We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shari Botwin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shari, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

When I was ten years old, I told myself, “Someday, someone will hear you.” I did not know it at the time, but I was being abused by my father. As a child, I felt lost. I suffered with enormous amounts of shame and started having suicidal tendencies when I hit puberty. I did not know as a kiddo that I would become a therapist. Very early in my adulthood, I broke my silence after surviving from years of childhood sexual abuse. I started intensive trauma therapy at the age of twenty-five. When I was twenty-seven years old, I opened my private practice for psychotherapy. For the first five years, I specialized in treating people in recovery from eating disorders. About five years after I broke my silence, I started providing counseling for trauma survivors. People who lived through combat, sexual assault, gun violence and childhood abuse were reaching out to me for help. For years I drove home from my office telling myself, “I need to write a book.” There are so many trauma survivors who feel misunderstood, unheard and hopeless. I felt that way for years! I wrote and published my second book in 2019, “Thriving After Trauma: Stories of Living and Healing.” Once the book released, I connected with survivors, therapists, and journalists around the world. The connections I made as a result of this book pushed me to move forward in my mission to help adult survivors of childhood abuse. I started serving as an expert witness on behalf of plaintiffs who were abused or assaulted. I also wrote my next book, “Stolen Childhoods: Thriving After Abuse,” and that book releases worldwide on May 7, 2024!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started working in the mental health field as soon as I graduated with my master’s in social work. My first job was at the Renfrew Center, a renowned center for eating disorders. I decided to leave Renfrew and open my private practice for psychotherapy two years later, after I received my clinical license. I gave myself around ten years to focus on intensive trauma work, and then I noticed a shift in my private practice. Most of my referrals were coming from men and women who had survived some type of trauma earlier in their lives. Many of my clients began breaking their silence about living through some type of abuse or sexual assault in their childhoods. Six years ago, I attended both of the Cosby trials as an advocate for the plaintiffs and their families. After witnessing the bravery of these women, and their courage to confront Cosby in a court of law, I thought to myself, “I need to start talking more about what happened to me.” A year later I wrote and sold my second book, “Thriving After Trauma: Stories of Living and Healing.” In that book I opened up some about my personal history of childhood sexual abuse, major depression, suicidal tendencies and eating disorder behaviors. After the book released worldwide, I did dozens of podcasts and interviews for a variety of international networks on breaking stories related to trauma. Most recently, I was featured in the Netflix docuseries about Depp Vs. Heard. At the beginning of 2023, I was hired to do expert witness work in court on behalf of the plaintiffs in two high-profile cases. During the last year, I have testified on behalf of over 50 plaintiffs in multiple cases. I am currently working on more cases, serving as an expert witness on behalf of multiple plaintiffs.
What sets me apart from other therapists and authors, is that I am able to use years of my own experience to help others break their silence and heal. I am able to sit in the role of a therapist, author, media contributor and expert witness to explain circumstances that are unimaginable and hard to understand. I have found a way to speak in a way that people can understand, rather than use a bunch of clinical terminology.
I am most proud of becoming a single choice momma to my now almost thirteen-year-old son. I decided in my late 30’s to try and conceive with the help of fertility because I wanted a family. I have broken generations of abuse in my family of origin. I am no longer just a victim of my father’s pathology. I am also a parent, author, therapist and friend and I have surrounded myself with people that treat me with respect, love and kindness. In my upcoming book coming out worldwide May 7, I opened up about being an incest survivor and the impact of breaking my silence about what my father did to me. It took me decades to come to terms with the loss of my childhood, and the tremendous impact speaking has had on my life as an adult. While there have been dozens of times when I wished it was not so, and that I regret letting myself know the truth, most days I feel happy, safe and at peace with my history. I continue to work on myself, and I understand that I will never be “cured” of PTSD. I love the life I have created for myself professionally and personally.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Being abused as a child through my teens, forced me to find ways to stay hopeful. My resilience comes from my determination to survive and hold onto the idea that “when I grow up someone will hear me.” Telling myself that over and over helped me to stay in the fight and not give into suicidal thoughts and depression.

Have you ever had to pivot?

Recently, I pivoted in my private practice. A year ago, an attorney reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to serve as an expert in a high-profile case involving human sex trafficking. Once I completed that case, I realized it was time to do more expert work and find a way to use years of experience counseling survivors and apply that in my testimony on behalf of plaintiffs.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.sharibotwin.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/warriorbotwin7
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/sharilcsw
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/shari-botwin-901172a
• Amazon Link: https://www.amazon.com/Stolen-Childhoods-Thriving-After-Abuse/dp/1538183625/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1NYHBI2GD55S4&keywords=stolen+childhoods+shari+botwin&qid=1703173876&s=books&sprefix=stolen+childhoods+shari+b%2Cstripbooks%2C67&sr=1-1