Season Four · Episode Five · Jess Danel
The Story They Got Wrong
Reclaiming Your Story After Being Misunderstood
When other people decide who you are before they ask
Jess Danel was a fast, funny and energetic child growing up in a small Northern California community. Childhood eye surgeries, teasing and responsibilities at home shaped her early years, while the adults around her often interpreted her behavior without stopping to ask what she was carrying.
At sixteen, her withdrawal from her family was treated as evidence of drug use rather than distress. Years later, after building a family and a preschool, losing what she had built, returning to school and beginning again, Jess discovered that writing gave her the power to tell her life in her own words.
Before · The change · What came next
Before
Jess remembers herself as talkative, quick and active—the kind of child whose mouth could reach the finish line before everyone else. She endured frightening eye surgeries, was teased as “Popeye,” and often felt that she belonged in a different category from the people around her.
The change
When Jess stopped talking to her family, the silence was interpreted as wrongdoing. She was placed in drug rehabilitation despite a negative test. The experience crystallized a childhood pattern: other people decided what her behavior meant before asking how she felt.
What came next
Jess built a preschool that created the kind of organized, caring space she had needed as a child. When the recession and her daughter’s heart surgery converged, she chose her child, lost the business and started again through education, media, writing and podcasting. Putting her story on paper became an act of self-definition.
“I want people to find a piece of themselves in my words.”
Jess Danel
Listen to Jess Danel’s story
Read the Complete Episode Transcript
Who Gets to Tell Your Story? Jess Danel on Being Misunderstood was released November 3, 2026. Listen to the Full Episode on Apple Podcasts.