How a Harm Reduction Advocate Turned Shame Into Power

I kept it a secret for five years for my family, I didn't even tell my family. And I was suffering in silence. But once I got into recovery and I wrapped my brain around it, I used that as my new platform to advocate. People with lived experience are very valuable.

Second call of us is an award-winning harm reduction advocate

and executive director of Hope on TTAPP, where she leads HIV and hepatitis C outreach while working to break stigma and improve healthcare access.

“Whatever you need to improve your quality of life”

or therefore, specifically with Hepatitis C and HIV. Because 65% of new infections in Utah, of Hepatitis C are injection drug users. But being a religiously-run state and being very conservative, nobody in the state does drugs.

And nobody has sex until they're married. We don't talk about it. It's not happening. Newsflash? Newsflash, yes, it is happening. Can we talk about it so we can address the issue?

Exactly. It spans the globe.

Like a super-high school.

Internet Elvis? Today, Apple is going to reinvent the fall. It's not over, I'm telling how we're... The living your legacy podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. Well, it's the podcast, not on the planet.

You can live your dreams. Welcome back everybody to another episode of the living your legacy podcast. I am your host for today, Jason Tyler. And today, I am joined by Sequant. Welcome to the show. How are you feeling?

I am feeling excited. Excited. And last, very blessed and grateful to be here. God is good all the time. Now, you just finished recording your episode.

How do you feel now on the other side of it? Relieved. I feel like that's some feedback we get pretty often. It's once you get it off your chest, now you're like, "Ah, yep." But very excited.

Gosh, I got you. So, what would you say is like the number one thing you want people to be able to take away from your story? Number one lesson that they can learn. Number one lesson would be, oh boy, I just have to pick one.

I mean, if there's multiple, if there's multiple, give them all to me. A big one would be to not keep your story to yourself. That's our whole ethos. It makes sure the trauma is the night spent crying. If you share those with other people,

you will find the people who need to hear it, the people who felt alone. Oh my God, I'm the only one going through this. Well, now I'm not the only one. And it sparks a light inside of them. And there's so much power in that with connection and not feeling alone.

And it gives permission to, right? It gives permission for other people to share. So you create a ripple effect. Exactly. That's actually something that I spoke about was the ripple effect.

I love that, I love that. So tell me a little bit about, you know, we want to just give the opportunity for the audience to get to know Sequoine. So bring me up to speed.

“What, what, what, how does Sequoine get in this chair?”

How do we get here? Well, it all started as a fetus. We only need to go with that far back. Just growing up in addiction, I've lived the life. Man, been to prison, life long addiction, you know, I was involved in sex work for a little while,

huge criminal background, and 14 years ago in that lifestyle. And this isn't that I was making. Let me to a relationship where I contracted HIV. And that obviously was a great reason to stay addicted. To cover up the shame and the guilt and the embarrassment and the self stigma, you know,

and to just kind of like create an escape path. Exactly. Numb it out, keep it hidden.

And then when I finally got into recovery seven years ago, today, actually.

Seven years ago, congratulations. Thank you, wow. Seven years, seven years today. Yeah, good day. On April Fool's Day of all days, I was actually my mom's birthday.

Oh, wow. Yeah, I checked myself into treatment.

“It was like the, I think, 8th or 9th treatment that I've done over my life.”

But this time was different because it wasn't court ordered.

It was for me.

I find that to be kind of a narrative thread.

Among people who go through recovery, oftentimes, if there's an outside impetus on the recovery itself, it won't last. No. Unless it comes from you, then the change can last. Yep.

What was kind of your aha moment? What was your, and I don't, maybe we don't want to call it an aha moment.

“But what was your moment of impetus to get you to want to do it for you?”

I had just spent six hours in the bathroom trying to hit a vein. And I'm talking from the feet to, uh, I don't want to get too graphic. But just about every part of the body under the tongue, you know, down below anywhere. And the only vein that I could find to hit was in my forehead. And I'm, I'm thankful I didn't give myself a stroke. You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. Who does that?

I'm going to shoot my thin foot of me in my forehead because that's the only vein I can find.

After six hours, really? Six hours in the bathroom. Dude, come on. And that was it. I was like, you know, this sucks. Maybe I should try something different.

'Cause this just, this sucks. So that was the, that was the beginning of, yeah, of like the real journey. Yep. Right.

It just, you know, to put that in perspective for you guys that are watching,

“you know, imagine spending your entire workshift, right?”

Spend your majority of your nine to five just in a bathroom. And some of you will be like, well, sometimes I spend about four hours in the bathroom, 'cause when boss makes a dollar and I make a dime, that's why I poop on company time. But I'm gonna lose track of, I'm gonna lose track of the story here.

But just try to put that in perspective. That's a long time to spend on something. Now, I want to try to take a pivot here and, you know, just getting to learn a little bit about your story. And I, in this funny, I had a, I had a client last week,

recovered from addiction and, you know, he and he had seen some shit, you know what I mean? Like, oh, we can swear. Oh yeah, we were, okay. Oh, we could cross on here.

Oh, we'll just believe it all later. Um, okay. But he had seen some shit. And he, you know, he had, I had gone through his whole story with him. And I think his moment was, he had,

his grandmother had rented a car so that he could drive from Baltimore down to North Carolina to just get away from Baltimore, because that's where all of his suppliers were that's where everything bad happened to him. Yeah. And he's instead of taking that car that he, that was rented for him, crash that car,

then drove the crash car back to Baltimore, because he was like, well, I got it. I got to get one more crash it again, what? Ended up in the hospital. It was just just whole thing.

And finally wakes up, he woke up in the hospital and he was like,

damn, you know what? And his grandmother was right there and she was like, all right, you're going to drive to South Carolina. And I'm going to drive right behind you. Good for her.

And that was it. And so like when you hear these stories of overcoming addiction is no small thing. No. It is not, you know, people are out there.

Have you all just make different, you're not in control of your own decision-making at times. Yeah.

“What would you have to say to somebody out there that's like,”

really just in the suck, in the struggle of it? Your deepest shame can become your greatest asset. You know, living with HIV was something I didn't want to talk about. I kept it a secret for five years from my family. I didn't even tell my family.

And I was suffering in silence. But once I got into recovery and I wrapped my brain around it, I used that as my new platform to advocate. So taking your deepest shame, people with lived experience. And I love that it's starting, you know, to become a greater awareness in the world.

But people with lived experience are very valuable. We come from a society that looks down on us.

Oh, actually, I'm not a drug addict.

I'm a person who uses drugs. The human being. Exactly. And I've seen things and experienced things. And I could bestow some wisdom on you, you know,

because we've, okay, college education great. We also have educations in the school of hard knocks. And sometimes, if you're anything like me,

“sometimes the only way you can learn a particular lesson is to learn at the hard way.”

I'm very hard headed. So I've had to learn my lessons often times the really, really hard way. Yeah. And to your point, your testimony is your strength, right? If you can, if your testimony can help create a different decision for one person,

it was enough. Yep, exactly, exactly. My dad is a, some of my dad's a psychologist. And so I've been, you know, I've been being psychoanalyzed my entire life. And there's one thing that he says, a person is only predicated on the decisions that they make.

Mm-hmm. We make 35,000 decisions a day. Micro decisions. Okay.

Am I going to breathe in or out first?

Am I going to blink now? Am I going to blink later? All micro decisions.

“But the person you are is predicated on the decisions that you make.”

Mm-hmm. You can put two identical people in the exact same, upbringing, exact same household, exact same parents. Those two people will make wildly different decisions and walk down completely different life paths. Yeah.

And so if you can change one decision, you've created, you've branched a new reality for a person. Yep. And your testimony has the power to do that. So like, I just wanted to put that out as your, like, to your credit. Being able to share your story and help people make at least one decision differently.

You've created infinite realities off of that. Yep. I'm a firm believer in that. So talk to me a little bit about your business as it stands, or your non-profit as it stands today. So what we do is harm reduction outreach, specializing in HIV and hepatitis C,

and the whole spectrum of care from, we show up, we're entirely mobile. That's something I'm seeing a lot more of nowadays is mobile medical care. Well, yeah, because the marginalized communities that we serve are the ones that the quote unquote conventional medical establishment don't care for. Yeah, because they're not even within 15 miles of a good hospital.

Yeah. They've got, you know, their urgent care facility may be. Yeah. But people, you know, 85% of our clients are still actively using people involved in sex work. People just coming out of incarceration.

People experiencing homelessness, you know, the ones who are looked down on usually by medical professionals, you know, there's huge medical mistrust within our communities because we've been treated like garbage before. Once, you know, you go into the ER for care and you're honest, and yes, I have a history of addiction, you're treated completely different. So, you know what, dude? I'm going to, you need help. I'm going to come help you.

We do testing. We link to treatment. If you don't have a ride, we'll pick you up and we'll transport you to your appointment. We'll deliver your medications to you. You know, um, hey, you need housing. Let's get you signed up. Medicaid, you're uninsured. Let's get you signed up. You need a food box? Shit, I'll bring you some food.

Mm-hmm.

“Whatever you need to improve your quality of life or therefore,”

specifically with Hepatitis C and HIV, because 65% of new infections in Utah of Hepatitis C are injection drug users. Mm-hmm. But being a religiously run state and being very conservative, nobody in the state does drugs, and nobody has sex until they're married. On paper.

And if you want to talk about anything outside of that, we're not going to talk about it. Hush, hush, if we don't talk about it, it's not happening. Which is just a false, just falsity. Newsflash? Newsflash. Yes, it is happening. Yeah. Can we talk about it so we can address the issue?

Exactly. That's, I'm not quiet. Mm-hmm.

As you see, that's, I think that is just being that first voice to speak up and say,

Just just doing that. Yeah. Again, goes back to what we were saying earlier,

the ripple effect, right? Yep. Somebody else might get up and say, hey, you know what, this is happening. Yeah. You know, I mean, and now you have a whole room of people. Yep. That are advocating for it. You know, I wanted to ask what made you decide to run this business specifically as a nonprofit? Um, so I was in a relationship with someone who suggested it.

He kind of got me out of my shell in terms of like, openly talking about my status, and then once I started doing that, I just ran with it. You know, saw the, and the people that you least expect. Mm-hmm. I was having people come up,

like, oh my god, I never thought I'd meet another woman who had HIV. Oh my god, and just like,

their whole, you see the shift, you know, and their eyes, and like, you see their walls drop, and just like the relief. They're shoulders dropped out. Yes. They're not guarded anymore.

“Just what being able to watch a person's guard drop is really really, I think that's”

so special, and such a such an honor. Like, I say, and any of my clients that might watch this, they'll know, I say to my clients all the time that come into the studio, and they're on the different shows that interview with me. I have a cry counter in the studio. I've done what, one of my, I'm like 92 interviews now. Out of like 92, I would say 78 have cried with me. That's probably going to be 79. I'm a cryer. Hey, you know what? I'm, I'm, I'm all for it,

because I wear that as a badge of honor. What, what an honor it is for me to be able to create a space where you feel safe enough to share that level of emotion with me, right? Yeah. Like, I don't, when I tell people like, oh, I have this cry counter. I'm not like, I'm not trying to brag about it. Like, I'm not, I'm not trying to make people cry, but to create a space where you feel safe enough to really share your story, really share your emotion. That's, that's all it is for me.

Exactly. Like, for me as a documentary, and that's like the highest honor. Yeah. For the people out there that are watching, you know, our, our viewers are audience. They're super entrepreneurial, they're super business-minded. What advice would you have for somebody that wants to get into maybe starting an on-profit, maybe getting into providing medical care in a different way? What advice do you have for them about the road that lies ahead? It's a lot of work, but

“it takes conviction. And if you know that that's what you want to do,”

seeing the importance of adversity and the necessity of adversity. Because if it's easy, it's probably not going to last. And if it was easy, everybody would do it. Exactly. So, I mean, I've, I've hit some roadblocks. It's, my nonprofit has just organically turned into this

something I never and a million years thought I would be doing, but

keeping your eye on the prize, knowing what your mission is, because one doctor heard me speak about stigma in the medical field, who then spoke to another doctor about it. Fast forward, now I have a pharmaceutical company, big pharma, saying, hey, do you want to come and maybe train every year, what it's called, speaker training, maybe train some of our health care professionals, doctors, nurses, like, big time. On stigma.

“Can we've never done a training on stigma? Can you, would you be interested in doing that?”

Jackpot. So now, like I've traveled the Las Vegas in San Diego, from San Diego, I've got booked for Atlanta, from Atlanta, I got booked to Brooklyn, from Brooklyn, I got booked to Phoenix, like it's just, and I show up, I don't have a Ph.D. or MD or N.P. behind my name, right? I like to say, I have a Ph.D. and injection drug use, and they all just like, they laugh, but at the same time, it's like, oh, okay, okay. So she's, she's going to drop something on us, and I tell them, like,

this is what a day in the life of us looks like before we end up in front of you. And I challenge them, you are doctor, you're a medical professional that took an oath to treat people who are sick, period. Not people who are sick who make over, you know, 50,000 a year, people who are sick who only watch soap operas or driver's CDs. No, you took a note to treat

and how, no matter how tough we look on the outside, like, we're really scared, and then I give them basics, dude, it's really simple, and it baffles me every time, like, I walk off the stage, and I, you know, because they're crying, and I'm crying, just like, person first language,

“give us our dignity back, meet us in the middle, don't say, well, you have to do it this way,”

that way, or get out, like, that may not work for us, and our complicated lives, and body language. The simplicity of body language, and, like, human touch, it was a hug after our appointment. Put a hand on a shoulder. It's exactly what I was going to say. He dude, it was so proud.

Hey, it's good to see you. I don't care if you're late. You made it, you know, and then I always end

up by thanking them. I know you guys get wrapped up in, like, the patient after patient after patient, clinical routine, and you probably don't hear it enough, but thank you, like, for my community to yours, thank you, because you're saving lives, and it's not a small feat. So, by the time, everybody's crying, it's like, I got him. You almost got me. You don't, you don't mean to be going again. I got to keep it together. I got one more interview after this. I just want to give you

your credit for, because the work that you're doing is really incredible, and, like, it takes,

you know, we've spoken about it a couple of times, the ripple effect, right? Yeah. And it's not just

“a ripple effect anymore. It's a wave. Yeah. Created a wave across an industry, and I think that's,”

you know, really incredible work that you're doing. If, if anybody out there, guys, if you're still watching at this point, I want to make sure that you check out her episode of Women in Power that will be coming out shortly after this podcast episode drops. So, make sure you stay tuned for that. Working people find you on socials, on the internet, on the World Wide Web at large. If they want to learn more about your story, get involved, fall into here. So my website is www.hopeontap.com. And that's

h-o-p-e-o-n-t-t-a-p-p-e.com. My personal Facebook is Sequo-on Colibus. The organization in Facebook

“is #know-your-status movement. Mm-hmm. MVM-n-t. Dodge. Because it's important to know your status.”

And we'll make sure that we have all of this somewhere on the screen. I'm pointing in directions. I have no idea where we'll put it, but we'll put it somewhere on the screen. And Instagram is one sick bitch spelled BYCH. Hey, you know what? I like that branding. Yes.

Guys, again, if you're still tuned in at this point, what an incredible story. What an incredible

human being. I just wanted to say it's been an honor. Thank you. You have you on the show and to, you know, get to hear your story. Make sure you guys tune in for her episode. And again, this has been another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast. I'm your host, Jason Tyler, and I will catch you guys in the next one. [BLANK_AUDIO]