Today on Unfiltered Stories, we share the powerful journey of Lisa Plumb. Raised in an abusive environment where her mother enabled predators to take advantage of her, Lisa faced unimaginable adversity starting at the age of 5. Despite the profound trauma she endured, Lisa has transformed her pain into purpose. Now a dedicated family therapist, she uses her experiences to help others heal and overcome their own challenges. Join us to hear her inspiring story of resilience, recovery, and empowerment.
#trauma #survivorstories #healingjourney #familysecrets #childhoodtrauma
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
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#trauma #survivorstories #healingjourney #familysecrets #childhoodtrauma
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅
Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB
Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT
Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN
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NewsTranscript
00:00My name is Lisa Plum and I am a child abuse survivor. My earliest memory of abuse, I was
00:06five. My parents divorced. I remember my mother had tried to kill herself. I didn't know that at
00:12the time. After she came back from treatment, she was a party mom and she started having singles
00:17parties that attracted pedophiles. Some of the pedophiles that came to the parties befriended
00:25my mother and abused me and my siblings. So when my mom would prepare the house to have the parties,
00:31we were slaves, I guess. She would yell at us, scream at us. We got to clean, do this, do
00:37that,
00:38get things done. She would get very frantic and mean. But as soon as the doorbell rang and she
00:43opened the door, the different expressions and tones came on. You know, my mom, my brother nicknamed
00:49her Hollywood mom and everybody was welcome and we were all happy now. So when people started
00:55coming, it was kind of exciting, but we had to stay, you know, behind our line and not interact
01:00until pedophile, which of course at the time I didn't really know, but invited us in. So yeah,
01:06let them come into the party. There was no particular red flag or feeling in my body at the time
01:12of
01:12concern. But later this particular perpetrator was a handyman and he involved himself in helping my mom
01:20around the house a lot. Again, looking back, he was mostly interested in me. I was probably in his age.
01:25I do remember being on my big wheel in the backyard. He came back to fix or look at our
01:32air conditioner
01:33and just kind of getting that look from him. That just was ominous at the time. Again, I didn't really
01:39have that language, but just saw him looking at me. My mom left us alone in the evenings a lot
01:45and he
01:46would bring me gifts. He brought me crayons, a coloring book once, and then proceeded to molest me
01:52as I was coloring. My sister walked in and flipped out, got upset. What's going on? I didn't really
01:59understand what was going on or what was wrong or bad, but I definitely felt shame. Like I did something.
02:06And another time he took me to ice cream alone. And instead of going to ice cream, he drove into
02:12a
02:13nearby field. He proceeded to also abuse me in that field. My sister must have, you know, spoken to my
02:21mother and father about the abuse that she saw him doing that I didn't know what to say or how
02:27to say
02:27or explain and had him, my mother and at the table, she had me come in and asked me what
02:36happened. And
02:36my mom said, what happened? I didn't have the words. Also John, the molester had threatened me that if I
02:44were to tell my mother would die after that's the last time I remember seeing him in my life. So
02:51I was
02:51five years old when my mother hooked up with this boyfriend and he was a scary guy. I was very
02:58quiet
02:58around him and compliant because he lost his temper pretty easily. They started taking us to nudist
03:05camps, particularly one nudist camp, Glen Eden. He would explain to us like why it's a good thing and
03:11other people that don't do it, they don't understand. And then they continued the abuse from just being
03:18naked in front of each other, which at the nudist camp, there was also creepy old men around or men,
03:25women too, I'm sure. But I just remember being there and groped by a couple of men as well. I
03:30avoided them and other kids talked about them with us like, oh, that's the doctor. That was his nickname,
03:35the one swimming in the pool. But back at home, my mother and her boyfriend would have sex in front
03:41of
03:41us as a sort of explanation, I guess, of what's going on. This is what your future holds. But he
03:47was also
03:48pushy and mean. And one day he told me to get a bath ready for him. So I did. He
03:54said, make it hot.
03:55I turned on the heat and just standing in the hallway trying to get this bath ready for him.
04:01And my brother bursts out of his room, cussing or something. I don't really know what was going on,
04:06but this guy had no tolerance for that from my brother, the disrespect, you know, abusers hate that.
04:13And so he picked up my brother by his ankles and started dunking his head in the toilet, which
04:19was terrifying and heartbreaking. I felt terrible for my brother. So my mom was always there like
04:26backing him up. I was on all sides being told it was okay. And then also my father, my sister
04:33must
04:34have told him this other guy molested me and she walked in on it. And one day he came over,
04:39we saw him on Sundays and he said, so I understand you were molested. Just don't make a big deal
04:44about
04:44it. So the first time I saw them have sex in front of me, I was in the house and
04:49I heard noises and
04:50my mom called for me to come into the room and it was dark, but the door was open. And
04:55I said,
04:56what, what's happening? I was scared because I had never seen anything like that. And it's intercourse
05:02happening in front of me. And I had no concept and it looked like bad, like she was being hurt.
05:08And they said, sit down. And I sat down and they, and they said, watch. And I just said, are
05:15you okay?
05:16I did not understand until years later, it being popped in my head, like, oh my gosh, they were having
05:22sex in front of me. And it was very uncomfortable. Other molestation occurred too, where, you know,
05:29the perpetrators were interested in, um, giving me pleasure. When you sexualize children early and
05:36then you're abusive to them, they tend to continue that behavior. So my brother, um, continued that
05:43behavior with me somehow got neighborhood boys involved. And so what happened till I was about
05:49nine and my stepdad came in my life was there was periods of time where we'd be out playing hide
05:55and go
05:55seek or tag or just whatever. And it would be time to pants, Lisa. And so they would like all
06:01zero in
06:02on me, chase me down. Usually I ended up in a room in the house and they would tear off
06:08my clothes,
06:09hysterically laughing, pry open my limbs and okay, well, let's try this and put this there. And so that
06:17was an ongoing joke and behavior towards me in the neighborhood. And didn't matter what I wanted or
06:24didn't want one day, I don't know exactly what had happened before, but my brother was violent with
06:29me as was my sister. But, and I was the youngest, I was the youngest and smallest in the neighborhood
06:34at the time. And I was crying going to my mom and she said, here we go again, Sarah Bernhardt.
06:41And I
06:41remember looking up at her like, well, who, what do you mean? What, who is Sarah Bernhardt? And she said,
06:46she's a famous actress. And so of course the message is I'm overreacting. I'm dramatic, but you know,
06:53this whole neighborhood situation was like a weird dynamic. There was a couple of boys that lived
06:59down the street, they're brothers. They pulled me off of my bike before, came and dragged me out from
07:03my backyard and groped me, molested me. One time I was in their bedroom, historically crying, sitting
07:10on his lap. And the mother knocked on the door and came in and looked at them and said, is
07:15everything
07:15okay? And sees me crying. And they're like, yeah, it's fine. And then she closed the door and left.
07:21Other boys sometimes asked me to try to do sexual favors for them here and there. So that was,
07:27it was like a violent, you know, we'd go from play to it's time to pants, Lisa, to back to,
07:32okay, hide and go seek. I had a little friend at the time. He was the second oldest. We became
07:37boyfriend and girlfriend. It was like an appropriate relationship. He was around all of this, but he and
07:42I would pair off and go steal cigarettes and candy and stuff at the local stores and hide out in
07:49our fort.
07:50But my stepfather came around when I was about nine years old and he was a good guy. He really
07:56liked my
07:56mom. They ended up getting married. He was a merchant Marine. So he was there half the time,
08:01but he would actually try to parent us. And he noticed that my brother was violent with me. And he
08:09said, you know, told him such things like boys don't hit girls. That's not okay. You know, these behaviors
08:14aren't okay. Or this is what you need to do instead. And besides the fact that he actually
08:19ended up putting a stop to that abuse, you know, for my brother, which not only benefited me, but
08:25benefited my brother, my stepdad Ray was actually tender and kind to me. So one day my mom told me
08:32that, Oh, Hey, your sister met this couple, Don and Jody, they go to nudist camps too. And they want
08:38to
08:38take you to a nudist camp. I said, well, I don't want to go. But at this age, at this
08:41time, I'm 11.
08:42You know, we had stopped going when my mom's boyfriend, Larry or was broke up with her and
08:48I didn't want to go back, but my sister had met these people on a train. She went to visit
08:53our
08:53grandma in Indiana. They zeroed in on a young girl alone and found out that they all went to
08:58nudist camps before. And Oh, you have a little sister. I can only imagine what the conversation
09:03was, but I was told I'm going with them to the nudist camp. I said, I didn't want to anyway,
09:08that didn't matter. And they showed up the first day I met them, we go to the nudist camp. So
09:13the
09:14thing about it was a man and a woman, and she was very outgoing, very charming, very friendly.
09:20And she was an athlete and I love sports. And she's like, it's fine. It'll be fine. Let's go.
09:26We ran out to the truck and we get in and there's a pack of marble reds on the dashboard.
09:31And she's like,
09:31you want a cigarette? You know, I'd never smoked in front of adults before and I'm sitting between
09:36him and her. And so I, at the time was like, okay, that's cool. You know, I guess it's going
09:41to be
09:41all right. Cause I was a little smoker and we get to the Glen Eden, the nudist camp and they
09:47let us in
09:48and it was the same rule clothing. It was not optional and that weird, awkward, you know,
09:54hesitation. Like I didn't want to take my clothes off, but it became like, you know, she's like,
09:59come on, it's no problem. Whoever can get it all first. You know, it was like, I don't know.
10:02So that first night, what I remember is they had Atari at the time was the video, the new video
10:09game,
10:09the first video games, I think. And I was pretty excited about that. And they're like, here,
10:14you know, have some, I could smoke what I wanted. She cooked dinner, taught me how to cook dinner.
10:21And we gave him the food and I was like, okay, you know, seems pretty cool. But that progressed
10:27quickly to sexual abuse with, you know, philosophical interjections, you know,
10:35people that aren't nudists, aren't as smart as people who are, they're not evolved.
10:41One of the ways that they normalized what they wanted to do with me was one day I was alone
10:47with
10:48him. He had come and picked me up and she was working and we had gone shopping or in his
10:52truck.
10:53And he said, Hey, your sister said that you want to have sex with me. And I'm 11. Okay. And
10:58he's like
10:5839, 40 years old. And I'm completely mortified, horrified. Don't know. I have no idea if she
11:06actually said that or what, but I was like, no, no, I don't. I'm sorry. You know, like I thought
11:13he was
11:13like, you know, you kind of looking bad out there. I was thinking initially, like, he's going to help me,
11:19like not come off like that or something. But then he said, no, it's okay. It's fine. And so I
11:24was even
11:24more horrified. And then my, my 11 year old brain went to, Oh no, I don't want Jody to be
11:31upset,
11:32you know, because this is, they're a couple and I'm not trying to be involved in that or hurt
11:38anybody's feelings. So I said, please, please don't tell her. And finally he's like, okay, I won't,
11:43I'm thinking and hoping this just goes away. But when we go to pick her up, she, then she gets
11:48in the car and he's all, Lisa wants to have sex with me. She immediately says, Oh yeah, that's fine.
11:55I didn't, I didn't want to, they just go on about chatting about their day. And so then it became
12:01like a coercive, come on, you know, you just, you could watch first, you don't have to do anything.
12:07And this, you know, whatever, just showing me and then holding me, then he would hold me.
12:12And then it just progressed to more sex acts. One day, Don said to me, Hey, Lisa, I, you know,
12:19I want to take you to this photographer, you know, see if you could be a model. And I was
12:23like, what?
12:24No, you know, I can't, I can't be a model. Like I felt like I was awful looking and just
12:30gross.
12:30And I just wasn't interested. And so the day came and there was other girls around sometimes. And
12:37sometimes there wasn't that day there was other girls. He had me and them get in his truck and
12:43we're on the way to the photographer. He became obsessed or he was obsessed with a movie called
12:48Pretty Baby starring Burke Schultz. And he had me watch it with him, with Jody and him while he was
12:55touching me. And then also with just me and him over and over. So we're on the way to the
13:01photographer,
13:02kind of heard a voice. I felt a voice. It said, memorize how to get there. And I kind of
13:07shook it
13:07off, but I, you know, I felt it, but I didn't even know where I was. There was no way
13:11I could have told
13:12you how to get to their house or anything. I knew my little area of Riverside, but other than that,
13:17I never memorized any directions. So I just shook it off. I'm looking around and then I felt it,
13:23heard it again, Lisa, memorize how to get there. And so I just felt like I should obey and do
13:30what
13:30it said. And so I'm looking out the window and I see 7th street, 14th street. We pull into the
13:37parking lot of the, where the photographer studio was, and I can still see it. I just kind of sealed
13:42it in my brain. Didn't think about it anymore. And then, you know, Jody lets us out and it's like,
13:47okay, whoever's first, you know, let's race or so you can get there first. And when we pop up to
13:52the
13:52studio on the second floor, we get in there and this guy's sitting behind his desk and there's a
13:57Rubik's cube on the table. And I'm like, a Rubik's cube, you know, can I play with your Rubik's cube?
14:02And he just looks at me with like a very cold, unsettling look that caused me to just shut up
14:10and
14:10sit down. He didn't say anything. And then it's my turn and it was full close, just a headshot and
14:15we're
14:16done. We're out of there. So that was good. That was over. Later that week, I'm at school
14:20and detectives come to my school. Basically Don and Jody got busted. They're asking me questions,
14:27interviewing me, put me in a shelter home. I didn't really understand exactly what was going on,
14:34what had happened, why they got in trouble. But when I was at the shelter home, social worker came
14:39and picked me up and took me to the Orange County detectives. And they wanted to interview me because I
14:44was in Riverside County and a lot of the abuse happened in Orange County. So a detective started
14:49talking to me. It was just he and I in the room and he said, Hey, you know, do you
14:52happen to know
14:53where this photographer is? Don and Jody said, they don't know. I was like, before I had a chance to
14:59say,
15:00I memorized how to get there. He started telling me, like, I couldn't even really believe it at the time
15:06that he was known for murdering children and that he had killed a little girl and a little boy.
15:13And he gave me some details. I said, well, I memorized how to get there. And he said, you did?
15:19I said, yeah. He said, you could take me there now. I said, I could take you there. And we
15:24went right
15:24away, him, I, and another detective or something. And I did, I took them right to the studio. There was
15:30no
15:31answer. They knocked on the door at this point. I'm thinking, I don't know. I have all kinds of
15:35thoughts, but I'm thinking like, is this guy going to hurt me? And he sees me, you know,
15:40Donna Jody, like, I don't know. I'm in trouble. I don't know what's going on, but there was only a
15:45knock at the door or they only knocked on the door. There was no answer. They said, thank you.
15:50You know, and took me back. Never heard anything about that again until years later,
15:55the detective that Riverside detective that befriended me, felt bad for me, told me my
16:01mother was the worst type of abuser, but that he's really sorry. He had to put me back in my
16:06home.
16:06Anyway, he was kind to me in the shelter home, made sure I could play softball, took me out to
16:12dinner.
16:12I got in touch with him as an adult. And he said to me, I asked him about that, you
16:17know,
16:17because all these years I was like, it just seems unbelievable, you know, like kind of weird.
16:22But he's like, no, Lisa, I knew about the snuff filmmaker guy, but I didn't want to say anything
16:28to you at the time because you'd already been through so much. And so that was really validating
16:32that he knew. But also I told him, well, the other detectives told me, and by the way,
16:37I think I should have been told what happened. It was validating that he knew about that.
16:42For me personally, I had seen an editorial by Hal Fishman months later where he, he's a newscaster
16:51in Los Angeles was talking about some victim because of their courage as perpetrator, child
16:57molester ring, whatever pedophile ring was busted. And I felt like that was kind of a message from
17:02God or, you know, the universe saying, like, I did help. He is busted. I'm in ninth grade playing
17:08volleyball. My mom, actually, we had a little bit of an improved relationship and our long-term neighbor
17:14that lived behind us was this Italian lady. And she would always cook this pasta and share it with us.
17:19And, um, we started playing Yahtzee with her. My mom and I, we would walk over and anyway,
17:25her adult son moved back home after a divorce and we all would just talk and smoke, drink coffee,
17:31whatever. He started asking me questions. Like, I guess they knew that I had been in the foster home
17:38over the summer. One day his mom like flipped out and she, instead of flipping out on him, she said,
17:44I was seducing her son and told me to never come back. My mom actually got upset and stood up
17:51for me
17:51in that moment. I don't know, told her off. Don't talk to my daughter that way. We walked home. Well,
17:56later that night, the older son, who's late thirties or so comes over. I'm so sorry. My mom said that
18:02that was wrong. We could still be friends. I'll come over here and blah, blah, blah. One day we'd go
18:06for a drive and he, and he and my sister were like, Hey, try this. And that was my introduction.
18:12I had other forms of like and stuff before, but I'd never had and they're like, it's great.
18:20This is how you do it. And when you're up all night, this is what you should do. And so
18:25I started
18:25taking, so he was still just a friend and he's like, you know, like when you're up in the middle
18:31of the night and you're bored, you know, you can just come over to my house. I'm like, well,
18:35your mom hates me. I can't just come over to your house. He's like, no, you can come over through
18:38my
18:38window and you know, we'll just play games. And so one night I went over, went through his window,
18:44started playing games. And then he approached me, started kissing me. Okay. And it went from there.
18:51I, at the time thinking, Oh my gosh, he likes me. Like he wants to be my boyfriend. He was
18:57really
18:57cute. He was popular guy. And I felt flattered, but also I was like, Oh no, like, this is not
19:04what
19:04I wanted. Nobody can find out. Everybody's going to think I'm. And so I told him, I said, nobody can
19:11find out. Like, I don't know that, you know, this should happen. Like we should do this. He's like,
19:16no problem. Like it's okay. Nobody will know. Anyway, he was very similar to, you know,
19:22the couple that abused me. It became about pictures and, um, sex acts and he would give me
19:29and it became transactional and it broke my heart. Like I, that's, I didn't like it. I didn't want that.
19:37I tried to get away from him and I told him also, you know, people, if they find these pictures,
19:43oh my gosh, I was kind of thinking about myself. Like I feel awful about these and this is not
19:48good.
19:49And he's like, well, if you want to get rid of some old ones, then you can do some new
19:52ones. You
19:53do five new ones. I'll get rid of 10 old ones and just crazy stuff like that. But I stopped
20:00interacting with him, but he had a picture of me. He was like, Oh, you play volleyball. Let's take a
20:05picture of you in your volleyball uniform. And so that was like the first picture. And then they became,
20:11you know, worse and worse, like pornographic. But I, I tried to go away from him. I stopped seeing him.
20:18He was like a stalker, tried to pursue me. This boyfriend I had at the time, his family
20:23were proclaimed Christians. Like it was a big part of their life. They were very nice to me
20:28and they must've known what was going on with us. He was very controlling as well. And his sister knew
20:34that I liked to play volleyball. Somehow we got talking and stuff. And she's like, you know,
20:39you could come play with us at the church. Probably I was late 16 to 18 is I started basically
20:46converting.
20:47And that wasn't my plan. That's not how I saw things, but I started talking to them and praying
20:53with them and reading scriptures that kind of validated, like, like, like the 10 commandments
20:59and stuff like that. I validated that I didn't want to be doing these things, but I keep getting told
21:04by
21:05everyone I'm around. It's good. It's fine. You should like it. It's, you know, and I had concluded
21:10that when I'm a more enlightened person, I won't feel bad about these things. But my mind started
21:16reversing on that. Like, Oh no, no, it's actually, I was right in the first place to not want that.
21:23Like it's hard to explain, but I started praying and I started feeling guided and I started hanging out
21:29with people that have a different lifestyle that went to church that played volleyball that weren't
21:33drinking and doing and, you know, trying to live a certain way. And that's what I started to do.
21:39I started to really resonate with that. And I got sober that way. Then I ended up meeting my husband
21:46at church. And then we ended up getting married a year or so later. And then I moved out of
21:53the house.
21:53I actually was living at home and got sober. It's, it's its own miracle. So I got married young.
21:59I was married at 19 and then I had three children and now today I'm 56. And what's happened over
22:07the
22:07course of the past 36, 37 years is I did have interactions with the system where they asked me
22:15to testify and it wasn't positive in a lot of ways. It was re-triggering, but I threw myself into
22:22therapy
22:22and kept trying to educate myself how to heal. Cause I realized after I became a mom, especially I have
22:30symptoms. What the heck? Like I'm not doing so well. I don't, I don't feel so good. And so not
22:37only did I
22:38get into therapy, which at the time trauma therapy, wasn't a thing. So that was extra hard. Now trauma
22:44therapy is a thing and self-regulation, but I realized, okay, I want to be a therapist. I need to
22:52become a
22:52therapist. So over the years I started taking one class at a time because I also had a lot of
22:59anxiety
22:59and also mental block. Like I pretty much failed out of junior high and high school, but I was able
23:05to
23:05get my diploma anyway. So if you know a survivor, we should assume that anybody can be a survivor.
23:11You just don't know. But if somebody has the courage to share with you, just listen and thank them for
23:17sharing. You don't have to really do much more. If you can, you can offer to take them to therapy
23:24or, you know, have dinner once a month or something, but just, um, you don't have to fix it, but
23:31the fix
23:31is in the listening and just like, Oh my gosh, that's so hard. You know, you can tell them you
23:36don't know
23:37what to do or say, but you're grateful that they're your friends and whatever you can do to support.
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