More Than a Sanctuary: How Trauma, Healing, and Hope Built Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary

People often ask me why I started Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary.

Most people expect me to talk about monkeys.

The truth is, the sanctuary began long before the first enclosure was ever built. It began with trauma.

A Night That Changed Everything

In 1997, while serving in the United States Air Force, I was the victim of a violent military sexual assault while stationed in England.

It was my last night before returning to the United States.

I attended what was supposed to be a celebration with fellow Airmen. Instead, I was brutally assaulted. I was beaten, strangled until I lost consciousness, and raped. When I regained consciousness, I escaped and ran.

The next morning, I boarded my flight home.

I remember sitting in the airport feeling nauseated, hiding my eyes because the blood vessels had burst from being strangled.

I never reported what happened.

Not because I didn’t want justice—but because I didn’t believe justice would happen.

I worked in military law enforcement. I had heard the conversations. I had watched victims become suspects in the eyes of others.

“Why were you there?”

“What were you wearing?”

“What had you been drinking?”

I knew exactly how victims were often treated, and I simply could not survive another trauma.

So I buried it.

Living While Slowly Disappearing

At the time, I was a single mother with a two-year-old daughter.

Protecting her became my entire world.

I pushed every ounce of pain deep inside and focused on raising my child.

Before the assault, my military career had been thriving. I had received awards I never imagined earning, including Airman of the Year, Airman of the Quarter, and even being one of the only enlisted soldiers to receive The Lance P. Sijan Leadership Award in London presented by an Admiral for my liaison work between the British national people and the American Military Forces.

Afterward, everything changed.

I no longer trusted the institution I had proudly served.

I just wanted to leave.

Eventually, I remarried, helped raise a blended family, welcomed another child, and used my GI Bill to become a radiologic technologist.

From the outside, life looked successful.

Inside, PTSD was quietly taking over.

Without even realizing why, I began moving farther and farther away from people.

I sought positions with fewer coworkers.

I gravitated toward departments staffed mostly by women.

Eventually, I left the hospital environment altogether for a small clinic.

I came in early to avoid people.

I ate lunch alone.

I stayed in my office.

My world became smaller every year.

One close friend watched it happen.

For years she gently told me, “You’re not okay.”

And for years my answer was always the same.

“I know.”

I knew I needed help.

I just didn’t know where to begin.

When PTSD Finally Wins

Eventually, PTSD caught up with me.

The panic attacks became daily.

Driving to work, I cried almost every morning.

Sometimes the anxiety became so overwhelming that I had to be sent home.

The insomnia was relentless.

Relationships suffered.

Friendships disappeared.

Even my own personality seemed to vanish.

I wasn’t living anymore.

I was surviving.

Eventually, I retired early because I simply could not continue working.

I retreated into my home.

Isolation felt safer than the world.

The Animals Didn’t Ask Questions

During that time, I continued creating resin artwork from home.

But something unexpected began happening.

Animals helped.

Being around them quieted my mind.

My blood pressure dropped.

The constant anxiety eased.

For the first time in years, I found moments of peace.

Then primates entered my life in a completely different way.

As I learned more about the exotic pet trade, I discovered the heartbreaking reality behind many baby monkeys sold as pets.

Behind every cute baby photo is often a story of loss.

Families are separated.

Infants are taken from their mothers.

Animals are bought, sold, traded, and passed from home to home when they become too difficult to manage.

The trauma they experienced felt strangely familiar.

Different circumstances.

The same broken trust.

Lucy Changed Everything

Long before Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary officially existed, there was Lucy.

Lucy was a five-year-old cinnamon capuchin.

She was still intact and was being sold.

We knew what her future would likely become.

She could spend the rest of her life producing babies for the pet trade.

We couldn’t let that happen.

We legally purchased Lucy through USDA-regulated channels—not because we wanted another monkey, but because we wanted to stop her from becoming another breeding machine.

For four months, I worked with Lucy.

Not to make her a pet.

Simply to help her feel safe.

To help her learn that people bringing food weren’t always something to fear.

When she was ready, we donated her to a trusted private zoological facility where two other capuchins lived.

Our only conditions were simple:

She would never be bred.

She would never be sold.

She would simply get to live as a monkey among other monkeys.

Looking back now, Lucy was the beginning of everything.

Building Something Bigger Than Ourselves

Not long afterward, another primate entered our lives.

A young spider monkey that we believe originated in the illegal pet trade was surrendered by someone who could no longer care for him.

Working alongside USDA, we completed the legal licensing process.

During conversations with our USDA inspector, something unexpected happened.

She looked at what we had already built—the property, the commitment, the veterinary support—and suggested something that changed our lives.

She suggested we become a sanctuary.

That encouragement became the spark.

We formed Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, not because one person had all the answers, but because no one person should.

We built a board of directors that brings together different areas of expertise.

Two veterinarians with extensive primate experience.

A respected local businessman with nonprofit and operational insight.

Our local sheriff, who also happens to be my husband, helping us navigate public safety and changing exotic animal laws in Mississippi.

I don’t pretend to know everything.

But I believe good leadership means surrounding yourself with people who know what you don’t.

Together, we built something far greater than any one individual could accomplish.

Healing Happened While We Were Building

As volunteers and veterans helped build enclosures, something remarkable happened.

Conversations started.

Walls came down.

Friendships formed.

Many of the people working beside us were carrying invisible wounds of their own.

Military veterans.

First responders.

People living with PTSD.

As we learned to earn the trust of traumatized monkeys, we were unknowingly learning to trust people again ourselves.

The monkeys weren’t healing us through magic.

They were giving us something trauma often steals:

Purpose.

Routine.

Responsibility.

Patience.

Connection.

Hope.

Every enclosure we built was also rebuilding something inside of us.

A Sanctuary for Monkeys—and for People

Today, Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary exists to provide lifelong homes for surrendered pet primates.

But that isn’t the entire story.

It has also become a place where people can breathe.

Where veterans and first responders can unplug from the constant noise.

Where volunteers rediscover purpose.

Where families who surrender beloved monkeys are met with compassion instead of judgment.

One question we often ask surrendering families is:

“What was happening in your life when you got your monkey?”

There is almost always a story.

Grief.

Loneliness.

Trauma.

Loss.

Major life changes.

People rarely wake up wanting to own a monkey because they understand primates.

Often, they’re searching for comfort during one of life’s hardest seasons.

We understand that because many of us have searched for comfort too.

Our goal is never to shame those families.

It’s to help both the people and the monkeys find healthier paths forward.

We hope families receive the support they need so they don’t have to fill emotional wounds with another coping mechanism—or another exotic animal.

Why We Keep Going

People sometimes say we saved the monkeys.

The truth is far more complicated.

In many ways, they helped save me.

Not by erasing trauma.

Not by curing PTSD.

Healing doesn’t work that way.

But they gave me a reason to keep showing up.

They reminded me that trust can be rebuilt—slowly, patiently, one safe interaction at a time.

Gulf Coast Primate Sanctuary was built because monkeys deserve to live with their own kind, free from the exotic pet trade.

But it was also built because broken people need places where healing is possible.

This sanctuary has become exactly what its name promises.

A sanctuary for primates.

And, sometimes, a sanctuary for people learning how to live again.