Breaking the Silence: Domestic Violence Awareness with Ariel B. and Millicent St. Claire

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey everybody, it's Tiffany Cross. I'm your host of Across Generations,
and I'm so thrilled. Do you know why, Because I'm
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(00:28):
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times three. If it's one person, you said, these amazing

(00:49):
conversations and perspectives are great out the gate, and I
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(01:11):
Bring your husbands, brothers, cousins, you boys, everybody. We want
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(01:32):
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it going again. This is Tiffany Cross, your host of
Across Generations, and you can catch new episodes of Across

(01:54):
Generations every single Tuesday wherever you get your podcasts. And
I want to thank you guys, so much for tuning
in every week, but especially to this very special episode
on domestic violence. This is a trigger warning because the
testimonies that you are about to hear are emotionally gutting.
That's how I felt when I heard these two very
brave women detail what happened to them. And I want

(02:17):
to let you know that at the time we recorded
this episode, the horrific and barbaric violence that we saw
in the video that Sean P. Diddy Comb's abusing the
singer Cassie it had not come out yet, and so
this recording predates that. It also predates the pseudo apology
that we heard from Shawn P. Diddy Combs. And so

(02:38):
as you listen to this episode, really, as you experience
this episode, because it's an experience, I would ask you
to consider the people in your life who are impacted
by domestic violence. And I want to make the point
that though this show centers the voices and perspectives of
black women across generations, that is not our specific audience.

(02:59):
We invite everyone to eavesdrop on the magic that happens
when black women find safe spaces and have exchange with
each other. I think men tuning into This episode is
highly important because I want men to understand what women
go through. It doesn't matter if you're a man, woman,
melanated or not. This is a conversation that impacts us all.

(03:22):
So as you listen, I hope that you'll consider your
own perspectives and the perspectives of everyone around you, because
so many people will often ask, well, why didn't she
Cassy or anyone else? Why didn't they leave? Why didn't
they stop it? Why didn't We have a habit of
victim blaming, And I want to disrupt that cycle as

(03:42):
we hear some of the most harrowing testimony I've heard
in my life. So again, thank you so much for
tuning into Across Generations, and please do let me know
what you think of this episode. Welcome to a cross
Generations where the voices of black women unite. I'm your host,
Tiffany Cross. We gather a season elder myself as the

(04:03):
middle generation, and a vibrant young soul for engaging intergenerational conversations.
Prepared to engage or hear perspectives that no one else
is having. You know how we do? We create magic
creation magic. Hi, everybody, I'm Tiffany Cross and I'm your
host of Across Generations, where each week there's an elder,

(04:25):
a younger, and me, and for this episode, we're talking
about something very serious. One in three women experience some
sort of domestic violence in their lifetime, but when it
comes to us, those numbers are even higher. If all
the Black women in the United States were tuned into
Across Generations right now, nearly half of you would have

(04:45):
experienced some sort of abuse from your partner. You heard
that right. According to the National Domestic Violence Hotline, forty
five point one percent of Black women experienced physical violence,
sexual violence, and stalking from their intimate partner. So that
means right now, someone out there listening is unsafe. And

(05:07):
in addition to being unsafe, we also experience the public stigma, silence,
victim blaming that we've seen a lot of, and compounding
all of that is just our trauma, magnified by a
complex history of oppression, over policing, and systemic racism. Now
I don't personally have any experience with this type of abuse,

(05:27):
but I am certainly not blind to some of the
ways we seem to be normalizing toxicity, especially among younger
generations in the community. Take for instance these lyrics, you
don't know what love is if you don't put up
a fight. You don't know what love is, if you
don't stay up all night crying. You don't know what
love is. If you're too good to call a million

(05:48):
times and you say you know what love is, but
I swear you never seen it in your life. That's
from Summer Walkers Session thirty two. Now, obviously she is
not advocating for domestic violence. I want to be clear
about that, but that dynamic that Summer Walker is describing
as love is clearly toxic. Now, resources for women have
changed throughout the decades, and on this episode of Across Generations,

(06:10):
we're speaking with two brave women decades apart, both survivors
of horrific domestic violence, one even resulting in death. Stay
with us as we delve into this incredibly painful but
all too familiar topic, and we want to warn you
what you will hear may be triggering for some of you,
but we hope these harrowing stories of survival will quite

(06:31):
literally save a life. So let's welcome our guests, Miss
Millicent Saint Clair. She's a sixty one year old mother
of two from Los Angeles, California, now residing in Atlanta.
She's an author, a public speaker, and an emancipation coach.
I love how we say that emancipation. She has finally
found well deserved peace in her third marriage of twenty
two years after being a survivor of domestic violence. Now

(06:54):
in her previous marriage, she found the only way out
was a decision that led to a twelve year cent
for voluntary manslaughter. We're going to get into that story now.
Aril Ril b. She's a thirty year old medical coder
and podcast host of this two show pass. I love
that we all need to hear that sometimes. She is
a mother of five and is currently trying to learn

(07:16):
how to date again after an abusive relationship where she
was left for dead. She currently speaks out and hopes
to educate others to avoid the same faith, and we
hope that this conversation can help someone avoid that same faith.
Thank you, ladies, thank both of you for being here
to tell your story. Mss Milison, I want to start
with you. I think it's very brave of you to

(07:37):
show up and the way that you have taken agency
over your life. I want to honor that and start
out by just bowing to you in praise for being
such a survivor. Can you in a concise way, because
we'll talk about it more throughout the episode.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Just tell me your story. So my children are from
my first marriage. It was a young marriage and only
lasted five years. And then my second marriage was a
whirlwind marriage to a doctor. My husband was a psychiatrist.
It was a three month, intense, whirlwind courtship. And I
married a man that I did not now and he

(08:14):
sold me a package and I took the deal, hook
line and sinker, as they say, But I didn't read
the fine print. I had no idea what I got
myself into. So just shortly after the marriage, the violence
began and I didn't understand it. I was confounded by it,
and its spired out of control and it led to
and he was threatening murder suicide at the end, and

(08:37):
on that faithful night, I got the upper hand took
his life in self defense. But the laws in every
state are different, and there's really no self defense law
per se in the state of Georgia. And then the
legal system is crazy and abusive as well. In any case,
I ended up being convicted, served I was convicted of

(08:57):
twelve year sentence for voluntary manslaughter, of which I served
four years, and then I got out and had to
start rebuilding my life.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah, well, we'll certainly dig more into that if you
can take me back to that very first time that
things got violent.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Yes, So, you know, it's an interesting thing about substance
and substances of substance abuse. People drink, smoke and whatnot,
and you know, you meet somebody and you know, you
have some wine and some beer, maybe a little puff.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Here and there.

Speaker 2 (09:27):
But I had no idea that I had gotten involved
with a literally a doctor juckle, mister Hyde. My husband
was addicted to all kinds of substances and he was
a highly functional addict. So he was a psychiatrist. He
was a part of a private practice. But I did
not know the magnitude of it. And I'm not a
substance abuser. I mean, I'll have a little wine, little
puff here and there, especially when I was young, but

(09:48):
I had no idea what I had signed up for.
So that's an aspect of what's going on. The people
are under the influence of a lot of things. They're
not operating in a healthy mindset and that's a contributing
factors to a lot of the things that are going on,
the miscommunication which it erupts to violence and so forth.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Do you remember the first time things got viold? Oh? Yeah,
what happened?

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Just an argument ensued and he was a type of
person where if you disagree and he couldn't get his way.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
All hell's going to break loose, you know.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
And then he starts, you know, like affronting me and
you know, getting up on me, and then you know,
it turns into a shouting match and then choking. And
I didn't know what to do. It's like should I
argue back and defend my position or should I give
in and let it go or what you know, I'm
trying to establish a communication here, and it just went
from bad to worse.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
So not that it matters, because you remember what the
argument was about, and was it physical violence or was
it verbal violence? Right?

Speaker 2 (10:43):
So it was both in this instance. Yeah. So I
was talking to him about, you know, substance abuse. I
was like, go Lee, you know, I mean, I like
to have a little fun, but this can't be a
way of life for us, you know. And then it
escalated and then he slapped me so so. And here's
the interesting thing to know that physical violence is usually
and I would like to say and venture to say,

(11:05):
always preceded by verbal violence. So how we're communicating with
one another makes a huge difference in terms of the
outcome of what's going to happen thereafter.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
And so it started with.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Verbal arguing, arguing, and then it escalated into a slap,
which then turned into a scuffle and a fight, and
I'm on the floor and being choked and so forth.

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Yeah, I you know, just hearing you say that, I
think I would feel stunned if someone slaps me, even
if we'd had an intense argument for you to put
slap me across the face. You know a lot of
people say I wish he would and I would fight back,
But the truth is, in most instances you're not going
to be able to overpower a man. And so when

(11:50):
you say there was a scuffle, was it your instinct
to strike back or did you just try to cover
and protect yourself? It was a little of both.

Speaker 2 (11:59):
Because I'm five four hundred and thirty pounds, that was
probably one hundred and twenty back then. He's six to
two hundred and thirty pounds. There's no contest when a
man hits a woman. So you're right. The first thing
was stunned, and I'm like, what the hell, you know,
and then all of a sudden, you know, and I
get up, you know, and I'm trying to defend myself,
you know, and it just, you know, recreating that kind

(12:20):
of thing is kind of tough too, but it just
went from bad to worse.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, Ariel, I imagine this story. You can certainly relate to. Yeah,
as best you can. Can you tell me your story.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
My name is Ariel. I am thirty three. Like you said,
I'm a single mother of five children. All of my
children are not from my last marriage that ended in
domestic violence. So I went into my marriage with two
kids already and then we had three together. I can
really resonate with you when you said the substance abuse,

(12:56):
I don't know. I just the black men and my
family growing up. Always I had a drink or a
brown whiskey glass or a beer, but they weren't violent.
So when I married someone who did over drink, it
didn't strike me as a red flag because the men
in my life did drink, they just didn't have the

(13:17):
anger with it. It ended in domestic violence, and it
did get worse. If I look back, it progressively got worse.
The longer I stayed, the hitting got worse.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Take me back to the first time it got violent
for you, or do you remember?

Speaker 3 (13:36):
I remember it was twenty were you married at this point?
We were dating and it wasn't. It was violent, I
think if you're looking from the outside in.

Speaker 1 (13:47):
But for me, I mean we were young.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Everyone kind of argued and yelled, or as so I thought,
and maybe I took it too literal. When growing up
people used to say, oh, you fight for the ones
you love. A good marriage is something you fight for.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
It wasn't.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
He didn't physically hit me the first time, but we
did have an argument. He did have a couple of
drinks before that argument started, and the first time that
I thought that maybe he.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
Couldn't control his anger.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
It was the slammings of the doors, the punching of
the walls, the slamming of the kitchen cabinets, so things
in the home got moved around. There were holes in
the wall the next day. But it didn't start with
me getting hit first. But personal items in the home
wouldn't be the same after an argument.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
I think it's so key what you said because it
was violent. He did not strike you, right, but there
was violence in the home. And I can't imagine having
a disagreement with someone in need slam a glass into
the wall like that is violence. So from there, you're
not married. Take me to the first time where it
was violent with you. The first time he struck you.

Speaker 3 (14:53):
It was Thanksgiving family gathering. We all usually meet up
at a aunt's house. We're all central to Orlando, Florida.
He went to an aunt's house. It was Thanksgiving as normal,
everyone's there, cousins, sisters, aunts at everyone, and there was
alcohol and he just consumed so much that it made

(15:13):
everyone in the room look at me like, that's Ariel's
husband on the floor, carrying on too much, or really
handsy and heavy handed on people and just causing a
big scene at a setting where it was kind of
low key, like after everyone eats, everyone's kind of slow
and you sit back, maybe the game's on, and it
was just out of control. He was consuming every alcohol

(15:35):
and wine bottle that was out, and it was to
the point that, yeah, it was really embarrassing for me.
I remember just getting all my kids in the car,
and I came back in. I told my mom, I'm
so sorry. I apologize to my grandparents and my aunt.
And I was just like, we're just going to go.
We're just going to go, and that's probably a bad
trade of mine to fix things, So just gonna hurry up,
and just if we remove ourselves, we'll stop talking about

(15:57):
it and I'll apologize and call back the next day.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
But I was really embarrassed, and I talked about it
on the way home.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
I was like, this is my aunt's house. I have
family here. There's some family that I haven't seen in years.
This was really embarrassing. We have kids in the car
and we're just driving home. And maybe I said too much.
Maybe I should have shut up. Maybe the argument went
on too long, and I was on the highway and
he clearly bawled up his fist from the passenger seat
and struck me dead in the face. My head hit

(16:25):
the glass window. We dropped into the ditch. Car full
of kids. Kids are clinching their car seats and holding
the walls.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
He didn't move.

Speaker 3 (16:34):
He looked at me, dead in my face, basically like
say another word. I've heard enough, And I did just
that I swerved into the ditch. I pulled back up,
I fixed my face, and we drove home and didn't.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Say anything else. What year is this?

Speaker 3 (16:55):
My son was born twenty fourteen, so I said, probably
twenty fifteen into twenty fourteen.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
And tell me again, because I would be stunned. Tell
me one how you felt physically and to what was
going through your mind that now the violence has come
from violent towards inanimate objects to your physical person.

Speaker 3 (17:18):
I think the first thing I felt was shame for
my kids that just watched me get hit from the backseat.
We didn't have a big car, We don't have a
lot of money, like we were in a Nissan. Like
if someone sneezed, everyone heard it. So for me to
think or be that mom to try to pretend, oh
he's playing, it was too close that time.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
It was too close.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
The argument didn't happen at night that I can tell
my kids, Oh it was a movie. They saw it,
they watched it, they felt it, they lived it with me.
So the first thing I felt was shame and embarrassment,
and actually the hit, I didn't really feel like I
was angry.

Speaker 1 (17:50):
I was yelling, I was just driving. I was in
the moment.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
I knew that I got hit, but it wasn't like
I expected it. It really caught me off guard. So
I can just said the first thing I felt with shame.
I think the pain came more so in the morning,
take my kids to school, had to put on more
makeup or larger shades to walk them into grade school.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
And so you were swollen. Oh yeah, I had a
black eye. The next day, did he apologize? Not that
that matters, but I'm just curious. Was there ever any contrition,
any remorse.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
That's the beautiful thing about alcohol. It wears off and
the next day we're sorry, and there's flowers and we'll
make breakfast. But every time I went to the bathroom
were looked in the mirror that bruise was still there.
I wasn't working, he was the sole provider. I instantly
when I saw that bruise and where we were felt trapped.
But there was definitely and I'm sorry, I'll never do

(18:44):
it again. We should go to therapy. We didn't do
any of those things, but there was always a sorry.
The next day.

Speaker 1 (18:58):
Mss Melicent, you hear this, and I assume it sounds
very familiar to you. As well. You've been married now
for twenty two years. So this marriage, this violent marriage
for you, was this the eighties the nineties?

Speaker 2 (19:11):
Oh, this was in the nineties, the nineties, ninety two
to ninety Well it was just three years.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
But yeah, ninety two you got married. Yeah, I'm curious
for you after that first slap, what compels you to
stay after that for the second slap? Good? Good, good.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
So you know, our people have a very interesting history
and culture all across the board. So my mother has
been married she excuse me, my mother has three children
by three different men. She's been married five times. But
none of those five husbands weren't any of our fathers.
You get that, Yes, okay, So now I had already

(19:55):
left the first marriage. So then this part of me
is like, oh my god, I don't want to keep
getting married. You know, I got to learn how to
be married and work it out. You know, even though
I had seen dysfunction, you know, there was some level
of acceptance of you know, you got to put up
with stuff, and you got to tough it out and
stick it out.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
And I wanted to make it work.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
And he sold me such a beautiful bill of goods,
like Oh, I'll take care of you and your kids.
You know, you don't have to worry about anything, and
so forth. So I had a fantasy of what a
marriage looked like, never having had a healthy, constructive model
of what it looked like. Actually, And so in my
third marriage, years later and well after the fact, I
just thought about it one day, I'm like, well, if

(20:35):
I don't really know what a healthy marriage looks like,
but if I did, what would it look like for me?

Speaker 1 (20:40):
What would it be for me? And I created that.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
I says, you know, it's going to be no drama,
no ridiculousness and conflict and no shouting, raising a voice's
hands and all that. No, what is a marriage supposed
to be? So I created that in my head. And
then when I met my husband he was such a beautiful,
gentle soul on the same page energetically and so forth,
value system and everything. I'm like, wow, this is possible.

(21:05):
So there's a lot that goes into the creation of
a healthy relationship. But I didn't know that early on,
and I didn't have healthy models of that. And I
think that our people historically have been inflected with so
much pain that we now have internalized it and we
do it to ourselves into each other.

Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yes, and there.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
In lies the problem that there's a lot of conflict,
but most of the conflicts are it's just epigenetics. It's
in our DNA. The trauma that's.

Speaker 1 (21:33):
Still generational trauma that there we have.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
It, that's the same thing, and we carry forward and
we haven't worked it out, and there's been no trauma.
I mean, there's no therapy and no healing. You know
the work of job doctor Joy degru post traumatic slavery syndrome.
Are you familiar with her work? I'm not incredible. She
talks about the problem with trauma and how it is

(21:56):
inside of our genetic system and because they're has been
no support and no real healing and reconciliation, it continues
and it continues at an unconscious level. Yes, and how
we have to really work to heal that pain from
way back when because we have carried it forward.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
I'm so happy you brought that up, because you know er.
I want you to correct me if I'm wrong, but
I hear you speak. We met obviously before the show.
You were back to put on your makeup and I'm like, oh,
this girl so beautiful, and you have such a bright,
shining spirit. Thank you. I hear you speak about this,
and I still feel shame from you, and so I'm
happy you brought this up to show this is what

(22:36):
we carry, you know, not that this is an excuse
for anyone, and we want to encourage people to leave
the situation. But it was not a situation that you
openly invited, you know, because I hear you now and
your voice sounds like you're apologizing even now when you
have nothing to apologize for. Do you recall your rock

(22:57):
bottom in this marriage?

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Yeah, it's probably all right before it all fell apart,
not saying I knew it was coming that we were
going to have a divorce, but I knew I didn't
want to stay anymore, and I didn't know what leaving
even looked like, what that financially would cost, what my
kid's future would look like for myself. So yeah, I

(23:20):
just remember I gave birth to my daughter in September,
and I enrolled for courses just to do something because
I knew I needed money. If I was going to
pay for my kids, it can He continues medical billing
and coding in a tech program the East side of Orlando.

(23:41):
I was still vaginally bleeding. I was still breastfeeding in
the bathroom, pumping. I just knew this is a six
month's course, and I can shut my mouth and be
quiet for six months, long enough to get a job.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
The only thing I knew I can do. I couldn't
just sit there.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
I couldn't continue to allow him to pay all the bills,
even though I think that's what people say the goal is.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
I felt like it took all my power away to
not be able.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
He used to check the gas meter, how far did
you drive, how long were you gone?

Speaker 1 (24:13):
How long are you going to be there?

Speaker 3 (24:15):
If he wanted to have drinks or go out more
than he wanted to pay the lights, he did that,
and we would sit in the dark until he got
a next paycheck to pay for the lights.

Speaker 1 (24:23):
It was at his call and at his.

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Discretion, and I had no skin in the game besides
birthing his children.

Speaker 1 (24:30):
Let me back up, so as a time that he
strikes you the first time, you're not married, you had
just had your son after at the Thanksgiving you were married.
You were married at Yes, I would ask you what
I asked Miss Millicent, what compelled you to stay for
the second time?

Speaker 3 (24:52):
I guess it will be what I saw circling back
to kind of what you said is crazy how stories
overlap and it doesn't have to be the same person.
My family was and is still picture perfect. It's a
black wife, it's a black husband. We have three black children.
No child's really out of wedlock. There's like some might

(25:17):
be adopted, but it's very cohesive. Everyone lives a very
nice life. Everyone's in five hundred thousand dollars homes or more.
Everyone lives on the East Side. Everyone has done their
job and their place in society to be where they are.
And you, being the single mother of two children now
finally getting married, I kind of felt like if I

(25:40):
didn't stay, they were all right, it's not going to
happen for you. We told you at sixteen to get
an abortion. You did not, and because you kept this child,
your life will always be hard. So I finally had
someone that loved me that stayed.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Thank you for that honesty. It's like heartbreaking to hear
I have to tell you, forget my language, ms Miller,
but you're a fucking superhero. Thanks and I am if
no one tells you, I'm like so proud of you.
Thank you that you have the strength to leave, because
I think people think about you know that you have

(26:24):
the strength to leave. I hear your stories and it's like,
where did you find the strength to stay? Yeah, I
cannot imagine living in that kind of violence. But it's
more than violence. I think that's the important thing. Is
more than violence. It is control. Yeah, complete control over
your life, checking your gas meter. I mean, this is
insane behavior to me. So if you can, because I'm

(26:47):
so moved by your story already, but beyond your story,
your spirit, thank you. I appreciate it if you can
talk to me about when it all broke down, when
it was like, okay, enough, I have to get out
of here, because I think the internal innate survival instinct
for you to say, hey, I gotta learn a skill.
I gotta do whatever I can to save myself and
save these babies. So what was that turning point for you?

(27:12):
How did it all start to break down? Like, was
there a more violent incident that happened where you said
I can't. We said in the intro you were left
for dead.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
Tell me take me through those times that pushed you out. Okay,
So we had an argument again, and this time it
was something simple like, hey, I really don't like that
every time you come home from work you go instantly
back out the door. I'm here trapped with no adult

(27:42):
communication at all. There's only so much cartoons you can watch. Yeah,
everyone here is five and under. You don't want me
to drive them to the library. You don't want me
to drive them to the pool. So we are locked
in here all day long, and once you come home
a little bit of conversation is like too much for you.
Every time he came home, he was coming home from work,

(28:03):
showering to get dressed, to go hang out anywhere where
there's outside of where the responsibility lie. And this had
happened for years, and I finally when he came home
from work, I was just like, hey, I don't feel
like I have a purpose here, Like I am just
the nanny.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
Like I didn't learn anything, I wasn't mentally stimulated.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
All I did was cook, clean and mop, cook, clean
and mop, cook, clean and mop. And it was terrible.
And I love my kids, don't get me wrong, but
there was no I had lost who I was. I
didn't read, I didn't have a purpose. I didn't call
my friends, I didn't have anything besides changing diapers, making lunch,

(28:44):
making sure they were happy.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
But I didn't speak to anyone.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
I probably felt people look at you as a single
mother and say, oh, your life is so hard and
you're so lonely and you have nothing going for yourself.
I was more lonely in my marriage than I am now,
just me and my kids. So that's what the argument
started over. I got punched in the face in the
living room. I fell to the floor. He took my

(29:11):
wedding ring off, he threw his at me. He packed
up a little small box that was just in the house,
and he said, yeah, I'm not coming back to this anymore,
and he slammed the door and he left. So actually
he walked out that moment, but he just didn't come
back until wherever he was at didn't suit him anymore.

(29:32):
He was messing with a coworker at work, so that's
where he went to lick his wounds and stay for
a while. But he knew when he left we were
going to suffer first before him, Like I said, I
wasn't working, So as soon as he left, the first
thing he did was hit the corner where the ATM
was and empty out the bank account.

Speaker 1 (29:52):
He left. Two weeks later, the lights went off.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
Three weeks later we had no water, and then a
month we had an eviction notice at the door. I
had to call my dad and I I didn't let
him all the way in, but I was just like, hey,
we need somewhere to stay for a while. He did
tell me, hey, I don't know what's going on, but
I'll be on my way. So we went and we
stayed with my dad, and with time, my parents helped

(30:16):
me then get into an income based apartment where I
can stay with my kids. And unfortunately, when things weren't
working out for him, I did let him back in
my apartment, and that's where it got terrible. I think
I got a little taste of who I was, maybe
a little bit more backbone. Even though it was a

(30:37):
small three bedroom, two bath apartment, second story, it was
just me and my kids, and we finally.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
There was laughter again, there was love. There's nothing like.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
A person that can come in your space and like
suck the life out of her room. He didn't even
have to speak, but when he was there, no one laughed.
We didn't have any fun. There was no purpose. Our
days dependent on if he was happy that day, or
if he was sad that day. That's how the family moved.
If he had a good day, we had a good day.

(31:07):
And if he didn't, we want it. So it was
nice to live somewhere where his demeanor didn't control the home.
He came in and he knew that I was just working,
so he was like, it was the money aspect. Oh,
I can see you need the help. I can see

(31:28):
the rooms aren't clean. They didn't have good bunk beds,
they were on the floor. We had mattresses. But we
had a place then, and he was just like, Oh,
the kids shouldn't live like this, and you should allow
me to help. But allowing him to help ment that
now he got to occupy my space when he wanted,
and I was tired. I was working nights, I was
working days, slept three hours every day. I had the

(31:51):
alarm clock that had a vibrator that would go under
your mattress to shake the bed because it's hard to
wake up three hours of sleep and raising kids. So
I didn't know at the time I was pregnant by him.
That's where the fifth child came from. And I brung
it up and we were arguing and I just told
him he can't stay here. I don't know how I'm

(32:12):
gonna raise this kid, but I'm gonna figure it out,
and it's gonna be by myself.

Speaker 1 (32:15):
And I just began to walk all of his stuff downstairs.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
I'll never forget how he just sat back on my
couch and just watched me move his stuff like I'm
not gonna move, Like you're wasting your time. I helped
you pay your rent, so I'm gonna stay. You can
carry on and do whatever you want. I'm not gonna move.
And I just remember moving all his stuff downstairs. I
didn't know how I was gonna get him out. I
was just gonna start with the backpack. I can pick

(32:39):
up the backpack. And I was walking everything downstairs, and
then when I turned around to go back into my apartment,
there was the large laundry tubs at the front door.
I had gone grocery shop and I just had him
brung the tub up my steps in my apartment, so
it was at the bottom. And when I turned around
to turn back in, he was standing in the doorway.

(33:00):
He had the two gallon three gallon thing of laundry soap,
and he beat me upside the face with it. I
was bleeding, my nose was bleeding, my lip was bleeding.
I fell down in the grass outside my apartment and
had a really sweet neighbor that lived beneath me, and
she called nine one one for me, and yeah, he

(33:22):
took my car. He left my apartment wide open with
the kids up there, knowing I was unconscious in the
front yard and peeled off and someone else called nine.

Speaker 1 (33:33):
One one for me. Where is he now?

Speaker 3 (33:37):
He is in prison that last time that he beat me.
In the state of Florida, it's considered battery on a
pregnant person. The state of Florida gave him the option
to go to jail or.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Take a plea. He got five years of probation.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
He did not serve any time in jail besides the
arrest when he got picked up, and during his five
year probation, he took that opportunity to beat someone else.
That next person was also left outside and unconscious in
front of their apartment complex. And he is in prison
in Florida, and we still I have another trial next week,

(34:15):
and so it's still something I'm actively having to relive.
But in provation, you're supposed to get in trouble. Supposed
to do whatever you can do to stay under the radar,
and he made it to year three before somebody else's
story overlapped with mine perfectly.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
Did your family know that he was hitting you?

Speaker 3 (34:36):
I think my family was relieved that I was no
longer the embarrassment.

Speaker 1 (34:42):
So you could be married to this person, and you're married.

Speaker 3 (34:45):
You're happy. He pays your bills. Call me if you
need me. But I was always social. I was always
at the beach if we had a family day, or
at Thanksgiving or at Christmas. A part of me is
angry that no one noticed that I stopped showing up
a pardon me is angry that in the summers in
Florida I had on a turtle neck and no one

(35:06):
asked why, and I couldn't say it with him standing
behind me.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
But you felt abandoned everywhere no one asked, and I
felt like.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
A burden to place my kids in someone else's home
because my marriage fell apart. So at least here my
dad doesn't have to work two drops to help me.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
At Least here.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
It was hell for me, but everyone else was happy,
So suck it up, Aeriel.

Speaker 1 (35:42):
I think what you're saying is the way that we
oftentimes show up as women in so many capacities. And
you know, I think it's so important for people to
see everything you went through and you are, Yeah, you
have the shadows of these memories where you had no voice,

(36:06):
and you had no intellectual simulation, you had nothing, and
today you have a voice. Thank you. You're hosting a podcast,
you're here on this one. You're radiant. You know you're beautiful.
Thank you how to have beautiful? I look up like
a raccoon, probably not my makeup coming down my face,
but I'm listening to your story and I'm so touched,

(36:28):
so moved by it. And I think there are so
many women right now looking at you, and I want
them to know, look at this woman. Thank you, healthy
women standing here today. So I'll come back to you.
But Ms Milicon, I have to bring you in here
because you guys are decades apart, and her story must
resonate with you. So can you tell us about your

(36:52):
rock bottom, about that fateful night that changed your life? Right?

Speaker 2 (36:58):
So back to the substance abuse. He would come home
from work and then leave again and go get high
and do his thing and come back and then the
violence would escalate, and I got to a point I
was like, you know what, I don't want anything from me.
I want out of this relationship. So it happened on
a Friday night. I was like, you know what, Monday morning,
we can just go to attorney get a divorce. I

(37:18):
don't care, goodbye. I need nothing from you. I want
out of this relationship.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
And the violence had been consistently, Oh yes, exactly.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
And then my children would go because I had joint
custody with my first my children's father, so they would
go with him on certain days and on the weekends,
and then we'd be alone. But it didn't matter because
whether they were there or not, you know, if he
was in a mood, you know, all hell would break loose.
So in any case, was he ever violent with the children?
He was never violent against the children.

Speaker 1 (37:46):
Was your husband ever violent with your children?

Speaker 2 (37:48):
No?

Speaker 3 (37:48):
He actually still got a visitation. Really, you can beat
the woman and it has nothing to do with the kids.
If it doesn't overlap that the children have been physically hit.
Even when you file for divorce, if that is his product,
his seed, his child, he still has the right to
visitation to that child.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
The system is failing oh.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
Gosha, and the children are in the impact of this thing,
and they're use as ponds. It's ridiculous. But in any case,
my first husband was helpful with getting the children. He
was very devoted, loved his children. But here I am
in the second marriage and all that was on me.
So I was managing it to the best of my ability.
But I was mismanaging it because I didn't have my
head together either. I was immature. I was young, and

(38:26):
I get that, and I didn't have the skills to
deal with that kind I had no idea what I
was dealing with. I was just trying to keep it
all together and trying to survive the situation. But basically
it escalated and I took He was threatening murder suicide
in the struggle. I went and got a gun because
I had a gun. I didn't get the gun to
kill him. I got the gun to keep him from

(38:47):
killing me. Now this is a whole other conversation, because
when you start talking about guns, that's a whole nother thing.
I have the right to defend myself, certainly, but you know,
I like to say that you can't solve a problem
with a problem. It just created a bigger problem. So
now I shoot him in self defense. I go to prison.

(39:07):
And when I got out of prison, I started teaching
violence prevention and I got trained by a whole lot
of amazing experts to talk about these issues. But after
a while, few years of teaching it, I burned out
on bonding with women around negative situations. I'm like, oh
my god, So I got away from it. But then
I evolved and I started teaching conflict resolution and mediation,

(39:31):
getting into different aspects of how do I help people
work through violence. Okay, let's look at conflict and before
it ever escalates and leads into a violent situation. But
what I've come to discover is that people have a
lot of internal conflicts, and if we need to learn
how to deal with the conflicts we have inside of ourselves.
So for example, my husband, your husband had so many

(39:53):
kind we have our own conflicts, right, but they've got
conflicts and unresolved issues and had nothing to do with you,
per se, And then it's projected onto you and here
you are the victim of violence and so forth, and
it just goes from bad to worse. So there's a
lot of healing work that needs to be done. And
that's the journey that I took. How do I solve
this for not only for myself, but then for my

(40:16):
community as well and the people in the world at large. Nevertheless,
the children are in the impact. So there's mental health, Yeah,
the impact.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
Where they around that night and what happened that I
don't even Yeah, they weren't there that night. And was
he violent with you at the time? Was it literally
a struggle?

Speaker 2 (40:34):
It was a struggle and a back and forth because
he was We're home alone.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
We were home alone. He is under the influence, that's right.
And you come home he was already there. I'm there.
I'm there at home and he comes home.

Speaker 2 (40:46):
Okay, and you immediately and then he starts drinking and
you know, like and watching porn and carrying on and
wanting to do all kinds of crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
And I'm like, I'm over it. Yeah, it's the gig
is up.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
Yeah, we're not doing this anymore because I'm not participating
in this sick anymore.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
I'm done. I just want a divorce. I don't want
anything from you. I'm over it. Well, can I can
I apolog you there? Because I think from ariol we
I felt that you had no joy. He sucked the
oxygen out of the room. You sound more defiant, more
like I am done, I'm pissed, and I I'm ready
to fight back in some sort of way. I will

(41:21):
defiantly live and protect my life. What was going through
your head at that time, because you couldn't have imagined
that the night was going to end as it did.
So when he started threatening murder suicide, it had been
an escalation. And how long was he threatened?

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Oh this was for months. But here's the here's the
eerie thing. He was a part of a private practice.
It was a group practice, and he occupied the office
of another psychiatrist who had previously killed his wife and
then killed himself.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
So and he's being patient, so he yeah, people are.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Highly functional as okay, But then he he would say,
We're going to end up like doctor Nyewander and his wife.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
And I'm like, no, we're not so used to to
you exactly. And so the scary part about that, Miss Millison,
if I may, he had the skill set exactly. He
understood the human mind in a way that he could
manipulate in a way, and that is frightening.

Speaker 2 (42:19):
And he knew my psycho social history so he understood
how to push my buttons and so forth.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
So there's the mental abuse, psychological abuse, and physical abuse
that you were surviving. Yes, and so now here we
are at that fateful night after years of dealing with
this substance abuse, everything that you can deal with, and
he you he comes home and immediately you know what's
going on, and you have had it up the year.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
And I'm thinking this is going to be the night.
Oh my god, you about that? Yeah, I did, but
I had left several times too, So and there in
lies what's called the battered woman's syndrome. Then this is
the coming and the going in the back and the forth,
and you're rationalizing and trying to fix it and work
it out, and you know then he's coming back in fourth.
I mean, there's a lot of dynamics to this.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
The more what would make you go because it's somebody
who hasn't dealt with that? And I think there are
people I don't encounter people who judge this kind of thing.
You know, I think when women I talk to, they
just have nothing but empathy. So I asked this question
with nothing, miss Millison but empathy. But what would make
you go back to this man.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
Well, there's a lot of things, and if you'll allow
me to just just make a couple of things to you. So,
domestic violence is one of the most common crimes is
happening everywhere. At least half couple of how all couples
experience at least one violent adve incident in their lives,
all couples except at least half of all couples.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
And we don't know where we this is this data
that you've collected. You don't remember the source?

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Da okay, And one fourth of all couples. Violence is
a common occurrence. Twenty percent of all murders in this
community or in this in this country are committed within
the family. Most family violence is committed by men, not all,
but most. Twenty one percent of women who you know
go into hospital emergency services are battered. One and four

(44:06):
female suicides. They're victims of sexual violence or of domestic violence.
A married woman is six times more likely to be
attacked by her husband than a stranger.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
And the statistics go on.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
But the point is why do men do this?

Speaker 1 (44:22):
That's what we really need to look at. Well, I
just want to sense her women, because I think that's important.
I don't. What I would hate for is for women
watching this to start to consider the man's psychology. You know,
I think it is a dangerous thing to consider the abusers' feelings,
like we have to save ourselves. So I think that's

(44:42):
an important conversation to have, and I want to ask
you a question about it later, but I do want
to hear your I think it's important for people to
hear the moment of strength for you, and the system
failed you, but the moment of strength for you, and
that faithful moment where you said not today and no more.
That's right. So he comes home, you're fed up what
happens next?

Speaker 2 (45:00):
And by the way, I had gone to his partners
and his practice several times telling them, and they were like, oh, well,
it's just one of the disadvantages of being Maritra doctor.
Oh you're being a hysteric. I'm like, are you kidding me?
And evidence there's police reports, Are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (45:17):
So it's and there so there's complicity that others are
covering up for their colleagues. This happens. So I didn't
understand any of that.

Speaker 1 (45:28):
I just like you just understand you were ready to
be done with it.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
Yes. So on that fateful night he comes in and
I'm thinking, oh my god, you know, because it escalating.
He was getting bigger and bigger and louder and crazier
and more violent. He become in the room and fight
with me and stand over me and shout, you know,
and then you'd go back in the room and smoke weed,
listen to music, and it's piped up, you.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Know, all the way.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
And I'm like, oh my god, you know, I want
to get out of this situation. I'm like, I just
want a divorce. Leave me alone, close the bedroom door.
I'm like, I'm going to sleep, dude, it's over. And
but no, not for him, it's not, you know. So
when he comes into the room and I had had
my gun for protection, and when he came read, yeah,
I had it, Yes, your gun.

Speaker 1 (46:06):
I did.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
And again and this isn't This is the distinction. I
didn't get the gun to kill him. I got it
to keep him from killing me. But here's the thing
about this, the psychology of it. When you pull a
gun on somebody, you better be ready to use it
because it can be used a gunst you. So when
I pulled it to say don't come at me again
because he was charging at me.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
He said, what a gun have you? And he didn't
know the gun was there? He did, he did.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
He said I'm gonna get you, and he charged at
me and then I just shot. I just shot blindly,
and then he fell towards me. And then that's what happened. Now,
I immediately like tripped out. I called the police. They came
and then they they saw drugs and everything. They said,
we've got to take you also to get a drug test.

(46:54):
I said, oh no, I insist that you take me.
So they took me out of the police station. But
then they took me to the hospital and took a
drug test and I did and it showed no substance,
no alcohol or anything in my system. And that's one
of the things that kept me from getting a life sentenced,
by the way. But nevertheless, his family was affluent whatnot,
and I ended up being convicted. And I'm a bad woman,

(47:16):
and so forth, Oh my god, there's more to it
than me to eye, more than we have time to
get it.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
Yeah, yeah, because I think even the way that you
present this, like, oh, I ended up getting convicted, and
this is what happened that is a huge deal. And
you shot in self defense. He was charging at you,
You shot him, and in that moment, I have goosebumps.
You tell him this story because I wonder what were
you thinking in that moment where you relieved? Were you frightened?

(47:42):
Did it occur to you that you would be considered,
you know, a violent individual that you could ever be
convicted for before.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Never but other than just like practice, because I had
the gun, the guns in my name, registered my name.
But here's what I want to say. I want to
say that I think I had such a visceral response,
and I think I can say this to you as women,
first of all, and this is going to be heavy.
It was like something so big welled up in me

(48:13):
that said no more. So he got the brunt. I
think of a whole lot of anger that was just
cumulative from the things that I have witnessed. But also
at another level, and this is another conversation. My attorneys,
in the course of analyzing my case and so forth,

(48:35):
and talking to his partners and everybody involved in it,
said that he was moving towards suicide, but he was
too much of a coward to do it himself, and
he goaded Milicent into doing it for him.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
So there are and I can believe.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
That I do actually, but there are other aspects of this,
like spiritual things that we could talk about, like he
occupied the office of this previous psychiatrist. There's so many
dynamics to my case and it's really really heavy, and
I've had to make peace with all of these things
a little bit of the time, and even going to
prison was like a relief for me in a way,

(49:12):
because you can't take somebody's life and get away with
it and think that it's all good, because it's not.

Speaker 1 (49:17):
It is not.

Speaker 2 (49:17):
There's an impact. There's an impact on me, his family,
my children, My god, my kids. My children were like
five and seven. Oh my god, yes exactly, and then
they went to live with their dad, you know, and
then there's the impact of that because then he's pissed
off and angry.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
Then but I got out, I had to recreate my
relationship with them.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
There's a lot. There's a lot to it.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
So my heart goes to women everywhere all over this
world that are suffering right now. We've got wars that
are going on, there's rape, you know, there's all kinds
of forms of violence that are a.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Craps Were you if you don't mind me asking, where's
your Is your husband ever sexually assaulted? Exactly? Yes? And
did you better actually assault you?

Speaker 3 (50:02):
I actually didn't know that that was considered rape exactly, Yeah, right,
I just didn't. I just always saw rape as SVU
on order, Like someone finds you in an alley. It's
someone you don't know, it's done with a weapon, it's done,
you're left. I was there, I knew what he was doing.

(50:22):
I just maybe didn't want to do it. I didn't
part I didn't want to partake. I didn't like you
that day. I just did it because it would make
sure there was no argument, so I allowed him. I
guess that's that's where the disconnect from me was. I
thought rape was always, you know, unwilling, you didn't know
what was going on. It's someone you didn't know. It
wasn't until I started going to court and got help

(50:45):
and got some therapy that that was considered rape.

Speaker 1 (50:48):
I had no idea that that was even what was happening.
And you you knew at the time that this is rape. No,
it was rape.

Speaker 2 (50:55):
You know, you didn't come in high and enforce itself
on me. I'm sleep and you know, you wake me up,
you know, let you know you're drunk and hi. You know,
it's like are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 (51:03):
Yeah? I mean, and I'm like, are you kidding me? Yeah?
You know.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
But then as soon as you put up a fight,
you know, or any kind of resistance than miss.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
I'm very curious about your time in prison. I know
that's a different conversation and you just have a lot
of heaviness and heavy thoughts. I would love to invite
you back to talk about your time in prison because
I can't even imagine that time away from your babies
and you know you were just trying to survive, and
hear you describe it as relief. So I would love
to have you back on across generations to talk about that.

(51:38):
That's such a harrowing story. You both have such harrowing stories.
I think what I'm hearing though, is the way you
both have normal or had at that time, kind of normalize.
You knew it was wrong, but it was This is
my reality, and I want to get your thoughts on
other things as well. So we're going to take a
quick break when we come back. I want to talk

(51:59):
about the ways that we normalize this in society. So
on the other side of this, we'll talk about that. Okay,
y'all already know the streets are talking, talking, talking, talking. Okay,
Welcome back, everybody. You've been hearing amazing stories of survival,
and I hope these stories have resonated with multiple people

(52:21):
out there, because I am still blown by the testimony
we heard here today. And one thing, ladies, that I
could have noticed, particularly in social media, is the way
that we have normalized violence. And I think about young
folks like Blue Face and Krishan and the violence that
we have seen take place between these two couples, and

(52:43):
I wonder, what are fifteen year olds thinking, you know, like,
do they look at this and think, oh, that's just
what it is. I reference Summer Walker's lyrics earlier, again
not suggesting that she's promoting violence at all, but kind
of viewing toxicity as love. It puts me in the
mind of Whitney and Bobby. You know, we saw these
two people who were clearly both abusing substances, and you know,

(53:06):
Whitney has told the story of Bobby being physically violent
to her. It's just kind of awful. So I want
to start with you because I think Krishan the Blueface
is more your generation. If I couldn't name one song
by either, I don't know their music at all. Yeah,
I'm not ashamed to say that at this point they
seem famous for their violent, toxic relationship, and it's what

(53:29):
are we saying? What does it say about us that
this is who we elevate and we celebrate this car wreck,
this train wreck that we're witnessing and not reaching out
to her to say, hey, this is not healthy and
you need to exit.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
The only thing I don't like about it really is,
for some reason, if you really look at it, the
domestic violence social media aspect of it always shows it
between couples that keep coming back together, making it seem
like it's not that bad you should stay or she
goes back or he went back or whatever, because those

(54:03):
are the ones they circulate and kind of don't really
talk about. They show them missing teeth, black eyes in
the street, whatever, but they never it doesn't seem like
they drag their character like they do. Give an example,
Chris Brown and Rihanna. Yeah they didn't stay together, but
they make sure to bring that up on Chris Brown,
every single every single time.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Is in your opinion.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
I feel like it should be viewed both ways. Why
would we tear down one and not tear down the other.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
You're not suggesting that we should tear down both people.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
I'm saying that we should tear down the aspect of Hey,
this is someone that beats women. We don't say that
about Krishn Rock and Blueface. It's just like, this is
what they do, this is how their relationship works, making
it seem like if this is what you and your
man choose to do.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
It's fine.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Yeah, point, if this is what you and your relationship
chooses to do, it's fine. Because she goes back, he
gets another tattoo of her. She does. I don't know
who's tied of new I don't. I have no idea,
but we just make it when they stay in a relationship.
Everyone makes it seem like that's their business and we're
not taking it seriously. No right, stay out of other

(55:11):
people's business. That's what it always comes down.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
That's the thing is not stay out of other people's business.
Get into this business, tap dance on it, traffic in it,
laugh about it, share it like it, make comments under
it when really this is a dangerous situation we're watching
unfold and no one has intervened. But I'm glad that
you brought up the situation with Chris Brown and Rihanna
because I'm curious from both of you. Just a very careful,

(55:35):
considerate question and a careful considerate answer, and you alluded
to this. Is this a behavior that can be healed
in men who are violent? I want to say first
it is not the job of the abused to heal
the abuser, but just to consider the humanity of these
men for a split second. Don't get mad at me
at home. I just want to you know, I'm curious,

(55:56):
is this a behavior that can be cured in men?

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Well, first of all, it's a behavior and it works
and he gets away with it, and there's no accountability.
You said that after your relationship, he went and found
a new victim, right, okay, And this is what occurs
when there's never any accountability. And then in our community,
we don't want to lock our men up. You know,

(56:19):
we've got this thing. You know, there's this piece of
us and we're like, oh my god, you don't want
to call the popo on my folks.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
You know you brought that up that you said, this
was from my mother, my grandma, and that is so true.
It speaks to the strength of black women because we
understand how unforgiving this criminal justice system is to our people.
And so we asked young black girls who've been sexually
abused to hold this secret. We ask grown women who
are physically abused. We have in that moment, we have

(56:48):
the humanity to consider, like, I know how cruel a
white man's justice system is. I can't even turn you
over to that. I will bear the brunt of these
bruises in order to protect you. And that is a
psychological generation trauma that we have gone through uniquely in
this country. So I totally hear you. You say that
you know it is you know we're talking about how

(57:08):
it's normalized. It's also profitable. It is Chris. I mean,
they had become a brand. Whitney and Bobby had a
reality show that celebrated this, and we watched and we
laughed and we still make jokes about it. But people
are Kelly and Aaliyah r. Kelly was clearly abusing this
young girl, and I remember looking at it like, no,
this is normal, you know, Lee and I are like
the same age, and I'm like, no, guys, he relates

(57:30):
to her on a different level. It was somehow normalized
in my own mind. So, Miss Millson, I really do
appreciate that you're saying we have to look at this
as a deeper issue.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
And I'd just like to add that women learn very early,
because of our social conditioning, that our bodies are commodities. Yes,
and we allow ourselves, because of our social conditioning, to
be used by others for a variety of reasons, to forgain,
for love and acceptance, you know, and for other reasons too.

(58:02):
And so there's there's so many aspects to looking at this,
like what's really going on? And how are we given
into these situations or give ourselves into these situations and why.
So there's self esteem, there's social conditioning, there's I mean,
there's a spiritual disease. But violence is self is actually
a disease, and it is really all about power and

(58:22):
control and domination and materialism. If you really look at
violence at any level, because I've studied it and I
teach this, those are the dynamics power and control, domination.
Did he not dominate you? Oh my gosh, to the
nth degree. And then there's the material aspect of it too,
and so and this is at a micro level down

(58:45):
here in our personal lives, but at a macro level
as well, because we have learned these behaviors. I mean,
and violence has been going on since the beginning of time, certainly,
you know. But the question is what do we do
about it. We've got to unlearn these behaviors. But we
got to look at it first, like, he does it,
he can get away with it, you know, it's justified,
and so forth and so on. There's no accountability. And

(59:07):
then why is it work? It's scarce the victim, he
keeps the secret, nobody helps, Nobody helps her, right, And
then sometimes we don't want to tell, Like I didn't
want to tell my brother. My brother would have got
into it. And then and then I'm like, oh my god,
I won't tell my brother because then that's another sudden situation.
I don't want to bring him into my drama. Yeah,
I didn't tell my brother, So it's.

Speaker 1 (59:26):
And you feel like you put him at risk. Oh
my gosh. And I had ever told my uncle, so
somebody put their hands on me, my father, my Uncle's
anybody wrong? Every single day, you know. They and my mother.
I remember her saying this to me when I was
younger about decisions I make. Decisions you make will impact

(59:47):
this entire family. And I you know, I've never experienced this,
but I would imagine that I might consider that. You know,
I don't know that I would have the strength to say,
here's hey, everybody, here is what I went through. I
I also want to tell you you both. While I
was doing research for this and looking at how this
disproportionately impacts black women, and I know you have important
research that you shared with me as well. I went

(01:00:09):
to the National Domestic Violence page. What I found was
interesting is there on this page is a feature and
it's a big red X in the corner of the page,
and it essentially says, if he's over your shoulder, if
someone is near you hit this button and it erases
your search history. So the resources have changed. You went

(01:00:33):
through this in the nineties, You went through this not
that long ago. Ten years ago. Your resources, I imagine,
looked very different than your resources. When I started. I called.

Speaker 3 (01:00:43):
It was called Harbor House. They're in probably every courthouse
in America. When I called to get information and get help,
as soon as she even overheard a voice that was
masculine in the background, she like, did you want pepperoni
or cheese on that pizza?

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:01:01):
Their numbers instantly erase from your phone when you hang up.

Speaker 1 (01:01:04):
It's not something you have to do.

Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
Your features to click and the clearing the cookies and
all that is on every domestic last Space site. It
does it automatically now. But she instantly was like, is
it a larger medium? So cheese or so? Even if
someone else picked up the other line or someone else
was listening, it wasn't. It was so easily discreete on
their end, and they it was an amazing program.

Speaker 1 (01:01:28):
For what would that have changed your if had you
had resources like that? Do you think that would have
changed your outcome at all?

Speaker 2 (01:01:32):
I think it certainly would have changed my perception of
my choices, right, Yeah, But our culture encourages male dominance
and it gives them a feeling of self control and importance.
And these are aspects that we have to look at
and nobody stops them, right and see, men have to
hold other men accountable. That's something I learned from a
group here in Atlanta called Men Stopping Violence is that

(01:01:56):
men have to hold men accountable because we can only
do so much to hold them countable. Yeah, but when
other healthy men and there are a lot of beautiful,
healthy men out of here these days, and my now
husband is one of them. Men have to hold other
men accountable and when they see it and we need
more of them, we have to partner with those healthy
men and then also teach them because they have to

(01:02:17):
be taught and informed by us as well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
Yeah, we're taught. We're taught that marriage is important.

Speaker 3 (01:02:22):
We're taught that we raise the children and bear the
household and clean up and you know, lose weight. I
mean you might need Why aren't you married yet? Why
didn't you have kids yet? I wonder, I seriously sometimes
wonder if anyone does that to men? Make sure your
husband's happy?

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Yeah? Sure, does anyone say that to men?

Speaker 3 (01:02:41):
Or is it just a community of women that puts
pressure on women and then we look at them and say, oh,
why didn't you leave?

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Yeah? I was never taught to I was taught to
get picked. You to leave? Yeah, that is such a
You were taught to get picked, You were never taught
to leave? Yeah, that is such a that is that's so.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
And it's all for the since Cinderella syndrome, you know,
waiting to be selected. Yeah, you've got to be the
bit of a princess waiting for the night in shining
armor to come along and scoop you away.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
But eat and die, you know. Over.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
But if I could share this, this is called the
power and control wheel, and this is amazing, And there's
two sides of it. So the power control physical violence,
sexual uh using, emotional abuse, intimidation, isolation, minimizing, denying, and
blaming using the children. Children are often right in the
middle of these things and their their use is ponds
male privilege, economic abuse, threats, and coercion. Now, but on

(01:03:38):
the flip side of that, and this is what I
love is non violence learning. And we have to be
taught about what does equality and relationship look like, non
threatening behaviors, respect, trust and support, honesty and accountability, responsible parenting,
share responsibility, economic partnership and negotiation and fairness. And this

(01:04:01):
is something and it's a process to unlearn all that
negative stuff and really learn how to be in a
healthy relationship with that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
I love that and.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
I'm so happy to have the privilege to be in
a constructive, loving relationship with someone who exhibits all these behaviors.
And we've never had an argument in over twenty years.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
And it's not that we don't have conflict or problems,
because we have the same problems everyone has. It's how
we deal with each other and lovingly, with respect and kindness, understanding, patience,
and we get irritated and then we tease each other.
I'll say, I was like, Okay, you know, I've got
a case of the ass today, and then we both
laugh about it, and then we just go on. You know,

(01:04:44):
we're not we know we're here to love one another.
Because if I'm not being my best self and committed
to bringing out the best in others, then what.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
The hell are we doing?

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
What are we doing?

Speaker 2 (01:04:53):
My job is to be my best self and to
bring out the best in you. Yeah, okay, and and
vice versa. And if we operate from that understanding, the
relationship would be completely different.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
I love that, And I love what you said about men.
I would like maybe we'll have some men on this show,
like an older man and a younger man. So I
think that's so important.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
The community beautiful men out here, and they're the ones that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Yeah, we're certainly beautiful men. Well, I just want to say, ladies,
I didn't know what this conversation would be like. I
want to thank you both for your transparency, your honesty,
but just say I'm so grateful that you're here. Thank
you and here in every way.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
And I want to affirm you Ariel for your willingness
to have these tough conversations because it's ugly stuff and
nobody really wants to talk about the underbelly I got
away from. And I'm like, oh my god, I do
not want to have another conversation about domestic violence. Enough
has been written about that, but I know it continues.
So I teach inside of women's organizations and community based organizations,

(01:06:00):
I go into prisons, I teach inside of businesses and
so forth. I teach a variety of programs, but I
always touch on communication because that's the essence of everything.
How are we talking to one another, in handling each
other and what are our perceptions of each other?

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Am I looking at.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
You through the eyes of love or through the eyes
of judgment? And am I here to break you down?
Or what I have to tell you this real quick?
I saw a movie once years ago and I search
could not find this movie. But it was a movie
of this man that was stalking this woman. They had
had an encounter, little light relationship, and then she's like, ah,
this is not for me. But he's stalked her and
stock her and stocktor and she's doing everything to get

(01:06:37):
away from her. Finally, at the end of the movie,
he's like about to kill her, and then she's.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Like why, why why.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
And this is what he said. I'll never forget it,
he says, because I just wanted to break you down.

Speaker 1 (01:06:51):
And I was like, oh my god. I saw this.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Movie years ago, but it never left me. And when
I when I look at people, because with a serious
eize of discernment, certainly sixty one, I'm like, Okay, what's
the goal. Is it to break you woman down? Or
is it to be my best self and bring out
the best in you? Because that's what it should be.

Speaker 1 (01:07:10):
That's what love looks like. We cannot be in relationships
where we're breaking each other down. I got to stop.
I love those lies words. I think that is a
perfect closing statement to end. I just want to say
those to people tuning in watching this. However, if you're
on YouTube or watching that or listening to the audio.

(01:07:33):
If you are in a situation like this, like what
you've heard, You've just heard the story of two survivors.
There is life on the other side of this. You
are worthy of peace and love, and please tell and
tell and tell and tell and tell until someone believes you,
until someone can help you. For the young people experiencing this,
tell and tell and tell until someone hears you, someone

(01:07:55):
believes you. For the people who are going through this.
If you have the strength to stay with someone who
is physically assaulting you, you have the strength to leave.
There are resources available everywhere. You can go to the
Domestic Violence Hotline. They have a website. These women have
referenced several resources to Harbor House, which I was not
familiar with. You can Google, do whatever you can, but

(01:08:18):
save yourself because you are loved and you are worthy.
Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of
Across Generations, and we'll see you next time. Across Generations
is brought to you by Willpacker and Willpacker Media in
partnership with iHeart Podcasts. I'm Your Host and executive producer
Tiffany d Cross from Idea to launch Productions Executive producer

(01:08:40):
Carla Willmerit. Produced by Mandy Bee and Angel Forte, editing,
sound design and mixed by Gaza Forte. Original music by
Epidemic Sound Video editing by Kathon Alexander and Courtney Dane.

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