Adriene Caldwell — foster care survivor, trauma recovery advocate, and author of Unbroken: Life Outside the Lines — joins Dr. James Perdue on the Professor of Perseverance podcast to share how she turned tragedy into purpose. Adriene discusses surviving abuse, foster care, addiction, and multiple suicide attempts, and how her life now serves as a real-world case study for mental health awareness and system reform.

Her story reminds us that healing is possible, purpose is real, and pain can become the foundation for change.

Trigger warnings: emotional and physical abuse, child sexual assault, drowning death of a child, extreme poverty, mental illness, homelessness, abusive foster care, bulimia, pedophilia, incest, death, suicide, addiction.

Get the free prologue + chapter one (while it’s still available) at UnbrokenCaldwell.com

Chapters

0:00 – Introduction and content note

1:02 – Why pain shapes purpose (“because of,” not “in spite of”)

3:00 – Adriene introduces Unbroken: Life Outside the Lines 5:00 – Suicide attempts and the gun that misfired

8:45 – A turning point and sense of divine purpose

10:20 – Writing the book and using trauma to teach

17:00 – Foster care realities and the “therapeutic” home that caused deeper damage

20:00 – How systemic neglect feeds lifelong scars

27:00 – Why she wrote the book: punishment vs. purpose 30:00 – Surviving addiction, moving toward healing

33:00 – Love, motherhood, and loss

37:00 – Hope, acceptance, and what she lives by today

To listen to more from Professor of Perseverance Podcast, please visit https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/professor-of-perseverance-podc-1284234

Thank you for listening.