Storie believes that survival mode is not a necessary state but a trauma response that people can move beyond through acceptance and grace.

“Now I can teach everybody now h how not to be in survival mode that there is no survival mode like it's it's just a trauma response.”

Persistence is essential because one should never give up even when facing extreme hardship or perceived hopelessness.

“Don't ever give up, man. Do not ever give up. Do not [ __ ] even when there's not even a crack of [ __ ] light coming under that door, hold your breath and hold on, man. But don't give up, dude. Life life without parole.”

The label survivor is not accurate because it implies a restoration of one's former self, whereas sexual violence changes the person permanently.

“I have never resonated with the word survivor. I just haven't. Cuz to me surviving is restoration, right? It's restoring who you were.”

The survivors showed incredible resilience and strength in their determination to get themselves out of the mountains after the search was called off.

“what's Wild is they didn't lose hope here that's remarkable they somehow took this as like okay now our survival is in our hands so we need to do it like what the [ __ ] I'm like that is I mean you go one of two ways there the strength that like talk about the human Spirit right ther”

Subconscious survival instincts designed to keep people safe often manifest as fear and resistance when faced with challenging but non-lethal situations.

“that defense mechanism that is designed to keep us safe the side effect just to keep us safe from running into a fire or running off a cliff i suppose the side effect is it's also designed to keep us safe from the emotional pain that comes from failure”

He suggests that humans have innate instincts, similar to how animals can sense natural disasters like tsunamis.

“Well, I bet humans have that. Animals definitely have that. They talk about Thailand, how they had that tsunami and all the animals ran up to the highest point of the of the island.”

He believes that his difficult upbringing at a young age helped him develop sharp instincts for survival.

“one of the things I I um I'm really grateful for is growing up that early and having to, you know, use my instincts and being that, you know, street fighting and fighting was like my favorite thing to do actually.”

He emphasizes his extensive knowledge of the Everglades as the key to surviving and evading law enforcement.

“We swam every inch of that is our backyard. That's our playground.”