Life Uncut - Haven Survived a Suicide Bomb and Went on to be a Paralympic Swimmer! Uncut with Haven Shepherd

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Haven Shepherd was born in Vietnam. When she was 16 months old, her biological parents, who had had an affair, detonated a bomb that was intended to be a family suicide. It instantly killed her biological parents but Haven survived. Haven was thrown 10 metres from the family hut and driven for 2 hours on a motorbike to the local hospital where they amputated both of her legs. She hasn’t had surgery since!4 months later, she was adopted into an American family and gained 6 siblings! Haven is now an elite paralympic athlete who competed at Tokyo 2020. She also happens to be a laugh and a half with some of the most outrageous ‘double decker’ date stories we’ve ever heard!In the chat we speak about: What Haven remembers about her early years Whether she holds resent for her biological parents How strangers ask inappropriate questions about how Haven lost her legs How Haven’s parents initially weren’t going to be her parents and the serendipitous way they found each other Why swimming was the best option for her How parents should teach their kids about disability You can find more from Haven's Instagram! You can watch us on Youtube Find us on Instagram Join us on tiktok Or join the Facebook Discussion Group Tell your mum, tell your dad, tell your dog, tell your friend and share the love because WE LOVE LOVE! xx  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Life Uncut acknowledges the traditional custodians of country whose lands were never ceded. We pay our respects to their elders past and present. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. This episode was recorded on Cammeraygal land. Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut. I'm Brittany. And I'm Laura. And today's episode is one I'm so excited about. So today we're speaking to Haven Shepard and her story is quite remarkable. The self-determination and the hard work, the inspiration, it's truly incredible.

When Haven was only 16 months old, she was living in Vietnam with her family and her parents decided that they would strap a suicide bomb to them and do what was hoped to be a family suicide. Haven survived and her parents did not. And the story that follows Haven's life is one that I can't even think about in a way without smiling because seeing you absolutely thrive now at this point in your life, Haven, is remarkable. So I'm so excited to give you the space to tell your story here today. Welcome to Life Uncut. Hi guys, thanks for having me. Haven, something that we do with every guest is our accidentally unfiltered, it's our embarrassing story and you said that you have an embarrassing story we would love to hear it yes I have for

Australia I will tell this very embarrassing story that happened last February I was actually in Melbourne for a school meet and I kept telling everybody like my biggest fear is to like say an Australian accent to an Australian speaking person like if I'm in a conversation and I'd be like oh no like oh like like that was my biggest fear that was my biggest fear if I was talking to an australian speaking person and i start doing the accent to them that actually happened to me at the swim meet where they were handing me my towel and i said oh thank you sure okay oh do your best australian accent i mean no one ever says throw another shrimp on the barbie no don't be that person i want to hear it how about i say a bluey line i can say i watch that all the time with my

Amy says, what does she say? She says, mum, dad, can you do a smoochy kiss? And he's like, they always say that in the episode. Can you do a smoochy kiss? And oh, what else do they say? It's not bad. It goes a bit New Zealand, a bit Kiwi, and then a bit UK. Whenever Americans do an Australian accent,

it has a little bit of like a, it sounds British. It's so funny, Haven, that you say the first word that came to your head for the Aussies was no my partner's Swiss and he says it all the time he's like Australians he's like you don't understand how you say no and I'm like what it's apparently the word no is like a huge thing here yeah I think you guys are really not represented well on the American TV show H2O have you ever seen H2O yes but it was like 50 years ago that is so great oh Haven Haven you're only 21 years old. Is that correct? Yeah. I mean, even just from the short time that we've been speaking to you, your positivity and your absolutely just like smiley nature comes through

the screen. And I know that you yourself have been through so much hardship in your life to be able to get to the place that you are at now. I would love for you to be able to explain more about your story. Can you take us back to what happened when you were 16 months old? Yeah. So I, like you guys were saying, I was born in Vietnam to two people that had an affair and had me. And the law back then in Vietnam was women couldn't divorce husbands. So my biological mother was still married to her husband, but she had an affair with my biological father. So it was just this very complicated relationship. And only that happened. We don't know anything else besides that I was a part of that affair. The story was that he came home one night, and he decided to

commit family suicide with them. And I was blown 40 feet away from the blast. And the hospital ride was two hours. So they found me 40 feet away. I was on the back of a motorcycle probably on the wait till the hospital I was two hours away and I didn't go in shock I didn't lose blood all that stuff like we have pictures of me in the hospital I was fine like it was just like a little baby with her little legs amputated but yeah that happened when I was 16 months old so that's a little over a one-year-old and then I was adopted when I was 20 months old so I only was in Vietnam and with my biological grandparents for four months until I was adopted to the United States Did your, like going back to the story about your parents, I didn't actually know it was illegal that you couldn't divorce back then. I don't know if it even is now, but did the rest of your family and the extended family know what was happening? Like, did your grandparents know that there was this affair happening, that there was this unrest to the point of that something like this could happen?

I would say in their culture, it was very shameful to get a divorce and then even worse, get pregnant by somebody that isn't your husband. Because even on my Vietnamese birth certificate, I don't even have a father on that birth certificate. We don't even know who this other person was. But it was very obvious that I was a part of an affair. because my i have a half sister in vietnam and my biological mom had her with her husband but in the newspaper they said they were married but i think it's a lot of shame in that culture where like oh you don't want to have a baby especially out of wedlock and especially not with your husband that you're married to i can understand that's like a huge no-no and that's even a big no-no now and in this reality right now so I can just only imagine being in her position but I mean I'm so thankful that she decided to have me like she could have had any opportunity to just you know leave me somewhere you know get rid of me any but she kept she kept me and that's really special to

me to think that you know I I knew I was nursed by her I knew I was with her all the time because I really love folding laundry I really when I was adopted my mom I I can say this because it's out there now I was really obsessed with my mom's chest when I was first adopted so that what's made my mom think you were probably breastfed for like a really long time because you know very very very poor country so I knew I was she really loved me and I'm very thankful that she decided to keep me and have me and to take care of me because like I say it's such a no-no to have an affair and to have the baby. Hey even your you said your grandmother you were with her for four months was it your grandmother who found you or were you taken to her how did you get discovered and like

how did you I know you got to the hospital in the back of the motorbike but who was it that got you there I'm assuming it's my grandmother because in my hospital pictures she was the only one that was there and we were there for it said in the newspaper I was there for 46 days and the only reason I got to stay was because other people in the hospital donated money so I could stay in the hospital for longer for my treatment and I've never had another surgery ever since then that's incredible because you hear I mean you hear that places like Vietnam especially like rural where you were located that you know that you imagine the health care system and the surgeons and the doctors are not as great as they would be here in Australia or a first world country when you just

said you're really grateful to your mom for keeping you and and you know like breastfeeding you and keeping you for that first year not giving you up how do you look at that now because I see that you're really positive about it when you know that at the end of the day they wanted all of you as a family to leave this earth do you have a sort of like an understanding with that how do you reckon with that do you feel like oh it was because of love that she did it so you understand do you hold any resentment to what they tried to do perspective is a big thing for me my mom is a life coach. And she, she didn't want to raise seven children, she would not have had seven children. But she made an emphasis that if I'm going to have these many kids, I was going to

raise seven children. So she took time to raise each and every one of us very individually. And for me, it was a big perspective thing. Like she always talked to me about, you know, you don't know what it's like to be hungry for a really long time. You don't know what it's like to not have a shower and a bed and a family and Christmas and Easter and all these like really exciting stuff in your life. You don't know what that's like. And so that was a big perspective. So she was telling me growing up, like she didn't have anything. She had you and she had what she could give you. And I don't hold any resentment to them because I don't know what it's what it's like to be hungry and not to have utilities and a nice home and activities. And we have a very beautiful

life. Life is very blessed. So I just think that they were also, again, in a very hopeless situation where they don't have food, money to buy land or anything, property. They're just very poor in the mountains, living off what they got. So the whole situation was just simply hopeless. and this was the only way out how many people think how we have anxiety nowadays you know the only thing we think that can help us is a glass of wine at the end of the day doom scrolling on your phone like we have a different type of hopeless of feeling lonely and no way out like but we don't know how it's an experience where you're in a third world country and there's no opportunities you also said we a couple of times in there and I realized you wasn't just you who

was in that explosion it was also your sister who was there as well how was she affected and do you still have any relationship with her she was okay like she so I have a biological grandparents on my mom's side they took care of us for the amount of time till I was adopted but my half sister was not in the explosion at all but I don't have any contact with her I have pictures of them and her but it's almost like a past life thing they know me but I have no memory of them like my first memory is my first Easter having candy everywhere like that's like literally my first memory I don't have any memory at all so when I look back at pictures of myself from a baby like in the hospital Vietnam like that I don't even recognize that that's me so when I look at what my life

could have been that's like almost a past life thing like I was born new when I came over here after the explosion they decided to amputate my legs below the knee it's not a clear cut across they're both two different lengths but I both have my knees there's a really big hospital around this area it's in Kansas City and I went there when I first got home I got all my vaccinations all everything and they said she is a completely healthy baby she doesn't need any new surgery She's completely fine. And isn't that crazy coming from a hospital that has probably very little resources to have a major surgery on a baby to have none. I'm 21 years old today. The surgery was 20 years ago, and I've never had another revision. It's just crazy. So yeah, I have no scarring anywhere. Like just I just have my amputations. Nothing else is on my body. It's just the amputations. I think that sometimes it is absolutely shocking the things that a child can withstand and then still grow into being this incredible adult.

What was it like for your mom? How did she come across you to be able to adopt you? What was that process like for her to be able to find you? Well, so my accident happened when I was 16 months old. But two years prior to that, my mom had an epiphany. She was in church one day and somebody was talking about adoption. and she was like oh i would like to have that i'm telling you like just like simple epiphany like it never crossed her mind to adopt she has six children of her own and she she always tells the

story it's a really hard buy for your husband to tell him hey i think we should adopt after you having six children and a house full of eight bedrooms and eight bathrooms and it's not one pool that you just renovated. Yeah. It's a really hard ask for a husband. So they went on a really intense journey on trying to, my mom convincing my dad to adopt because he was like, babe, we have 14 sports schedules. We have Zach in college playing basketball. We have Sawyer playing middle school baseball. Like how are we going to adopt? And so they actually went through marriage counseling my mom says it was basically me and the therapist I think he's wrong and I think you should change his mind and obviously in therapy you can't just be like yes you should listen to

your wife but they went through intense couple therapy to basically tell my dad hey your wife really wants this so he better just agree so um after two years my dad went on a men's retreat and he came back and finally told her yes i think we can adopt and then serendipitous her college best friend i mean her high school best friend reached out to her and said hey i found this little girl in the newspaper in vietnam do you want to go get her and my mom was like yeah i would love to go get her just for the adventure i was not their baby so um they just went on the adventure and they were gone for two weeks in Vietnam and obviously they fell in love with me I was such this precious baby because I listened to some interviews with your mom and and like

bless her soul she's incredible but I heard her saying she tried really hard when your dad was like I don't want to adopt she tried really hard to let that go and be like oh okay it's not for us he doesn't want it and for whatever reason she's like I woke up every day and could not stop thinking about that like I was destined to have this child and then when they went to pick you up to take you back to another family she talks about how the fact that you were just obsessed with them and your dad from the day that they picked you up like just didn't want anyone else just wanted to be with him and you fell in love immediately it's like you chose them yes yes my mom called it called it when i was little i had like a little

sixth sense like i could always pick up on you know certain situations certain things to i was very much an old soul like i could speak through my eyes basically so when they came and got me for this justice adventure that i was not their baby i was just this oh it's just gonna be an adventure i fell in love with my dad i don't think i've ever because you got to think like a baby that has never seen a very tall bearded white dark-haired man like wow that's so intriguing but I fell in love with my dad on the beach and then he had to go home for work after a week and I'm still I'm still quite in love with my parents I was telling them the other day on the couch I was laying on the couch I was laying on the couch and I was like we were watching a movie

and I was like guys this is just great just the three of us so back going back he had to leave for work after a week to go back home and my mom spent two weeks with me and again I wasn't their baby they were bringing me to this other family that homeschooled and wore glasses and knitted their own sweaters and lived on a farm and did not have health insurance it was really a great situation I love that you said they knitted just to set the scene they need on a farm yes yes they lived on a farm and they did not have health insurance and they were bringing me home to them and after two weeks they dropped me off I was not having a good time because I just want to like paint a picture for you what I was like in Vietnam with my mom

i needed to wear all her jewelry and i was really into like they bought me new baby clothes on the i was really into wearing my new baby clothes and i had a purse and i had hair clips and i was not supposed to go to this knitting sweater family that lived on a farm she was she said i was a shepherd girl from the very beginning like i needed my nails painted i needed like this is a 20 month old baby by the way like there are pictures of me with just tons of all her stuff on and so she just knew that I was just a shepherd so giving me up to them for six days was just so hard for her and then Pam called her one day after the six days and said hey I don't think it's working out with the Proctor's Haven isn't very happy do you and Rob still want her and my

mom got off the phone after she said yes she got off the phone with them and she said she spent two thousand dollars at the mall that day because she knew I was coming home that night she's like she needs a new crib she needs a new stroller she needs a car seat oh a whole new wardrobe she said she spent probably over two thousand dollars just going crazy at the baby stores and so she was ready for me to come home Haven it's such a remarkable story for so many reasons but I would assume that most adopted families would expect to have a period that is hard with their new baby so it is absolutely wild to me that this farm knitting family after six days was like oh this is a bit hard like I would I would genuinely expect it to be that you know it's a new child in a new

environment with new people like of course they're going to be scared and crying and all the other things so to think that they got to the end of that six days and thought that this isn't the right fit for me. It's almost like there was this divine fate that was at work there that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. Well, it sounds more like I have no doubt if you did live your life on that farm, you would have had a wonderful life. But it sounds more like there were really great people that wanted to do a great thing. And being an amputee, I can imagine your medical expenses were going to be astronomical. And so they've wanted to do a good thing. But at the end of the day, American, you need health insurance. They didn't have it. So I think they

probably bit off more than they could chew even though they had great intentions no i don't hold anything against them it just wasn't the right fit i still know them to this day like they are great people they were just not for me they had i mean they were gonna have give me a beautiful life regardless but it just wasn't the right fit and i was just a shepherd girl i'm a maximalist at heart and i was a maximalist back then and i was just it was just not going to cut it with the one sweater. I love the ownership too. Hayley, you got into swimming really young. So, I mean, at three years old, you started swimming and it's obviously taken you across the world. It's become such a massive part of your life because I can only imagine as a

parent who has so many children, it is really, really hard to cater to the intense schedule of all the different sporting requirements of your kids and their schedules and everything else. how firstly did your parents allow for you make time for you to be able to have the the schedule of someone who is a Paralympian now so yeah I started swimming at three years old we had a pool in our backyard and it was very important for my dad for me to learn how to swim because if I just waltzed outside one day I needed to know to learn how to just at least paddle to like not drown so that was really important so people are always surprised when I say that like yeah I learned how to swim at three years old you need to put your kids in lessons or something it's an important

life skill to learn how to swim so I always knew how to swim it's never like oh I didn't know how to swim and then I became this great Paralympian no I was in track and the problem with track is that the stuff would go into my eyes and I think it was sweat sweat would go into my eyes and my heart would start pumping my makeup would just go everywhere it was just not for me my parents were like duh let's get her in swimming so I had one swim lesson and they're like oh she needs to go to a different swim club like we can't train her the way like she's way too advancing so we went to a more an elite club uh when I was I would say 13 to about 18 I was there for a long time and i progressed like very rapidly i progressed um at 13 i made the emerging team was

on team usa and then just built on from there i made lots of international teams i made standards all that stuff so swimming was just a hobby at first and then i think my parents realized like oh she is she's pretty good we should probably invest more time into this so it was definitely really hard being in a big family and having lots of different sports schedules, but my parents made it work. My grandparents picked me up a lot, but I think my parents did a great job. They came to everything. Even like my brother played baseball at the time, like we would be at swim practice and then straight to the ball field. I always tell people I was raised at sporting events. I was raised in the winter at basketball courts. And then in the spring it was volleyball. And then

all summer long was at a baseball park and my four main food groups were nacho cheese skittles ice cream and gatorade and it's all the food dyes it's actually incredible because you hear so much about like when you're training to be an athlete you have to eat you know you've got to eat your macros and your micros and weigh yourself and you only eat proteins at this time and you're like i'm a paralympian survived on nachos and hot dogs haven when you get in the pool do you feel any relief in terms of are you in any kind of pain or do you feel a lot of pressure being on your prosthetics all day does that provide you with any sort of comfort yes for till I was about 11 to about now until 21 you have to think you know I always describe to people wearing prosthetics

all day long it's not like I think about it all the time like when you wait first thing you wake up in the morning and you put on your glasses to see first thing I do in the morning is to put my legs on so I can walk so like it's not like something in the conscious forefront thought all the time that I have prosthetic legs but going to school for eight hours and then getting to swim for three hours and just take my legs off like that is just the relief that I needed like my arms could handle the weight that my legs have been doing all day and it was just so such a great like relief and by the end of the night I'm like oh you did good today you did good you walked all up the stairs at school and you got to swim and just pump your arms and now you just get to rest

and do it all again tomorrow. Do you think in your lifetime people have ever underestimated your abilities and I mean this in a way of like judging a book by its cover people who may not know you or who may see that you're a double amputee have you ever felt that people have underestimated you? Yeah especially growing up in my small town everybody really knew me but it was never like oh she can't do that it was always like people saw me grow up through my whole life and then so it was like oh haven haven can do that it was i never had to prove myself in any type of way because parents saw me on the playground playing with their kids like oh like she can keep up like i so i grew up with people that already knew me so i don't think

people thought i would make it on the professional level as i did but i never gave people a reason to doubt me anyway. So I say that's the best way I could describe it is that I never gave people a reason to doubt that I could be like everybody else because I was already keeping up with everybody else, basically. I was very much a normal child. And I want to say that to any parents that have children with disabilities. Your kid is going to grow up normal if you treat them normal. And there's no reason to put labels on anybody if you don't put any limits on them. As soon as you label your kid as disabled you're going to put a limit on them i think that's something society has taken a long time to learn though and that's for reasons like the paralympics

not being as advertised and as visible as it is now and a really good friend of ours ellie cole she's a paralympic swimmer i recently went into the i'm a celebrity jungle with her so she has one leg she's got one prosthetic and the number of people that doubted that she could be okay in there myself included when I went in and we've been friends for a long time but when we went in I was like let me know if you need anything because it's like pretty hardcore living conditions and like a lot of climbing up mountains what like off center kind of stuff and all the challenges her leg literally needed electricity so they brought in a solar thing we had to charge yeah we had to solar charge her leg so I'd be like walking around with the solar panels but I learned very quickly

that she's more capable than I am like and I think that that is also something just from seeing the Paralympics more on our screens but people up until probably I don't know maybe this is just my ignorance but people up until probably the last 10 years have assumed that if you are an amputee or if you're in the Paralympics if you have any kind of disability that you are not capable to completely immerse yourself into a quote-unquote normal society but it's just so far from the truth yeah i especially living by myself it kind of it kind of hit me when i moved to a new town you know i would be out buying groceries and people tell me oh you're so good that you're getting out there i'm like you're like what why like why i need groceries don't

you need groceries that's why we're at a grocery store question mark like i also drive i also drive a car and I have a driver's license and I have health insurance I have all these normal things I have paid my taxes like I'm just like anybody else and it's almost like I just I describe it as being like an alien out in the world that like lives in your reality as well like I'm just an alien living in other people's reality but I also describe being an amputee like constantly being in a constant state of pregnancy when you're pregnant everybody just goes up to you and says oh how long has it been and are you doing okay and how can I oh you're doing so well it's like it's just being an amputee is being in a constant state of pregnancy of people always needing to say

something to you how do you deal with that when a complete stranger oversteps the mark or says something that is completely out of line I think every day that I leave my home I get asked what happen to my legs and all that stuff. But it's actually funny. I thought of this the other day, you would never go up to a bald person and be like, so when did you start going bald? So when you go up to amputee, so when did you lose your legs? Cause I could say the same thing back to you. So when did you start dressing bad? Like it's just the same amount of, well, you don't have legs today huh I'm like yes I have I don't have my legs every single day it hits me different times and other times but when I was a teenager it definitely like was can I just eat out with my

friends and not be a museum for you to investigate into it's almost as though people who have any sort of like presentable disability quote-unquote have to carry the explanation as to why they have that. But you put something up on your socials, which I thought was really interesting because it's one thing to ask the question, but what do you do with that information once you've received it? And you sort of said, if you're going to ask someone about their disability, you better be able to hold space for the reason why they have that or the reason why they've experienced it. What is the reaction that people give you when you tell them why you lost your legs? i definitely ruin a lot of people's mornings by telling them in the coffee line yeah a affair and

bomb and then i was exploded and this was happening to me and then they don't take it well they don't take it well in the starbucks line and then i'm standing there like yeah this didn't happen to me yesterday i'm just not gonna yeah and they're like oh oh really and i'm like yeah they weren't really licked off by puppies if that's what you really wanted to hear and and then i shat rainbows across the universe and boom i have prosthetic legs it's so true though right like there's not going to be any positive event that i can think of that would leave you with an injury like that like there's just not and people need to be a bit more self-aware but we we've spoken to lauren wasser the model with the golden legs like i mentioned ellie cole we've spoken to

quite a few paralympians and amputees and it's sort of in contrast to what you're saying and i want to know if you agree, but they've sort of said like, they often will see very obviously little kids staring at them and asking their parents, like they watch it go down. You can see the little kids pointing, what's that? Why don't they have legs? And they've always said, come over to us and ask us. Like in that sense, they tell parents, come and speak to me because I would rather educate your child that this is normal and I can do all this stuff. And I'm like superhero do you find space for that when they're when it's almost like an education for the younger yes I I see it both ways so I think when you are a parent it is a really big responsibility to raise

children it is your responsibility to teach your children how to react and to approach people because it's not really appropriate to just because like my niece went for a long time She'd be out in public, she's three years old, and she was like, hey, that man's bald. And like, you don't, you just don't say that out loud. So yes, I do love it when parents do come up to me and educate your children, but it's also their responsibility to teach them. They're just a person existing, like you wouldn't like somebody to come up to you all the time. I feel like it's your, as a parent, you're responsible for your child and to pull them

aside afterwards and say, so what did you learn? from that experience how are you going to when you see somebody else like that again how are you going to acknowledge and because it's not nice to just like kids are also children too like they have a lot of grace where you can say yes when kids point at you and like just like I had a kid one time I was with a group of my friends they're like oh mom look like that is your responsibility as a parent to be like, hey, that's not kind. That's not kind. But more times than not, parents do handle those situations a lot better. I think the problem I have is when adults don't handle situations better. But I would almost say that a lot of times children who don't handle it well

are often a reflection of their parents. I feel like kids have so much wonder and you can't blame you can't blame people's curiosity I know I make people uncomfortable because like out in public you see something you're looking at it and then I notice you're looking and then oh you feel awkward so you need to say something and it's just an awkward exchange at the bar and you're like okay I'm gonna go walk over there now and good goodbye I think you can't blame curiosity I mean all of us are curious and all of us deserve grace but if you don't handle situations well that's where I am like come on like obviously we've covered so much about your story as to how you've gotten to where you are but like the most incredible part of it is the fact that you are a Paralympian when was

the time that you realized that your career in swimming that it was going to be what it is that you had the ability that you were actually going to make it to the Paralympics when was it that you realize that this is something that could be a career for you oh I think that there's a saying that's like ignorant is bliss I feel like my entire teens was just bliss because I was oblivious to everything around me and um I still am not very self-aware but I think being that young experiencing that level of intensity and eliteness at a young age it was just almost like not aware of it like aware like this oh this is like really serious like oh I'm about to swim for my life at this race but it's just not my personality I am going to be so honest with

you guys right now I'm not very a competitive person it's just not in my it's just not in my heart I I don't need it I don't need to win all the time it's just not it just doesn't feel me like other things do like I said ignorance bliss like so I went to the Paralympics in Tokyo in 2020 that was a great experience I was 17 years old I just graduated high school and I had no friends and I am on this adventure for two months going to the Paralympics for the first time and it was just great obviously after the fact I found out about some really awful things after the fact but overall my experience was great and coming home from that high I just knew that I was needed to be myself from here on out like I I think people really struggle with group settings and trying to

not be themselves and trying to fit in but my biggest goal going into Tokyo 2020 and being away for four weeks was to just be myself not change for anybody not change for my surroundings not compromise on my values my morals just because I am feel pressure from people around me and so that's what I did like I went into every race thinking I need to be myself like I'm not gonna be this tight-ass person in the call room gonna stare you down and make mean faces at you and tell you that you did a shitty job and you're blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, that's just not my personality. Like, no, I'm gonna be nice. I was raised to be kind to people and show people grace. And oh, that was, that was such a good race. And you did such a good job. Like, that's

how I was raised. And I also think at that time, I was younger, I was representing my parents and my family so if word got back to them that I was a brat and I was not responsible and I was not respectful to people around me and my authorities that would get back to my parents and they would tell me like we raised you better than that and you show respect to people that are older than you even though you don't like the rules blah blah blah blah so I knew that was my responsibility going into Tokyo and I feel like I did a good job I didn't get in trouble once you're in the Paralympics you definitely did a good job well what fuels you then you say it's not winning but I mean that's such a different perspective than anybody else we've had on I mean any other elite

athlete has always said like winning is kind of the goal so if it's not that what makes you keep going when you are a Paralympian I think having fun like I just have I just have too much fun I I just it never gets too serious for me like I just have too much fun all I was probably thinking about at the paralympics was oh i promised this track girl i was gonna eat ice cream with her that night at the dining hall so i need to get back like right now i just have too much fun and i i was there with my friends i want to adopt you i want you come and live with us life is just too i don't take life too seriously but you gotta have like again that perspective of thing you are you are here you got a free plane ticket to tokyo japan like have fun with

your friends get all the get all the cokes from the soda machine and take them back to your dorm room and sneak food in from the dining hall and help your friends sneak out to other boys apartments like that's that is what life is about is about keeping it light and competing very very hard but mostly fun talking about ignorance is bliss just when you were talking about like 2020 olympics was great paralympics was so fun but then you made a comment about you know besides those bad moments but it didn't happen to you what were you referring to what was there something that went down with the paralympic swim team that we're not across or am i just have i missed something no i just i just feel like it's more of a little bit more drama happened behind the scenes that i

was just not aware of or i was not invited to know about which is fine which is fine i'm i'm always out of the loop so it's fine but i think it's just a level of like drama and oh i don't like her and she stole my shirt and she oh wow and and he likes her and i i just stay in my room i just stay in my room and i go to lunch when i'm supposed to and i get on the right bus i get on the right bus that i'm scheduled for and i pack everything i'm just i am just an a plus student so what is success like for you now what does it look like outside of the pool and do you are we going to see you at the next olympics paralympics life for me right now is just enjoying my family i don't think i've ever spent this much time with my family because i'm always

on the go it wasn't just swimming it was other commitments that I had to be gone like last October I was probably gone for every single weekend flying everywhere because I needed to be and so I actually get to enjoy my family and get to enjoy you know getting to see my nieces and nephews grow up and you know actually spending time with the people that I actually care about because you do this for the people that you love I do it for me and my family and to represent ourselves and to get our story out there but it's I didn't actually get to enjoy the people that helped me along this journey like I'm not actually spending time with them being on home soil for 2028 does sound enticing but I'm enjoying my little break right now I get to enjoy being

a little sassy home little little girl back in my hometown and do you guys ever watch Gilmore Girls I feel like a little Gilmore girl grew up with the Gilmore girls that's how I feel I feel like I'm just in this like little bubble that I never got to live in everything was just so out there and I just get to oh this is so nice I get to just be at home and to enjoy my fruits of my labor Haven if you weren't swimming what would you want to be or do with yourself do you guys know this i only only because you don't have the sport in australia do you know who taylor swift's boyfriend is oh yeah of course city chiefs i watch so much of that football now because my partner loves it i know all of it okay well the game's going on right now and it's not going well but i would

like to audition to be a lineman for the kansas city chiefs and i already have my audition already laid out hi i'm haven trepard i am five foot five i weigh 135 pounds i've never played a contact sport but i would love to get out there and the linemans are the big 300 pound men people i don't think you can be a linesman i don't want to be the person that bursts your bubble i disagree with the attitude that haven has i reckon you could do whatever you want honestly they would squish you if they fell on you you are dead I think a power a positive energy would just push these men over and I want to be the first woman lineman and I feel like I meet a lot of requirements I gave them my height my weight I feel like that is enough for them to

audition not audition try out that's not a play it's not a play we'll put the call outs for you This is definitely like a relationship style podcast and you mentioned before that you would help like your friends sneak out at the Paralympics to meet boys. Ellie, who we've had here, says that it's just like it's hot property there. Like it is almost like a dating site. Look at how uncomfortable she is already. I guess what's the dating life like for you?

Like are you dating anyone? Have you ever had heartbreak? Like we love this sort of relationship, Goss. oh i did have a very serious boyfriend uh i think a year ago i think it's over it was not a good boyfriend he was not a good boyfriend but he was six foot three so i will give him that i recently i can't believe i'm telling you this i he will never see it Anyway, I recently had to break off a situation ship with a, he was a New York City detective that I met on a modeling shoot and he reached, he approached me in real life and asked me

for my phone number. I was like, yeah, it was crazy. He had a badge and a gun and everything. And I was like, I'm about to get in my Uber. But yes, I had to recently break off a situation ship and I didn't even know how to write this text message so i went into chat gbt and i typed in long paragraph breaking off message period if there is ever a 21 year old breakup that is it that is brilliant so i copied and i paste and i sent it i didn't even read it i didn't even read it i was like good enough you didn't

read it how do you even know it got the names right what if it's written like shakespeare or something i didn't skim it and i was like oh that's too sassy for me i long paragraph nice way to break off with somebody that's not your boyfriend period period and then i it was like this long it was this long and i was like i'm not reading all that and i i actually sent it this morning so oh my god has he written back uh I haven't looked I I've I am not very much a dater but if I go on a date I like really go on a date I double stack dates with different people so I call them my double decker dates so like one time I had a date a dinner date at my apartment at five o'clock but he had a meeting at 7 30 so I was like oh he's gonna be gone way before this guy

other guy's gonna pick me up for a movie he wasn't though was he guys it doesn't and well overstays his time at my apartment because he keeps talking and I'm like we need to go so I walk him down the stairs and my other date is standing outside his car waiting for me oh my God, you tag-teamed date. They high-fived on the way out. It's not my proudest moment, but the other guy that I got in the car with to the movie date, he just kept saying, so who's that guy? And I was like, oh, he just needed my Wi-Fi for homework.

He needed my Wi-Fi? I am in awe and in shock, and I have all the feelings. Though, if that happens, though, the problem is you've got to walk the other guy to the car, but you can't kiss him goodbye because then that's just too obvious. you just gotta like give him a high five and then get him your guy's car yeah nice hustle mate you did kiss him goodbye no i didn't kiss either of them oh good that's fine then that's just a friend day are you too busy to stretch them out what's this like stacking them all up in one

i don't know i don't know that's why i had to break it off with the situation ship like i'm not gonna do this all day long it's not for me but if i go on a date if i go on one date i'm like just going like that is my day to go on a date yeah you're like you've got no time you're a Paralympian you don't have time for dating like you've got stuff to do places to be it's either a zero or a hundred where I'm like okay coffee in the morning with this person and then lunch with this person and then oh I like the first guy better so I'm gonna have this other guy drop me off at the first guy's place so we can go get ice cream I don't recommend double-decker dating it's because you put so much effort into i've done that before you put so much effort into like

the outfit you got your makeup on you've done your hair like you're ready to go you're like i don't want to waste this on like an hour date so like i understand that but i tell you what yes you are a little surprise package i did not expect that from you right then yeah i i'll surprise you i have a lot of little trinkets in my sleeve there is just so much more to me that people don't realize i know you said before that people look at you and that you make them uncomfortable but can i just say i don't think we've ever had a guest that has made us feel as comfortable straight out of the bat you are a wonderful human with an incredible personality uh an incredible outlook on life and i have personally loved speaking to you so much your story is truly

remarkable but i think what is even more exceptional than that is your perspective on life and how you how you present yourself and how you share your story haven you've been absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming and being a part of the pod. Oh, thank you guys. Thank you so much.