7 days ago
21 min
What If Healing Means Carrying It Forward, with Solange Schwalbe
Note: This episode discusses 9/11, trauma, and mental health struggles including PTSD, including references to loss of life. Listener discretion is advised.
You can leave a place and still bring it home in your lungs, your nerves, and your thoughts. We’re joined by Solange Schwalbe , a longtime motion picture sound editor who spent four months in early 2002 working inside the Ground Zero pit as a safety monitor, one of only four women among roughly 1,500 rescue workers. More than two decades later, she explains why that experience never really ended and why the toughest part is often what happens after the cameras are gone.
We talk about what the public can’t see in photos: “zone dust” that wasn’t dirt at all, the relentless noise, the brutal daily exposure, and the strange gift of solidarity that made unbearable work feel possible. Solange shares the long tail of 9/11 first responder health issues, including her persistent “Ground Zero cough,” the ongoing reality of PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and the triggers that flare when Ground Zero returns to the news and social media. She also raises a hard question about support systems: why medical outcomes can be funded while mental health care still gets treated like an afterthought.
Most importantly, we explore what actually helps. Solange is candid about medication, the limits of being “understood” by people who weren’t there, and why therapy is non-negotiable when trauma is severe. She also describes hiking in the mountains as her version of meditation, a practical grounding practice that helps her body come back to the present. If you’ve ever wondered what resilience looks like when healing is not linear, this conversation stays with you.
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Book: I'm Not Supposed to Know This: An Unlikely Account of Ground Zero After the 9/11 Attacks (Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org)
Website: https://imnotsupposedtoknowthis.com
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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imnotsupposedtoknowthis/
X (Twitter): https://x.com/SchwalbeSolange
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SolangeSchwalbeAuthor
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