivities.
Yes. In a pool. It was great.
In a pool. Yeah.
What a break from life. It was really great.
It was a needed break. Yeah. And our mutually adored, uh,
friend Megan Myrick love so much.
Your story I followed before I ever met you.
I did not even realize you were the same Sheena when hurricane hit
Florida and all this chaos was happening.
And Megs was putting up video saying,
my friend's house is underwater and holy crap.
All this stuff that when we met, when we were in the pool in water,
ironically that I said, wait a minute. Actually,
I think it occurred to me when we were walking, I'd said, wait a minute.
You're the, you're the Sheena, you're.
The person, you're that Sheena, you're that hurricane girl.
But before we get into all that fun trauma, let's start with just the,
the basics. Where are you from? Did you grow up in Florida?
I actually was born here in Fort Myers, um, Fort Myers,
Florida. And I moved to Atlanta like briefly, uh, after I came out.
And then I, I ended up coming back. Um, but yeah,
I was born and raised in Florida. I'm a definite Florida girl.
Was there a reason that you felt you couldn't stay in Florida after you came
out? Or was it just by happenstance that you went to Atlanta?
Um, yeah, I think it, there was,
it was a much needed like reprieve from my hometown coming out.
Like was a pretty tumultuous for me.
I grew up pretty religious. Uh, my parents were really, um,
avid churchgoers and really believed in that system.
And so when I was about 16, I, uh,
I met a girl I liked and all that and people found out and I had to do
conversion therapy. It's interesting too cause like I'm at my parents, right,
right now cuz it's the quietest place because they've come a long way.
I think people believe what they're told to believe a lot of times, which in,
in that circumstance, when they told me Something's wrong with you,
you need counseling, I went, okay. And then my parents did the same thing.
I actually just started calling it conversion therapy cuz that was hard to,
a hard pill to swallow to understand that that's what I went through for so many
years to undo and erase who I was and that. And so I did that.
I ended up going to bible college. Uh, I was ordained, I got married,
I did all the things I was told to do. Married.
To a man.
Yeah, to a man.
Firstly, let's go back a little bit. Okay. Cause that's a lot all at once.
, if you're comfortable talking about it. Yeah, I am. I'm curious,
at what point were you starting to realize, oh,
I'm not what everybody is, says I'm supposed to be.
You know, people rarely ask me that question cuz there's so much trauma loaded
behind coming out that you forget, like that, that initial experience to know,
I think I've always been like drawn to, to girls and women and all of that.
I think I grew up a little sheltered and a little young.
My wife always says that even though I was born as a nineties baby,
I'm a two thousands baby because I grew up a little later, much more naive.
And so I wa you know, I think I just met this girl,
I think it was eighth grade because it was the ninth grade that I started
getting,
I started conversion therapy and like all of that cuz it kind of came out and
all that. Cuz I was, I was really involved in church too.
So you couldn't do anything. I couldn't do anything without, you know, being.
Taught. So did somebody find out then, or did you say to your parents, Hey,
I like girls.
Yeah, they found out cuz I was just here, here's how it happened.
Which is really, really awful when you're trying to figure out who you are.
We were young like at a youth group trip,
just like having a great time. And when I say like minimal physicality,
like I always make the joke that like,
if I was gonna get in as much trouble as I got in over the years,
I should have like fucked everyone. Yeah. Like everybody.
Because I got in enough trouble so that I should have been just, you know,
very promiscuous. And, uh, so, but I wasn't, I was, I was, uh,
I definitely tried to do what I, I was told all the time.
And so we were like hanging all over each other
and they thought that was, I don't,
I cannot even recall cuz it's so intermingled with all this,
I can't even recall if we had kissed yet or anything.
But we were hanging all over each other at an event just being lovey-dovey.
And so, uh, the pastor pulled us into a meeting.
So he has a door and I wait outside while he inter basically
interviews her and then she goes outside and then I go inside.
And they did that about four or five times to one of us, like cracked, uh,
crying, saying, I mean, I have feelings for her, but like,
I don't know what that means. And, and then it's like, okay,
well God hates that and you're broken and now you need counseling. And,
and so, and then we did that and I,
and I do remember one of the things I recall the most about those moments is,
uh, um, I started counseling and you know, I'm a young person.
I'm like kind of helping with church and doing all this stuff and I'm like,
okay, well how do I know if God healed me? And they said, we'll tell you.
I don't know why.
Of all the things that always like strikes out in my mind because it's like
a lot of people live their lives with someone telling them when they're okay
telling. Like, I'll tell you when you're okay, I'll tell you when you're healed,
I'll tell you when you've made enough money. I'll say,
no one can tell you any of that shit, but yourself. And,
and learning to like love yourself is a huge journey.
Whether you're gay or straight or bi or asexual or whatever
your situation in life is, whether it involves sexuality or doesn't,
that is a difficult journey I think for all of us.
The audacity of a pastor coming to you and doing that
is insane to me.
I love that word because like,
you cannot get me started on the word audacity because now as a person, so,
so after all of that, I went to Bible college, I got ordained, I got married,
I was in ministry.
And so with all of this knowledge and then all of the uh,
kind of rub cuz I've always struggled with the viewpoints of this
organized church and get, and I got in trouble for all kinds.
I got in trouble for bad opinions. I got in trouble for being gay.
And the word audacity,
the audacity to think I know what God's saying just alone.
It just blows my mind now at this point.
And just how religion has come,
which is like a whole separate podcast because like, you know, it's like I,
I swear I could talk about it all day cuz it's like,
it's just something that blows my mind about this person I used to be and this
strong belief system and this and the, and the belief in Jesus and the,
and and being saved and Christianity and then to now to where like,
I don't know,
maybe I feel that way on a Tuesday and then maybe I think I'm an atheist because
how can God exist with all of this in the world?
And then you think about Christianity as a whole and how opposite it is from the
story of Christ, which is the biggest thread in,
in that story is a story of acceptance, of nonviolence,
of like, you know, giving,
giving away what you have and not holding onto it.
And I just feel like Christianity is all mega churches and guns.
So that's pretty much the opposite of that. You know.
I, I feel the plot has been lost about yeah.
for the underdog and helping those in need and all of that. For sure.
Can are you comfortable talking about what conversion therapy was like?
It's so weird because it's also the reason I have so many,
when when you start thinking about these things,
it's has so much to do with some principles I have now,
which is that how life is. Like when I, um,
I recently started therapy after the loss of my friend. I,
I keep dumping things on you. Uh,
and I was like adamant that they needed like a doctorate.
I would not see a counselor and there are some wonderful counselors out there,
but the reason is because my conversion therapy was with some woman
that took a weekend class to become a counselor.
And it's like you are not equipped or educated enough to
help someone that is really struggling. Me or anyone,
you know, a woman who lost her child or whatever. Whoever you're counseling,
you do not have the equipment to do that. So it's pretty,
I don't recall a whole lot of it to be honest.
Just a lot of like sitting in a room feeling worthless.
That is the predominant memory is just feeling and them just trying to search
for things.
Well your parents must love your brother more than you and I've never felt that.
So I think that's bologna. You know, I'm being so nice.
I said baloney instead of bullshit. I think it's my mom's house. Like, so yeah,
that's kind of all I remember about it to be honest.
And I did it at 16 and then they got like bored with me
or busy. And then again at 21, um,
I had counseling again because I actually was really involved in church.
I'd been through all of that. Um, like the worship leader,
it's a several hundred person church and I go
to the youth pastor and I say,
I'm just like struggling cuz you want me to be this leader,
but I just don't feel like this is who I am.
I really have feelings for this girl.
You guys want me to marry this pastor guy cuz they're very involved in your
life, you know?
And so I told her that in confidence and she told the whole staff in a meeting
and then they pulled me out and then he fired me after that from
the, from my job cuz I was a worship leader,
which in the end is kind of the best thing that ever happened to me. .
Well of course, but the idea too, um,
the whole point of being able to talk to a pastor or a priest or a rabbi
or,
or an Iman or any of that stuff is that they are keeping in confidence
what you are telling them. It's.
But the, I think the, the meat and potatoes of what organized religion is,
is it is a business designed to protect itself.
And unfortunately I think people that start with the best of intentions,
I wanna get these people together, I wanna share the gospel of Christ,
which is to feed the hungry and love the widow
and then we need to pay rent because we got a building because this building is
really nice and then now we gotta take and then now, and it all just kind of,
to me, hasn't it spiral snowballs from there.
But that is obviously an opinion based on in my lens from my experience.
How does one wrap their head around completely
shutting out an identity. I mean that's,
that's the thing that I find so traumatizing on,
on your behalf even. But it's just traumatizing to hear that,
how are you supposed to go from who I am and now I'm gonna go be this other
person just to satisfy your church.
I think that that is the
reason we hold prides. The reason we have events,
the reason I speak so loudly about being gay is because
if someone would've told me it's okay to be me,
I might have had a different life experience.
If one person in my life would've said, fuck be you.
I might have had a different experience because,
and I don't regret that or take it back cause I'm who I am because of it.
But the danger of that is I completely erased my identity.
I replaced it with who they wanted me to be. I got married,
I was in a awful abusive relationship because of that.
So there's no health there. And then I got to a point where it was just,
I was so dark that I was really suicidal and I actually
went and talked to my cousin.
I had been married for four years and I talked to my cousin who I was like best
friends with at the time. And I said, I, I just feel like
so broken and not myself that I need to probably put a bullet in
my head or I have to change my life. And she said, well, don't do anything
because it just doesn't seem like you should do anything.
And that was just like all her advice, which, you know,
you can sense that a sense of like,
and maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but like in my,
I felt like that advice wasn't about me because then afterwards,
before I even came out, I got divorced, I said, you know, I'm unhappy.
This person is toxic and awful and,
and abusive and like I cannot be around them anymore. Um,
and just really manipulative type of, you know,
we became like pastors of a church and how we looked was, it was just awful and,
you know, very possessive, you belong to me, that kind of thing. I was like,
I gotta get out of this. And um,
I just, after I did get divorced or I started that, she's like,
well it's not like you left him, you left all of us.
I'm like that that is the nature of the most that that is what I always sensed
from that point is this selfish stuff. And you know, unconditional love,
I just think says, it doesn't matter how it affects me.
Are you happy because you deserve to be happy
and that's it. There aren't really any, and when parents ask me how do I,
you know, my kid came out or my kid is nonbinary, I don't know.
And I keep getting it wrong and it's like, it's okay to get wrong.
All you all any person wants is someone to say, I don't care.
Are you happy? I want you to be happy. If I get it wrong,
tell me I got it wrong. I'll my best to fix it. That's it.
Just support to get it right.
Lead with love.
Lead with love. It's, it is not rocking science.
Yeah.
But, so that's kind of how.
Did the walls come tumbling down then when you got out of that relationship and
you said, it's time for me to be me.
He was pretty mad and, uh,
upset and it was, uh, he would like follow me around. I,
I kind of moved out with just a little bit of things and stayed at my parents.
Nobody kind of believed me until that point.
And I'm at my mom's and she lets him in the house
and he comes in the bedroom, shuts the door and locks it and she's like,
won't let her in. And then I'm at my friend's house, a girl I liked.
He's like outside all night long, just follow me around. All that kind of stuff.
I don't know, it was tough. It's actually not, uh, his,
his family started a rumor that the reason we were,
that I was divorcing him is because I had a demon and they said that they were
gonna come find me in the streets and pa the demon outta me.
And so I ran out of clothes, I went back to get clothes.
This is like one of my most vivid memories.
And I asked my parents to come with me and you know, they,
they like didn't really know. I, I don't know, everything was very hidden.
And so I go in there and somehow I still to this day don't know how he
found out he was supposed to be at work that I was there in the house.
I went back to our house to just get a couple of things and um,
and he's like, comes in the door, I, I'm like, okay, what,
what I have is enough, we gotta go.
And he stands in front of me so I can't get out of the door.
My parents are sitting down,
he tells my parents to shut up because I'm his wife and he needs to talk to me,
puts his finger in my face and starts praying in tongues.
And it was pretty cringy at this point. I'm like, man, uh, but I just stopped.
I said, are you gonna physically hold me here in front of my parents?
And he said No. I said, okay, I'm ready to go.
And I walked out the door and you know, I don't,
I don't think I've seen him since that day. And, and he, I don't have,
I have no idea if he lives in this town. Some, some of my family,
I still like connected to him, connected to the church I grew up in.
And so I just decided like any of that connection is not healthy for me and I'm
out. So I don't know.
Are your parents still part of the church?
Not that church. They actually got away from all that for a little bit.
Kind of had like home church with, with their family a little bit.
And now they're back at uh, a place that seems really nice.
I think that sense of feeling and that church gives you is important
to them.
It's interesting from, from the perspective, from the outside to think,
okay,
parents are supposed to love their kids unconditionally but they have outside
forces telling them that their kid is a demon or has something wrong with them
or is broken. Yeah. And
to allow space for them to also have their own arc of
being Yeah.
And to learn how to come to the table if you will.
How was that for you, as you were, I'm assuming,
hoping but not holding your breath for that to happen.
With my mom and dad? Mm-hmm.
.
I don't know, like it,
I feel like it's just like a constant journey cuz obviously there's like some
stuff, like I said, I just started calling it conversion therapy.
A lot of that is because I don't wanna think of my parents as people who send me
to conversion therapy, you know?
And they bear a lot of responsibility for the trauma that I faced as a young
person when it was their job to protect me. However,
I think I watched them change. I watched them, you know,
my ex-girlfriend, I think my mom said, well I don't, I wouldn't really,
I think innocently kind of said,
well I wouldn't think of you as my daughter-in-law because all she knows is her
construct to meeting my wife.
Her and I have been together nine years now and immediately being different.
Like, this is my daughter-in-law summer. You know,
because she knew that she was different. I don't know what it was about that,
but that, you know, just the change in saying, okay,
like this is who Sheena is and she's obviously happy and I mean
my life's like 19,000 times better on the surface,
not alone internally after coming out, you know? And so,
and that's with all of the crazy shit that's happened in my life, you know? So,
um, I think that is, I try to
find the balance of living in a place of grace and understanding and love
or like who they are deep, deep inside.
And then also a place of knowing that doesn't always have to be okay.
I can tell the truth of my past and it,
and, and it is what it's, you know, so.
I mean, none of us can really understand what it's like to be anybody else,
right? Everybody's going through their own personal hell and heaven,
you know, all at once, all the time. Yeah. Uh,
but you live in a place Florida where
you are being told not only by the people around you,
but also by your government that there's something wrong with you.
How do you deal with that?
It's so interesting too because I think that has been such a
swing. Like as I become more and more of myself,
I felt like,
and I'll play and like feel play music for a living and like play and be myself
and tell jokes and everybody's so accepting. And then like all my friends, I,
I did a CD release party for a song called Bad Bitches. Like Me.
Meg and I wrote it together. My,
the host of my event was a drag queen I know named Alexia and she's
wonderful. And people came to see the show and she was there.
And then literally like a six months later or however
long later, drag queens are evil. And, and I'm,
I'm playing a pride that I'm actually not super available to play,
but I was like, I have to play this pride I,
they asked me to play because they don't have the performers anymore because
they cannot safely have any of our drag performers, our hometown, you know,
drag performers perform on the main stage.
And this group is constantly trying to get the,
the city of Naples to revoke the permit for the pride. And I'm like,
I have to be a part of this. I have to be a voice.
When we talked about moving after the hurricane,
one of the reasons we were like,
I think we need to stay is because it's like if everyone moves, they win.
There is no voice. There is no one to say, I'm sorry I exist, I am here,
I am a Floridian and,
and I felt like I have to make time so I'm to,
to do this part and to be at this thing cuz it is,
it is annoying and it is dumb.
And it has also made me very aware of my privilege because I do songwriters
festivals all the time,
which are wholesome and beautiful and some lovely white family from
Indiana will give me permission because the crowd will ask
to sing a song I have called Sit on my Face. That's the chorus of the song,
sit on my face and tell me you love me. It's hysterical, it's pretty,
it's whatever.
If I was anyone other than a white straight passing female,
I would not have that privilege.
And so now I feel even more compelled as I've realized that to
go do something. Meanwhile, you know, uh,
a queen comes out and sings some empowering song about being yourself by pink
and they're shunned because what you're wearing a ball gown.
And it just like blows my mind why any of that matters because I
honestly don't think it actually matters to anybody.
They're just wanting to complain about something to distract from whatever else
they're doing. But that's a whole other conversation. But it's, yeah,
I think it's just, it's very hard to reconcile and figure out.
But I'm just trying to do my part and tell my story, use my voice.
I played an event recently with all of these young, um,
Naples kids. They're high school and below,
and it's the G l s e n Glisten Group who's recently actually been attacked in
the media. Um,
there's a chapter here and they asked me to play it and I I was just blown
away cuz it's this like day event and they have these breakout sessions and
half of the sessions are about understanding the legislation that's being passed
and how it affects you.
So they're educating themselves and how to combat it with love and
without anger and to do their best and be themselves. And I'm like,
oh my God, I'm so angry, . You know, and then I'm going also,
I just really doubt that any other conventions for young people
are having that conversation. It's more like, I don't wanna bring an American,
you know? I don't know. I don't know. Mm. It's,
it's frustrating , but.
It must have been a very empowering moment too.
Get married to the woman you love.
It was, it was amazing. We got married on the beach, uh, at Newton Park,
which no longer was there. It was, my brother married us. It was incredible.
It was interesting.
My family that I had was no longer speaking to.
I did invite them. I started,
I started to stop speaking to them after our engagement because I invited them
and they called two, two of my cousins called to say, we can't be there,
we can't support that. Like it's disgusting, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, oh dude. Like you could have just like not rsvp.
It was really hurtful. And my wife, my one cousin,
I had no idea that she felt that way when she called me and told me like,
I'm a teacher of the word. I can't be there. I don't wanna see gay people.
We only had like three gay friends at the time and really broke my heart.
And I was crying. I worked at Guitar Center at the time,
so I was sitting outside on the ledge and I told summer and summer,
sent a text message to my family, like my mom, my cousin, that she knew people,
she personally knew my, my other, my second cousin. So the, uh,
this is complicated, but the one that messaged me,
her daughter and I were really close and Summer knew her too. So her,
my brother, my mom, and texted him and just said,
I cannot believe you would even speak to bigoted people like this and
let them talk to your daughter that way.
I will not be at any of your family events. Do not invite me. I will not,
I've never known people like this and I have no interest in knowing people like
this. And as the first time in my whole life,
someone stuck up for me, full grown adult.
And it just was like, my wife is amazing.
Like the best thing I've ever done is marry that bride. Um,
and that moment was,
is pivotal in my life because it didn't just go, oh, she loves me. Um,
which is important, but it was like, oh my God,
I don't have to take this shit from people.
And I think that's the thing that she's constantly kind of done for me
as my spouse, like is constantly remind me, you, you know,
you don't have to do that. Right. You know, you don't have to agree to that.
And so I've, I've just become, I mean, she'll say it often,
I'm a very different person from when, when we first met, but for the better,
I'm stronger. I'm a much stronger person.
She's a very strong person and I like to think that rubbed off on me a little.
She didn't grow up with the same bigotry around her.
No, she, I love her. She came out in an email, uh, right outta high school.
Uh, hey, I'm gay if you don't like it, get outta my life. And most people,
everyone was like, we know we love you. .
Her mom and dad lived with us for a long time, for a couple years.
They're really wonderful people. Uh,
I remember when I met her mom and I told her about some of my cousins,
she was like, I don't know, people were like that still, just with this,
you know, beautiful. She's very rosy. Uh, beautiful outlook, loving woman.
And um,
I imagine the two sets of parents have in inspired some growth
and change.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, uh,
I I think Summer is become a more patient person. I've become a stronger person.
I've definitely love her mom like in a a,
a sweet way. We have a great relationship and um,
her dad's like 84 and he's really smart and still works.
Like she has, her parents are great, you know, my parents are wonderful too.
They literally give the shirt off their back to a stranger. Like they're very,
very generous, very giving. Um,
and so it's like I'll keep i'll,
I'll keep all those kinds of people in my life and forget the rest.
So I mean, it's to the point that you have to be taught to hate,
you have to be taught bigotry and prejudice. That stuff isn't innate in us.
No, it's not. And that's the one thing.
It's that I believe that it can also be cleared from us.
Yeah. If you can learn it, you can unlearn it. Yeah. If you want to,
but you really have to want to.
You do.
If any amount of change in your,
in your life and especially in something that's like ingrained in you is
completely possible. I've seen it happen. I know it's possible,
but you have to want to.
Let's move forward to the hurricane.
Yeah. So summer and I been married uh, eight years,
nine years and we're just plugging away.
We both work really hard. You know, I'm a working musician songwriter now.
My wife is a very hard worker. She works for U ps. She,
at the time she was doing real estate. She has a real estate license,
takes on a few clients here and there. Um,
predominantly on the beach cuz she's really knowledgeable.
She grew up on the island, went to elementary school there on Fort Myers Beach.
She also manages my local stuff. So any of my bookings and all that,
she has great relationships with venues.
It's kind of the reason I am able to play for a living because she's very good
at that. And all musicians, we kind of need someone like that in our lives. Um,
so we're trudging away kind of getting on our feet.
Her mom gets cancer, which she survives and,
but really goes through it and it just took a huge hit on their
finances. And so they had to ended up having to move in with us,
um, to get back on their feet. We think they have a lot next door.
We think we'll sell it all, find a house somewhere else.
We don't end up doing that because summer and I have been working our asses off
to live on this beach on in this beautiful house that she had before we got
together. But we've remodeled it. We've just put all of our love and care in it.
We wanna grow old there, you know,
raise puppies and children and whatever life throws at us and, um,
just be there. And that's kind of our retirement plan. And so we end up
investing in our home and building her parents an apartment downstairs.
We got a put a pool in. Really just made this oasis.
Her parents lived with us for about two years through 2020,
which was a really rough year.
I lost my best friend to this heinous murder.
Her daughter murdered her. It's a whole thing.
And like it's was just the only person from my past I still spoke to,
uh, that like just, I never even came out to her. You know,
she's just somebody. I've just kind of, my last connection to my childhood,
other than my brother of course, I'm so sorry. What, what is her name? Melissa,
Missy. K Missy Kelly. And, um, just,
I mean she would've been 40, May 16th, so like just come, it's just like,
just taken too soon. She was just a beautiful human. It was insane.
Like I went to the trial,
which ended up not going to trial because she took a plea deal. It was awful.
That's when I started therapy actually is after we, I lost her.
Cause all these people from my past like called me out of nowhere.
And so I'm like, wow, this is a lot all at once.
Both the murder of her and then all these people I haven't talked to in 20 years
that I have, you know, some trauma from, which is, you know, it's a whole thing.
And then, um, you know, we lost our dog in 2020 right before that.
It was just like, oh my God, it was huge whirlwind finally.
And living in our 1300 square foot home with her mom and dad we're
like at our wit wits. And we finally get them downstairs.
They were down there for nine months and hurricane em took our whole house.
It stood but crooked and the foundation wasn't salvageable.
Anything under the house was not salvageable.
There's a hole in the middle of the floor.
So we were able to walk in there and salvage stuff even though we weren't
supposed to because it was considered an unsafe structure.
We lost five vehicles between the four of us. We had a little golf cart too.
So it was like right beautiful beach life. We were living, uh,
right before that, one of the best songwriters festivals.
I started Golf Cart karaoke and all these little shows and had a great,
you know, hosting a pride event in southwest Florida that was huge successful,
which we needed that positive stuff. And, and then bam and,
and I think that journey of the hurricane
was wild. I mean it,
the moment of being in the hurricane was terrifying.
We actually went to my neighbor's house and hid, uh,
in her house because she had a three story concrete.
We had a 19 35, 2 story cottage, um,
18 foot of water for,
I have a five foot watermark or six foot watermark in my second floor,
which means it sat there at that height and then it just
surged. I, it, it, there there's documentation of it. You Google it,
it's insane to be there and and to watch all of your hard work go under water
and realize, and a lot of our friends didn't live. We were very lucky to live,
um, during the storm,
as the water was rising up to the second floor and we ran upstairs,
there was a gas leak.
So we had to open up doors temporarily until finally the front doors broke
open to make sure we didn't die.
It was just scary and it was long. And then when we came downstairs,
we had to rummage through all of the debris.
There was people in our house squatting in our house, which I mean these,
they'd stayed. They lived because they found our house, you know? Um,
they stayed in my house a little too long and took some of our things and
stuff like that, which, you know, at that point, who cares? You know? Uh,
but it's weird. It's weird to lose everything. It makes you, like I said,
some of those things makes you feel there's definitely not a God. The same time
after being through all the things I've been through and
sometimes often feeling like, you know,
growing up where I couldn't be myself and feel loved. In this moment,
here we are and I think I might die.
And I'm texting Megs who's one of my best friends and she's sending me rescue
tickets and trying to get the government to save my life. And
I think I just realized that I mattered to some people and that was a really big
deal. They cared about summer and I started to go fund me.
I had absolutely nothing to my name. We couldn't salvage anything at first.
We got had to get off the island.
And so for a week I didn't have underwear, I didn't have socks, I didn't have,
I literally had nothing, no cars, no shoes, no nothing.
And friends of ours dropped off clothes. I mean,
t-shirts, pants, shorts, like, oh,
the clothes I'm wearing now were given to me even now.
All these things in September,
all these months later because like I didn't have anything.
And all of these people just loved summer i f to
help us. The government doesn't help you. I think we got like $2,000 from fema.
They're like, oh, you had insurance, you don't get anything.
And that's not how it works. Insurance does not hand you checks. So we're,
we still don't have any help from insurance. So.
Yeah,
GoFundMe I think is proof that you even don't have to know a person to have to
know their humanity. To see humanity step.
Up. Yeah. I ran into, at Key West Songwriters Festival, I ran into Ashley Cook,
uh, country, country songwriter, singer songwriter. And I was like,
I have met you for like a half a second.
You otherwise wouldn't I, we might not have recognized each other on the street.
And she donated to ar GoFundMe and I just told thank you. Because it's like
there's a faith in humanity that is restored in me. And I hope that,
like in the future, that's something we find a way to give back. You know,
we're still sort of getting on our feet.
We're like having to change our life's trajectory.
And that is so interesting to go, oh, like I,
I had to change everything. I have to rethink everything. Um,
but I try to look at it as a positive. It's a rare,
a rare opportunity to go,
let's go start something different and start something new. And,
but also the, I think the,
the lesson all and all of this through my life is that life
is short. Be happy.
Was there any one thing,
an actual item of thingness that you grabbed?
Um, well I will say right at, right after the storm,
we had no idea it was gonna be so bad.
It actually moved at the last minute and the power went off at 10 and so it was
actually supposed to hit Tampa and then it came more towards us and people who
are like, you shouldn't evacuate. They don't know shit about hurricanes.
And also that there's, there was five of us actually our best friend,
two dogs and my in-laws who are older.
So like where are we gonna evacuate to five people and two dogs also.
Like literally where are we gonna go? You know?
And then there's a whole thing with Fort Myers Beach.
Most of the people that stayed,
it's because back when Hurricane Charlie came a couple, few years ago,
they kicked us off the island, which they did again. Uh,
and they don't let you back on. And you know,
part of the reason half of the things I couldn't salvage is because mold
sets in,
you have to be able to get back on and and rescue things.
And we weren't able to do that because, you know,
but right after the storm we trudged through debris, knock on the door,
find people in the house, blah, blah blah, blah. We don't feel like we can stay.
So we're hurrying.
And I grabbed my guitar and to this day it's like
an expensive guitar. The first one I kind of really was like,
I I love this guitar, I'm gonna play the hell out of it.
I deserve to have an expensive guitar cuz I normally play like $500 guitars.
And um, I happened to,
my other guitar went underwater cuz it was on the floor of the second floor.
But that guitar, I happened to set it up and so I grabbed that one,
just that one. And I actually didn't even take it off the island.
I went to the neighbor's house and hi it in her third story closet that had a
lock on it because everything was being looted and we needed to get off the
island and we couldn't carry anything. Um, but that,
that's kind of the only thing I can think of right now.
But I'm sure there were other things. We ended up being able to go back.
Some of our friends went with us, which were, we were just talking about.
We're so grateful for because like the moment we would walk,
get on the island and it's dunk for weeks and weeks
and you go into your house and your house stinks and everything's wet and
there's water splashes all over everything.
And both of us would get in there and just go in five minutes we'd be done,
we'd be ready to go and just be like, I don't, I don't need it.
I don't know if I can wash it but I don't need it. But our friends were there,
a bunch of our friends actually,
I think there was like five people and they just started putting shit in bags
and just taking it and loaded it up.
And then later on we kind of went through and we were able to save like Yeti.
We had all these Yeti coolers and Yeti cups that we've accumulated and that
shit's expensive. I wouldn't, you know,
and we take really good care of our stuff. So we were like, and so later on,
once it was somewhere else, I cleaned it up and you know, it still works.
So there's probably a handful,
probably like a storage units amount of things we were able to save from our
house. Um.
There is an extraordinary story of people
swimming to you. Can you tell that story?
Yeah. Um, so during the storm, um, no, like I said,
summer grew up on the island.
So she went to elementary school and our kind of like
across the canal neighbor across from the house we were staying at like an l
around from our home, um, is her best friend's dad.
And so she's texting him like,
and he's been on the island forever and he has this little small cottage too,
um, a little lower to the ground than ours was.
So he had just had ankle surgery and she text him.
She has this great cap of his text and said,
why don't you just come over to this house just in case I'll come
get you with the car because of his ankle. And he says,
I'm fine l o l I'll just swim. And that was that morning.
And um,
as the hurricane obviously got worse and worse and it started to climb his house
came off the pilings and started to flip into the canal and
it was him. And he has a tenant named Anthony as well. And um,
and he has a dog and he swam across. He,
I I can't even tell the story exactly cuz it's like he,
we saw him recently and like there's so much more to it.
Like he got into a dingy and then got the dingy halfway across the canal and
then swam the rest of the way. I don't even know, like it's cra like,
I don't even know how you get in a dinghy when it's like 200 mile an hour winds.
Plus the surge is, the surge is very strong.
It's like really rising and rising fast.
And he gets there and kind of just dunks,
dunks the dog by the collar underneath the water and back through,
cuz the first story of the house we're in is already underwater. And,
and then finds his way, I, I don't even know,
finds his way upstairs through the water, through the water,
through the, through the water and into the house,
finds his way upstairs and he's okay. He's scratched all to death from the,
from the dog, the dog's. Okay. Anthony did not make it right away.
And so he held onto a piling and we could see him from there for about an
hour and a half, uh, or an hour. Some are so good with details and I'm not,
I wish he was here,
but he held onto that piling and then finally made his way over and he was
purple and he had a big gash in his head. You could see his skull.
I think some debris hit him in the head. But to be honest,
that gash was the least of anyone's concerns.
He was gonna die of hypothermia.
I was holding the door closed with my body because the wind was so strong.
If it came off the roof was probably gonna come off. So we were taking turns,
holding the door closed. Our best friend Sarah comes in and says,
you have to trade me because sh some guy with a gash in his head comes in.
She's like, I'm not dealing with that . I don't know, you know, I'm not,
I'm not the person. So we trade.
I go outside Summer has blankets and towels in her hand and we just both know
sh she covers his body,
I cover his feet and I just start sitting on his feet to warm him up cuz you
know,
I sit on his feet and she's keeping his head back so he doesn't bleed into his
eyeballs. We sat there for a little while. He kind of came too.
We just kept checking on him, keeping his head back and he was fine. And he's,
you know, a typical, uh, kind of beach guy who's been there forever.
So he, they called for rescue specifically for him,
but he was already just down, out and, you know, having a drink,
trying to find his way, found some people to staple his head and was fine.
He's in this documentary, like laughs the whole time. It's hysterical.
Florida man, Florida man. He is a Florida man, beach Florida man,
which is a, which is a kind of a different breed anyway,
but we're really lucky to be alive. Um.
How are you dealing with the P T S D from that experience?
You've just had traumas upon traumas.
. Um, I do have some storm, some storm trauma.
I definitely like temporarily we live in a trailer, uh,
right now, uh, when it rains really bad, I do get scared in there.
I have a hard time sleeping,
but I think some therapy will be good hopefully once we settle in summer.
And I have both talked about, you know, finding some PTSD therapy.
I think it, it's more for me sometimes the storm scares me for her.
She's just like the trauma of like, just like losing all our hard work again,
of just like watching kind of your blood sweat and tears wash away.
And that's difficult that I think sometimes that's the hardest thing is this
like turmoil. It was not easy. Like the,
the remodel of our home was tumultuous.
I trusted a friend that I've known a long time with a hundred thousand dollars,
which is a lot of money to us, like an astronomical amount of money.
And he's like, I'm gonna get it done for you in three months.
It took him like a year or more than a year.
He didn't finish the job. My dad and I finished the job.
He would not tell us where the money went. Like, you know, a mistake.
We already knew, like, you know, you should have already known not to anyway,
but you know, you just, sometimes you have to relearn stuff and,
and so it was like all this like, just grief for nothing.
Bye. And in the end you just go, it's just stuff. We have each other.
We're alive, our family's alive. Um, you know,
a lot of people did not make it. And um,
during that storm, like I just, you know,
we know where our friends live and we're going,
I think that we had the highest amount of water on our street as we watched it.
It like kind of bottle nosed down our street and you can tell that by when you
talk to our neighbors. And so thinking that it was that high everywhere,
I was just like, okay, well my friend Marina's definitely dead.
Uh, our friend Tracy was potentially dead. Uh, this person's definitely dead,
you know, and just, you know, and that most of our close friends lived.
Some of the people that we just kind of have known and some are especially known
for years didn't make it. Some of 'em have worse stories, you know,
and there's just no way anybody who says you should have done this,
there is no way to prepare for something like that. There isn't.
Knowing what we know with the way the climate is and what's
potentially coming, does that make you wanna leave at all?
Yes. um, I think that was like a big,
as we were searching for like places to live, people are like,
are you gonna rebuild? And I was like,
I have no d i I never wanna go through that again.
And so we love this little town called Gulfport. It's a little gay town.
We've always talked about moving there. Um, I can't live there.
It's on a very similar, it, it,
it's right on the water and I can't do it.
And even where we lived is a little bit close to water for us where we are
deciding to move, but I had to kind of stop and say,
I can't live my whole life based in fear and I have to do, you know,
I have to move forward. If Mother Nature's gonna do it,
it's not gonna matter where you live. If we don't do something to change, if,
if our climate,
if people don't start caring about the environment and there's no way you see
that more than summer talks about it all the time driving for UPS and growing up
in this town, she'll be driving somewhere and she'll be like,
this used to be trees and now it is just building after building after building.
And there's just,
you can only do it so much somewhere down downtown and there's empty buildings
and there's waste and it's like,
why aren't we revitalizing those places instead of tearing down our environment
to make new places? Because you don't want the old shit.
I don't know what the deal is, but we've.
Got think economics. It's just, it's all about money.
And the truth of the matter,
you mentioned the beginning of this conversation that you know,
the politicians who worry so much about who's sleeping with who or a dry queen
reading a book or, or whatnot,
it makes as long as they can stir up that kind of fervor
with their constituents. Yeah. Nobody will notice the fact that,
you know, Florida doesn't have a great response time to disaster.
The roads are screwed up that the policies are screwed up, that the,
the politicians on the tapes jumping.
Uh,
pollution into Lake Okeechobee all the time that people in America don't have
America don't have clean water.
Yeah. And so there's your answer.
It's like this is why they're screaming about things. That.
Is why.
Literally mean have, there's just, who cares? You know?
It's like let's,
and then what do they do is they take books away so that you can't educate
yourself so that you can speak out against the powers that be.
And that's the, and that is the trouble is that, uh, until us,
and I've said this a few times, people are like, well what do you do about it?
And I'm like, I honestly,
I don't know because if I tell people there's a problem,
there's an attack on my community, a lot of people just don't believe it.
I can give them all the proof and they don't believe it or it's, it's,
it's either that and then there's just like an even larger group of people
who, it's not that they don't believe it,
they don't care enough to change how they vote.
And until people start caring enough about other
communities, about freedoms, about the environment to change how they vote,
nothing will change. Yeah.
And unfortunately it is that, um, apathetic voter,
it is that apathetic person that you have to individually reach out to in
like,
I don't know that there is any platform big enough to change the heart of a
person, but I could maybe have dinner with someone,
change the heart of a person, which just sounds exhausting,
but I would definitely try .
I think that's a great plan. Dinner's a Sheena, listen, let's do it.
Let's do it.
I'd like to touch a little bit on your, your time on the Voice.
Once you sort of get past, um,
there's like all these things to get up to the point where you're in LA about to
do a blind.
You're there for about like a month and you're really with the staff cuz there's
a casting company that gets you to that point.
So you have all these kind of casting calls and then once you get, uh,
before a blind audition,
you get to be a part of that and you're a part of the voice.
That team of people really wants to see you succeed. They really do.
They want you to get a chair. They want you to do well. No one's going,
I hope you did. She sucks. They are there to help you succeed. The,
I think anybody who's thinking of going on The Voice should do it because it's a
great experience if you let it be a great experience.
I met amazing people that I'm still friends with, I still write with,
I still talk to because of that show. And I think it also,
they like marketed me as like a rock and roll country girl.
I realized that's not really who I am. Like as a,
I like to write that as a songwriter, as an artist, not really me. I'm not,
I can't really be in that box and where it's like, I think, you know,
let it teach you what it's gonna teach you. And um,
but I think they do really want you to do well. They want you to succeed,
they want you to sound good. So I,
I found it to be an all around good experience. You know,
I was on team Adam, it was a very young cast.
So like as an older person there was definitely, um,
like when I did my battle round with Hannah Iyer,
who's a phenomenal singer and uh,
adorable and 15 years old and I'm like, she sings great.
I sing great. I'm wailing in the rafters.
I will say like I'm proud of that performance because I sang it with little
effort and it's impressive if you're a singer, but it doesn't matter what,
I can't beat a 15 year old , you know, at like 30,
however old I was, 33, 35, I don't know. I don't even know how old I am now.
None of us know how old we are.
the hurricanes aged me and I'm now just I identifying a 62.
Okay . So.
When people are like, how old are you? I'm like 62, just, that's where I'm at.
So yeah, I mean it was a great, great experience. A lot of work.
They do interview you like a lot.
They have enough footage of me to do like a whole three,
three seasons of a show. It was great. They showed I think I always love,
um, you know, they show your life and your blind audition.
And I remember in my episode they didn't really even talk about me being gay.
They just showed my family,
which is me and my wife and my two golden retriever dogs and our white picket
fence on the beach. It was adorable. And I liked the normalcy of that.
I thought that they did a really good job with that.
I mean, that's the thing, right? It is just normal.
It's just people loving each other, living their life.
It's exactly what it's, and, and, and uh, I thought NBC did a great job,
so yeah. Yeah, it was great.
Now they're gonna boycott NBC all the bigots. I would be remiss if I didn't,
uh, ask somebody from Florida to give me a,
a personal Florida man story of yourself.
Either someone in your family being a quote unquote Florida man or you being a
quote unquote Florida. Man.
This is so funny cuz like,
I'm trying to think of one and I know that in Key West I probably told a
thousand stories because me and Noah,
who's such a talented young guy, I, uh,
we just instantly became best friends over Florida. He's.
The best. Yeah, he's the best. I actually wanna have a show with you too,
Florida. Talk.
Each other. I know. And I, I need Tim to like,
I need to chat with him and get into my Florida zone.
I think he told an alligator story in.
I think I did. I mean there's several, they've like attacked my dogs and uh,
I will say my, as a young person,
I was riding around with my cousin who's much older than I am.
Um, so more like uncle age and there was a gator. He, he said, come on,
we're gonna come on, we're gonna go find that gator because like it's not safe.
Like you gotta go get it. Um, and they lived out like in the boondocks and he,
he's a cop, so he is like a good shot.
But I remember it was in the ditch and he like stood on the end of the ditch and
like leaned over and pulled his gun out and shot him in the head and then goes,
okay, go get him. And so I guess in my naivety I just went,
okay. And I ran down to the ditch, grabbed him by the tail and dragged him out.
Not even thinking, I sure hope you have to hit a gator in the head to kill it.
And it has a very small brain so it's, you know, and um,
I didn't even think twice about it and we threw it in the bed of the truck and
he taped its mouth and I thought, why are you taping its mouth now? Like,
you should have done that before you sent me after it . And uh,
I think there's probably more of those, but I, I'm,
I've gotta start writing them down before this Florida show. .
So great Sheena. Tell people how they can find you out in the world.
Out in the world. Um, I'm pretty easy to find.
It's Sheena Brook with two E's,
two os and you can just go to sheena brook.com and all my social links are
there. Um, but my Instagram's just Instagram at Sheena brook, uh,
Facebook at Sheena Brook music.
You can also find me on Spotify and Amazon music and all that stuff.
Do you wanna talk about your, your i the golf cart there? It's Golf.
Cart Karaoke is a show that I did in Key West.
I've done one in island at the Island Harbor and you can see all of the episodes
on my Instagram. So if you go find me at instagram.com/sheena brock,
you can watch 'em. And I just kind of cruise around a golf cart with uh,
my B speaker and interview singer songwriters.
Most of them play guitar and sing.
Jeffrey Steele just sang and I think he got away with it cuz he has about
eight bajillion hit songs.
Oh, many songs. She thank you so much for being on the show.
I love talking to you. So let's do it again. Yeah, I just chime. So.
Thank you. Thanks for listening everybody. Thank you. Bye.
Thank you. Bye.
Rate review, subscribe to Hey,
human podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. Thanks, bye.