April 29, 2025
The Savage Angel's Redemption Story with Dana Hanuszczak (Part 1/2) I Ep. 66
The journey from victim to advocate is rarely straightforward, but Dana's story reveals the remarkable resilience of the human spirit against unimaginable odds. As a child in the Bronx, Dana navigated parental addiction, homelessness from age nine, and cultural displacement as the only Caucasian person in her neighborhood. Rather than succumbing to these challenges, she found solace in education and the kindness of neighbors who welcomed her into their homes. Dana's candid account pulls no p...
The journey from victim to advocate is rarely straightforward, but Dana's story reveals the remarkable resilience of the human spirit against unimaginable odds. As a child in the Bronx, Dana navigated parental addiction, homelessness from age nine, and cultural displacement as the only Caucasian person in her neighborhood. Rather than succumbing to these challenges, she found solace in education and the kindness of neighbors who welcomed her into their homes.
Dana's candid account pulls no punches as she shares her experiences with trafficking at seventeen, surviving multiple violent relationships, and the gut-wrenching ordeal of fighting for her children. Perhaps most revealing is her seventeen-year battle through family courts across three states—a journey that transformed her pain into expertise. "Courts don't appreciate it," she explains about domestic violence claims, dispelling the myth that mothers always receive custody. Her hard-won insights into emotional regulation during court proceedings and strategic self-representation offer invaluable wisdom for listeners facing similar battles.
What sets Dana's testimony apart is her evolution from survival to purpose. After winning her final custody case, she channeled her experiences into "Savage Angel," a book helping women navigate family court trauma. When moving to Florida revealed a community plagued by domestic violence, addiction, and mental health crises with minimal resources, Dana founded The Survivor Center. Her approach—built on lived experience rather than theory—reframes trauma not as a life sentence but as a temporary chapter. "I want to be the poster child for what life looks like after abuse," she shares, offering hope to those who wonder if recovery is possible. Though her faith provided her personal pathway to healing, Dana serves everyone without judgment, recognizing that freedom from "captivity"—whether addiction, mental illness, or destructive relationships—begins with being truly seen and supported by someone who has walked the same path. This first episode in a two-part series lays the groundwork for understanding how one woman's darkest moments became the foundation for helping countless others find their way to light.
Link to Dana's 1 in 3 profile: https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/dana-hanuszczak/
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
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- Check out the website https://www.1in3podcast.com/
Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
00:46 - Dana's Story Begins
04:37 - Early Life & Struggles in the Bronx
09:09 - Survival Through Trafficking & Violence
13:06 - The Family Court Battle Years
18:19 - Finding Faith & Writing Savage Angel
22:28 - Creating The Survivor Center
WEBVTT
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Hi Warriors, welcome to One in Three.
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I'm your host, ingrid.
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As you know, my favorite stories are those where someone not only conquers their trauma, but uses that experience to uplift others.
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Today's guest embodies that spirit fully.
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Dana has not only survived domestic violence, but has also overcome a life marked by profound adversity.
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This is Dana's story, shared over a powerful two-part series.
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Hi Dana, how are you doing?
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Hi, I'm doing great.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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Thank you so much for coming on, and so we're going to jump into it with your background.
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So just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do, and how you got to do what you are doing.
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So my name is Dana.
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I'm now oh my gosh, I'm admitting this on air 54 years old.
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I was born in Pennsylvania and I didn't spend much time there.
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I was pretty much raised in the Bronx, new York City.
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I grew up with parents who were addicts, who dealt with mental illness, my mom separated from my dad, and we just went on a roller coaster ride, I think from like the age of five four.
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She left them when I was four, and so I grew up in an area where there was a lot of poverty, there was a lot of abuse, there was a lot of drugs, there was trafficking although we didn't call it that back then so I grew up in a world where I didn't quite fit in.
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I was the only Caucasian person there.
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Everyone I knew was either Black or Hispanic, and I went from household to household because my mom was not really paying attention.
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She was usually on drugs or having a mental breakdown.
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So I spent a lot of time with my neighbors and I'm grateful for that.
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I grew up in pretty much Hispanic households.
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I learned to speak it, read it, write it, dance it, cook it, and that helped me in life.
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As I progressed in that neighborhood, you know I learned different skills through the different households that I went to, but one thing I learned everywhere I went, people were suffering.
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I remember not having heat, not having hot water.
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You know simple little things and I would advocate for everybody.
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I grew up in an area where there was a lot of fights, there was gangs, you know.
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There was a lot of violence and it was just a scary place.
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And moving forward, my mother got really bad with her addiction.
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She started throwing me in and out of the house.
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So by like nine years old, I was sleeping outside, I was sleeping behind school, sleeping on the train, and I found my way to school every day.
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I would still go to school.
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I was learning, you know, for myself.
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That was where I ate, that's where people were nice to me and that's where I had my friends and I enjoyed learning.
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Left and I wound up with a older man who was about 18, 19 years old at the time and eventually a lot of things happened.
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There was a lot of violence, there was a lot of abuse, there was a lot of assaults.
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I ended up pregnant and by the time I was about eight months pregnant.
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I went back.
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I got to go back home to my mom because he wouldn't let me leave.
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So I went back home for a couple of months, had a baby and she threw me right back out in the street again.
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So me and my baby left in the middle of winter.
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He was born in December, so he was still pretty much a newborn and I learned to make it on my own.
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I went into shelters and they weren't so great either.
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There was a lot of violence in there.
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I wound up going back to school, getting my GED, taking him with me to a program, and I decided I wanted to go to college for a little while.
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So I spent some time in Hostos Community College studying nursing, and then I was trafficked.
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I went to dance at a bar at night and I was 17 and I had a baby and I couldn't pay rent and I was working 12 hours a day at a movie theater.
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That just wasn't paying the bills.
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Even though I worked six days a week, I never saw my kid.
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So I got convinced into going to work into this bar, and from the bar I got trafficked by a correction officer.
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I was 17.
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I shouldn't have been in the bar.
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And from the bar I got trafficked by a correction officer.
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I was 17.
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I shouldn't have been in the bar.
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Nonetheless, I was a stripper.
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A couple of years down the road I went back to school and became an emergency medical technician.
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I started saving lives for a living.
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In between that, I started my own business.
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I was an entrepreneur.
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I started doing parties on my own and just I would do weekend things where I had people working for me, and I learned a lot of the trade.
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My mother was a prostitute, so I was really raised in a culture where there wasn't anything wrong with selling yourself.
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Fast forward.
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I went through several domestic violence relationships.
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I've been shot at, I've been my throat's been sliced, I've had my nose broken more times than I can count, black eyes Just like the worst of the worst of the worst.
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I learned a lot of rituals.
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As a kid I was taught witchcraft and I didn't know it was witchcraft.
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I was tricked into it.
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I was tricked into a lot of things and I survived a lot of things and I got on my feet.
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I got on my own and I just got to a place where I had different experiences that were also scary and moving forward.
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I had four children.
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I had three different fathers and I went through something with each one of them, and then my middle children's father took him for summer vacation and never returned.
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So my kids went missing and that's when I started understanding the world of family court and you know how the truth doesn't always prevail and they don't always consider what's best for the child, and how you can get dragged into a system and there for years.
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And so I started learning that he was the father, he had rights and they allowed him to cross state lines with my children and not bring them back.
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Although I never did nothing wrong.
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There was never any evidence against me being a bad mom.
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It's just the family court system and how it works.
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I later understood that they pick out the parent that's going to fight and they give the child to the other parent so that it prolongs the case, because they know the mom's going to come back and fight.
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They know the mom's not going to give up.
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So in order for them to make money, they need to prolong the case.
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And so that's what happened with my children.
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We went through three different states, we went through several jurisdictions and even though I had a lot of evidence of what happened to me and I had proof and police reports and none of it mattered.
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So then I had my last child with his dad and we spent another eight years in court.
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Thank God he didn't get custody.
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I was given custody right away.
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I was able to prove his addiction, his mental illness, his gang affiliation and the hell I lived through, and he actually admitted to it in court.
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So I got custody right away.
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So, with all of those children and the three different fathers, I spent a total of 17 years in family court.
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So I am now an expert.
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Not just 17 years, but three different states.
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You know, I learned the system.
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I learned how it worked and that's what propelled me into where I'm at today.
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In the midst of the storm, with the second father and the children missing, I joined an organization that was an advocacy organization for survivors of domestic violence and I was trained and I was taught how to appear in court.
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I was taught how to be calm, cool and collected.
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You know, when your kids are missing, you're hysterical, you're crying, you're emotional.
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You know you don't know where they are, what's happened to them, however long it's been, and you tend to show that you know you can't control it.
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Being a woman, you just fall apart.
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These are your babies.
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But I was taught how to represent myself in court.
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I did have a lawyer, who was amazing as well, but I learned all of these little things matter.
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And so by the time I got to court with the last father, I knew how to compose myself, I knew how to appear, I knew how to say yes, ma'am, no ma'am, and I knew how to stay quiet when it wasn't my turn.
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But the one thing I learned was not to give more information than what they asked, which most people, you know.
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You just want to go in there and puke it out and just say he did this, this, this, this and this and honestly, that doesn't help.
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Unfortunately, when you go in and you say domestic violence or those triggering words, sexual assault or anything to that matter, they look down on you.
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Courts don't appreciate it.
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Courts do not.
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You know it's a fable where they say moms always get custody.
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It's not true.
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It's so not true.
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With all that said, I finally won the last court case and had sole custody of my child.
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He no longer had visitation.
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That could be a whole podcast in itself and all of the things we went through during that court trial.
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The one thing I will tell you what came out of that was a book.
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So, through all this journey in my life, with the mental health, with the domestic violence, with the drug abuse, you know with the homelessness, with poverty, with single mother, with teenage mom, you know with trafficking, with sexual assaults, with everything that he really found me and we connected and you know I remember being in the courtroom and the father's attorney was producing pictures that I had on my Facebook page, pictures of my son and I at Cub Scouts with his Cub Scout leader, and we were at a shooting range and we were going over gun safety and you know he was allowed to fire weapons.
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We were teaching him that it's not a video game like these, are real life weapons that can kill, harm and maim.
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And I found it living in pennsylvania in the poconos.
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I found it amazing that he was the head of the nra and could teach this class to our kids who were playing with guns and thought they were games.
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And so when his lawyer, when the father's lawyer, produced that picture, she was like look, he hates his father and she's teaching him how to shoot, she's training him to kill his father.
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And then she was like, oh my God, and she's constantly pleading the blood of Jesus.
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I think she's in a cult.
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And she was like they keep going on vacation Like this kid is missing so much school and she's, you know, not a good mom, because they're in this town and that town and she's taking him on all these trips, and what a horrible thing for a mother to do.
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And I was like sitting there, like are you serious?
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And at that moment in my mind, you know, god started to speak to me and he we were in a conference room but he took me inside the courtroom and showed me that it said in God we trust.
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And so I look, my hair stands up.
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I know he was talking to me and I know he was telling me to trust him and I know that they're coming after my religion, they're coming after my belief system, they're coming after my parenting skills.
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They're putting everything on the line.
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They accused me of being mentally unstable, they accused me of being on too much pain medication, like they became doctors and psychologists and they just they tried everything.
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And God started speaking to me and he started saying this is where you pray, this is where you fast, you know, and this is what you need to do.
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And all of the things that I learned in that space, pretty much I put in a book and I call the book Savage Angel, and that book spoke to putting on the full armor of God, even when it seems like the whole world is against you.
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When you cover yourself with the full armor of God and you trust God and you believe God, you know you start to find your Esther moment Like I was so born for a time such as this and that book.
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I put my heart and soul in it.
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But he put the Holy Ghost power in it and I was able to write that book so I could help other women who are struggling with family court, other women who are being attacked for all of these very same things.
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So fast forward.
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I moved to Florida, which was supposed to be my happy place.
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Jesse and I used to take vacations here all the time.
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That was one of the things we got in trouble for.
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We would do family vacations and my other children are in Georgia, so they would come out.
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My oldest son would come from New York and I would come from Pennsylvania.
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We would spend the week together.
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So through all the trials and tribulations, I always kept my children close.
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Even though they have different dads, they have the same mom, they have the same bloodline.
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They are my children and my children's children.
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I'm a grandmom now.
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So Jesse and I were like, wow, we're out of family court, there's no more mandates, there's no more visitation, let's move to our happy place, florida, is it?
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We're close enough to the other children, we can drive to see them whenever we want, but we're far enough from the pain that we endured and the heartaches and the hardships and the reminders.
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And so we moved to Florida and I moved to an area that I call a dry land.
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Although there's churches everywhere, there's not a lot of Holy Ghost moving people in this territory.
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There is a lot of pain, a lot of heartache.
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There is a lot of suicides, a lot of drug overdose.
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I feel like I may have came out of the Bronx and just kind of moved into something similar, and so I was like God, what is this?
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What's going on here?
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You know why did you bring me to this land?
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Like what is the problem?
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Like I thought I was here for retirement.
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You know I was going to be comfortable.
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And God is like no, that's not what you're here for.
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And then the position I was working for.
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I was working with this organization for over 20 years.
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The last, I think, eight years.
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I was on staff and it was part-time, but it was comfortable because I still had retirement from EMS work they let me go and in the midst of all of this and I'm seeing the domestic violence out here is so bad you know, I'm used to women getting beat up and things like this and I moved out here and women are dying like left and right, left and right.
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You know there are women dying in New York but it's so different in Florida because it's an open carry state.
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So people are carrying guns and there was just so much going on.
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There was mental health crisis, you know, it was just so much.
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There was drug addiction, you know, and I moved into an area of poverty.
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So I was in the midst of it all and as I prayed, I would talk to my former boss and say, you know, I really need to do something, because I know there's DV going on in the house in the corner.
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I know that the neighbors are fighting and I know that you know, without giving out too much information, it's family violence, it's not just intimate partner violence.
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And then I know that the kid on the house two houses down attempted suicide and had to be taken out through his window, or at least he threatened to attempt suicide.
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So I started calling around and checking on what type of services we have.
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You know, how long does it take to get a mental health appointment?
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Like, where do people go?
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Like what can you do if you want to get off drugs?
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I come from a blue state where everything is available and although I thought it was terrible, I didn't realize how bad until I got to a red state.
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And there's one DV shelter in my county and it's always full.
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There is a line for mental health, but there's also a catch-22 with what insurance you have, how long the waiting list is.
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There is help if you make a phone call, if you know who to call, but the help is not always what you need, you know.
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And so, out of this vacation life I thought I was going to live.
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I birthed the Survivor Center.
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I wanted to be a place where you could call for help.
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So Survivor Center started out as a support group.
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You know I wanted to be able to connect with other women like me who are going through it, who don't know where to turn, who may be facing family violence or domestic violence, intimate partner violence, or maybe you're already in court.
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I know the one thing I needed was someone to hold my hand through it all, because I felt like I was the only one going through this.
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I thought that what was happening to me was so rare, and then I learned that every single day, the courthouse is full of people.
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Every single day, the hotline is ringing with calls.
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Every single day, people are looking for some sort of support, and I remember what helped me succeed and go from victim to survivor to thriver, and I wanted to be that for other women.
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I wanted them to know that you can come out of mental health and you can come out of addiction.
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You can come out of poverty.
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You can come out of this mindset that you're never going to succeed or that you are what they said you were, and so you know.
00:17:48.141 --> 00:17:50.994
Little by little, I started forming this organization.
00:17:50.994 --> 00:18:05.644
I started looking for people that I trusted to be part of the board of directors, people who were survivors, people who were trafficked, people who went through addiction, people who went through mental health crisis and survived and are now thriving.
00:18:05.644 --> 00:18:20.248
I want to be the poster child for what life looks like after abuse, and I also realized in this journey a lot of people say to me well, we don't all believe in your God.
00:18:20.248 --> 00:18:30.626
It's not a Christian organization, but I stand on the Bible, I stand on the word of God, I stand on everything it says and I believe that I was made for a time such as this.
00:18:30.626 --> 00:18:40.568
I really believe that the story of Esther is a story of me and how I will save my people and I really believe that I don't push it on you.
00:18:40.568 --> 00:18:43.795
I will save my people and I really believe that I don't push it on you.
00:18:43.795 --> 00:18:53.049
But if you see my story, if you hear what I lived through, if you understand that that's what got me out, that's how I got saved, that's how I changed my life, maybe it'll be something you'll want to learn something about.
00:18:55.276 --> 00:19:16.440
And honestly, through the trials and the tribulations and we've had them you know ups and downs and you know we've made relationships with organizations around us and a lot of them are like oh no, we don't talk religion and that's OK, you know, because I didn't come here to teach religion, that's not my job.
00:19:16.440 --> 00:19:22.208
But I came here to say this was my path and this is what helped me.
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And I don't discriminate if you don't believe in God.
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I don't discriminate if you're pagan.
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I don't discriminate if you say you're into witchcraft, because I was there too.
00:19:35.086 --> 00:19:45.244
But I know that if you're connected to me, god's doing a work in you, so I don't have to sit there and beat you with the Bible and say well, the word of God says you should do A, b and C.
00:19:45.244 --> 00:19:47.096
I just live my life accordingly.
00:19:47.096 --> 00:19:56.000
I just love with the most I can, with all of me, nonjudgmental, non-discriminatory.
00:19:56.862 --> 00:20:19.539
I just feel like God sent me here to help set the captives free, and being a captive is being stuck in an addiction, being stuck in mental health, being stuck in fornication, being stuck in a mindset that you're never going to get out, like there's so many chains that fall off of you.
00:20:19.539 --> 00:20:36.442
And I think that God put me here in this place for a reason, and I had to understand how to take up that cross and go out every day into a world where they hate Jesus and remind myself well, they hated him.
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They're going to hate you.
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They hated him because of who he was.
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They hate you because you love him and you submit to him and you follow what he says to do.
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So the hate is really not you.
00:20:48.862 --> 00:20:50.781
The hate is the God that lives in you.
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And so what conquers hate?
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Love?
00:20:53.315 --> 00:21:00.942
I also know that there are people out there wanting to get out and looking for someone to say I survived, just like mental health.
00:21:00.942 --> 00:21:04.699
It's not a lifetime diagnosis.
00:21:04.699 --> 00:21:08.525
I had PTSD, I had depression.
00:21:08.525 --> 00:21:11.209
I'm a suicide survivor.
00:21:11.209 --> 00:21:16.683
I've lived through the worst of the worst of the worst, and now I have none of it.
00:21:16.683 --> 00:21:18.688
None of it affects me.
00:21:18.688 --> 00:21:25.175
I have none of it.
00:21:25.175 --> 00:21:25.676
None of it affects me.
00:21:25.676 --> 00:21:26.939
I don't take medication.
00:21:26.939 --> 00:21:27.799
I don't see a therapist anymore.
00:21:27.799 --> 00:21:30.124
I read worship and thank God.
00:21:30.124 --> 00:21:44.942
There was a time in my life where I needed the assistance, that I did take medication, but there was also a time where I got off of it and I'm okay and I think coming out of survivorship.
00:21:44.962 --> 00:21:48.415
And when you have all of those things that are against you, of course your mind's going to crack.
00:21:48.415 --> 00:21:56.037
You have someone saying I love you and then they're viciously harming you and you're like what is this?
00:21:56.037 --> 00:21:57.358
I thought you said you loved me.
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Like I woke up.
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My nose is broken, my jaw's out of place, I got black eyes, I was raped, I was sodomized.
00:22:02.547 --> 00:22:03.969
I went through A, b and C.
00:22:03.969 --> 00:22:04.910
All my money's gone.
00:22:04.910 --> 00:22:06.838
You stole my jewelry, but you love me.
00:22:06.838 --> 00:22:10.625
So I think for me.
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You know, and I can only speak for me.
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What helped me?
00:22:13.115 --> 00:22:25.222
It was learning to love myself, learning to forgive myself, learning that I am not what happened to me, learning that those behaviors were who they were and learning to detach from all of that.
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And again I'm going to go back to the Bible.
00:22:27.435 --> 00:22:52.039
You know, reading about who these people were in the Bible and understanding that there were people like Mary Magdalene, there were people like Moses, and if God could take those people and make them into who he needed them to be and to prophets and to saviors, and clean them and wipe away the sin, he could do it for me too.
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And you are like how you said you wanted to be the poster child of how you you have faced.
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