What if the smartest “person” in the room during your most stressful moments isn’t a person at all—yet it remembers your story, protects your privacy, and helps you plan your next safe move? In this episode of the 1in3 Podcast, Ingrid sits down with Anne, creator of Aimee, a survivor-first A.I. tool designed specifically for domestic abuse and coercive control. Together, they explore how focused technology can turn chaos into clarity without compromising confidentiality or safety.
This raw, practical conversation breaks down why general chatbots aren’t safe or effective for domestic violence situations and how a vertical, survivor-centered A.I. truly helps: anonymous chats that auto-delete, strict no training on user data, and features that convert everyday conversations into organized timelines, documentation, and exportable legal-ready binders. From identifying patterns of manipulation to pulling “receipts” that challenge financial abuse claims, this tool does the paralegal-style heavy lifting survivors are often forced to manage alone.
We walk through real-world use cases—drafting safe messages, role-playing difficult conversations, preparing for court hearings, and organizing evidence—and outline where A.I. provides support and where therapists, attorneys, advocates, and DV professionals remain essential.
We also dig into the psychological traps that keep people stuck, including trauma bonding, distorted nostalgia, and the myths that allow abuse to continue. Plus, we spotlight harmful legal misconceptions, especially around custody. Exposure to domestic violence is an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE)—not a neutral event—and we challenge the reflexive “equal time” narrative with research-backed nuance.
If you’ve ever been told to “prove it” while juggling fear, deadlines, and endless paperwork, this episode offers a way to regain control: document patterns, plan responses, strengthen your safety strategy, and align your support team—all with safety as the first principle.
If this conversation resonates, subscribe to the 1in3 Podcast, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more survivors and allies can find tools that genuinely help.
Anne’s links:
https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/anne-wintemute/
https://www.aimeesays.com/en/home
https://www.instagram.com/aimeesaysdv/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61552414454913
https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-wintemute-897077106/
https://www.tiktok.com/@aimeesaysabuse
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
- Follow on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok @1in3podcast
- Check out the website https://www.1in3podcast.com/
Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:47):
Hi Warriors, welcome to One and Three.
I'm your host, Ingrid.
Whatever stage you're in in thecontinuum of abuse, whether
you're currently cohabitating,trying to figure out if what
you're experiencing is abuse,looking for a safe way to exit,
trying to heal, or navigatingpost-separation abuse, it's very
(01:08):
common to feel lost.
Most victims aren't aware of theresources available or they
can't access the ones they doknow about.
My guest today, Anne, is here tochange that.
She's built an AI technologyspecifically designed for
domestic abuse, putting criticalguidance and information into
(01:28):
the hands of the people who needit the most.
Here's Anne.
Hi Anne, I'm so excited to haveyou here.
Welcome and thank you forjoining me on One and Three.
SPEAKER_00 (01:38):
Thank you so much for having me, Ingrid.
I'm really excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02 (01:41):
Yes.
So before we get into our topic,could you just give a little
background on yourself so we canall get to know you some?
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, my name is Anne.
I'm an urban homesteader inDenver, Colorado, here with my
family.
Um, what gets me out of bedevery morning is working to
really challenge systems,interrogate, if you will, the
systems that are failing womenand children.
So that has had me working inevidence-based maternity care.
(02:11):
That's had me working inchildhood education.
And now in this space of reallytrying to pair the evidence of
what we know about domesticviolence and coercive control
and unhealthy relationships,really trying to give people who
are experiencing that the accessto the resources and the support
that they need.
Because right now, this is ahuge failing in our system that
(02:35):
doesn't only cost a lot of womentheir lives, but costs uh far
more people a quality of life.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
Absolutely.
And this, I'm so excited, Ican't I'm like fumbling over
words because I'm really, reallyexcited to jump into this topic.
SPEAKER_02 (02:50):
Because there are not a there actually, I take
that back.
There are a lot of resources outthere.
They're just not accessible toeveryone out there.
And that's either financiallynot accessible or location-wise
not accessible.
And that makes a very scaryexperience for victims and
(03:11):
survivors because they thinkthey know what to do, but
they're not sure what to do, andthey can't, there's really
nobody to bounce that off of.
SPEAKER_00 (03:59):
Certainly as well, um, around having ended up in an
unhealthy or even dangerousrelationship.
Um, it's you know, people can'taccess resources that are behind
a wall that says domesticviolence unless they feel like,
well, that's what happened tome, unless they they
self-identify in that way.
Um, so yeah, there's a lot ofreasons that that all of those
(04:20):
incredible resources can be hardfor people to get at the right
time, right?
As early as possible.
SPEAKER_02 (04:25):
Yeah.
And I think a lot of people, andactually a lot of people I
personally know, they turn tothe internet.
They Google this just happened,or they go to Chat GPT and say,
hey, this happened, what's goingon?
And they're asking advice fromsources that may not have a
strong domestic violence uhlibrary, I guess, to pull from.
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
Yeah, or or so first was the Google.
Um, uh when people Google theirexperiences when it's not
particularly dynamic, um, likeit's you know, AI-generated
responses, it's really easy forpeople to say, well, okay, I
read on that website thatphysical violence is this, this,
and this, but he pinched me.
He didn't slap me.
(05:10):
So it probably wasn't.
It wasn't abuse then.
It wasn't physical violencethen.
There's this um barrier topeople accessing um supportive
resources when they're notdynamic, right?
Because people want to believethat they did not end up in that
situation.
Um, and then, you know, whenwe're talking about using
something like generative AI,you know, Chat GPT is actually
(05:31):
doing a pretty darn decent jobin that space.
There's some recent researchthat came out in March that, you
know, 91% of the time it was fedinformation about an abusive
relationship, it identified itas such.
Um, so I know we're not gonnapoo-poo on on Chat GPT in that
regard, but they don't, youknow, they're a generalist tool
and they don't have, um, they'renot building in what we call an
(05:52):
AI vertical, right?
Like we are making a product fora very specific use.
That means it's highly trainedin that regard, and then all the
kind of the back-end engineeringand everything that's going on
is trained to that specific usecase.
And certainly that's not true ofChatGPT, as well as there's some
privacy concerns with ChatGPT aswell.
SPEAKER_02 (06:10):
Yes, and I think people are just becoming aware
now of that privacy concern.
So let's talk about yourtechnology.
SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
Uh, yeah, so um Amy says uh is the name of our
company, and Amy is our AI, andshe's built um in this survivor
first space, um, like I said, inthis vertical of, you know,
everything that we're doing isto serve the specific and unique
needs of people everywhere fromthat first red flag, like I went
(06:39):
on a weird date, or you know,I'm thinking about going on a
date with this person, but I'mnot really comfortable with this
message that was sent to me, allthe way through, you know, the
very unfortunate rock bottom.
I'm afraid I'm gonna losecustody of my children.
Um, or the court has removed um,you know, my ability to visit
the children based on falseallegations because I claimed
that there was abuse in therelationship.
(07:01):
So we're really building out inthat, uh, in that space.
Or even the, you know, I'mco-parenting with my abuser, and
that's its own special nightmareof post-separation abuse.
But we took into considerationthe things that something like a
general AI is never going to dothat they can't do.
Um, privacy is a huge one ofthose.
Um, we never train on user data.
(07:21):
We're not reading the thingsthat people submit to Amy, we're
not reading what Amy is sayingback to them, because that
privacy and confidentiality isboth important to the survivor
and also in the legal context,you know, whether or not you
actually waived confidentialitybecause you're using an open
model, something like ChatGPT.
Um, and then building inside ofthe kind of legal prep space,
(07:42):
there's some additionalprotections that people have.
Um, because you know, if youcreate documentation or, you
know, your timelines, et cetera,in the context of preparing for
future litigation, there are umoften some additional
protections and privacy for thatwork that are afforded by your
state statute.
Um, but we get to do reallyexciting things inside of that
(08:06):
space.
So, you know, if you're talkingwith ChatGPT, you're likely to
get a really pretty high-qualityconversation about the dynamics
that are present in yourrelationship.
If you have the sameconversation with Amy, she's
extracting from that pieces ofinformation that she's putting
on a timeline that she'slabeling with the different
types of abuse that are present,um, that she's going to be able
(08:28):
to export for you, that you'regoing to be able to add to a
digital binder that she createsin case you need to go to court.
So it's really all of those kindof additional layers that that
you know, my colleagues and I uhspent in crazy amounts of time
thinking through and developing,testing, launching, um, and
getting into the hands of folkswho really need it.
SPEAKER_02 (08:50):
Yeah.
So let's there are there's twodifferent, I guess, um, tiers.
You can have the free chatfeature and then there's the uh
paid for services.
So let's just start with there'snot a lot more to explain about
the chat feature because it's Ithink a lot of people are
already familiar with that sortof technology.
SPEAKER_00 (09:08):
Yes.
So right now, you know, 40,000people from 150 plus countries
have had just anonymousconversations with Amy whenever
they need, it's entirely free.
Um, no data is stored, itdisappears.
And for many people, that isexactly what is needed.
You know, our AI is trained inin uh course of control, and
(09:31):
what what escalates risks, whatkind of additional calculations
might need to be made, supportsthat need to be provided in that
context that make it a safer,more um uh uh more utilitarian
was the word that I'm lookingfor, tool than just an anonymous
chat with with Chat GPT.
Um, we keep that free and andpublicly available.
(09:53):
We also offer any organizationthat works with survivors, we
can put that free embeddablechat on your website as well.
So folks do not have to leaveit.
It's free for them, it's freefor the organization.
Um, but we also offer um asubscription model, and that
allows us to store theinformation so Amy remembers
you, right, when you come back.
(10:13):
And some people, that's it.
They just want, you know, everytime they have a chat with Amy,
they don't have to re-explainanything.
Amy has a growing kind of bodyof information about who you are
and what you've experienced it,what you need, what your goals
are.
Um, and then also, you know, allof the kind of data management
that is a really uniqueopportunity of artificial
intelligence to tag all of thatin the background, label it all,
(10:37):
extract key details, put thosethings on a timeline, and really
do the administrative, uhclerical, um, you know, uh
paralegal type work that um isincredibly time consuming,
re-traumatizing, um, andexpensive.
Certainly, if you're gonna havesomebody else try to do it for
you.
SPEAKER_02 (10:55):
Yeah.
And I've um, I'll be honest,I've played around with it.
I've told a few friends who arein some difficult situations,
and we've looked at it.
And what's cool is like how yousaid, there's like a timeline.
So you can start with today, andyou enter in an event for today,
and then say, okay, I have alittle bit of extra time.
(11:17):
Let me go back to five yearsago.
This is what happened five yearsago, and you can put that in,
and it's a lot more organizedthan like an actual hard copy of
a bunch of papers thrown intoit.
Um, the binder feature is reallycool.
And like if you're going to goto court for, I don't know,
(11:39):
you're talking about uh custodytimesharing, you can ask Amy,
and correct me if I'm wrong.
Like, we haven't gotten this farin playing with it, but you can
say, hey, I'm going to courtabout my son and whether he can
have time, whether there shouldbe more time, whether he things
should change.
And Amy will pull thedocumentation that's in
(12:02):
particular to that situation.
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
Yes, exactly.
So, first of all, um binderswork because people have been
doing their due diligence anddocumenting things uh as they
go.
If a brand new user comes on andsays, build me a binder, you
know, Amy is building it fromwhat she knows about you and the
things you've uploaded and thedocuments that you have there
and the events that that she'seither documented or that you
have.
(12:25):
So it's the binder tool is kindof the product benefit of having
maintained a consistentrelationship with the AI.
But you're right, you could belike, well, he hasn't paid his
support in X months, and I wantto file for enforcement.
You click the binder button.
Amy asks you two questions andasks you to name the binder, so
(12:49):
you'll be able to, you know,identify it next to another one.
And then she will, in 30seconds, pull every chat that
you've had about uh that'srelated to non-payment, the
impact of it, every entry that'sin there, the documentation that
you've uploaded for that.
She'll put it together in a in asingle binder that you know you
(13:09):
can add to, that you can export,uh, you know, you can give it to
an attorney, you can use it inyour own, you know, if you're
pro se as a as aself-represented litigant.
But instead of you combingthrough, like you were saying,
you know, all those loose piecesof paper, you know, we've got
those everywhere.
Oh, I'll remember this.
I'll just jot it down on asticky note, and that will be
sufficient.
Uh, she's able to pull all ofthat together for you.
(13:31):
Um, it's an incredibly powerful,uh, powerful tool.
SPEAKER_02 (13:36):
Yeah, and in terms of documents, you can upload
your court, your divorce decreeor whatever court documents.
You can upload financialdocuments as well.
SPEAKER_00 (13:48):
Yes.
Yeah.
Um, you know, it lists all thedifferent file types.
She's better at um kind of morenarrative format.
Um, you can't just do a straightExcel spreadsheet particularly
well.
Uh, but she you upload thosethings, you add them to a
conversation so she knows thatthat's something that you want
her to be looking at.
Um, and she like I could uploadsix months of uh financial
(14:11):
records and say, you know, hesays he submitted these in
discovery, he says that he can'tafford to pay me.
And um, and she will be like,well, it looks like he spent
$16,000 on motorsports, uh, youknow, um equipment.
Um so perhaps the priorities arean issue, um, and and provide
that information to you withoutyou having to comb through it.
(14:31):
Um, certainly orders are a greatthing.
If you have orders um to have inthere, um, then when you have
any, you know, writing messagesto your ex, you can do it in
accordance with the expectationsthat are outlined in those
orders.
It's like having um, you know,we all kind of want an expert on
speed dial.
Um, it's a really high stakesplace.
It's high stakes for us.
(14:52):
Like if I make a mistake, youknow, I'm gonna deal with the
consequences.
If I make a mistake, I couldhave to deal with legal
consequences, or my child dealswith consequences.
It's a lot of pressure.
And it's really nice to be ableto do that with a companion who
can see the broader picture, whounderstands what those goals
are.
Um, you know, certainly we wantto save people, we save time,
money, and mental health.
(15:13):
Uh, and and that's what we'vetrained Amy to do.
SPEAKER_02 (15:15):
Yeah, and and the more you use her, she gets to
know you more.
So she knows more of thedynamics, uh, the abuse tactics
that are being used, andformulates then an answer.
If you go in and say, Hey, thishappens and I need to
communicate with my ex, Amy willsay, Well, given this
information we know of your ex,these are the potential
(15:38):
concerns.
And then helps generate ananswer.
SPEAKER_00 (15:43):
Right.
If you say, I'm concerned thatthis could escalate, or he might
have a negative response tothis.
She knows all of those times youtold her and what kind of flavor
of escalation he uses, right?
So you can help plan through isthat a uh a risk that, you know,
when I do kind of a risk-benefitanalysis, is it a risk that I do
want to take?
How can I mitigate thoseconcerns for escalation?
(16:05):
Um, she's really a thoughtpartner uh who, like, like you
said, remembers all of thethings that you shared with her.
Um, so you don't ever have to goback and explain yourself again.
SPEAKER_02 (16:14):
Right.
And then there's even the um,okay, you're sending this.
Do you want me to help you comeup with a response in case that
person does their typicalresponse?
How you go about respondresponding to that response, a
whole conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
Yes, yeah.
Um, or it's like preparing forlive conversations.
Um, I'm gonna be at studentconferences.
This is what you know hashappened in the past, like role
play with me.
What am I gonna say if thisthing happens?
You know, what do I say if hesays this?
Um, what if he doesn't show up?
What should I do?
Because there's so much kind ofpre-conversation anxiety.
(16:51):
Um, you know, we uh, you know,survivors are like, I got caught
flat footed so many times.
I I'm so anxious andanticipating the next time that
happens.
I want to do everything that Ican to prepare.
Um, and it's actually really funto role play with Amy in a chat,
be like, okay, if this, thenwhat do I do?
(17:11):
Or tell me like three thingsthat he could say to me.
I don't want to be caught offguard and and really preparing
for those moments.
SPEAKER_02 (17:19):
Right.
And then you can even use it toanticipate.
For instance, I have a friendwhose son wants to confront uh
his father.
And so uh we were playingaround, like, okay, Amy, the son
wants to say this.
How can he say it?
What should he anticipate?
You know, what can his responsebe to what we're expecting his
(17:40):
father's response to be?
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yes.
And like, first, you know, Amyis trained to support adults.
Um, so certainly there should bean adult interface to this.
Like, how can I support my childwho's trying to say, um, you
know, they really want to dothis, they want to, these are my
concerns.
Um, you know, how can I supporthim in this uh this situation?
Um, yeah, those are really,really good examples.
(18:03):
You know, I think a lot ofpeople think, like, oh, I just
go and I can talk about abuse.
Like, no, really dig in.
This is what I'm trying to getto, but I'm concerned about
this.
How do I think through this?
Is there a name for this thing?
Because I find myself chewing onit over and over and over.
Um, what kind of goals can I setfor myself?
How do I take care of myself in,you know, in the context?
(18:24):
I feel burnt out.
I feel, I feel resentful, right?
Like all of the very colorful,rich tapestry of experiences of
victimization and survivorship,those are all areas of
exploration and you know, anddocumentation that Amy's able to
go with you.
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
And it's so, like how we were talking at the
beginning, the lack ofaccessibility to resources.
This is something that is veryaccessible.
I've spoken with a lot ofcoaches and they're fabulous.
And I would still recommend, youknow, their services.
They are really good at whatthey do.
Um, but sometimes those comewith a higher price tag.
And it's difficult, especiallyif there's financial abuse
(19:07):
involved, which a lot of timesthere is.
SPEAKER_00 (19:09):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I used to be a coach.
This is how I came to this.
Uh and people would pay me sumsof money that like required, I
needed to pay my bills to beable to provide that service,
right?
Like we get to charge for ourservices, but from a human
rights perspective, right?
We live in a world where peopleare allowed, specifically in the
(19:31):
context of an intimatepartnership, because we wouldn't
tolerate this from anybody else.
The systems would definitelyintervene if you hadn't slept
with the person before.
But the systems, we live in aworld that tolerates this
ongoing abuse.
I mean, many of these people arejust being like machine gunned,
buried in false accusations andyou know, uh uh constant
harassment.
They have needs, their childrenhave needs that are ever
(19:53):
constant, right?
They're being harmed actively.
So we have these people in thissituation, and then we say,
okay, but there is support.
It's available, it'll cost you$150 an hour, and you will need
11 hours a week of it, right?
That that's from a human rightsperspective, it's it's
unconscionable that we don'thave the ability to provide that
(20:16):
service for free, right?
Like free would really be thereally be ideal.
But even within a barely, youknow, uh uh accessible range of
you know of financial burden, wewe just it doesn't, it does not
exist.
And Amy provides the types ofservices that did not exist,
(20:37):
right?
It's really not just duplicatingthe same kind of services you
can get from an advocate orduplicating the same kind of
things you can get from a coach.
If you have access to those, usethem.
She is really filling out aspace which was just white
knuckled by the survivor before,or was just internalized, or it
was just considered the cost ofdoing business, you know, with
(20:59):
an abusive person.
You just we don't question it.
It's just the thing that youhave to do.
And that constant vigilance,that constant stress is
literally killing survivors,right?
It's increasing.
I'm getting kind of excitedhere.
I hope the mic isn't too much.
Oh, I'm with you, I'm about tojump in here, too.
Right?
I'm I'm I'm escalating.
I feel myself on the kind of theon-ramp of a of a freeway here
(21:22):
of righteousness.
It's killing people.
It's it's increasing their riskof stroke, of cardiovascular, of
heart disease, right?
Of diabetes, of of uhfibromyalgia, of autoimmune
disorders, you know, substancedependency that has a whole host
of other potential, you know,physical and mental health
(21:44):
implications, CPTSD, anxiety,depression, like increased risk
of suicidality.
These are all things that arethe result of the constant
stress that comes from having towhite knuckle day to day your
existence as a victim, as asurvivor through post-separation
abuse.
(22:05):
And uh, you know, I'll be darnedif I'm gonna rest my head on my
final pillow at hopefully, youknow, a late 90s age, um,
without having done everythingthat I can to try to stop that.
SPEAKER_02 (22:18):
Yeah.
And it's you are as a victim,you didn't choose to be abused.
An abuser abused you.
And then because of that, you'renow faced, you are faced with
the task of if you're still inthe relationship, safely
extracting yourself from thatperson, healing yourself.
(22:40):
And if you have any connectionswith that person, if you were
married, if you have financialcommitments with each other, if
you have children together, thenyou go into the world of
post-separation abuse, whereevery thought you have, every
action that you do, every wordthat you say, you have to
process through because if youtake the wrong step, then you
(23:03):
end up looking like the bad guy.
If you say the wrong thing, nowyou're the controlling person.
And it's so hard, it's so scarygoing into that world, having no
person to fall back on, noinformation to fall back on for
any sort of guidance.
And I mean, there's storiesthroughout the world where
(23:27):
parents, the actual victimizedparent, is being removed from
children's lives.
Yes.
Um, because they're coming intoo hot, they're too emotional
because that's their kids.
Their kids are being harmed.
And yeah, to have a resource tohelp give you some guidance on
(23:50):
what documentation you need,what to say, is so incredibly
helpful and so life-changing.
SPEAKER_00 (23:58):
That's that's absolutely the goal.
And while you were, you know,describing that, I was just
imagining it.
You're saying, you know, wedidn't people didn't ask for
this.
They don't want this, theydidn't deserve it.
It's not, they're not burningthrough some karma from another
lifetime, right?
And plenty of people listeningprobably actually think that
that's true, which is totallyfine.
I I've I've made many karmajokes, but you know, it's it's a
(24:20):
tornado that hits your house andturns it into toothpicks, right?
And but if a real tornado hitsyour house and turns it into
toothpicks, you have insurance,your neighbors come over, they
help clean up the mess.
Somebody's responsible forhelping you get that back
together.
And at a bare minimum, peoplefeel sorry for you, right?
In this, in this hypotheticaltornado, which is being the
(24:43):
unwitting target of somebody'semotional, physical,
psychological terrorism, right?
And it's a person who wassupposed to love you and and and
help take care of you.
You are like metaphorically inmatchsticks and toothpicks, but
no one feels sorry for you andno one is coming to help you,
right?
(25:03):
It is you, yours and yoursalone, the burden to rebuild
that house, to rebuild yourlife.
And like you were saying, youknow, these protective parents
are losing their childrenbecause they had the audacity to
say he's abusive.
He's hurting us.
Please help us.
He's doing things that shouldn'tbe allowed.
(25:25):
Please help us because they havethat audacity.
They're having their childrenremoved from their custody.
So I'm imagining that you knowthey're trying to rebuild this
house and the big bad wolf justkeeps coming over and blowing
the dang thing down.
It is, it defies people think welive in a generally safe world
(25:46):
where if I need the system toprotect me, it will.
Like if there comes a day whereI have to raise my hand and say,
I'm being harmed, and I knowthat there are laws and
expectations that should help meand support me.
People believe that it willhappen.
They put their heads on theirpillows at night believing it
will happen.
(26:06):
And it's a lie.
It is a lie, it's a lie we tellourselves, people who've never
been victimized.
It's a lie that we say directlyto people who've been victimized
and who are crying and trying totell us that it's not true, that
we can't live our livesbelieving that that thing's true
and that it needs to be changed.
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
Absolutely.
And, you know, the this is thescenario where people are
raising their hands saying, Ineed help, I've been abused,
where then society, the legalsystem, and everyone looks at
you and says, Prove it.
Prove it.
Okay, some people have bruises,some people have broken bones,
but even those individuals havea difficult time proving where
(26:45):
they came from or prove thatthey didn't ask for it, they
didn't do something, and thiswas just their the retaliation.
Of course, that happened to youbecause what did you do?
I mean, that's the thing.
You're living in thesematchsticks now, and everyone's
asking you, well, what did youdo to bring the tornado to you?
SPEAKER_00 (27:03):
Yes, yes.
Uh yeah, I exactly.
What did you do to bring thistornado?
It is really hard to back up alittle bit.
This concept of proof and truth.
We are raised to tell the truth.
(27:24):
The truth is really important.
We're told that it's bad to lie.
And we hold dearly to thattruth.
A lot of victims, I mean, theirtheir willingness to be like,
but no, it was like this is partof what keeps them entrapped in
these relationships.
It's the it's the the thecrowbar, right, that abusers
used to distort people's senseof reality.
(27:45):
Like, I believe that if I tellthe truth, that will work.
It turns out when two people aretelling different truths, right?
And one is of the um uh kind ofculturally dominant, if you
will, I mean, speakingspecifically to men, um, the
kind of culturally dominant, andone is from the culturally um uh
(28:08):
non-dominant, truth becomes awhole new thing.
Truth is no longer the thingthat we thought it was when we
grew up.
It was no longer um what was,you know, observable, um,
documentable.
It suddenly becomes a who haspower in this particular
relationship, who has power inthis particular space, because
(28:28):
that's the person who's going tobe given preferential truth.
So if I come in and I say, hepushed me down the stairs and I
have a picture of it.
Like I have a picture of thedamage.
All he has to do is say, This iswhat I'm talking about, your
honor.
It doesn't matter what I do.
She fell down the stairs.
I was there.
I went to the bottom of thestairs to try to take care of
(28:49):
her in that moment, and and sheslapped me away.
But like, this is what I'mtrying to tell you is that she
will falsely accuse me ofanything.
Okay, where is that truth now?
And I'm sorry if anyone waslistening and that was
triggering, it was almosttriggering for me to just say it
out loud.
Wait, what is true now?
Because unfortunately, what ismore likely to be true in that
(29:11):
moment is that she will bestigmatized, she'll be victim
blamed, or or um, you know, thatnot even victim blamed, she will
be institutionally gaslitbecause we are as a society
culturally, systemically, morelikely to believe that the man
was falsely accused than that heis a perpetrator.
(29:33):
We're more likely to believehim.
So what's true now?
SPEAKER_02 (29:36):
Yes, and I have it sort of along the same lines,
but then I'm I think we're bothgoing on tangents, and that's
fine.
I am fired up.
SPEAKER_00 (29:44):
I am here for it.
SPEAKER_02 (29:45):
Um I was reading about parental alienation, and
that's a big topic that I amvery interested in, and I just
can't soak in enough informationabout it.
But there was a study, I thinkthat was probably multiple
studies actually, um, conductedall over the world, but this one
happened to be in Canada.
And what they were looking at ishow it's more forgivable for a
(30:10):
man to abuse his children, oreven if it's not his children,
abuse his partner in front ofthe children.
There are children involved,whether active victims or
passive, I suppose, victimwatching.
I can't think of observational,whatever.
Um my head is going way too fastfor my mouth.
(30:31):
So it's more forgivable for thatman to abuse and say, Oh, yeah,
I did that, I'm so sorry, thanit is for the mother to say, you
know, to for the mother to havenot immediately left, ran away
with the children.
Because then you're looked at,well, why did you keep them in
that environment?
You're not a great mom becauseyou kept them in that
(30:54):
environment.
But yes, he did it.
We know he did it, but he'ssorry.
SPEAKER_00 (30:58):
But you are responsible for not protecting
the children from this.
Not that the perpetrator wasresponsible for not offending in
front of the children or notoffending.
I mean, when we are, when weabuse the mother of the child,
we abuse the children, right?
We are abusing, we are makingweaker, um, harming the person
who is their primary supportsystem.
(31:20):
And I would argue that the wholeconcept of exposure to abuse is
really just we're not thatcomfortable saying directly, if
you abuse the mother of thechildren, you're abusing the
children.
Um yeah, it's you are um you areabsolutely right.
Uh that we are much morecomfortable looking for
accountability, if you will, inthe under, um, in the underdog.
(31:44):
We want to place accountabilityon the underdog, and we
absolutely fail to see that theaccountability you know belongs
to the perpetrator.
And actually, this is somethingthat I haven't talked about in a
while, um, but that I thinkabout a lot.
It's somewhat spiritual almost.
I'm gonna stick it out thereanyways.
The universe demandsaccountability.
(32:07):
When there is harm, there isaccountability.
I believe there's control overthat harm, and I believe there's
control over that uh thataccountability.
But what ends up happening isone person causes harm, and that
person doesn't want theaccountability.
So that accountability ends upabsorbed by the victim, by the
children, um, by you know, otherkind of peripheral things.
(32:29):
And we have institutionalizedthat when exactly what you said
happens.
Well, he's caused this harm, andwhy didn't you leave and protect
the children?
We have taken, he has caused theharm, and we have redistributed
the accountability for that tothe innocent, right?
To the people who didn't makethe choice to to perpetrate, to
(32:50):
offend, to cause harm.
And we see that little story,vignette, if you will, played
out in a billion differentexamples where I, you know, it
I'm trying to think of anotherone, but there's just so many,
it becomes a bottleneck in mybrain.
That they the universe demandsthat accountability, and we are
much more comfortable assigningthat to the protective parent,
(33:14):
to the person who isn't going toget outraged with us, then to
the person it belongs to.
And when we talk aboutalienation, so you know, I love
the Joan Myers study.
You know, if if a protectiveparent, typically the mother,
and this is bears out in thisstudy, comes forward and says,
um, he's abusive, um, there'schild abuse, or God forbid,
announcing that there was childsexual abuse.
(33:35):
And then he says, um, well, sheis she's alienating the children
from me.
Now, mind you, it's it is reallikely that the children are not
wanting to spend time with ascary parent who abuses them or
abuses their primary attachmentfigure.
But in that when that happens,we redistribute the blame, the
(33:56):
accountability to thatprotective parent.
Because by saying, no, this isparental alienation, he's
saying, I'm not willing to takeaccountability for it.
And for some reason, like wejust are very comfortable.
It happens like under our noseswithout even us feeling like we
are recognizing it or seeing ithappening.
We have landed squarely on theshoulders of the victim, of the
(34:19):
person trying to create safety,squarely on her shoulders now is
the accountability for the harmthat the perpetrator caused.
SPEAKER_02 (34:27):
Yes.
And, you know, there's so manystudies of how children benefit
from having time with the motherand the father, but those are in
stable, home, amicable, uh,cohesive, co-parenting
situations.
There, I don't there are not alot of studies, uh, if any like
(34:50):
true, really good studiesshowing what happens to the
children when they have equaltime with both parents, if one
of those parents is abusive.
And maybe not even necessarilyabusive to the children.
And that's what the court looksat too, right?
Well, they're they're notabusing the children.
It was they were abusing you,not the children.
(35:10):
But then you go into those, yousee the same patterns happening,
the whole same manipulation, thesame emotional trauma um abuse,
psychological abuse happening tothe children because now they're
used as pawns to continuecontrol over the victimized
parent.
SPEAKER_00 (35:30):
Yes.
And and two things can't betrue.
We can't say children across theboard without um caveat are best
served when they have uh youknow unfettered frequent access
to both parents.
You cannot say that and assumethat it holds true in the
context of one of those parentsbeing abusive, and also say
(35:53):
child abuse increases your riskof an early death, right?
We can look at adverse childhoodexperiences and we know that if
someone is a victim of childabuse or if they are, and they
use language like exposed todomestic violence, I think
that's a little more separatethan is a real true lived
experience for children who livewith an abusive parent.
We can't say though both ofthose things are true.
(36:15):
We know child abuse, we knowthat exposure to domestic
violence literally takes yearsoff of their lives.
Like I can't think of anotherway to say that they're just
harmful than to say it increasesyour risk of dying of cancer.
Right?
We can't say both of thosethings are true.
One of them can't be true.
The protective parents have beenscreaming for that for a really
long time.
(36:35):
And yet, that um, you know,presumption that equal access to
parents or at least frequentaccess to both parents is what's
best for the kids.
It it's um, I hear it and I seea figurative fish slap me across
the face.
I'm just dumbfounded that I thatpeople can hold those two things
and not recognize the dissonancein it.
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
Right.
And then you have the averageperson going into this whole
system, scared, emotionallytraumatized, trying to navigate
how to do all of this withoutany resources, without all of
that data, without, you know,maybe not even an attorney or
it's a quarterboy attorney who'sjust doing their, you know,
(37:20):
moving through the motions, notnecessarily advocating for the
I'm not, I'm not going to getinto a lot of a lot of the legal
stuff because that's anothertangent I'll go on and I'm gonna
piss off people.
So I'm not going to do that.
But you have all theseindividuals, and there's a lot
of us.
There are a lot.
I mean, statistically, one inthree, but it's more.
(37:45):
It's definitely more because notall people have reported their
abuse.
They have it's not documented.
So those statistics, I believe,are not even truthfully acting
truly accurate.
Um, and so all of these peopleare going in, navigating, like I
said, emotionally traumatized,feeling completely over their
(38:10):
head and overwhelmed witheverything.
And then you have typically anabuser who is able to not feel
any kind of empathy and go inand they're calm and collected
and well put together and wellspoken and very, I didn't push
her down the stairs.
They have no problems lying.
SPEAKER_00 (38:29):
Yeah, well, and they get to walk into what is
arguably a really um uh scary,overwhelming, tense.
You know, talking about going tocourt.
Like, you know, most peoplewon't go to court uh, you know,
at any time in their lives.
And we try to avoid it.
We actively do whatever we canto make sure that we don't end
up standing in front of a judgeunless, you know, we have a hand
(38:51):
behind somebody else who we'rejust there to support.
And and the victim does that inthe context of complex
post-traumatic stress disorder,right?
And and being, you know,triggered in that moment.
And then the perpetrator gets todo that having little to no um
(39:11):
psychological impact of abusebecause it didn't happen to
them, right?
Right.
So it's um it's like lettingsomeone go into a race totally
prepared on a full stomach, um,having everything that they
could, you know, all of thetools at their fingertips to be
able to do it, and then stickingsomebody else in that same race,
uh, you know, with reallyterrible shin splints and both
(39:34):
of their arms cut off.
And oh, by the way, at the lastminute, we might blindfold her
and tell her that all theevidence she has isn't something
she can submit anyways.
It's um we are systematicallydisadvantaging the person who
needs the most from the system,who has the most to gain in
terms of ethical gains from thesystem.
(39:56):
Uh, we we disadvantage them fromthe outset.
And that's even that's just inthe legal context.
I mean, that these people, thesesurvivors, the victims, they're
experiencing these same thingswhen they go to work, when they
try to find the right therapist,when they need a doctor who can
understand them, uh, you know,and their experiences and how
those might impact their, youknow, their current, you know,
mental and physical health.
(40:18):
It's it, yeah, I I don't knowhow else to describe it other
than saying, you know, you'reasking this person to run a race
without any of the facultiesthat person needs to be able to
run the race.
unknown (40:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (40:29):
Oh, and you're telling them it's their fault.
unknown (40:31):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_02 (40:32):
Yes.
I'm gonna take everything awayfrom you, tell you it's your
fault, and say, fix this,approve it, fix it.
Uh and so yeah, Amy is a greattool to help anybody going into
any of those situations, like ifyou're in it trying to figure
out how to get out safely.
That I mean, that's number onepriority is is you know, safety.
(40:54):
And yeah, the aftermath is atruly new kind of hell.
And I think that's somethingthat will be incredibly helpful
for individuals.
You talked about gaslighting anduh gaslighting from from the
abuser, and then the systematicgaslighting.
But then that there was a topicthat you and I were talking
(41:15):
about, a term that was new tome.
So um, what is it, distortednostalgia?
SPEAKER_00 (41:20):
Yeah, distorted nostalgia.
It's kind of this idea that, andit's it's definitely uh as a
relationship with trauma bondingas well, um, right?
And that trauma bonding, likesomeone objectively from the
outside of the relationshipcould be like, that's super not
healthy.
I'm not sure how you could couldpossibly feel safe around that
person, but the person in it,um, right, is in this kind of
cyclical bond.
(41:41):
Uh, and this distorted nostalgiais not totally dissimilar from
that.
It's that kind of looking backand finding things, um,
remembering things is morepositive than they were or more
meaningful than they were.
Uh, it's it's not entirelydifferent from kind of euphoric
recall where we completely, youknow, rewrite, like, it was the
most amazing thing ever.
(42:02):
Um, but it's it is one of thosethings, especially shortly
after, like when maybe in thefirst couple of years, sorry,
but in the context of abuserecovery, a couple of years is
considered short, that thatpeople find themselves
revisiting.
It's like, oh, well, I guessthat, but that was that positive
thing, right?
There was, and that was actuallyit was really warm, it was
(42:22):
really thoughtful, that thingthat that he did.
And it it is like an internalgaslight, right?
Whereas if you really like kindof dissected that experience, it
might be like, well, that wasreally wonderful.
Well, he did, he did like blowup on me on that vacation too.
And actually, I was feelingpretty timid and you know,
embarrassed after that blow up.
(42:43):
And when you really startdigging at it, you can recognize
the distortions and thenostalgic way that that you look
back on, you know, shared memorythat you have with someone.
Um, so I guess you know, we putthat out in our newsletter.
It's just it's good to havenames for things that you might
experience or might beconfusing.
Um, and a lot of people do, theyexperience that.
They look back and think, like,oh, well, that was really
(43:04):
wonderful.
Um, but with a little deeperthought, can start to see that
the abuse was present in that insome way as well.
SPEAKER_02 (43:11):
Yeah, and I think even just knowing that these
terms exist is also validatingin a way.
Because I know for myself, I'vegone back and I've thought,
well, did it really happen thatway?
Or was it not as bad as Ithought?
You know what?
I don't think it was.
Because like that really nicething happened before, that
(43:33):
really nice thing happenedafter.
So maybe that part in the middlewasn't as ugly as I thought it
was.
And yeah, it's that eternalgaslight where you're just
constantly questioning, youknow, for a long time afterward
of did it really happen thatway?
Was it was it really abuse?
And then you you're like, Well,yeah, yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_00 (43:54):
Yep.
Was it was it really abuse?
Um, there isn't a survivor whodidn't ask themselves that many,
many times, um, and who mightnot still be, right?
Asking, asking themselves that.
And it's normal for there to bepositive times, right?
Because if the person washorrible and scary and
intimidating and belittling anddegrading and, you know, and uh
(44:15):
all of the time, you probablywouldn't have stayed in that
relationship.
Uh it's the back and forth, it'sthe hot and the cold, it's the
reseeking of those positivetimes.
So there will be, those positivetimes will exist
retrospectively, um, with a lotof um uh kind of building of
understanding and and educatingyourself about your own
(44:37):
experience.
It's impossible to see those asdistinctly separate from the bad
times, right?
Because the bad times play intothe good times, play into the
bad times.
It's that loop um that is so umit can be so intoxicating, um,
which can really build so muchof that that trauma bonding um
(44:58):
and and make yourself your bestgaslighter, right?
You can gaslight yourself, youknow, even in the absence of it
of it being done to you.
Um that's uh that is a normalexperience.
That doesn't mean that the abusedidn't happen.
Uh it's it's really just kind ofthis this weakness of our um
human psychology, uh, and andpart of why we're vulnerable to
(45:21):
these relationships to beginwith.
SPEAKER_02 (45:23):
Well, and I think journaling, which we kind of
talked with that, Amy does, butlike Amy will you can do
journaling and keep a time.
We did talk about the timeline.
Um, but yeah, you can enterthose things in and just put
them there.
Like, oh, this happened andmaybe it wasn't so bad, but um
just have it there and then withthe accumulation of information,
(45:47):
you can go back, you can lookand see it for yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (45:50):
Yep.
Yeah, it's a it's a really umeffective kind of guidance point
for people who especially havejust left um or really
questioning whether or not itwas abusive.
Just write down.
Just write down the things thathappened because it's really
being able to see them in, youknow, in the the um totality
that's so important.
And with Amy, like if you have asubscription, if you have an
(46:12):
account, you just talk to Amy.
She's gonna ask questions.
Was ever anything else thathappened that was similar to
that?
You feel like you're just havingthis conversation and she is she
is extracting that informationand putting it onto a timeline.
You don't ever even have to lookat it if you don't want to, just
knowing that it's there if youneed it.
Um, but certainly people do.
They'd like to go over it, theytake a look and see the
(46:34):
patterns, see how often certaintypes of things happened.
And it really helps in thosemoments where your head is
spinning and you're really notsure what directions up to see
it right there, kind of let'ssay written in stone, but
computers are literally theopposite of stone.
SPEAKER_02 (46:50):
And okay, and so you mentioned how many people has
Amy reached?
SPEAKER_00 (46:55):
There's been like 40,000 people from over 150
countries that have talked toAmy, which is just incredible.
Um, and there's three of us onthe team, you know, when we
think about the scale and accessand the role that technology
like this, kind of digitalhealth tools in general, have
played in giving people accessto their own experiences,
(47:16):
helping people pair, you know,really bringing together all of
the incredible research and thebody of knowledge, right down to
people's own experiences, rightinto their pockets.
You know, this is what digitalhealth is, right?
This is certainly what you know,what we're trying to build.
And the scale is is insane.
(47:36):
This is an incredible time andopportunity to be building for
what is one of the largestglobal public health issues that
has never been addressed atscale ever before.
SPEAKER_02 (47:50):
Yeah.
And you guys didn't just createAmy and then wash your hands of
it.
You're always going in andright.
SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
Yeah.
Amy, it's it's kind of likelaundry.
You're never done, right?
Uh and as soon as you finish aload and you're like, oh, this
new feature, we just finished aload.
Um, all of the other featuresthat you want to build is a
growing pile of laundry.
Um, although it's a lot more funto build in this space than
laundry.
And um, when you do yourlaundry, people don't send you
emails of depth of gratitude.
(48:19):
But if they did, that would makelaundry a lot more fun.
SPEAKER_01 (48:22):
Wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_02 (48:23):
I mean, my kids don't appreciate it.
It's just magical to them.
Um, okay, so how would somebody,how does somebody access Amy?
SPEAKER_00 (48:34):
Go to amys.com and it's A-I-M-E-E, is how you spell
her name.
Amy Sus.com.
You can use it on your phone.
It's mobile optimized.
There's nothing that you have todownload, um, which is great,
especially if you need a lot ofprivacy and confidentiality
around it right now.
Those free conversations, haveas many as you want.
They're totally free.
They disappear.
If you need more, we arebuilding for you.
(48:55):
Um, and we'd love for you tosubscribe.
It's$20 a month.
Uh, you know, you can get anannual subscription for less
than a 30-minute phone call withan attorney.
Um, Amy saves people insaneamounts of money uh uh in you
know utilizing much moreexpensive systems or in making
those systems more effective forthem when they do need to
(49:16):
utilize them.
SPEAKER_02 (49:17):
Um and is there a quick exit feature?
SPEAKER_00 (49:21):
Yes, there is a quick exit on both mobile.
If you have any concerns aboutsomeone looking over the
shoulder, um do click that quickexit button.
If you're having a an anonymouschat, a free chat, it's entirely
gone.
Um, it will just uh divert youaway and log you out if you have
an account.
SPEAKER_02 (49:39):
Perfect.
And is there a way, because Iknow you're constantly improving
and adding, is there a way foranybody to give you feedback if
they're using Amy and theynotice they do like something,
they don't like something?
SPEAKER_00 (49:51):
Yes, any of the support or feedback buttons um
or contact buttons, they comedirectly to my inbox.
Um it's me that you're talkingto, um, which uh is super fun.
I want to stay as close to allof our users as possible.
And we do, we hear all sorts ofstuff.
We hear from our users, youknow, if I if we have a an AI
partner that's down, we foundout first because someone was
like, hey, Amy's not responding.
(50:13):
I it's um there are um ourwarning system, our alarm bells,
and generate the entirety of allof the new concepts that we that
we built.
So please, yes, use thosesupport and contact buttons and
it will go directly to me.
SPEAKER_02 (50:27):
Uh one of the other features we didn't talk about is
that you can involveprofessionals in your your
profile, correct?
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yes, yeah.
So if you have an account, youcan assign team members.
So people will assign anattorney as a team member, and
that means their attorney cancome on, access it, grab the
kinds of information that theyneed.
Same thing with a therapist.
Um, if you're working with a DVadvocate, same thing there.
Um, and one of the potentialbenefits of having any one of
those three, because those allhave confidentiality
(50:57):
expectations, is the opportunityfor potentially having
additional confidentialityapplied to your account in the
event that that an ex is asking,requesting for its contents and
discovery.
Um we haven't had that happenyet.
Um I'm knocking on wood here.
Uh um, but we're doingeverything that we can to keep
those accounts as private andsafe as possible.
SPEAKER_02 (51:17):
Okay.
And one, and I can edit this outif we don't have an answer to
it.
Um I've heard of stories ofwhere Chat GPT has given some
very poor advice.
I read an article, and I don't,I'll be honest, I did not fact
check it.
I saw it saw it on Facebook, butwhere it said one of the other
(51:37):
AI services recommended that achild end his life.
Um and I like I said, I don'tknow how true that situation
was, but it's true.
It is true.
SPEAKER_00 (51:51):
And this is like a broader conversation.
AIs um are not flawless, they'renot perfect.
Um, there is an expectation ofresponsibility on behalf of the
user uh uh as an informed user,um, as a user who is intending
to um you know derive benefitand support from that system.
(52:15):
There are populations of people,um, children especially being
incredibly vulnerable to this,who won't always be able to
exercise the degree of judgmentthat can keep them like it's
like you know, if I'm driving acar, there's a risk of driving
the car, right?
I I have to learn how to do thatthing safely.
(52:35):
Um, you know, things come up, Ineed to make a judgment decision
in that moment.
And utilizing AI is not um isnot necessarily hugely different
from that.
It is it is very important to bean informed user of whatever
tool it is that you're using.
Um and there are really they'rethey're true stories and they're
devastatingly sad stories ofpeople who um were engaging with
(52:58):
an AI in a way that caused thatAI to make um statements or
recommendations that um thatwere lethal and instances where
people did, in fact, take thoserecommendations.
Uh there's it it's it's adifficult thing to solve for.
Um, it requires some redundancyin those systems to make sure
(53:18):
that they are not um sayingthings that could be construed
as or or that are literally umuh making recommendations that a
person harmed themselves.
Um and also that is there'spartly the use of the tool and
how that's happening.
So please use AI responsibly.
Um, if you're having a mentalhealth crisis, an AI is not the
(53:40):
tool for you.
An AI is not a crisis responsetool, um, but they're really
good around those crises.
I think it's really important tobe an informed, um, educated
utilizer of any tool that you'reusing.
SPEAKER_01 (53:55):
And it also doesn't take the place of a therapist.
I mean, it can help you go prose, but yeah, the actual thing
is.
SPEAKER_00 (54:01):
And and it will, you know, a good support system will
absolutely improve your mentalhealth.
But a therapist is trained tomake a diagnosis, for example,
which is something that an AIcan't do, to create a treatment
plan, to monitor your progressalong that treatment plan.
I mean, there are specificthings that a therapist can do
that an AI can't.
Now, does an AI provide legalbenefit?
(54:21):
Does it provide mental healthbenefit?
Um, I would say that it that itabsolutely does.
But there are areas of trainingthat AIs can't provide, and
partly because they can't makedecisions on your behalf, uh,
and that we will continue toneed people, um, real humans to
be able to do.
SPEAKER_02 (54:43):
Which is comforting because we want humans around.
Okay.
Ann, is there anything wemissed?
I love this conversation, eventhough we would we did kind of
go off a little bit, but thatwas that made it more exciting.
SPEAKER_00 (54:57):
That makes it more interesting.
Um, you know, my my life, um,what I have, you know, to to
speak about is way more thanthan you know what an AI can do.
Um, but it certainly makes mepassionate about trying to solve
the problem uh with technology.
No, I I think we I think we dida good job.
I think we covered a lot ofground.
SPEAKER_02 (55:17):
Okay, I think so too.
So before we close, do you haveany parting words of strength or
encouragement that you wouldlike to leave with listeners?
SPEAKER_00 (55:28):
Uh how about the one I say a lot?
Um, this too shall pass.
It may pass like a kidney stone,but this too shall pass.
SPEAKER_02 (55:38):
Yeah, and some have one hell of a kidney stone, but
yes.
SPEAKER_00 (55:42):
Yes.
Um, take care of yourself, loveyourself.
You're not alone in this, eventhough you feel you know
desperately alone.
Uh, there is there is anotherside.
And um, I wish I could holdhands with everybody who's in
that that traveling space umbecause it can be really dark
and scary.
SPEAKER_02 (56:02):
Yes, it can.
And thank you so much, Ann.
Thank you, Amy, for for beingout there.
But I really appreciate yourtime coming on today and the
development of Amy, which Ithink is going to be incredibly,
incredibly helpful.
SPEAKER_00 (56:18):
Thank you so much, Ingrid, for having me on and
helping share what we're workingon.
SPEAKER_02 (56:22):
Thank you again, Anne, for joining me today, and
thank you, Warriors, forlistening.
I've included the website Annewas referring to as well as her
one in three profile link in theshow notes.
I will be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong.
And wherever you are in yourjourney, always remember you are
(56:43):
not alone.
Find more information, registeras a guest, or leave a review by
going to the websiteoneinthreepodcast.com.
That's the number one the numberthree podcast.com.
Follow one in three onInstagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at one and three podcast.
(57:03):
To help me out, please rememberto rate review and subscribe.
One and three is a point fivePanoy production.
Music written and performed byTim Crowd.
Hi Warriors, welcome to One and Three.
I'm your host, Ingrid.
Whatever stage you're in in thecontinuum of abuse, whether
you're currently cohabitating,trying to figure out if what
you're experiencing is abuse,looking for a safe way to exit,
trying to heal, or navigatingpost-separation abuse, it's very
(01:08):
common to feel lost.
Most victims aren't aware of theresources available or they
can't access the ones they doknow about.
My guest today, Anne, is here tochange that.
She's built an AI technologyspecifically designed for
domestic abuse, putting criticalguidance and information into
(01:28):
the hands of the people who needit the most.
Here's Anne.
Hi Anne, I'm so excited to haveyou here.
Welcome and thank you forjoining me on One and Three.
SPEAKER_00 (01:38):
Thank you so much for having me, Ingrid.
I'm really excited to be here.
SPEAKER_02 (01:41):
Yes.
So before we get into our topic,could you just give a little
background on yourself so we canall get to know you some?
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, my name is Anne.
I'm an urban homesteader inDenver, Colorado, here with my
family.
Um, what gets me out of bedevery morning is working to
really challenge systems,interrogate, if you will, the
systems that are failing womenand children.
So that has had me working inevidence-based maternity care.
(02:11):
That's had me working inchildhood education.
And now in this space of reallytrying to pair the evidence of
what we know about domesticviolence and coercive control
and unhealthy relationships,really trying to give people who
are experiencing that the accessto the resources and the support
that they need.
Because right now, this is ahuge failing in our system that
(02:35):
doesn't only cost a lot of womentheir lives, but costs uh far
more people a quality of life.
SPEAKER_01 (02:42):
Absolutely.
And this, I'm so excited, Ican't I'm like fumbling over
words because I'm really, reallyexcited to jump into this topic.
SPEAKER_02 (02:50):
Because there are not a there actually, I take
that back.
There are a lot of resources outthere.
They're just not accessible toeveryone out there.
And that's either financiallynot accessible or location-wise
not accessible.
And that makes a very scaryexperience for victims and
(03:11):
survivors because they thinkthey know what to do, but
they're not sure what to do, andthey can't, there's really
nobody to bounce that off of.
SPEAKER_00 (03:59):
Certainly as well, um, around having ended up in an
unhealthy or even dangerousrelationship.
Um, it's you know, people can'taccess resources that are behind
a wall that says domesticviolence unless they feel like,
well, that's what happened tome, unless they they
self-identify in that way.
Um, so yeah, there's a lot ofreasons that that all of those
(04:20):
incredible resources can be hardfor people to get at the right
time, right?
As early as possible.
SPEAKER_02 (04:25):
Yeah.
And I think a lot of people, andactually a lot of people I
personally know, they turn tothe internet.
They Google this just happened,or they go to Chat GPT and say,
hey, this happened, what's goingon?
And they're asking advice fromsources that may not have a
strong domestic violence uhlibrary, I guess, to pull from.
SPEAKER_00 (04:50):
Yeah, or or so first was the Google.
Um, uh when people Google theirexperiences when it's not
particularly dynamic, um, likeit's you know, AI-generated
responses, it's really easy forpeople to say, well, okay, I
read on that website thatphysical violence is this, this,
and this, but he pinched me.
He didn't slap me.
(05:10):
So it probably wasn't.
It wasn't abuse then.
It wasn't physical violencethen.
There's this um barrier topeople accessing um supportive
resources when they're notdynamic, right?
Because people want to believethat they did not end up in that
situation.
Um, and then, you know, whenwe're talking about using
something like generative AI,you know, Chat GPT is actually
(05:31):
doing a pretty darn decent jobin that space.
There's some recent researchthat came out in March that, you
know, 91% of the time it was fedinformation about an abusive
relationship, it identified itas such.
Um, so I know we're not gonnapoo-poo on on Chat GPT in that
regard, but they don't, youknow, they're a generalist tool
and they don't have, um, they'renot building in what we call an
(05:52):
AI vertical, right?
Like we are making a product fora very specific use.
That means it's highly trainedin that regard, and then all the
kind of the back-end engineeringand everything that's going on
is trained to that specific usecase.
And certainly that's not true ofChatGPT, as well as there's some
privacy concerns with ChatGPT aswell.
SPEAKER_02 (06:10):
Yes, and I think people are just becoming aware
now of that privacy concern.
So let's talk about yourtechnology.
SPEAKER_00 (06:18):
Uh, yeah, so um Amy says uh is the name of our
company, and Amy is our AI, andshe's built um in this survivor
first space, um, like I said, inthis vertical of, you know,
everything that we're doing isto serve the specific and unique
needs of people everywhere fromthat first red flag, like I went
(06:39):
on a weird date, or you know,I'm thinking about going on a
date with this person, but I'mnot really comfortable with this
message that was sent to me, allthe way through, you know, the
very unfortunate rock bottom.
I'm afraid I'm gonna losecustody of my children.
Um, or the court has removed um,you know, my ability to visit
the children based on falseallegations because I claimed
that there was abuse in therelationship.
(07:01):
So we're really building out inthat, uh, in that space.
Or even the, you know, I'mco-parenting with my abuser, and
that's its own special nightmareof post-separation abuse.
But we took into considerationthe things that something like a
general AI is never going to dothat they can't do.
Um, privacy is a huge one ofthose.
Um, we never train on user data.
(07:21):
We're not reading the thingsthat people submit to Amy, we're
not reading what Amy is sayingback to them, because that
privacy and confidentiality isboth important to the survivor
and also in the legal context,you know, whether or not you
actually waived confidentialitybecause you're using an open
model, something like ChatGPT.
Um, and then building inside ofthe kind of legal prep space,
(07:42):
there's some additionalprotections that people have.
Um, because you know, if youcreate documentation or, you
know, your timelines, et cetera,in the context of preparing for
future litigation, there are umoften some additional
protections and privacy for thatwork that are afforded by your
state statute.
Um, but we get to do reallyexciting things inside of that
(08:06):
space.
So, you know, if you're talkingwith ChatGPT, you're likely to
get a really pretty high-qualityconversation about the dynamics
that are present in yourrelationship.
If you have the sameconversation with Amy, she's
extracting from that pieces ofinformation that she's putting
on a timeline that she'slabeling with the different
types of abuse that are present,um, that she's going to be able
(08:28):
to export for you, that you'regoing to be able to add to a
digital binder that she createsin case you need to go to court.
So it's really all of those kindof additional layers that that
you know, my colleagues and I uhspent in crazy amounts of time
thinking through and developing,testing, launching, um, and
getting into the hands of folkswho really need it.
SPEAKER_02 (08:50):
Yeah.
So let's there are there's twodifferent, I guess, um, tiers.
You can have the free chatfeature and then there's the uh
paid for services.
So let's just start with there'snot a lot more to explain about
the chat feature because it's Ithink a lot of people are
already familiar with that sortof technology.
SPEAKER_00 (09:08):
Yes.
So right now, you know, 40,000people from 150 plus countries
have had just anonymousconversations with Amy whenever
they need, it's entirely free.
Um, no data is stored, itdisappears.
And for many people, that isexactly what is needed.
You know, our AI is trained inin uh course of control, and
(09:31):
what what escalates risks, whatkind of additional calculations
might need to be made, supportsthat need to be provided in that
context that make it a safer,more um uh uh more utilitarian
was the word that I'm lookingfor, tool than just an anonymous
chat with with Chat GPT.
Um, we keep that free and andpublicly available.
(09:53):
We also offer any organizationthat works with survivors, we
can put that free embeddablechat on your website as well.
So folks do not have to leaveit.
It's free for them, it's freefor the organization.
Um, but we also offer um asubscription model, and that
allows us to store theinformation so Amy remembers
you, right, when you come back.
(10:13):
And some people, that's it.
They just want, you know, everytime they have a chat with Amy,
they don't have to re-explainanything.
Amy has a growing kind of bodyof information about who you are
and what you've experienced it,what you need, what your goals
are.
Um, and then also, you know, allof the kind of data management
that is a really uniqueopportunity of artificial
intelligence to tag all of thatin the background, label it all,
(10:37):
extract key details, put thosethings on a timeline, and really
do the administrative, uhclerical, um, you know, uh
paralegal type work that um isincredibly time consuming,
re-traumatizing, um, andexpensive.
Certainly, if you're gonna havesomebody else try to do it for
you.
SPEAKER_02 (10:55):
Yeah.
And I've um, I'll be honest,I've played around with it.
I've told a few friends who arein some difficult situations,
and we've looked at it.
And what's cool is like how yousaid, there's like a timeline.
So you can start with today, andyou enter in an event for today,
and then say, okay, I have alittle bit of extra time.
(11:17):
Let me go back to five yearsago.
This is what happened five yearsago, and you can put that in,
and it's a lot more organizedthan like an actual hard copy of
a bunch of papers thrown intoit.
Um, the binder feature is reallycool.
And like if you're going to goto court for, I don't know,
(11:39):
you're talking about uh custodytimesharing, you can ask Amy,
and correct me if I'm wrong.
Like, we haven't gotten this farin playing with it, but you can
say, hey, I'm going to courtabout my son and whether he can
have time, whether there shouldbe more time, whether he things
should change.
And Amy will pull thedocumentation that's in
(12:02):
particular to that situation.
SPEAKER_00 (12:05):
Yes, exactly.
So, first of all, um binderswork because people have been
doing their due diligence anddocumenting things uh as they
go.
If a brand new user comes on andsays, build me a binder, you
know, Amy is building it fromwhat she knows about you and the
things you've uploaded and thedocuments that you have there
and the events that that she'seither documented or that you
have.
(12:25):
So it's the binder tool is kindof the product benefit of having
maintained a consistentrelationship with the AI.
But you're right, you could belike, well, he hasn't paid his
support in X months, and I wantto file for enforcement.
You click the binder button.
Amy asks you two questions andasks you to name the binder, so
(12:49):
you'll be able to, you know,identify it next to another one.
And then she will, in 30seconds, pull every chat that
you've had about uh that'srelated to non-payment, the
impact of it, every entry that'sin there, the documentation that
you've uploaded for that.
She'll put it together in a in asingle binder that you know you
(13:09):
can add to, that you can export,uh, you know, you can give it to
an attorney, you can use it inyour own, you know, if you're
pro se as a as aself-represented litigant.
But instead of you combingthrough, like you were saying,
you know, all those loose piecesof paper, you know, we've got
those everywhere.
Oh, I'll remember this.
I'll just jot it down on asticky note, and that will be
sufficient.
Uh, she's able to pull all ofthat together for you.
(13:31):
Um, it's an incredibly powerful,uh, powerful tool.
SPEAKER_02 (13:36):
Yeah, and in terms of documents, you can upload
your court, your divorce decreeor whatever court documents.
You can upload financialdocuments as well.
SPEAKER_00 (13:48):
Yes.
Yeah.
Um, you know, it lists all thedifferent file types.
She's better at um kind of morenarrative format.
Um, you can't just do a straightExcel spreadsheet particularly
well.
Uh, but she you upload thosethings, you add them to a
conversation so she knows thatthat's something that you want
her to be looking at.
Um, and she like I could uploadsix months of uh financial
(14:11):
records and say, you know, hesays he submitted these in
discovery, he says that he can'tafford to pay me.
And um, and she will be like,well, it looks like he spent
$16,000 on motorsports, uh, youknow, um equipment.
Um so perhaps the priorities arean issue, um, and and provide
that information to you withoutyou having to comb through it.
(14:31):
Um, certainly orders are a greatthing.
If you have orders um to have inthere, um, then when you have
any, you know, writing messagesto your ex, you can do it in
accordance with the expectationsthat are outlined in those
orders.
It's like having um, you know,we all kind of want an expert on
speed dial.
Um, it's a really high stakesplace.
It's high stakes for us.
(14:52):
Like if I make a mistake, youknow, I'm gonna deal with the
consequences.
If I make a mistake, I couldhave to deal with legal
consequences, or my child dealswith consequences.
It's a lot of pressure.
And it's really nice to be ableto do that with a companion who
can see the broader picture, whounderstands what those goals
are.
Um, you know, certainly we wantto save people, we save time,
money, and mental health.
(15:13):
Uh, and and that's what we'vetrained Amy to do.
SPEAKER_02 (15:15):
Yeah, and and the more you use her, she gets to
know you more.
So she knows more of thedynamics, uh, the abuse tactics
that are being used, andformulates then an answer.
If you go in and say, Hey, thishappens and I need to
communicate with my ex, Amy willsay, Well, given this
information we know of your ex,these are the potential
(15:38):
concerns.
And then helps generate ananswer.
SPEAKER_00 (15:43):
Right.
If you say, I'm concerned thatthis could escalate, or he might
have a negative response tothis.
She knows all of those times youtold her and what kind of flavor
of escalation he uses, right?
So you can help plan through isthat a uh a risk that, you know,
when I do kind of a risk-benefitanalysis, is it a risk that I do
want to take?
How can I mitigate thoseconcerns for escalation?
(16:05):
Um, she's really a thoughtpartner uh who, like, like you
said, remembers all of thethings that you shared with her.
Um, so you don't ever have to goback and explain yourself again.
SPEAKER_02 (16:14):
Right.
And then there's even the um,okay, you're sending this.
Do you want me to help you comeup with a response in case that
person does their typicalresponse?
How you go about respondresponding to that response, a
whole conversation.
SPEAKER_00 (16:31):
Yes, yeah.
Um, or it's like preparing forlive conversations.
Um, I'm gonna be at studentconferences.
This is what you know hashappened in the past, like role
play with me.
What am I gonna say if thisthing happens?
You know, what do I say if hesays this?
Um, what if he doesn't show up?
What should I do?
Because there's so much kind ofpre-conversation anxiety.
(16:51):
Um, you know, we uh, you know,survivors are like, I got caught
flat footed so many times.
I I'm so anxious andanticipating the next time that
happens.
I want to do everything that Ican to prepare.
Um, and it's actually really funto role play with Amy in a chat,
be like, okay, if this, thenwhat do I do?
(17:11):
Or tell me like three thingsthat he could say to me.
I don't want to be caught offguard and and really preparing
for those moments.
SPEAKER_02 (17:19):
Right.
And then you can even use it toanticipate.
For instance, I have a friendwhose son wants to confront uh
his father.
And so uh we were playingaround, like, okay, Amy, the son
wants to say this.
How can he say it?
What should he anticipate?
You know, what can his responsebe to what we're expecting his
(17:40):
father's response to be?
SPEAKER_00 (17:42):
Yes.
And like, first, you know, Amyis trained to support adults.
Um, so certainly there should bean adult interface to this.
Like, how can I support my childwho's trying to say, um, you
know, they really want to dothis, they want to, these are my
concerns.
Um, you know, how can I supporthim in this uh this situation?
Um, yeah, those are really,really good examples.
(18:03):
You know, I think a lot ofpeople think, like, oh, I just
go and I can talk about abuse.
Like, no, really dig in.
This is what I'm trying to getto, but I'm concerned about
this.
How do I think through this?
Is there a name for this thing?
Because I find myself chewing onit over and over and over.
Um, what kind of goals can I setfor myself?
How do I take care of myself in,you know, in the context?
(18:24):
I feel burnt out.
I feel, I feel resentful, right?
Like all of the very colorful,rich tapestry of experiences of
victimization and survivorship,those are all areas of
exploration and you know, anddocumentation that Amy's able to
go with you.
SPEAKER_02 (18:44):
And it's so, like how we were talking at the
beginning, the lack ofaccessibility to resources.
This is something that is veryaccessible.
I've spoken with a lot ofcoaches and they're fabulous.
And I would still recommend, youknow, their services.
They are really good at whatthey do.
Um, but sometimes those comewith a higher price tag.
And it's difficult, especiallyif there's financial abuse
(19:07):
involved, which a lot of timesthere is.
SPEAKER_00 (19:09):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I used to be a coach.
This is how I came to this.
Uh and people would pay me sumsof money that like required, I
needed to pay my bills to beable to provide that service,
right?
Like we get to charge for ourservices, but from a human
rights perspective, right?
We live in a world where peopleare allowed, specifically in the
(19:31):
context of an intimatepartnership, because we wouldn't
tolerate this from anybody else.
The systems would definitelyintervene if you hadn't slept
with the person before.
But the systems, we live in aworld that tolerates this
ongoing abuse.
I mean, many of these people arejust being like machine gunned,
buried in false accusations andyou know, uh uh constant
harassment.
They have needs, their childrenhave needs that are ever
(19:53):
constant, right?
They're being harmed actively.
So we have these people in thissituation, and then we say,
okay, but there is support.
It's available, it'll cost you$150 an hour, and you will need
11 hours a week of it, right?
That that's from a human rightsperspective, it's it's
unconscionable that we don'thave the ability to provide that
(20:16):
service for free, right?
Like free would really be thereally be ideal.
But even within a barely, youknow, uh uh accessible range of
you know of financial burden, wewe just it doesn't, it does not
exist.
And Amy provides the types ofservices that did not exist,
(20:37):
right?
It's really not just duplicatingthe same kind of services you
can get from an advocate orduplicating the same kind of
things you can get from a coach.
If you have access to those, usethem.
She is really filling out aspace which was just white
knuckled by the survivor before,or was just internalized, or it
was just considered the cost ofdoing business, you know, with
(20:59):
an abusive person.
You just we don't question it.
It's just the thing that youhave to do.
And that constant vigilance,that constant stress is
literally killing survivors,right?
It's increasing.
I'm getting kind of excitedhere.
I hope the mic isn't too much.
Oh, I'm with you, I'm about tojump in here, too.
Right?
I'm I'm I'm escalating.
I feel myself on the kind of theon-ramp of a of a freeway here
(21:22):
of righteousness.
It's killing people.
It's it's increasing their riskof stroke, of cardiovascular, of
heart disease, right?
Of diabetes, of of uhfibromyalgia, of autoimmune
disorders, you know, substancedependency that has a whole host
of other potential, you know,physical and mental health
(21:44):
implications, CPTSD, anxiety,depression, like increased risk
of suicidality.
These are all things that arethe result of the constant
stress that comes from having towhite knuckle day to day your
existence as a victim, as asurvivor through post-separation
abuse.
(22:05):
And uh, you know, I'll be darnedif I'm gonna rest my head on my
final pillow at hopefully, youknow, a late 90s age, um,
without having done everythingthat I can to try to stop that.
SPEAKER_02 (22:18):
Yeah.
And it's you are as a victim,you didn't choose to be abused.
An abuser abused you.
And then because of that, you'renow faced, you are faced with
the task of if you're still inthe relationship, safely
extracting yourself from thatperson, healing yourself.
(22:40):
And if you have any connectionswith that person, if you were
married, if you have financialcommitments with each other, if
you have children together, thenyou go into the world of
post-separation abuse, whereevery thought you have, every
action that you do, every wordthat you say, you have to
process through because if youtake the wrong step, then you
(23:03):
end up looking like the bad guy.
If you say the wrong thing, nowyou're the controlling person.
And it's so hard, it's so scarygoing into that world, having no
person to fall back on, noinformation to fall back on for
any sort of guidance.
And I mean, there's storiesthroughout the world where
(23:27):
parents, the actual victimizedparent, is being removed from
children's lives.
Yes.
Um, because they're coming intoo hot, they're too emotional
because that's their kids.
Their kids are being harmed.
And yeah, to have a resource tohelp give you some guidance on
(23:50):
what documentation you need,what to say, is so incredibly
helpful and so life-changing.
SPEAKER_00 (23:58):
That's that's absolutely the goal.
And while you were, you know,describing that, I was just
imagining it.
You're saying, you know, wedidn't people didn't ask for
this.
They don't want this, theydidn't deserve it.
It's not, they're not burningthrough some karma from another
lifetime, right?
And plenty of people listeningprobably actually think that
that's true, which is totallyfine.
I I've I've made many karmajokes, but you know, it's it's a
(24:20):
tornado that hits your house andturns it into toothpicks, right?
And but if a real tornado hitsyour house and turns it into
toothpicks, you have insurance,your neighbors come over, they
help clean up the mess.
Somebody's responsible forhelping you get that back
together.
And at a bare minimum, peoplefeel sorry for you, right?
In this, in this hypotheticaltornado, which is being the
(24:43):
unwitting target of somebody'semotional, physical,
psychological terrorism, right?
And it's a person who wassupposed to love you and and and
help take care of you.
You are like metaphorically inmatchsticks and toothpicks, but
no one feels sorry for you andno one is coming to help you,
right?
(25:03):
It is you, yours and yoursalone, the burden to rebuild
that house, to rebuild yourlife.
And like you were saying, youknow, these protective parents
are losing their childrenbecause they had the audacity to
say he's abusive.
He's hurting us.
Please help us.
He's doing things that shouldn'tbe allowed.
(25:25):
Please help us because they havethat audacity.
They're having their childrenremoved from their custody.
So I'm imagining that you knowthey're trying to rebuild this
house and the big bad wolf justkeeps coming over and blowing
the dang thing down.
It is, it defies people think welive in a generally safe world
(25:46):
where if I need the system toprotect me, it will.
Like if there comes a day whereI have to raise my hand and say,
I'm being harmed, and I knowthat there are laws and
expectations that should help meand support me.
People believe that it willhappen.
They put their heads on theirpillows at night believing it
will happen.
(26:06):
And it's a lie.
It is a lie, it's a lie we tellourselves, people who've never
been victimized.
It's a lie that we say directlyto people who've been victimized
and who are crying and trying totell us that it's not true, that
we can't live our livesbelieving that that thing's true
and that it needs to be changed.
SPEAKER_02 (26:24):
Absolutely.
And, you know, the this is thescenario where people are
raising their hands saying, Ineed help, I've been abused,
where then society, the legalsystem, and everyone looks at
you and says, Prove it.
Prove it.
Okay, some people have bruises,some people have broken bones,
but even those individuals havea difficult time proving where
(26:45):
they came from or prove thatthey didn't ask for it, they
didn't do something, and thiswas just their the retaliation.
Of course, that happened to youbecause what did you do?
I mean, that's the thing.
You're living in thesematchsticks now, and everyone's
asking you, well, what did youdo to bring the tornado to you?
SPEAKER_00 (27:03):
Yes, yes.
Uh yeah, I exactly.
What did you do to bring thistornado?
It is really hard to back up alittle bit.
This concept of proof and truth.
We are raised to tell the truth.
(27:24):
The truth is really important.
We're told that it's bad to lie.
And we hold dearly to thattruth.
A lot of victims, I mean, theirtheir willingness to be like,
but no, it was like this is partof what keeps them entrapped in
these relationships.
It's the it's the the thecrowbar, right, that abusers
used to distort people's senseof reality.
(27:45):
Like, I believe that if I tellthe truth, that will work.
It turns out when two people aretelling different truths, right?
And one is of the um uh kind ofculturally dominant, if you
will, I mean, speakingspecifically to men, um, the
kind of culturally dominant, andone is from the culturally um uh
(28:08):
non-dominant, truth becomes awhole new thing.
Truth is no longer the thingthat we thought it was when we
grew up.
It was no longer um what was,you know, observable, um,
documentable.
It suddenly becomes a who haspower in this particular
relationship, who has power inthis particular space, because
(28:28):
that's the person who's going tobe given preferential truth.
So if I come in and I say, hepushed me down the stairs and I
have a picture of it.
Like I have a picture of thedamage.
All he has to do is say, This iswhat I'm talking about, your
honor.
It doesn't matter what I do.
She fell down the stairs.
I was there.
I went to the bottom of thestairs to try to take care of
(28:49):
her in that moment, and and sheslapped me away.
But like, this is what I'mtrying to tell you is that she
will falsely accuse me ofanything.
Okay, where is that truth now?
And I'm sorry if anyone waslistening and that was
triggering, it was almosttriggering for me to just say it
out loud.
Wait, what is true now?
Because unfortunately, what ismore likely to be true in that
(29:11):
moment is that she will bestigmatized, she'll be victim
blamed, or or um, you know, thatnot even victim blamed, she will
be institutionally gaslitbecause we are as a society
culturally, systemically, morelikely to believe that the man
was falsely accused than that heis a perpetrator.
(29:33):
We're more likely to believehim.
So what's true now?
SPEAKER_02 (29:36):
Yes, and I have it sort of along the same lines,
but then I'm I think we're bothgoing on tangents, and that's
fine.
I am fired up.
SPEAKER_00 (29:44):
I am here for it.
SPEAKER_02 (29:45):
Um I was reading about parental alienation, and
that's a big topic that I amvery interested in, and I just
can't soak in enough informationabout it.
But there was a study, I thinkthat was probably multiple
studies actually, um, conductedall over the world, but this one
happened to be in Canada.
And what they were looking at ishow it's more forgivable for a
(30:10):
man to abuse his children, oreven if it's not his children,
abuse his partner in front ofthe children.
There are children involved,whether active victims or
passive, I suppose, victimwatching.
I can't think of observational,whatever.
Um my head is going way too fastfor my mouth.
(30:31):
So it's more forgivable for thatman to abuse and say, Oh, yeah,
I did that, I'm so sorry, thanit is for the mother to say, you
know, to for the mother to havenot immediately left, ran away
with the children.
Because then you're looked at,well, why did you keep them in
that environment?
You're not a great mom becauseyou kept them in that
(30:54):
environment.
But yes, he did it.
We know he did it, but he'ssorry.
SPEAKER_00 (30:58):
But you are responsible for not protecting
the children from this.
Not that the perpetrator wasresponsible for not offending in
front of the children or notoffending.
I mean, when we are, when weabuse the mother of the child,
we abuse the children, right?
We are abusing, we are makingweaker, um, harming the person
who is their primary supportsystem.
(31:20):
And I would argue that the wholeconcept of exposure to abuse is
really just we're not thatcomfortable saying directly, if
you abuse the mother of thechildren, you're abusing the
children.
Um yeah, it's you are um you areabsolutely right.
Uh that we are much morecomfortable looking for
accountability, if you will, inthe under, um, in the underdog.
(31:44):
We want to place accountabilityon the underdog, and we
absolutely fail to see that theaccountability you know belongs
to the perpetrator.
And actually, this is somethingthat I haven't talked about in a
while, um, but that I thinkabout a lot.
It's somewhat spiritual almost.
I'm gonna stick it out thereanyways.
The universe demandsaccountability.
(32:07):
When there is harm, there isaccountability.
I believe there's control overthat harm, and I believe there's
control over that uh thataccountability.
But what ends up happening isone person causes harm, and that
person doesn't want theaccountability.
So that accountability ends upabsorbed by the victim, by the
children, um, by you know, otherkind of peripheral things.
(32:29):
And we have institutionalizedthat when exactly what you said
happens.
Well, he's caused this harm, andwhy didn't you leave and protect
the children?
We have taken, he has caused theharm, and we have redistributed
the accountability for that tothe innocent, right?
To the people who didn't makethe choice to to perpetrate, to
(32:50):
offend, to cause harm.
And we see that little story,vignette, if you will, played
out in a billion differentexamples where I, you know, it
I'm trying to think of anotherone, but there's just so many,
it becomes a bottleneck in mybrain.
That they the universe demandsthat accountability, and we are
much more comfortable assigningthat to the protective parent,
(33:14):
to the person who isn't going toget outraged with us, then to
the person it belongs to.
And when we talk aboutalienation, so you know, I love
the Joan Myers study.
You know, if if a protectiveparent, typically the mother,
and this is bears out in thisstudy, comes forward and says,
um, he's abusive, um, there'schild abuse, or God forbid,
announcing that there was childsexual abuse.
(33:35):
And then he says, um, well, sheis she's alienating the children
from me.
Now, mind you, it's it is reallikely that the children are not
wanting to spend time with ascary parent who abuses them or
abuses their primary attachmentfigure.
But in that when that happens,we redistribute the blame, the
(33:56):
accountability to thatprotective parent.
Because by saying, no, this isparental alienation, he's
saying, I'm not willing to takeaccountability for it.
And for some reason, like wejust are very comfortable.
It happens like under our noseswithout even us feeling like we
are recognizing it or seeing ithappening.
We have landed squarely on theshoulders of the victim, of the
(34:19):
person trying to create safety,squarely on her shoulders now is
the accountability for the harmthat the perpetrator caused.
SPEAKER_02 (34:27):
Yes.
And, you know, there's so manystudies of how children benefit
from having time with the motherand the father, but those are in
stable, home, amicable, uh,cohesive, co-parenting
situations.
There, I don't there are not alot of studies, uh, if any like
(34:50):
true, really good studiesshowing what happens to the
children when they have equaltime with both parents, if one
of those parents is abusive.
And maybe not even necessarilyabusive to the children.
And that's what the court looksat too, right?
Well, they're they're notabusing the children.
It was they were abusing you,not the children.
(35:10):
But then you go into those, yousee the same patterns happening,
the whole same manipulation, thesame emotional trauma um abuse,
psychological abuse happening tothe children because now they're
used as pawns to continuecontrol over the victimized
parent.
SPEAKER_00 (35:30):
Yes.
And and two things can't betrue.
We can't say children across theboard without um caveat are best
served when they have uh youknow unfettered frequent access
to both parents.
You cannot say that and assumethat it holds true in the
context of one of those parentsbeing abusive, and also say
(35:53):
child abuse increases your riskof an early death, right?
We can look at adverse childhoodexperiences and we know that if
someone is a victim of childabuse or if they are, and they
use language like exposed todomestic violence, I think
that's a little more separatethan is a real true lived
experience for children who livewith an abusive parent.
We can't say though both ofthose things are true.
(36:15):
We know child abuse, we knowthat exposure to domestic
violence literally takes yearsoff of their lives.
Like I can't think of anotherway to say that they're just
harmful than to say it increasesyour risk of dying of cancer.
Right?
We can't say both of thosethings are true.
One of them can't be true.
The protective parents have beenscreaming for that for a really
long time.
(36:35):
And yet, that um, you know,presumption that equal access to
parents or at least frequentaccess to both parents is what's
best for the kids.
It it's um, I hear it and I seea figurative fish slap me across
the face.
I'm just dumbfounded that I thatpeople can hold those two things
and not recognize the dissonancein it.
SPEAKER_02 (36:58):
Right.
And then you have the averageperson going into this whole
system, scared, emotionallytraumatized, trying to navigate
how to do all of this withoutany resources, without all of
that data, without, you know,maybe not even an attorney or
it's a quarterboy attorney who'sjust doing their, you know,
(37:20):
moving through the motions, notnecessarily advocating for the
I'm not, I'm not going to getinto a lot of a lot of the legal
stuff because that's anothertangent I'll go on and I'm gonna
piss off people.
So I'm not going to do that.
But you have all theseindividuals, and there's a lot
of us.
There are a lot.
I mean, statistically, one inthree, but it's more.
(37:45):
It's definitely more because notall people have reported their
abuse.
They have it's not documented.
So those statistics, I believe,are not even truthfully acting
truly accurate.
Um, and so all of these peopleare going in, navigating, like I
said, emotionally traumatized,feeling completely over their
(38:10):
head and overwhelmed witheverything.
And then you have typically anabuser who is able to not feel
any kind of empathy and go inand they're calm and collected
and well put together and wellspoken and very, I didn't push
her down the stairs.
They have no problems lying.
SPEAKER_00 (38:29):
Yeah, well, and they get to walk into what is
arguably a really um uh scary,overwhelming, tense.
You know, talking about going tocourt.
Like, you know, most peoplewon't go to court uh, you know,
at any time in their lives.
And we try to avoid it.
We actively do whatever we canto make sure that we don't end
up standing in front of a judgeunless, you know, we have a hand
(38:51):
behind somebody else who we'rejust there to support.
And and the victim does that inthe context of complex
post-traumatic stress disorder,right?
And and being, you know,triggered in that moment.
And then the perpetrator gets todo that having little to no um
(39:11):
psychological impact of abusebecause it didn't happen to
them, right?
Right.
So it's um it's like lettingsomeone go into a race totally
prepared on a full stomach, um,having everything that they
could, you know, all of thetools at their fingertips to be
able to do it, and then stickingsomebody else in that same race,
uh, you know, with reallyterrible shin splints and both
(39:34):
of their arms cut off.
And oh, by the way, at the lastminute, we might blindfold her
and tell her that all theevidence she has isn't something
she can submit anyways.
It's um we are systematicallydisadvantaging the person who
needs the most from the system,who has the most to gain in
terms of ethical gains from thesystem.
(39:56):
Uh, we we disadvantage them fromthe outset.
And that's even that's just inthe legal context.
I mean, that these people, thesesurvivors, the victims, they're
experiencing these same thingswhen they go to work, when they
try to find the right therapist,when they need a doctor who can
understand them, uh, you know,and their experiences and how
those might impact their, youknow, their current, you know,
mental and physical health.
(40:18):
It's it, yeah, I I don't knowhow else to describe it other
than saying, you know, you'reasking this person to run a race
without any of the facultiesthat person needs to be able to
run the race.
unknown (40:29):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (40:29):
Oh, and you're telling them it's their fault.
unknown (40:31):
Right, right.
SPEAKER_02 (40:32):
Yes.
I'm gonna take everything awayfrom you, tell you it's your
fault, and say, fix this,approve it, fix it.
Uh and so yeah, Amy is a greattool to help anybody going into
any of those situations, like ifyou're in it trying to figure
out how to get out safely.
That I mean, that's number onepriority is is you know, safety.
(40:54):
And yeah, the aftermath is atruly new kind of hell.
And I think that's somethingthat will be incredibly helpful
for individuals.
You talked about gaslighting anduh gaslighting from from the
abuser, and then the systematicgaslighting.
But then that there was a topicthat you and I were talking
(41:15):
about, a term that was new tome.
So um, what is it, distortednostalgia?
SPEAKER_00 (41:20):
Yeah, distorted nostalgia.
It's kind of this idea that, andit's it's definitely uh as a
relationship with trauma bondingas well, um, right?
And that trauma bonding, likesomeone objectively from the
outside of the relationshipcould be like, that's super not
healthy.
I'm not sure how you could couldpossibly feel safe around that
person, but the person in it,um, right, is in this kind of
cyclical bond.
(41:41):
Uh, and this distorted nostalgiais not totally dissimilar from
that.
It's that kind of looking backand finding things, um,
remembering things is morepositive than they were or more
meaningful than they were.
Uh, it's it's not entirelydifferent from kind of euphoric
recall where we completely, youknow, rewrite, like, it was the
most amazing thing ever.
(42:02):
Um, but it's it is one of thosethings, especially shortly
after, like when maybe in thefirst couple of years, sorry,
but in the context of abuserecovery, a couple of years is
considered short, that thatpeople find themselves
revisiting.
It's like, oh, well, I guessthat, but that was that positive
thing, right?
There was, and that was actuallyit was really warm, it was
(42:22):
really thoughtful, that thingthat that he did.
And it it is like an internalgaslight, right?
Whereas if you really like kindof dissected that experience, it
might be like, well, that wasreally wonderful.
Well, he did, he did like blowup on me on that vacation too.
And actually, I was feelingpretty timid and you know,
embarrassed after that blow up.
(42:43):
And when you really startdigging at it, you can recognize
the distortions and thenostalgic way that that you look
back on, you know, shared memorythat you have with someone.
Um, so I guess you know, we putthat out in our newsletter.
It's just it's good to havenames for things that you might
experience or might beconfusing.
Um, and a lot of people do, theyexperience that.
They look back and think, like,oh, well, that was really
(43:04):
wonderful.
Um, but with a little deeperthought, can start to see that
the abuse was present in that insome way as well.
SPEAKER_02 (43:11):
Yeah, and I think even just knowing that these
terms exist is also validatingin a way.
Because I know for myself, I'vegone back and I've thought,
well, did it really happen thatway?
Or was it not as bad as Ithought?
You know what?
I don't think it was.
Because like that really nicething happened before, that
(43:33):
really nice thing happenedafter.
So maybe that part in the middlewasn't as ugly as I thought it
was.
And yeah, it's that eternalgaslight where you're just
constantly questioning, youknow, for a long time afterward
of did it really happen thatway?
Was it was it really abuse?
And then you you're like, Well,yeah, yeah, it was.
SPEAKER_00 (43:54):
Yep.
Was it was it really abuse?
Um, there isn't a survivor whodidn't ask themselves that many,
many times, um, and who mightnot still be, right?
Asking, asking themselves that.
And it's normal for there to bepositive times, right?
Because if the person washorrible and scary and
intimidating and belittling anddegrading and, you know, and uh
(44:15):
all of the time, you probablywouldn't have stayed in that
relationship.
Uh it's the back and forth, it'sthe hot and the cold, it's the
reseeking of those positivetimes.
So there will be, those positivetimes will exist
retrospectively, um, with a lotof um uh kind of building of
understanding and and educatingyourself about your own
(44:37):
experience.
It's impossible to see those asdistinctly separate from the bad
times, right?
Because the bad times play intothe good times, play into the
bad times.
It's that loop um that is so umit can be so intoxicating, um,
which can really build so muchof that that trauma bonding um
(44:58):
and and make yourself your bestgaslighter, right?
You can gaslight yourself, youknow, even in the absence of it
of it being done to you.
Um that's uh that is a normalexperience.
That doesn't mean that the abusedidn't happen.
Uh it's it's really just kind ofthis this weakness of our um
human psychology, uh, and andpart of why we're vulnerable to
(45:21):
these relationships to beginwith.
SPEAKER_02 (45:23):
Well, and I think journaling, which we kind of
talked with that, Amy does, butlike Amy will you can do
journaling and keep a time.
We did talk about the timeline.
Um, but yeah, you can enterthose things in and just put
them there.
Like, oh, this happened andmaybe it wasn't so bad, but um
just have it there and then withthe accumulation of information,
(45:47):
you can go back, you can lookand see it for yourself.
SPEAKER_00 (45:50):
Yep.
Yeah, it's a it's a really umeffective kind of guidance point
for people who especially havejust left um or really
questioning whether or not itwas abusive.
Just write down.
Just write down the things thathappened because it's really
being able to see them in, youknow, in the the um totality
that's so important.
And with Amy, like if you have asubscription, if you have an
(46:12):
account, you just talk to Amy.
She's gonna ask questions.
Was ever anything else thathappened that was similar to
that?
You feel like you're just havingthis conversation and she is she
is extracting that informationand putting it onto a timeline.
You don't ever even have to lookat it if you don't want to, just
knowing that it's there if youneed it.
Um, but certainly people do.
They'd like to go over it, theytake a look and see the
(46:34):
patterns, see how often certaintypes of things happened.
And it really helps in thosemoments where your head is
spinning and you're really notsure what directions up to see
it right there, kind of let'ssay written in stone, but
computers are literally theopposite of stone.
SPEAKER_02 (46:50):
And okay, and so you mentioned how many people has
Amy reached?
SPEAKER_00 (46:55):
There's been like 40,000 people from over 150
countries that have talked toAmy, which is just incredible.
Um, and there's three of us onthe team, you know, when we
think about the scale and accessand the role that technology
like this, kind of digitalhealth tools in general, have
played in giving people accessto their own experiences,
(47:16):
helping people pair, you know,really bringing together all of
the incredible research and thebody of knowledge, right down to
people's own experiences, rightinto their pockets.
You know, this is what digitalhealth is, right?
This is certainly what you know,what we're trying to build.
And the scale is is insane.
(47:36):
This is an incredible time andopportunity to be building for
what is one of the largestglobal public health issues that
has never been addressed atscale ever before.
SPEAKER_02 (47:50):
Yeah.
And you guys didn't just createAmy and then wash your hands of
it.
You're always going in andright.
SPEAKER_00 (47:57):
Yeah.
Amy, it's it's kind of likelaundry.
You're never done, right?
Uh and as soon as you finish aload and you're like, oh, this
new feature, we just finished aload.
Um, all of the other featuresthat you want to build is a
growing pile of laundry.
Um, although it's a lot more funto build in this space than
laundry.
And um, when you do yourlaundry, people don't send you
emails of depth of gratitude.
(48:19):
But if they did, that would makelaundry a lot more fun.
SPEAKER_01 (48:22):
Wouldn't it?
SPEAKER_02 (48:23):
I mean, my kids don't appreciate it.
It's just magical to them.
Um, okay, so how would somebody,how does somebody access Amy?
SPEAKER_00 (48:34):
Go to amys.com and it's A-I-M-E-E, is how you spell
her name.
Amy Sus.com.
You can use it on your phone.
It's mobile optimized.
There's nothing that you have todownload, um, which is great,
especially if you need a lot ofprivacy and confidentiality
around it right now.
Those free conversations, haveas many as you want.
They're totally free.
They disappear.
If you need more, we arebuilding for you.
(48:55):
Um, and we'd love for you tosubscribe.
It's$20 a month.
Uh, you know, you can get anannual subscription for less
than a 30-minute phone call withan attorney.
Um, Amy saves people insaneamounts of money uh uh in you
know utilizing much moreexpensive systems or in making
those systems more effective forthem when they do need to
(49:16):
utilize them.
SPEAKER_02 (49:17):
Um and is there a quick exit feature?
SPEAKER_00 (49:21):
Yes, there is a quick exit on both mobile.
If you have any concerns aboutsomeone looking over the
shoulder, um do click that quickexit button.
If you're having a an anonymouschat, a free chat, it's entirely
gone.
Um, it will just uh divert youaway and log you out if you have
an account.
SPEAKER_02 (49:39):
Perfect.
And is there a way, because Iknow you're constantly improving
and adding, is there a way foranybody to give you feedback if
they're using Amy and theynotice they do like something,
they don't like something?
SPEAKER_00 (49:51):
Yes, any of the support or feedback buttons um
or contact buttons, they comedirectly to my inbox.
Um it's me that you're talkingto, um, which uh is super fun.
I want to stay as close to allof our users as possible.
And we do, we hear all sorts ofstuff.
We hear from our users, youknow, if I if we have a an AI
partner that's down, we foundout first because someone was
like, hey, Amy's not responding.
(50:13):
I it's um there are um ourwarning system, our alarm bells,
and generate the entirety of allof the new concepts that we that
we built.
So please, yes, use thosesupport and contact buttons and
it will go directly to me.
SPEAKER_02 (50:27):
Uh one of the other features we didn't talk about is
that you can involveprofessionals in your your
profile, correct?
SPEAKER_00 (50:36):
Yes, yeah.
So if you have an account, youcan assign team members.
So people will assign anattorney as a team member, and
that means their attorney cancome on, access it, grab the
kinds of information that theyneed.
Same thing with a therapist.
Um, if you're working with a DVadvocate, same thing there.
Um, and one of the potentialbenefits of having any one of
those three, because those allhave confidentiality
(50:57):
expectations, is the opportunityfor potentially having
additional confidentialityapplied to your account in the
event that that an ex is asking,requesting for its contents and
discovery.
Um we haven't had that happenyet.
Um I'm knocking on wood here.
Uh um, but we're doingeverything that we can to keep
those accounts as private andsafe as possible.
SPEAKER_02 (51:17):
Okay.
And one, and I can edit this outif we don't have an answer to
it.
Um I've heard of stories ofwhere Chat GPT has given some
very poor advice.
I read an article, and I don't,I'll be honest, I did not fact
check it.
I saw it saw it on Facebook, butwhere it said one of the other
(51:37):
AI services recommended that achild end his life.
Um and I like I said, I don'tknow how true that situation
was, but it's true.
It is true.
SPEAKER_00 (51:51):
And this is like a broader conversation.
AIs um are not flawless, they'renot perfect.
Um, there is an expectation ofresponsibility on behalf of the
user uh uh as an informed user,um, as a user who is intending
to um you know derive benefitand support from that system.
(52:15):
There are populations of people,um, children especially being
incredibly vulnerable to this,who won't always be able to
exercise the degree of judgmentthat can keep them like it's
like you know, if I'm driving acar, there's a risk of driving
the car, right?
I I have to learn how to do thatthing safely.
(52:35):
Um, you know, things come up, Ineed to make a judgment decision
in that moment.
And utilizing AI is not um isnot necessarily hugely different
from that.
It is it is very important to bean informed user of whatever
tool it is that you're using.
Um and there are really they'rethey're true stories and they're
devastatingly sad stories ofpeople who um were engaging with
(52:58):
an AI in a way that caused thatAI to make um statements or
recommendations that um thatwere lethal and instances where
people did, in fact, take thoserecommendations.
Uh there's it it's it's adifficult thing to solve for.
Um, it requires some redundancyin those systems to make sure
(53:18):
that they are not um sayingthings that could be construed
as or or that are literally umuh making recommendations that a
person harmed themselves.
Um and also that is there'spartly the use of the tool and
how that's happening.
So please use AI responsibly.
Um, if you're having a mentalhealth crisis, an AI is not the
(53:40):
tool for you.
An AI is not a crisis responsetool, um, but they're really
good around those crises.
I think it's really important tobe an informed, um, educated
utilizer of any tool that you'reusing.
SPEAKER_01 (53:55):
And it also doesn't take the place of a therapist.
I mean, it can help you go prose, but yeah, the actual thing
is.
SPEAKER_00 (54:01):
And and it will, you know, a good support system will
absolutely improve your mentalhealth.
But a therapist is trained tomake a diagnosis, for example,
which is something that an AIcan't do, to create a treatment
plan, to monitor your progressalong that treatment plan.
I mean, there are specificthings that a therapist can do
that an AI can't.
Now, does an AI provide legalbenefit?
(54:21):
Does it provide mental healthbenefit?
Um, I would say that it that itabsolutely does.
But there are areas of trainingthat AIs can't provide, and
partly because they can't makedecisions on your behalf, uh,
and that we will continue toneed people, um, real humans to
be able to do.
SPEAKER_02 (54:43):
Which is comforting because we want humans around.
Okay.
Ann, is there anything wemissed?
I love this conversation, eventhough we would we did kind of
go off a little bit, but thatwas that made it more exciting.
SPEAKER_00 (54:57):
That makes it more interesting.
Um, you know, my my life, um,what I have, you know, to to
speak about is way more thanthan you know what an AI can do.
Um, but it certainly makes mepassionate about trying to solve
the problem uh with technology.
No, I I think we I think we dida good job.
I think we covered a lot ofground.
SPEAKER_02 (55:17):
Okay, I think so too.
So before we close, do you haveany parting words of strength or
encouragement that you wouldlike to leave with listeners?
SPEAKER_00 (55:28):
Uh how about the one I say a lot?
Um, this too shall pass.
It may pass like a kidney stone,but this too shall pass.
SPEAKER_02 (55:38):
Yeah, and some have one hell of a kidney stone, but
yes.
SPEAKER_00 (55:42):
Yes.
Um, take care of yourself, loveyourself.
You're not alone in this, eventhough you feel you know
desperately alone.
Uh, there is there is anotherside.
And um, I wish I could holdhands with everybody who's in
that that traveling space umbecause it can be really dark
and scary.
SPEAKER_02 (56:02):
Yes, it can.
And thank you so much, Ann.
Thank you, Amy, for for beingout there.
But I really appreciate yourtime coming on today and the
development of Amy, which Ithink is going to be incredibly,
incredibly helpful.
SPEAKER_00 (56:18):
Thank you so much, Ingrid, for having me on and
helping share what we're workingon.
SPEAKER_02 (56:22):
Thank you again, Anne, for joining me today, and
thank you, Warriors, forlistening.
I've included the website Annewas referring to as well as her
one in three profile link in theshow notes.
I will be back next week withanother episode for you.
Until then, stay strong.
And wherever you are in yourjourney, always remember you are
(56:43):
not alone.
Find more information, registeras a guest, or leave a review by
going to the websiteoneinthreepodcast.com.
That's the number one the numberthree podcast.com.
Follow one in three onInstagram, Facebook, and Twitter
at one and three podcast.
(57:03):
To help me out, please rememberto rate review and subscribe.
One and three is a point fivePanoy production.
Music written and performed byTim Crowd.
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