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A Contagious Smile Podcast
Stop surviving and start thriving. A Contagious Smile is a globally ranked podcast providing a safe haven for abuse survivors and special needs families navigating the journey of trauma recovery. Whether you are healing from domestic violence, narcissistic abuse, childhood trauma, or the daily challenges of disability advocacy, our mission is to turn your pain into power.
Each episode features raw, authentic conversations with survivors, mental health experts, and advocates who share actionable resources for PTSD healing, resilience building, and emotional wellness. We go beyond the struggle to highlight the triumphs of the special needs community, offering support for caregivers and individuals with disabilities who are rewriting their own narratives.
Hosted by Victoria Cuore, an award-winning trauma advocate and survivor, this podcast delivers the "blueprints" for recovery—not just Band-Aids. Join our community to find hope, humor, and the unstoppable spirit needed to rekindle your inner light.
Episodes
395 episodes
Schizophrenia And The Long Road Back
A schizophrenia diagnosis can feel like your future just collapsed into one terrifying question: what happens now? We talk with Matthew Dixon, founder of MindAid and the first person living with schizophrenia to bicycle across Canada twice, abo...
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Five Hard Truths About Caregiving Rights And Advocacy
“HIPAA” gets blamed for everything, families get shut out, and a loved one in crisis gets reduced to a label and a sedative. We’re not doing that. Michael Makniak and Victoria Cure unpack the real-world misconceptions that derail caregiving and...
Breaking The Silence On Abuse
A lot of people say they want survivors to “speak up” until the story gets messy, angry, and specific. We go there. We talk about domestic violence and coercive control the way it actually shows up: not as a single incident, but as a system of ...
Trauma Recovery Through Laughter and Honest Marriage Talk
Caregiver resilience stories come alive when you laugh through the hard moments. Your body can outpace your mind, and when sciatic nerve pain hits while life demands everything, standing tall means honest marriage talk, real laughter, and askin...
Surviving Financial Crisis | The Resilience Story You Need to Hear
When Anil Gupta's wife heard "we're homeless," she smiled. That single reaction becomes the foundation for trauma recovery, not from abuse, but from the identity collapse of financial ruin. In the 2008 crisis, Anil lost everything and convinced...
Navigating Addiction, Mental Illness & Trauma | Civil Rights with Mark Astor with special guest Mark Astor
When love alone won't stop the spiral, families need answers. A parent's worst nightmare: substance use disorder and mental illness collide, triggering crisis calls, involuntary holds, and court battles. Trauma recovery isn't just emotional; it...
A Private Message From Grandparents And A Skeptic’s Reaction
One conversation can shake your certainty, even if you’re the type of person who normally needs proof. We sit down and tell the story of meeting Danielle, a therapist who is also a medium, and why what she shared stopped us cold. Victoria is ca...
How Matthew Dixon Recovered From Schizophrenia And Biked Across Canada
A schizophrenia diagnosis can feel like your life has been rewritten without your consent, and the hardest part is often the unknown: Will I get better, will I ever feel like myself again, and who will still see me as me? We talk with Matthew D...
When A Stranger Shares A Dark Secret
A guy offers to help us move a table and chairs, and for a few minutes it feels like a normal neighborly moment. Then, out of nowhere, he mentions multiple felonies and casually claims he got caught trying to kill his wife. That single sentence...
This Is What It Takes: Mental Health Care That Listens with Special Guest Rebecca Tuoni. Unbreakable Caregivers
When trauma survivors stop seeking help, the system has failed. Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore share how retraumatization in healthcare and mental health settings can silence the very people who need support most—and what we learned about ...
Miracles, Caregiver Resilience, and Showing Up with Amir Arison
Domestic violence recovery and caregiver resilience aren't one-time breakthroughs; they're built day by day. This week, we sit down with actor Amir Arison to explore what it really takes to keep showing up through trauma, medical complexity, an...
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Choosing Courage Over Fear | Cheryl Preheim on Special Needs Resilience with Cheryl Preheim of NBC 11Aive and Faith
When doctors told Faith's family to "let her go," they chose courage instead. NBC journalist Cheryl Preheim sits down to discuss trauma recovery, special needs parenting, and how refusing limits transformed one family's pain into a lifelong mis...
This Is What It Takes with Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore. People Stop Seeking Help When The System Stops Listening
The moment “help” makes you feel smaller, unheard, or more afraid, something in the system has already failed. We sit with the uncomfortable reality that mental health care and hospital care can retraumatise the very people they are meant to su...
The Power of Unscripted Healing | Trauma Survivors Talk Real
Michael and Victoria reveal why A Contagious Smile stays unscripted on purpose, because trauma recovery and caregiver resilience stories can't be rehearsed. Discover how lived experience teaches what textbooks can't, why real conversations crea...
Healthcare Trauma: When Systems Fail Special Needs Families | Fight Back with Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore
When special needs families fight healthcare systems, they're told they're doing everything wrong, while goalposts keep moving. Michael Mackniak and Victoria Cuore expose how institutions abandon caregivers, blame survivors, and fragment care i...
Creating Safe Spaces for Abuse Survivors | Support Systems
Healing from trauma and abuse doesn't happen alone. In this episode, we explore how to build and access real mental health support networks designed for abuse survivors and caregivers. Discover practical resources, red flags in broken systems, ...
From Teacher to Griever | How Katie Rizzo Survived Opioid Loss
One phone call. One prescription. One life split into before and after. Katie Rizzo, a former AP biology teacher, lost her firstborn son, Nicholas, to opioid addiction and overdose. In this raw conversation about grief, caregiver resilience, an...
Ripple Retreat: Trauma Recovery Meets Sobriety and Service with guest JJ Holley, A Veteran who lives to pay it forward
JJ Holley spent seven years rebuilding his life. Now, in a historic farmhouse in Maine, he's building something bigger: Ripple Retreat, an alcohol-free wellness space designed to flip the script on tourism and trauma recovery. In this walking t...
A New Partnership For Trauma-Informed Mental Health Support with Michael Mackniak
The scariest part of a mental health crisis isn’t always the symptoms. It’s the moment you realise nobody is talking to each other and your loved one is getting treated like a problem instead of a person. We sit down with veteran attorney and c...
Domestic Violence Exit Strategy | Safety First, Judgment Later
Surviving abuse feels impossible, but leaving without a plan can be even more dangerous. In this episode, our hosts dig into the real barriers that keep people trapped: isolation, financial control, custody fears, trauma bonds, and the escalati...
TikTok Toilets And A Very Bad Diastat Day
One phone call can flip your whole world. We start with real life and real laughs, then move into the kind of story that makes your stomach drop: what happens when a school says your child had a medical emergency, but the timeline and the paper...
What If Overworking Is A Trauma Reflex
Burnout does not always look like falling apart. Sometimes it looks like answering messages at midnight, working seven days a week, and telling yourself you will rest after the next task. We get honest about what happens when your life becomes ...
Grits, Cravings, And Caregiver Burnout | Special Needs Health Crisis
When Michael's A1C hits 9, denial stops working. In this raw conversation, we explore how trauma survivors and caregivers navigate health crises, lifestyle change, and the hidden cost of managing a loved one's chronic illness. From trauma respo...