Uncovered Event Exposes Secrets, Shows ‘Toxic Shame’ Is not the End of the Story
News Story by Cassy Benefield | FāVS News
Working in her fourth floor office in the Lincoln Plaza Building downtown Spokane, Nichole Mischke prepares short, documentary-style productions of people who have secrets they’ve hid but now want to share.
The documentaries she makes for her production company, Uncovered, are as individual as the people she interviews.
She chooses storytellers who found a way through what she calls “toxic shame” by living in fear their secrets will be exposed.
“I look for each story to at least have a powerful message of hope and inspiration,” Mischke said.
Five individuals with such stories will be featured on Friday from 7-10 p.m., at the Bing Crosby Theater.
“Uncovered: The Secrets We Hide” aims to bring the audience into their stories while witnessing the healing power that telling their secrets has brought them.
Mischke’s Story
This is something Mischke knows all too well through her struggle with bulimia. When her secret was exposed in the story she shared in 2016’s Pivot event, she was free to help others share their own.
“I always knew I wanted to be a storyteller,” Mischke said. “But I didn’t know what stories I was supposed to be sharing. I didn’t know where that feeling was coming from until I had the opportunity to share my story outside of my circle.”
As the tallest person in her school at 5’ 7” in fourth grade, she heard over and over, “Wow, you’re big for your age.”
So when she grew up and received positive reinforcement for being smaller weight wise, she chased after physical perfection.
“I really started to identify my self-worth with what I looked like,” Mischke said, which led to 10 years suffering from bulimia.
She remembers waking up one day with sores in her mouth, not even knowing she was pregnant with her son. Mischke knew she was about to die from mouth cancer because of her bulimia. Thankfully she did not have cancer.
Because of that thought, she woke up to the knowledge that she had to quit what she was doing and was able to cold turkey, which is not common.
Even with quitting, Mischke still didn’t feel the freedom to share her secret right away. However, when she finally did, she realized three gifts changed the trajectory of her life.
“The opportunity to share my story, then realizing I wasn’t alone, and then having [my story] packaged in a beautiful way that could be shared,” Mischke said of her Pivot piece. “And that’s what Uncovered is. It’s giving those three gifts.”
The Stories that Will Be Shared Friday
She has given these gifts to over a dozen individuals, five of whom will have their stories premiere Friday evening.
The almost two hours of content includes the story of Brianne Davis, author of the memoir “Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict.” She has been in recovery for over 12 years and according to the event’s website, she “shares her story in a beautifully raw way.”
Also on the agenda are Wes Patterson and Katie Chin.
Patterson will share his story about growing up Christian and thinking he was not OK because he was gay. Rather than being an attack against the Christian faith, he shares a Jesus who loves all people without judgment.
Chin’s story takes the audience outside her picture-perfect life of being a celebrity chef and award-winning cookbook author, in addition to being part of a restaurant empire her late mother began. She will shed light on the secrets she and her family held about their mental health struggles, including her own depression.
Finally, Melanie Warman will share her struggles growing up in the shadow of her locally-famous mom, KHQ news and weather anchor Leslie Lowe. Warman’s struggles with ADHD, OCD, eating disorders, trichotillomania and a series of poor relationships intertwine with her mom’s struggles in many of the same areas.
Warman and Lowe’s Story
By telling her story, Warman said she received freedom from her shame.
“I learned that saying it out loud and speaking to the things that have held me hostage in my own body for so long is more freeing than shameful. It was like taking a brick off my chest,” Warman said. “It’s all out there now and if I help even just one other person I have accomplished what I set out to do.”
Lowe’s story weaves in with Warman’s because so much of what Warman experienced was generational.
For example, Lowe spoke of her own feelings of unworthiness and her desire to keep all the bad in her life buried and not discussed — to always be seen as the “good girl.”
“Melanie learned a lot of traits or top behaviors by watching me obsess about food, or the way I looked. And I felt a lot of guilt and shame about that,” Lowe said. “And I think that she also learned how to keep secrets from me because I kept secrets. I wasn’t honest about what I was doing … or what I was going through to be this perfect person.”
Mischke hopes Warman and Lowe’s story along with the others frees them even more. She also hopes someone in the audience will be inspired to begin their journey out of toxic shame.
“Once you can come to a place as a human being where you can uncover all the parts of yourself, and then realize that you’re still loved for that, that’s when you truly become unstoppable,” Mischke said.
More to the Event
While these stories are the main part of the event, the evening will also include a question and answer panel and a raffle where all the money will go FailSafe for Life, a local non-profit working to end suicide through connection, education and hope.
“Due to the nature of the stories we tell, we have a huge desire to support suicide awareness and prevention in our region,” Mischke said.
Tickets can be purchased at The Bing’s website. FāVS readers receive a $5 discount by using the promo code OWNYOURSTORY2. Past Uncovered stories and eventually the ones premiering this Friday are available online.
