June 6, 2025 • 66 mins
In part two of Keyanna's story, we dive deep into the darkest moments of her abusive relationship when isolation and control led to self-harm, suicidal thoughts, and her fight for survival.
• Keyanna describes how severe isolation and emotional abuse led to self-harm as she struggled with no resources or support system
• Her abuser weaponized her pain and mental health struggles against her, publicly shaming her instead of offering support
• After a violent physical assault where she was choked unconscious, Keyanna reached her breaking point
• Keyanna shares her suicide attempt and the complex emotions of feeling trapped with no escape
• Despite being hospitalized and revealing the abuse, her abuser was allowed to participate in her treatment meetings
• Her family ultimately helped end the relationship, though they had been unaware of the severity of the abuse
• Years later, Keyanna discovered her ex was imprisoned for attempting to murder another girlfriend
• Now nearly 11 years self-harm free, Keyanna views each day of recovery as reclaiming her freedom
• Her advice to others in abusive situations: find just one trusted person to tell your story to
If you're struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988. You are not alone, and help is available.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hey, it's Elissa.
Welcome back to Dismissed TrueStories.
Just real quick, before webegin today's episode, I want to
offer a very clear triggerwarning.
This episode containsconversations about self-harm,
suicidal thoughts and emotionalabuse.
So if you're not in a place tohear that today, please, please,
(00:37):
take care of yourself first andyou can come back whenever
you're ready, or you can skipthis episode entirely.
Please put yourself first andtake care of yourself.
You come first, always.
So in last week's episode webegan part one of Kiana's story.
(00:58):
She walked us through the earlystages of her relationship,
where the manipulation startedsmall, through things like
isolation, love, bombing andjust a very slow erosion of her
independence.
We talk about how abusers willstudy you, mirror your desires
and build a false sense ofsafety before the control begins
(01:19):
.
And Kiana shared how, once shemoved away from her support
system to go to school, theabuse escalated emotionally,
financially, psychologically andphysically.
She described what it felt liketo live in survival mode and
how, even in a moment where shewanted to leave, she couldn't
(01:39):
because she had no money, noresources and nowhere to go.
So today, in part two, we'regoing to go deeper.
Kiana opens up about thedarkest parts of that
relationship, when the pressureand isolation led to self-harm,
when her cries of help wereturned against her and what it
(02:00):
looked like to be emotionallysuffocated by someone who
claimed to love her.
This episode is heavy, but it'salso very real, and in the
telling of that there is so muchpower.
So you said that you startedand let me know if you're ready
(02:37):
to talk about this but you saidthat you were self-harming at
this time because you were in adeep depression and every little
fight that you had would leadto self-harming.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, so I dealt with depression.
I feel like a lot of my life.
I just didn't realize it wasdepression.
Maybe, but being in such a darkplace already where I'm stuck
with this person barely talkingto my friends or family, away
from home, no way to get home,and every time we're arguing or
(03:16):
I'm stressed out I'm.
You know, some people drink,some people smoke, for whatever
reason.
It probably was all that pentup frustration and I, not
knowing what to do with it, juststarted cutting.
I don't know if you put triggerwarnings on this, but it's.
You know, I had, you know, therazors that you shave with.
(03:40):
It started just literallytaking the razor and just
slicing across my leg becausenobody would see my leg, you
know, top of my thighs, and itgot really bad.
I still have scars, actually,from that, and that was, however
, many years at this point ago.
I mean, if I knew that I didsomething that was going to
(04:01):
disappoint her, right, like shewas graduating from a GED
program down there, right, and Iobviously didn't have a car, I
was waiting for my mom to comeand pick me up to take me to
this ceremony, and whatever mymom was doing, she was taking
forever.
And I'm looking at the clocklike I'm missing it.
(04:23):
I'm missing it, I'm missing it.
She's going to freak out.
There's no like this is goingto be monumentally horrible.
And I'm in the bathroom, cryinghysterically.
I'm self-harming.
My mom finally gets there, weget to the place and it's over.
She's so upset.
(04:45):
I mean she's trying to be chillbecause my mom is there.
And I can see it in her face,like I can feel those vibes
coming off of her, like I knowthe second we're alone, this is
going to be horrible.
So I'm like, okay, well, we'regoing to go with my mom and she
took us to eat and we went toher friend's house and I'm like
(05:06):
let's just hang out with my mombecause I did not want to go
home.
Yeah, and I mean, we I don'tactually didn't even wait until
we got home.
When we got to her friend'shouse, we went outside.
And that's when I knew right,so we go outside.
Because I'm like, okay, well,you want to go out here.
(05:29):
So here we are and she startsasking me where were you, what
were you doing?
Why didn't you get there ontime?
And I tried to explain to her.
You know, I had to wait for mymom.
And she's telling me well, youcould have got a bus pass.
You could have gotten on any ofthese buses and made it here.
How am I supposed to get a buspass when you have my money?
But that's not logical, rightFor her, not logical.
(05:50):
I was supposed to somehow comeup with a $1.50 random change
and hop on a bus, on a system Idon't know that much about, and
get to this place on time.
There was no way I could havemade that happen.
And it's she's yelling at me,but trying not to be super loud
(06:11):
because we're outside andthey're right there in the house
.
You could see the window.
I don't know why nobody cameout while she was yelling.
They probably just trying tomind their own business.
But she's yelling at me abouthow I should have been there, I
should have done this and thatand the other thing, and at this
point I'm crying hysterically,I'm super upset and I'm bleeding
through my pants, and I didn'trealize it.
(06:33):
So then, she sees that and youcaught yourself earlier, yes, so
then she freaks out because I'mbleeding through my pants.
She's yelling for my mom andI'm begging her obviously not to
get my mom Like we got tofigure something else out.
We could do literally anything.
I will run home at this pointbecause I don't want my mom to
come out here.
And of course she comes out.
(06:55):
She's yelling about me cuttingmyself.
She's yelling that I'm insaneand all of these things, and I'm
like, oh my God, like how do Iget out of this?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So your ex was the one yelling, not your mom, right
?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yes, my ex was the one yelling to my mom that I had
cut myself.
I'm bleeding out here, I'minsane, I'm self-harming, all
these things.
And my mom is a complicatedrelationship I've had with her
for quite a long time and atthis point in my life we were
(07:30):
barely like barely mother anddaughter.
So I think she didn't want tocause any more of a rift, so she
didn't make like a huge dealout of it.
She took me in her friend'shouse let me clean up.
We never spoke of it, she neversaid anything.
Her friend's house, let meclean up.
We never spoke of it.
She never said anything aboutit.
We never spoke about it againuntil later in the story where
(07:53):
she finds out you know wheresome of these things started.
I feel like I personally foundout where some of these things
started, because it wasn'tnecessarily the abuse in the
relationship.
That's a huge part of it.
But there were things from mychildhood that were played a
part of the depression and othertraumas that I have and can't
blame it all on that.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But oh my God, I really don't know what to say
here, except for what you justheard is what it looks like when
pain has nowhere to go, whenthe pressure is so constant, so
(08:34):
suffocating, that your nervoussystem literally just starts to
turn in on itself.
Kiana was isolated, trapped,financially controlled,
emotionally terrorized, and insituations like that your body
will just start screaming forsome sort of release, and
sometimes self-harm becomes thetragic way to cope.
And it's not because it makesany kind of sense logically, but
(08:57):
it's because it gives your paina place to land.
It's like, I don't know,hurting yourself physically
feels better than the mental andemotional anguish that you're
feeling.
At the time, I mean, she wasgrieving a relationship while
(09:22):
she was still in it, trying tobe enough for someone who
weaponized every single momentagainst her, and I don't want to
miss this part either, becausethis part really bothered me as
I was listening back whileediting.
But when her pain showed, whenher self-harm literally bled
(09:44):
through her pants, her abuserdidn't offer to care.
Her abuser didn't offer anysort of empathy, she just used
it as another weapon against her.
That is so wrong Shaming her,exposing her and trying to paint
her as unstable when she wasalready in survival mode.
(10:06):
She was trying to survive her.
This is what coercive controllooks like.
This is how trauma layersitself, and this is why healing
isn't just about getting awayfrom your abuser.
It's about healing everythingin your life that has ever told
(10:28):
you that this is what loveshould look like.
I do wonder, though, with yourex like, were you all she had?
Did she not have a supportivefamily?
Like?
What was her reasoning forbeing so attached and isolating
and controlling?
When you hear me ask questionslike this, like about her
(10:50):
background and about hermotivations, her patterns, it's
not to give her a pass, it's tounderstand the why.
If you're like me, you'reprobably trying to psychoanalyze
this person.
I mean, sometimes, when you'vebeen through abuse, you just
want the answers to questionsthat don't have clean
(11:10):
explanations.
You want to know did somethinghappen to them?
Were they broken before theybroke me?
Why were they so desperate tocontrol everything?
That kind of curiosity isn'tabout letting them off the hook.
It's about making sense ofchaos, I guess.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Essentially, so, yeah , that was the other thing.
She had a terrible family.
Her mom is still, to this day,one of the worst people that I
know like.
She's awful and she had somesiblings, two brothers and a
sister, all younger than her, um, but her being her the only
(11:55):
lesbian masculine, they like topick on her a lot.
They were not very kind to herand there were some traumas in
their own family that hadn'tbeen dealt with.
That definitely played a partin all of their nonsense and why
she was the way that she was.
I'm sure I just didn't takethat into consideration at the
(12:20):
time.
I guess I just was trying to bea good girlfriend and be there
for her and try to make her momlike me.
So her mom would be nicer andthat was not.
That did not work.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Well, it's never.
It's never your responsibilityeither, you know to fill those
holes and those gaps in somebodylike that's their
responsibility.
Yeah, but you were young too, Iwouldn't.
I didn't know, I didn't know itwasn't their responsibility.
Yeah, but you were young too, Iwouldn't, I didn't know, I
didn't know, it wasn't myresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, and I feel like growing up I watched, you know,
my grandma make everybodyelse's things her responsibility
.
But she was a grandma at thetime.
She had had her children andher grandchildren.
She took us on, you know, whenmy mom wasn't able to and I feel
like I internalized a lot ofthat I was like, all right, I'm
going to be the save, I'm goingto save everybody that I can.
(13:11):
I'm still doing that to thisday.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I still struggle with trying to fix problems that
aren't mine Same and it's likeand the thing is too, is that,
is that like?
I know that I get that from mymother, but it's generational,
because it's definitely passeddown from my grandmother too.
That's interesting.
Are you ready to talk about thepersonality disorder?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yes, we can get into that.
Okay, yes, we can get into that.
Um, okay, I don't even reallyknow how to get into it outside
of her telling me that yeah, solet's talk about the other
person.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
You said that the other person that she identified
as was male.
And this male would getextremely aggressive.
He only seemed to show up whenshe was really upset, and that's
when she would attack you shewould attack you.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yes, so I wish I could remember his name.
I feel like I only remembersaying him and that's probably
just because I never wanted tocall out whoever it was.
Right, like kind of likeVoldemort, you know you don't
want to say their name.
Right, like kind of likeVoldemort, you know you don't
want to say their name.
Yeah, the fear of appearing.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Such a complicated line between mental illness and
abuse, because mental illness isnot a free pass to abuse
someone, but at the same time,it's not like we completely
understand if we can't identifywith what they're going through,
and that may be part of thestory here, sure, but it's not
(15:09):
the reason that someonemanipulates, controls or harms
another person.
What often happens in abusiverelationships, though, is that
survivors feel guilty for havingboundaries, because they've
been made to feel like theabuser's emotions are just their
well-being is actually theirresponsibility, and it's not, um
(15:32):
, I think.
I think we know that, but Ithink that it's also worth
saying that it's not because youcan hold compassion for
someone's pain without acceptingtheir harm like I mentioned
earlier, it was like a switchwhere you close your eyes.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
A couple minutes go by, you wake up.
You're enraged, right, andthere were times where she's
just lunging you know what Imean.
Like they just lunge at you andshe's swinging her arms.
She's hitting me, slapping me,biting me, scratching me, like
(16:08):
doesn't.
You're not even saying words,you're just attacking like an
animal which makes no sense,like one of the worst times
which I think I put in the thingthat I sent you Swear.
I don't know how it started.
I don't even feel like we werehaving an argument, it was a
(16:30):
conversation we were having.
I said something in theconversation that she did not
like.
She stepped out of the room, Iremember because we were in my
mom's old apartment in this town.
She stepped into another roomit was my brother's room at the
time.
Nobody was home, it was just meand her.
And then she comes back intothe room and she just punches me
(16:53):
and I'm like, oh my God, likedid not expect it.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Where did she punch you?
I had no idea that this wasgoing to happen In my face.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
She punched me right in the face and I was like so at
this point now, cause I was onsitting on the bed waiting for
her, and so I fell and I'mshielding I'm just shielding
myself and she is punching meand punching me.
She's grabbing me by the hair,she's dragging me through the
room.
She had grabbed and held ontomy hair and was just punching my
(17:21):
face, my neck, my arms, likeeverywhere, and I think she got
so frustrated that I'm trying toshield myself that she had
ripped my arms away and startedchoking me.
So that was the point whereshe's standing over me, I'm on
the ground, she is choking meand I am losing consciousness,
thinking this is a moment, I'mdead, my mom's going to come
(17:43):
home, I'm going to be dead onthe floor and I don't know where
she's even going to be.
Like what if she kills my mom?
What if she kills my brother?
Because she's in this rage andI have no idea.
All of this over a conversation, it wasn't even an argument, it
was nothing like major.
I don't even remember what Isaid, but I remember that moment
of trying to come to terms withthis is how I'm going to die On
(18:06):
the floor in this shittyapartment where I just away from
everyone.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Wow, what do I even say to this?
Because this one hurts.
There's a moment in abuse Imust be losing my voice.
There's a moment in abuse wheresomething inside of you just
goes dark, something just Idon't know.
It stops talking, it goes quiet, and it's not because the pain
(18:38):
has stopped, but becausefighting it starts to feel
pointless.
Because fighting it starts tofeel pointless, you stop
dreaming of escape, you stopbelieving that things will
change and instead you startasking yourself is this it?
(19:00):
Is this the kind of love that Iwas meant for?
Is this how my story ends?
And that's the moment when theabuse stops being something
that's happened to you andstarts becoming something that
you're emotionally absorbing asyour identity.
And it's not just physicalviolence anymore, it's soul
(19:26):
erosion.
And this happens to so manysurvivors.
I think of the part describedit fully for me, because when
(19:53):
someone chips away at your worthfor long enough, eventually
you're going to start believingthe lie.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I don't know how long I was out for because I did
blackout.
When I woke up I was on thefloor.
I could barely move from all ofthe punching.
I don't know if she continuedto hit me after I was knocked
out.
I have no idea what happened tomy body.
I get up.
I'm like so sore my mom isstill not here.
(20:22):
I'm bleeding, so I just get inthe shower and try to wash
everything up, clean everythingup, try and put band-aids and
makeup and whatever I could,because my mom is going to be
home at some point, I don't knowwhen.
So I'm just rushing to try tomake myself look as normal as
possible and it just my mom didnot come home before she got
(20:47):
back, so she got back and waslooking at me like what happened
to you?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
This is just one of those episodes where I feel like
I could butt in every fiveseconds and talk to you about a
genuine what the fuck?
Moment.
But this is one of them thatI'm going to say what the fuck?
Because this moment where Kianawakes up after being beaten and
(21:14):
then her abuser looks at herand asks what happened to you,
that's more than just chilling,it's destabilizing.
I have cold chills even sayingthat word, and it's just
something that so many survivorsexperience.
The person who just hurt youacts like nothing happened.
(21:37):
We heard it in Lauren's storyin the first season.
They either truly don'tremember or they pretend not to,
and either way, you're the oneleft holding all of the pain and
all of the confusion.
And this can happen for tworeasons, maybe a few reasons.
(22:00):
Some abusers they enter suchlike intense rages that they
dissociate like I think you'veprobably heard of the term
narcissist eyes.
It's just like when their eyesgo completely black and there's
like nothing behind them.
They lose time memoryconnections to their actions
(22:21):
during this time.
But um, others can pretend thatthey don't remember just as a
way to avoid accountability andmaybe even deepen your
self-doubt a little bit, and ineither case, the result will be
the same.
It's that you're going to startquestioning your own reality.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
What's going on and I'm like, are you insane?
You literally just beat thecrap out of me just now.
I don't even know how long it'sbeen.
I just woke up.
It took her maybe 30 minutes ofme waking up.
Between the time I woke up onthe floor, took my shower and
everything.
30 minutes from that point iswhen she got back before my mom
(23:07):
and she's like looking over mybody.
So she's taking my clothes off,looking at my body, looking how
red I am, seeing my cuts,seeing my bruises, and even
though I'm dark, I feel likethose bruises showed up so fast
and maybe that is a part of Ishouldn't have taken a shower
with hot water.
I should have been taking coldshowers and ice packs and I
(23:29):
didn't do any of that.
But I was visibly red, swollen,crying, and she's trying to
console me.
Now she's trying to tell me ohmy gosh, I can't believe I did
this to you.
I can't believe this happenedand I'm like just completely in
(23:50):
confusion and awe that this isreal life right now.
You just almost killed me andyou're coming in here acting
like you have no idea what justhappened.
Never in these switches thatshe would have has she ever come
back and not knew what happened, cause this had happened before
, just not as severely.
But she knew what happened whenit was over.
(24:14):
This time she acted likenothing, like she had no idea,
and then she got so upset withherself that she runs out the
door again and I can't evenchase after her because I feel
like I can barely move.
My mom comes home again, has noidea, isn't paying attention or
(24:36):
doesn't care, I don't know.
She doesn't say anything aboutwhat I look like.
I get in the car with her to goto the store, just leaving.
I'm like whatever, we'll lockthe door If she gets here.
Too bad.
We're driving down the highway.
There she is standing on theside of the highway with the
police.
I don't know why they stoppedher.
If it there she is standing onthe side of the highway with the
police.
I don't know why they stoppedher.
(24:57):
If it's because she was walkingon the highway and you're not
supposed to do that.
I have still I have no idea whythey stopped her.
My mom did end up going to gether later that evening Cause
they held her for a little bit.
She had a violent past already,so anytime a police officer was
involved they wereautomatically like okay, well,
(25:19):
she's high risk or whatever.
It is Like they're on higheralert because when they get her
ID and run it and see that shehas all of these charges she had
had scuffles with the policebefore, so they're on edge with
her.
And my mom didn't even stop,she just kept on driving and we
went to the store, waited forher to call me and I told her
(25:43):
like we got to go get her.
And my mom actually wentwithout me to go and get her and
brought her back Because Icouldn't move, I was just.
I laid and laid and laid fordays.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I missed work because of that.
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
And I will never forget going back to that gas
station and my bosses being likewhat the hell happened to you,
Like what happened to you andwho do we need to go?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
again.
Why was this a question fromyour bosses and not from your
mom?
I'm sorry to ask that question,but that is what immediately
popped up.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Your guess is as good as mine.
I feel like my mom.
She went through her ownabusive relationships, so maybe
she felt like she needs to stayout of my business, or it'll be
worse for me If she's stillstruggling with her own traumas
of having dealt with an abusershe doesn't want to make it
worse?
I have no idea that's somethingwe have not addressed to this
(26:48):
day.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I hope you're able to one day, though, because you
deserve to know.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I hope you're able to one day, though, because you
deserve to know.
I feel like at this point, I'mnot even sure if I care to know
I should, but that's one ofthose things I've had to work on
with resentment, along with afew other things.
When it comes to her, she didwhat she could with what she had
(27:16):
, and she's way better now.
She would never do that.
Now we have come to a 10 timesbetter place than we have ever
been in my life, and so I'm justthankful for that, and I don't
I'm not even, I don't even wantto go back and rehash it all.
It's not, it's almost not worthit to me, because I've tried to
(27:39):
come to peace with the entiresituation and my life myself.
Right, I've had many differenttherapies and medication.
I'm currently on a medication,I'm currently seeing a therapist
and I'm just dealing.
You know I deal with it my ownway, in my own time, and it's
(28:01):
not anybody else's job to tryand make me feel better can I
ask you a question, though?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
sure, when you were laying there after you had to
shower and clean yourself up andput makeup on to cover your
bruises, or in the days after,when you couldn't move, what
were the thoughts that weregoing through your head?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I wish she would have killed me.
I wish she would have killed me.
That was a big one, because Ifelt like there really is no
escaping because, like I said,my mom said nothing and she was
the only one that was closeenough in vicinity to reach.
So it's like, even if I wasrunning from her because she was
trying to stab me to death orshoot me or whatever, what's my
(28:54):
mom going to do?
Right, like it just felt like Ihad no escape.
No, nothing, I had nothing.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I need you to stop what you're doing right now and
listen to every single wordthat's about to come out of my
mouth, especially if youidentify with what Kiana was
just talking about.
There is life after this.
There is life after abuse.
(29:28):
There are days where you willbe able to breathe without
flinching, where you won't haveto cover your bruises anymore,
where you will be free to existwithout apology, without fear,
(29:50):
and you didn't deserve whathappened to you or what is
currently happening to you andsurviving it, that's the bravest
thing you have ever done.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
And I just continuously thought about how I
had nothing and I wish I hadnever met her and I wish that
she had killed me in that moment, so then at least I'd be at
peace and everybody could justmourn me and get on with their
life and I'd never have to dealwith anybody again.
That's the thing thatcontinuously replayed in my mind
and that is what eventually ledto me actually attempting,
(30:28):
because I just felt so alone andso disgusted that I would even
allow something like that right,like why didn't I do more?
Why didn't I fight harder?
How could I have let heroverpower me like that?
And I feel like especiallybecause she's not a man and this
(30:49):
might sound weird to say butlike I feel like other people
when they think about same-sexrelationships.
And you know she got beat up bya woman and she's also a woman
who cares.
You know it's not the same, orit doesn't feel as large as a
man doing it, because typicallya man's usually going to be
taller than you, bigger than you.
He already has the advantageright off the bat.
(31:12):
And for me now granted, like yousaid, I had no food.
My brain isn't working right.
My body's already struggling tojust do the bare minimum of
walking to work and thenstanding there.
Of course I wasn't gonna beable to fight her off.
I didn't have any muscle, Ididn't have any anything.
And she's working out andfreaking, playing basketball
(31:32):
with these fools and eating allthe food in the house.
So I couldn't have.
Possibly I couldn't have.
Possibly I would have had tohave some kind of weapon and
there was no time for thatBecause, like I said, she went
into the other room.
I'm thinking she's gettingsomething.
I had no idea that what I saidtriggered her so hard.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And she just came in swinging Slow, like you just
walk in the room slow and punchme right in the face and then
immediately you're punching andpunching, and punching.
All I can do is shield.
I have no way to fight backanymore.
I'm in a ball.
(32:20):
But yeah, so in those days afterthat's, all I could think was I
wish she had killed me, and itwas probably, I want to say, a
month or two before I actuallyattempted.
So it had gotten to a pointwhere I wasn't even speaking to
my mom.
I wasn't speaking to anybody.
I was hardly speaking to myfriends and it was only through
text when I could at work anddelete it so that she didn't
(32:44):
know I was texting anybody.
Cause she took my phone everyday.
Every day, when I came homefrom work, I get a scroll
through of my phone to see whatI'm doing, who I'm talking to,
what's going on.
And there was one day where shehad an appointment.
I don't even know what kind ofappointment it was, but someone,
I think like her social workeror therapist, whatever, came to
(33:07):
get her and they went to theappointment.
Cool, it's a day off, I don'thave to work, I'm laying there
like I don't care about anything.
I don't care about anything andI actually have a picture, which
is really sad.
I took a picture right before.
(33:30):
I don't know why.
Maybe it was like this is thelast picture I want to take and
I want it to be cute or you canput this on my obituary or
whatever.
But I got my little Mac and Iset it up and I took my picture,
wrote a letter on my Mac aswell, left it like that in the
(33:50):
room, like that in the room, andshe had these pills I think it
was lithium or something that'ssupposed to be a mood stabilizer
and I just thought screw it,threw the whole bottle back.
Then I thought, maybe that'snot enough, threw some Tylenol,
(34:11):
just as much as I could withoutthrowing up.
When it got to a point offeeling like, okay, I'm going to
throw up, I stopped and I cried.
I locked myself in my room andI cried and cried and cried and
cried and cried and cried andcried and then I don't know what
possessed me.
I thought you know what, maybeI don't want anybody to find me
in here.
I left the house.
I just started walking.
(34:32):
I'm just walking down thesidewalk, thinking, okay,
eventually I'll pass out, I'llbe here in the forest somewhere
and maybe they'll find me.
Maybe they won't, who cares?
I just didn't want anybody tocome home and save me.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Can you imagine the kind of rock bottom that feels
like you can't even imaginesurviving one more day of abuse,
that you would rather end itall yourself?
This feeling Tragically.
Common Studies have shown thatsurvivors of intimate partner
(35:10):
violence are at a significantlyincreased risk of suicide.
In fact, victims of domesticviolence are more than three
times likely to attempt suicidecompared to those who haven't
experienced abuse and, accordingto the CDC, over half of all
(35:34):
female victims of homicide hadexperienced intimate partner
violence prior to their death.
And that is not a coincidence.
That is a crisis.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I guess, like if she got home before I was actually
dead.
Now there's a chance.
I'm not going to be dead and Ireally want to be dead, so I'm
walking into the middle ofnowhere.
I have not okay, take your timetold this part of my story like
(36:12):
actually in detail ever, soit's hard to rehash that part.
Um, I don't know how or why, ormaybe she got an inkling, but
my bestie calls while I'mwalking this forest and she
(36:37):
could tell something was wrong,because I'm like slurring and I
don't even know how I sound toher, you know, and she freaks
out, calls my other best friend.
They both get on the phone withtheir parents, their parents
get on the phone with mygrandparents.
It was like a game of telephonewhere everybody's calling and
calling and calling each otherand she's on the phone with me,
(36:59):
like well, what's going on, likewhat's happening, and I finally
just fessed up and I told her Iwas like I love you so much,
but I don't want to be hereanymore and I've decided I don't
want to be here anymore.
I've decided I don't want to behere anymore.
I've already started my process.
I hope you can find peace withthis, because I have found peace
with it at this point, right,and she's begging me to go back
(37:21):
to my house.
She's begging me and begging me, and begging me.
And at this point I'm like youknow what, who cares?
I've already told her I mightnot even make it back to my
house, because I feel like I'mmade of rock.
And I do make it back to myhouse.
So I just walked back and I layin my bed and I'm starting to
(37:46):
drift off at this point, right,so I'm laying in the bed.
I'm like all right, this is itfor me.
Cool, I feel content.
I turned my phone off by thetime I got back to the house
because I was just didn't wantto talk to anybody anymore.
And I remember, as I'm fallingasleep, hearing the front door.
(38:07):
So the police are here, theambulance is here, the fire
people are here, likeeverybody's at this apartment,
but I am already falling asleep.
They burst into my door.
They're doing whatever they'redoing.
I have no idea, because I don'teven remember that part.
I remember a little bit of theambulance ride and then being at
(38:30):
the hospital and then throwingup my guts Like they shoved
there's like the sludge,charcoal, whatever that they had
me drink or they put into mystomach.
I do not even remember how Idrank it and was just throwing
up and throwing up, and throwingup and throwing up.
And everybody's there at thispoint.
(38:50):
She's there, my grandma's there, my mom is there, my brother's
there, everybody's there at thispoint.
She's there, my grandma's there, my mom is there, my brother's
there and my best friends arethere.
Like everybody is at thishospital and I don't even know
what's.
I'm just like why, what?
Why?
Why?
I was so upset.
My grandma was so upset thatshe was like yelling at me, like
(39:11):
if I wanted to kill myself orshe wanted to kill herself, she
would know how to do it properly.
Like she was that upset.
She never said any sidewaysthing like that to me before,
but she was obviously afraid andso upset that she's yelling and
I start screaming at her.
You don't understand, nobodyunderstands.
(39:31):
Everybody get the out of myroom, like freaking out to the
point where now the hospitalpeople have to come in.
Everybody's got to get outbecause I'm hysterical and I'm
begging them to not sedate mebecause now they're like okay,
well, if you don't chill out,we're going to have to sedate
you and I'm terrified.
That's like my worst fear tohave these medical doctors
sedating me, heck, no, like it'sone thing for me to do it, but
(39:55):
you guys I don't trustAbsolutely not.
And it was just.
It was so shitty and eventuallyI got to a regular room cause
this was in like the emergencyarea.
So then they put me into aregular room where I could have
visitors and everybody kind ofcame in and nobody.
(40:15):
I got plenty of whys right andI tried to just brush it off
Like you just don't understand.
I hate living, I hate life, Ihate everything.
But the whole time I actuallyhad everything written down in
that letter, everything writtendown in that letter, all of the
traumas that I had endured insecret, both childhood and
(40:44):
current, on that laptop in myroom.
So my partner then comes homeshe was actually the one I got
to rewind a little bit because Isaid she was at the hospital.
She did go to the hospital butshe went back home first and my
roommates had locked the door.
So she's banging on the doorLike somebody.
Let me in.
They cracked the door open andare, like Kiana's not here.
She just went to the hospitaland ambulance and shut the door.
(41:07):
None of my family told you know, was giving a crap to let her
know what was going on.
I don't even know how she gotto the hospital was giving her
crap to let her know what wasgoing on.
I don't even know how she gotto the hospital, I have no idea,
but she made it there andeverybody obviously was looking
at her like you shouldn't behere.
Why are you here?
You're obviously the cause ofthis because you're the only one
(41:29):
that's been around her for allthis time.
We were together for like ayear and some.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I found her for all this time.
We were together for like ayear and some, and that was just
.
She stayed with me too.
She stayed with me there in thehospital because I had to have
a suicide watch person.
So I had a.
The person whose violencehelped push her to the edge of
life and death stayed with herin the hospital, and to an
outsider that might look likelove.
It might even make the survivorsecond guess themselves.
Make the survivor second guessthemselves.
If she was really abusive, whyis she here?
Maybe she does care, maybe shedidn't mean it.
(42:21):
But here's the truth.
Abuse is not just cruelty.
It's confusion, heavy on theconfusion.
It's the constant back andforth between I love you and I'm
hurting you, between violenceand tenderness, between terror
(42:42):
and comfort.
It's what makes it so hard toleave.
That's what makes it so hard totrust yourself, and this kind
of moment where the abuserswoops in to care for you after
causing you harm is often partof the cycle.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
She stayed in the hospital every night until they
finally were like okay, I thinkI was there for two or three
days before they decided, okay,we're going to put you in psych.
And I started freaking out likeno way, and it was either they
put me in or I signed myself in.
But they didn't tell me that ifI signed myself in, I couldn't
sign myself out.
(43:23):
My mom had to sign me outbecause I freaked out, I pulled
my IV out of my arm, I wastrying to leave the hospital and
they were like either we sedateyou and we put you in or you
chill out, excuse me, and yousign yourself in, which seems
illegal to me.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Did your ex find the letter on your computer?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
She did, but she didn't say anything.
Okay, she didn't say anything.
It wasn't until I was beingforced into psych.
My mom came to get my thingsbecause I couldn't have anything
in there and she's all why, why, whatever.
And I'm like did nobody readthe letter that I wrote?
(44:08):
Go into my house, open up mycomputer.
There's no password, nopassword.
You could just see it's rightthere.
I left it up.
It's not like I closed it out.
I left it up so that as soon assomeone opened the computer,
it's right there.
So she did go to my house andfind that letter and she did
read it.
(44:30):
I feel like that should have putperspective into her mind.
Yeah, and maybe she was afraidthat I would try again because I
was in there for longer than Ishould have been.
In my opinion.
I couldn't keep any food downwhile I was in there, so they
also thought that I was likebulimic or something like that,
(44:54):
like I have extra thingshappening.
They're trying to give memedicine for that and really
it's just nerves.
It's nerves.
I'm terrified of this place.
I'm rooming with a person who'sgot her own thing going on.
An adult psych ward is scaryLike it is not happy, fun time
and just full of people thatonly tried to kill themselves,
(45:16):
as people that tried to killother people.
As people that have multiplepersonalities.
Schizophrenia, all of it.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I guess we're all just down here.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I never really thought about it like that,
especially people who tried tokill other people yeah, like and
it's, of course, only peoplewho tried to kill other people
with their mental illness andthey haven't been tried and
whatnot.
Yeah, that's where they're keptbefore they don't put them in a
general jail that's terrifying,that's downright terrifying,
yeah yeah, and I don't know ifit's just that specific area
(45:49):
that I was in that city or ifit's the state or how it works,
but that's how it was when I wasthere, and I was there for, I
think, a month or more and myfirst couple of weeks I had
meetings with my therapist, thedoctor, group, therapy, outside
(46:10):
time, whatever, but they weremaking notes and then they would
meet with my mom to be like,okay, so what do we think?
Do we think she should getreleased?
Do you think she should staylonger?
Nobody's consulting me.
They're all consulting eachother and I'm sitting in these
meetings like hello, I'm righthere and we're talking about me
(46:31):
like I'm not here.
And my partner is also in thesemeetings, despite my mom having
read this letter.
Yes, despite my mom having readthis letter and seeing what was
going on, she still allowed herto come with in these meetings.
She brought her with to thesemeetings.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Not only did her abuser read the letter, she
still showed up at the hospitaland, instead of being kept away,
like she should have been,instead of being held
accountable like she should havebeen, she was invited into the
room, allowed to sit in ondiscussions about Kiana's mental
(47:13):
health, about her care, abouther release.
And just to be clear, thisisn't just wildly inappropriate,
this is dangerous, this isre-traumatizing and it's a
massive failure on every adultwho should have been protecting
(47:35):
Kiana.
When survivors say they feelinvisible, that they feel
dismissed, this is why, whenthey say they can't trust the
system, this is why Because,even after nearly dying, even
(47:58):
after laying everything out inwriting, her abuser still had
access.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Her abuser still had access still had a voice and
still had a seat at the table.
So they're all having theirlittle powwows of how I should
stay here and I swear to God, Iswear.
I feel like that's the onlyreason I was there for as long
as I was Was because she already, when I was self-harming you
remember her screaming to my momthat I was insane and that I'm
(48:33):
self-harming.
So now she's putting it intothe doctor.
Well, she has the history ofself-harm and now she's a
concerned partner that has beenhelping me this whole time and
I'm like y'all are making mefeel actually insane.
Maybe I should just stay inhere because I feel like it's
this real fucking life.
This cannot be real life.
Were you ever able to like?
Speaker 1 (48:57):
present any type of like evidence or anything with
your letter to the doctors.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
No.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
They would have had to bring my computer in and she
never did.
Nobody ever brought thecomputer in to there, and nobody
.
That was just their reasoning,right, like they just took it as
like okay, that's her suicideletter, it's never going to see
the light of day.
Right, like, cause, she lived,she's not dead, we're just going
to leave it there.
Wow, I still, to this day,think I only got out because
(49:31):
Thanksgiving was coming up andmy mom was like I can't go home
to Thanksgiving without Kiana orwithout me.
Sorry, I said my name.
No, it's okay.
No, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Okay, so it was more like a look thing for her.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
You think that's?
Speaker 1 (49:56):
how I feel.
Yeah, how deeply painful is itwhen your pain is minimized to
protect someone else'sreputation, when your mental
health crisis becomes aninconvenience and when the
question isn't is she safe?
But how will this look?
And it's especially complicatedwhen it comes from a parent,
(50:19):
because there's a part of youthat still wants to be seen by
them, that wants someone to sayI failed you and I am so sorry.
Okay, so I want to talk aboutwhen you were finally signed out
(50:40):
of the mental hospital, or, um,what did you call it?
A psych, a psychiatric hospital?
Um, and you went home.
You said that you ended upmoving in with your grandmother.
So you didn't go back.
Did you drop out of school?
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yes, and then cause I didn't even attend while I was
in the hospital, obviously, andthat was several months, so they
just dropped me.
So I say several, it was acouple of months, but I didn't
know that.
Shortly after everything hadgone down, I know that my
partner was living in thatapartment but I couldn't,
(51:25):
obviously pay rent because Iwasn't working Right.
So my grandparents came, packedup all my stuff, broke my lease
and brought it home and I feellike so, when my mom was like
okay, here comes Thanksgiving,I'm going to bring you.
(52:01):
And I went straight home tothem.
I don't even know like, becausemy mom, when I got released,
she obviously picked me up andhad my partner dropped her off
at her house and then took mehome, and that was not quite the
last I saw of her, but that waslike they were ending it for me
they were like you're notseeing her again.
When I got back to mygrandparents' house, my
grandparents were like she isnot allowed in this home, she is
not allowed in this car.
I don't want to hear her on thephone.
That is it, you are done,there's no more.
(52:26):
And I was devastated but alsoglad.
It was almost relief more thandevastation.
It felt like I still had thatfear of not being with her Right
, because the good times werereally good, insanely good, but
the bad times match that Right.
(52:46):
So then the bad times were inactual hell, and so it was a
relief.
It was, but I remember beinghysterical and it is more of
like you can't tell me what todo.
I'm an adult but obviously I'mnot stable enough at all.
And looking back on it, theywere a hundred percent.
(53:07):
Where were you sooner?
That should have happened waysooner.
But how would they know?
Yeah, if they were not thereand I was barely talking to them
?
I don't know.
I feel like my child.
I'm going to pull up on you IfI don't hear from you for X
amount of time.
I'm pulling up.
What are you doing?
Where are you?
What's going on?
(53:27):
Like?
I need to see what's happeningand know that you're alive.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Mm-hmm Agree.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
So after this though you were relieved.
You were in your healing era,guess um.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
But then you said it was yeah, she was still trying
right, because I went back towork at the same place down the
street from my house that I wasworking when I met her um, and
there was another person therewho he I had told him a little
bit of my story, not a ton, um,and he had witnessed her
(54:12):
skulking around the gas stationsince I'd come home because she
wasn't allowed in my house, andso I had to explain what it was
and what was going on.
And he was the one who reallyencouraged me to cut all ties
like to her face.
I don't want to see you anymore, I don't want to talk to you
anymore, because it was never.
It never came from me.
(54:33):
I never told her I'm nottalking to you, I'm not whatever
.
Like, if she texted me, I'mgoing to text you, I will, even
though my entire family was likeno, I felt like I need to do
what I need to do.
I never saw her outside of meworking there because I couldn't
(54:54):
bring her home and I didn'thave a car.
I'm not going to walk to theother side of town.
I wasn't that up there, but shewould come to, she would walk
from the other side of town tobe at my job.
So he was the one that was likeyou have to let this go.
(55:15):
Like I promise you, like if youdo this, I'll stand 10 toes
down behind you, like he was sodie hard, would not.
Let me.
Like he would tell her you gotto get, you got to get out of
here, yeah.
So he's the one that actuallyencouraged me to stand 10 toes
down myself and I did Long storyshort with that guy.
(55:39):
I ended up marrying him andthat was a whole other
rollercoaster ride in itselfthat I'm not going to get into.
That was a whole other rollercoaster ride in itself that I'm
not going to get into.
But when I was newly married I'dsay like a year in, maybe I get
a phone call.
I'm waiting to pick him up fromwork.
So I'm in the car waiting forhim to get out of work, minding
(55:59):
my business, my phone's ringing.
It's a number I don't know, Idon't answer it, let it go to
voicemail.
And then I listen to thevoicemail and it's you have a
collect call from blah blah blah, women's prison.
And I'm my mind is like oh, myfreaking, you just know yeah,
(56:19):
yeah.
And then she didn't say her name.
She said it's me Pick up thephone when they give you time to
say your name or whatever it is.
It was me pick up the phone andI you time to say your name or
whatever it is.
It was me pick up the phone andI didn't.
Obviously because I'm listeningto this as a voicemail and I
start freaking out like Ideleted the voicemail, I blocked
the number, but then I had tolook and you used to be able to
look up people that were in thejail or in the prison.
(56:42):
Yeah, and I did actually end uphearing through the grapevine
because some of her friends werehalfway in my circle, like I
knew them, but not super well.
So they actually told me thatshe was arrested for trying to
set her girlfriend on fire inher sleep.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
I cannot believe that .
You just told me that she was.
You found out that she was.
The reason that she was inprison was because she tried to
catch her girlfriend on fire.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah, she tried to set her on fire, so it was
attempted murder or somethinglike that.
She was away for a long time.
I have no idea what happened toher.
I don't know when she got outor how her life is now.
But wow, that was it.
It like blew my mind and Ithought that really could have
(57:39):
been my me, I mean, and italmost was me on more than one
occasion where she almost triedto kill me and then I tried to
kill myself, and it could havejust gone back and forth until I
actually was dead and thank godthat the other girl was not
dead oh my god, yeah, do youthink it was the man, or do you
think?
Speaker 1 (57:58):
do you think that was real?
Speaker 2 (58:03):
the medication made me feel like it was real, but
maybe the manifestations werenot as real, right, like maybe
there were other voices orsomething, but not literally a
switch in your brain where nowyou're actually a different
person, because it was neverconsistent, like I said, where
(58:26):
you're most of the time youremember, and then the one
really horrible time you don'tremember.
That makes no sense, yeah, thatmakes no sense at all.
And the randomness of that onehorrible time where normally it
was brought on by an argument,but this time it was a
conversation and I saidsomething you didn't like.
That makes no sense.
(58:47):
There was no warning to thatone, so I feel like I only half
believe it.
Yeah, that's a hard one.
I only have struggled with myown mental illness, but like
feeling with my own mentalillness, but like feeling I
(59:10):
don't know, I don't even knowhow to describe it.
It's just, it's an insane thing, it's an insane story to tell.
Hearing it coming out of mymouth again, it makes me feel
like what the heck, like Ireally lived through that you
did, you did.
It's crazy, there's so manyother women I know that have
stories that are just as insaneor even more insane, and the
(59:33):
fact that we're all alive isphenomenal.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
The thing.
The thing is is like I like tobrief Victor on some of these
stories before I go into aninterview, because I like to
know your story.
So it's like kind of my way ofpracticing, like getting to know
the story.
And I said to him.
I said I don't know why I'malways surprised, but I'm always
(59:59):
surprised, yeah, it's insane,like each time I think that I've
heard something, yeah, horrible.
I think that I've heardsomething yeah Horrible.
I think that I've heardsomething that yes, Can't
possibly blow your mind anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
And then you're just like oh okay, it gets 10 million
times worse.
It can get 10 billion timesworse.
Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Yeah, I'm so glad that you're here and that yeah,
(01:00:43):
I'm so glad that you're here andthat you got to be.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
You get to be a mom to a beautiful healthy little
boy and you get to live yourlife and discover what makes you
happy and what brings you joy.
Now, yeah, and I work on thatevery day.
I work on that every day andkeep track.
Still, it's been almost 11years self-harm free.
That I'm like.
Yes, I keep track of that forthe most part, and it's just
another small way I feel like Iclaim my freedom every day.
(01:01:07):
Every day and I just got to keepon claiming it, keep on doing
that, keep on putting in thework to be a better me and to
learn from those ridiculousexperiences that I've had.
And I'm glad.
I mean, I'm not glad for theexperience, but I'm glad to be
on the other side of it and ableto learn from it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
So there's one question that I ask everyone
that comes on the podcast, andit is if you could give one
piece of advice to any victimwho may be listening that is
still in an abusive situation.
Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
What piece of advice would you give them?
That's a really hard questionbecause it feels like anything I
say is going to feel impossiblein the moment, right, like if
you're actively in an abusiverelationship and I tell you, get
out.
That's way easier said thandone.
But maybe find a person because, like me, I was isolated, right
.
But if I had just sent a textor two maybe to my best friend
(01:02:17):
or someone that I really trusted, that I knew would do something
, or that would jumpstart somesort of action, or even just
listen to me to have thatbackstory, to have my evidence,
to have something, get a trustedperson.
Whoever you have around you Imean, I don't care if it's the
(01:02:40):
person that works at the gasstation by you, because that's
the only place you're allowed togo to tell somebody, talk to
somebody, anybody.
Most of the time I feel like,especially now, most women are
going to want to jump intoaction.
Most women are going to want tohelp you.
If somebody, a stranger, walkedup to me today and was like I
(01:03:04):
need help, I'm about to you, Iwill do whatever I can to help
you.
That's my two cents.
Find a trusted person, findsomebody who you think will
listen Actually, not who youthink will listen, because you
probably think nobody willlisten, but somebody will.
Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Somebody will.
Somebody will hear you butsomebody will, somebody will,
somebody will hear you.
And it comes your support andyour saving grace comes from the
most unexpected places andfaces, absolutely so don't,
don't go excluding anyone.
(01:03:45):
Just make sure that they'resafe before you share.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story and being here today.
I am just in awe of you and thefight that you fight for
yourself every day and yourrecovery.
You are so strong.
Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
I don't know that you see it in yourself, but I see
it in you, so thank you so muchfor still being here.
Thank you for letting me comeon here and share with you and
tell the story for the firsttime.
It was a good experience.
I feel like a bit of a relief,honestly.
Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
What you just heard wasn't just a story.
It was someone's life.
It was survival.
Kiana brought us into some ofthe darkest moments of her life,
moments that no one should everhave to endure and she spoke
with a kind of bravery thatdoesn't always feel loud, but is
(01:04:46):
loud in impact and herwillingness to tell the truth
that saves lives.
If you're listening right nowand this story hit close to home
, I just want to remind you thatyou do not have to carry this
alone, Whether you're still init or years removed.
(01:05:07):
There's a place for you.
If you're ready for community,we would love to welcome you
inside the Survivor Sisterhood,our private Facebook group built
by survivors for survivors.
It's a safe place to be seen,heard and supported.
And if this episode moved you,if it made you feel less alone
or it helped you understandsomeone better, please take a
(01:05:32):
moment to give this podcast fivestars and leave a review.
Your reviews help push thesestories further.
They help us reach more victimsand survivors who are still out
there searching for hope, whoare still out there searching
for hope.
And we're also just 300 streamsaway from hitting 1,000 monthly
(01:05:52):
downloads.
That is a huge milestone, thatmakes us eligible for podcast
sponsorships, and that meansmore resources, more stories,
more impact.
You can help get us there justby sharing this episode with
someone who needs to hear it.
Thank you for being here.
(01:06:15):
Thank you for listening withyour heart.
You are not alone.
You were never crazy and youdeserve a life that feels like
freedom.
Until next time, remember theworld is a better place because
(01:06:37):
you are in it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Thank you.
Hey, it's Elissa.
Welcome back to Dismissed TrueStories.
Just real quick, before webegin today's episode, I want to
offer a very clear triggerwarning.
This episode containsconversations about self-harm,
suicidal thoughts and emotionalabuse.
So if you're not in a place tohear that today, please, please,
(00:37):
take care of yourself first andyou can come back whenever
you're ready, or you can skipthis episode entirely.
Please put yourself first andtake care of yourself.
You come first, always.
So in last week's episode webegan part one of Kiana's story.
(00:58):
She walked us through the earlystages of her relationship,
where the manipulation startedsmall, through things like
isolation, love, bombing andjust a very slow erosion of her
independence.
We talk about how abusers willstudy you, mirror your desires
and build a false sense ofsafety before the control begins
(01:19):
.
And Kiana shared how, once shemoved away from her support
system to go to school, theabuse escalated emotionally,
financially, psychologically andphysically.
She described what it felt liketo live in survival mode and
how, even in a moment where shewanted to leave, she couldn't
(01:39):
because she had no money, noresources and nowhere to go.
So today, in part two, we'regoing to go deeper.
Kiana opens up about thedarkest parts of that
relationship, when the pressureand isolation led to self-harm,
when her cries of help wereturned against her and what it
(02:00):
looked like to be emotionallysuffocated by someone who
claimed to love her.
This episode is heavy, but it'salso very real, and in the
telling of that there is so muchpower.
So you said that you startedand let me know if you're ready
(02:37):
to talk about this but you saidthat you were self-harming at
this time because you were in adeep depression and every little
fight that you had would leadto self-harming.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Yes, so I dealt with depression.
I feel like a lot of my life.
I just didn't realize it wasdepression.
Maybe, but being in such a darkplace already where I'm stuck
with this person barely talkingto my friends or family, away
from home, no way to get home,and every time we're arguing or
(03:16):
I'm stressed out I'm.
You know, some people drink,some people smoke, for whatever
reason.
It probably was all that pentup frustration and I, not
knowing what to do with it, juststarted cutting.
I don't know if you put triggerwarnings on this, but it's.
You know, I had, you know, therazors that you shave with.
(03:40):
It started just literallytaking the razor and just
slicing across my leg becausenobody would see my leg, you
know, top of my thighs, and itgot really bad.
I still have scars, actually,from that, and that was, however
, many years at this point ago.
I mean, if I knew that I didsomething that was going to
(04:01):
disappoint her, right, like shewas graduating from a GED
program down there, right, and Iobviously didn't have a car, I
was waiting for my mom to comeand pick me up to take me to
this ceremony, and whatever mymom was doing, she was taking
forever.
And I'm looking at the clocklike I'm missing it.
(04:23):
I'm missing it, I'm missing it.
She's going to freak out.
There's no like this is goingto be monumentally horrible.
And I'm in the bathroom, cryinghysterically.
I'm self-harming.
My mom finally gets there, weget to the place and it's over.
She's so upset.
(04:45):
I mean she's trying to be chillbecause my mom is there.
And I can see it in her face,like I can feel those vibes
coming off of her, like I knowthe second we're alone, this is
going to be horrible.
So I'm like, okay, well, we'regoing to go with my mom and she
took us to eat and we went toher friend's house and I'm like
(05:06):
let's just hang out with my mombecause I did not want to go
home.
Yeah, and I mean, we I don'tactually didn't even wait until
we got home.
When we got to her friend'shouse, we went outside.
And that's when I knew right,so we go outside.
Because I'm like, okay, well,you want to go out here.
(05:29):
So here we are and she startsasking me where were you, what
were you doing?
Why didn't you get there ontime?
And I tried to explain to her.
You know, I had to wait for mymom.
And she's telling me well, youcould have got a bus pass.
You could have gotten on any ofthese buses and made it here.
How am I supposed to get a buspass when you have my money?
But that's not logical, rightFor her, not logical.
(05:50):
I was supposed to somehow comeup with a $1.50 random change
and hop on a bus, on a system Idon't know that much about, and
get to this place on time.
There was no way I could havemade that happen.
And it's she's yelling at me,but trying not to be super loud
(06:11):
because we're outside andthey're right there in the house
.
You could see the window.
I don't know why nobody cameout while she was yelling.
They probably just trying tomind their own business.
But she's yelling at me abouthow I should have been there, I
should have done this and thatand the other thing, and at this
point I'm crying hysterically,I'm super upset and I'm bleeding
through my pants, and I didn'trealize it.
(06:33):
So then, she sees that and youcaught yourself earlier, yes, so
then she freaks out because I'mbleeding through my pants.
She's yelling for my mom andI'm begging her obviously not to
get my mom Like we got tofigure something else out.
We could do literally anything.
I will run home at this pointbecause I don't want my mom to
come out here.
And of course she comes out.
(06:55):
She's yelling about me cuttingmyself.
She's yelling that I'm insaneand all of these things, and I'm
like, oh my God, like how do Iget out of this?
Speaker 1 (07:07):
So your ex was the one yelling, not your mom, right
?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Yes, my ex was the one yelling to my mom that I had
cut myself.
I'm bleeding out here, I'minsane, I'm self-harming, all
these things.
And my mom is a complicatedrelationship I've had with her
for quite a long time and atthis point in my life we were
(07:30):
barely like barely mother anddaughter.
So I think she didn't want tocause any more of a rift, so she
didn't make like a huge dealout of it.
She took me in her friend'shouse let me clean up.
We never spoke of it, she neversaid anything.
Her friend's house, let meclean up.
We never spoke of it.
She never said anything aboutit.
We never spoke about it againuntil later in the story where
(07:53):
she finds out you know wheresome of these things started.
I feel like I personally foundout where some of these things
started, because it wasn'tnecessarily the abuse in the
relationship.
That's a huge part of it.
But there were things from mychildhood that were played a
part of the depression and othertraumas that I have and can't
blame it all on that.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But oh my God, I really don't know what to say
here, except for what you justheard is what it looks like when
pain has nowhere to go, whenthe pressure is so constant, so
(08:34):
suffocating, that your nervoussystem literally just starts to
turn in on itself.
Kiana was isolated, trapped,financially controlled,
emotionally terrorized, and insituations like that your body
will just start screaming forsome sort of release, and
sometimes self-harm becomes thetragic way to cope.
And it's not because it makesany kind of sense logically, but
(08:57):
it's because it gives your paina place to land.
It's like, I don't know,hurting yourself physically
feels better than the mental andemotional anguish that you're
feeling.
At the time, I mean, she wasgrieving a relationship while
(09:22):
she was still in it, trying tobe enough for someone who
weaponized every single momentagainst her, and I don't want to
miss this part either, becausethis part really bothered me as
I was listening back whileediting.
But when her pain showed, whenher self-harm literally bled
(09:44):
through her pants, her abuserdidn't offer to care.
Her abuser didn't offer anysort of empathy, she just used
it as another weapon against her.
That is so wrong Shaming her,exposing her and trying to paint
her as unstable when she wasalready in survival mode.
(10:06):
She was trying to survive her.
This is what coercive controllooks like.
This is how trauma layersitself, and this is why healing
isn't just about getting awayfrom your abuser.
It's about healing everythingin your life that has ever told
(10:28):
you that this is what loveshould look like.
I do wonder, though, with yourex like, were you all she had?
Did she not have a supportivefamily?
Like?
What was her reasoning forbeing so attached and isolating
and controlling?
When you hear me ask questionslike this, like about her
(10:50):
background and about hermotivations, her patterns, it's
not to give her a pass, it's tounderstand the why.
If you're like me, you'reprobably trying to psychoanalyze
this person.
I mean, sometimes, when you'vebeen through abuse, you just
want the answers to questionsthat don't have clean
(11:10):
explanations.
You want to know did somethinghappen to them?
Were they broken before theybroke me?
Why were they so desperate tocontrol everything?
That kind of curiosity isn'tabout letting them off the hook.
It's about making sense ofchaos, I guess.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Essentially, so, yeah , that was the other thing.
She had a terrible family.
Her mom is still, to this day,one of the worst people that I
know like.
She's awful and she had somesiblings, two brothers and a
sister, all younger than her, um, but her being her the only
(11:55):
lesbian masculine, they like topick on her a lot.
They were not very kind to herand there were some traumas in
their own family that hadn'tbeen dealt with.
That definitely played a partin all of their nonsense and why
she was the way that she was.
I'm sure I just didn't takethat into consideration at the
(12:20):
time.
I guess I just was trying to bea good girlfriend and be there
for her and try to make her momlike me.
So her mom would be nicer andthat was not.
That did not work.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Well, it's never.
It's never your responsibilityeither, you know to fill those
holes and those gaps in somebodylike that's their
responsibility.
Yeah, but you were young too, Iwouldn't.
I didn't know, I didn't know itwasn't their responsibility.
Yeah, but you were young too, Iwouldn't, I didn't know, I
didn't know, it wasn't myresponsibility.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Yeah, and I feel like growing up I watched, you know,
my grandma make everybodyelse's things her responsibility
.
But she was a grandma at thetime.
She had had her children andher grandchildren.
She took us on, you know, whenmy mom wasn't able to and I feel
like I internalized a lot ofthat I was like, all right, I'm
going to be the save, I'm goingto save everybody that I can.
(13:11):
I'm still doing that to thisday.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
I still struggle with trying to fix problems that
aren't mine Same and it's likeand the thing is too, is that,
is that like?
I know that I get that from mymother, but it's generational,
because it's definitely passeddown from my grandmother too.
That's interesting.
Are you ready to talk about thepersonality disorder?
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yes, we can get into that.
Okay, yes, we can get into that.
Um, okay, I don't even reallyknow how to get into it outside
of her telling me that yeah, solet's talk about the other
person.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
You said that the other person that she identified
as was male.
And this male would getextremely aggressive.
He only seemed to show up whenshe was really upset, and that's
when she would attack you shewould attack you.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yes, so I wish I could remember his name.
I feel like I only remembersaying him and that's probably
just because I never wanted tocall out whoever it was.
Right, like kind of likeVoldemort, you know you don't
want to say their name.
Right, like kind of likeVoldemort, you know you don't
want to say their name.
Yeah, the fear of appearing.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Such a complicated line between mental illness and
abuse, because mental illness isnot a free pass to abuse
someone, but at the same time,it's not like we completely
understand if we can't identifywith what they're going through,
and that may be part of thestory here, sure, but it's not
(15:09):
the reason that someonemanipulates, controls or harms
another person.
What often happens in abusiverelationships, though, is that
survivors feel guilty for havingboundaries, because they've
been made to feel like theabuser's emotions are just their
well-being is actually theirresponsibility, and it's not, um
(15:32):
, I think.
I think we know that, but Ithink that it's also worth
saying that it's not because youcan hold compassion for
someone's pain without acceptingtheir harm like I mentioned
earlier, it was like a switchwhere you close your eyes.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
A couple minutes go by, you wake up.
You're enraged, right, andthere were times where she's
just lunging you know what Imean.
Like they just lunge at you andshe's swinging her arms.
She's hitting me, slapping me,biting me, scratching me, like
(16:08):
doesn't.
You're not even saying words,you're just attacking like an
animal which makes no sense,like one of the worst times
which I think I put in the thingthat I sent you Swear.
I don't know how it started.
I don't even feel like we werehaving an argument, it was a
(16:30):
conversation we were having.
I said something in theconversation that she did not
like.
She stepped out of the room, Iremember because we were in my
mom's old apartment in this town.
She stepped into another roomit was my brother's room at the
time.
Nobody was home, it was just meand her.
And then she comes back intothe room and she just punches me
(16:53):
and I'm like, oh my God, likedid not expect it.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Where did she punch you?
I had no idea that this wasgoing to happen In my face.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
She punched me right in the face and I was like so at
this point now, cause I was onsitting on the bed waiting for
her, and so I fell and I'mshielding I'm just shielding
myself and she is punching meand punching me.
She's grabbing me by the hair,she's dragging me through the
room.
She had grabbed and held ontomy hair and was just punching my
(17:21):
face, my neck, my arms, likeeverywhere, and I think she got
so frustrated that I'm trying toshield myself that she had
ripped my arms away and startedchoking me.
So that was the point whereshe's standing over me, I'm on
the ground, she is choking meand I am losing consciousness,
thinking this is a moment, I'mdead, my mom's going to come
(17:43):
home, I'm going to be dead onthe floor and I don't know where
she's even going to be.
Like what if she kills my mom?
What if she kills my brother?
Because she's in this rage andI have no idea.
All of this over a conversation, it wasn't even an argument, it
was nothing like major.
I don't even remember what Isaid, but I remember that moment
of trying to come to terms withthis is how I'm going to die On
(18:06):
the floor in this shittyapartment where I just away from
everyone.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
Wow, what do I even say to this?
Because this one hurts.
There's a moment in abuse Imust be losing my voice.
There's a moment in abuse wheresomething inside of you just
goes dark, something just Idon't know.
It stops talking, it goes quiet, and it's not because the pain
(18:38):
has stopped, but becausefighting it starts to feel
pointless.
Because fighting it starts tofeel pointless, you stop
dreaming of escape, you stopbelieving that things will
change and instead you startasking yourself is this it?
(19:00):
Is this the kind of love that Iwas meant for?
Is this how my story ends?
And that's the moment when theabuse stops being something
that's happened to you andstarts becoming something that
you're emotionally absorbing asyour identity.
And it's not just physicalviolence anymore, it's soul
(19:26):
erosion.
And this happens to so manysurvivors.
I think of the part describedit fully for me, because when
(19:53):
someone chips away at your worthfor long enough, eventually
you're going to start believingthe lie.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I don't know how long I was out for because I did
blackout.
When I woke up I was on thefloor.
I could barely move from all ofthe punching.
I don't know if she continuedto hit me after I was knocked
out.
I have no idea what happened tomy body.
I get up.
I'm like so sore my mom isstill not here.
(20:22):
I'm bleeding, so I just get inthe shower and try to wash
everything up, clean everythingup, try and put band-aids and
makeup and whatever I could,because my mom is going to be
home at some point, I don't knowwhen.
So I'm just rushing to try tomake myself look as normal as
possible and it just my mom didnot come home before she got
(20:47):
back, so she got back and waslooking at me like what happened
to you?
Speaker 1 (20:54):
This is just one of those episodes where I feel like
I could butt in every fiveseconds and talk to you about a
genuine what the fuck?
Moment.
But this is one of them thatI'm going to say what the fuck?
Because this moment where Kianawakes up after being beaten and
(21:14):
then her abuser looks at herand asks what happened to you,
that's more than just chilling,it's destabilizing.
I have cold chills even sayingthat word, and it's just
something that so many survivorsexperience.
The person who just hurt youacts like nothing happened.
(21:37):
We heard it in Lauren's storyin the first season.
They either truly don'tremember or they pretend not to,
and either way, you're the oneleft holding all of the pain and
all of the confusion.
And this can happen for tworeasons, maybe a few reasons.
(22:00):
Some abusers they enter suchlike intense rages that they
dissociate like I think you'veprobably heard of the term
narcissist eyes.
It's just like when their eyesgo completely black and there's
like nothing behind them.
They lose time memoryconnections to their actions
(22:21):
during this time.
But um, others can pretend thatthey don't remember just as a
way to avoid accountability andmaybe even deepen your
self-doubt a little bit, and ineither case, the result will be
the same.
It's that you're going to startquestioning your own reality.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
What's going on and I'm like, are you insane?
You literally just beat thecrap out of me just now.
I don't even know how long it'sbeen.
I just woke up.
It took her maybe 30 minutes ofme waking up.
Between the time I woke up onthe floor, took my shower and
everything.
30 minutes from that point iswhen she got back before my mom
(23:07):
and she's like looking over mybody.
So she's taking my clothes off,looking at my body, looking how
red I am, seeing my cuts,seeing my bruises, and even
though I'm dark, I feel likethose bruises showed up so fast
and maybe that is a part of Ishouldn't have taken a shower
with hot water.
I should have been taking coldshowers and ice packs and I
(23:29):
didn't do any of that.
But I was visibly red, swollen,crying, and she's trying to
console me.
Now she's trying to tell me ohmy gosh, I can't believe I did
this to you.
I can't believe this happenedand I'm like just completely in
(23:50):
confusion and awe that this isreal life right now.
You just almost killed me andyou're coming in here acting
like you have no idea what justhappened.
Never in these switches thatshe would have has she ever come
back and not knew what happened, cause this had happened before
, just not as severely.
But she knew what happened whenit was over.
(24:14):
This time she acted likenothing, like she had no idea,
and then she got so upset withherself that she runs out the
door again and I can't evenchase after her because I feel
like I can barely move.
My mom comes home again, has noidea, isn't paying attention or
(24:36):
doesn't care, I don't know.
She doesn't say anything aboutwhat I look like.
I get in the car with her to goto the store, just leaving.
I'm like whatever, we'll lockthe door If she gets here.
Too bad.
We're driving down the highway.
There she is standing on theside of the highway with the
police.
I don't know why they stoppedher.
If it there she is standing onthe side of the highway with the
police.
I don't know why they stoppedher.
(24:57):
If it's because she was walkingon the highway and you're not
supposed to do that.
I have still I have no idea whythey stopped her.
My mom did end up going to gether later that evening Cause
they held her for a little bit.
She had a violent past already,so anytime a police officer was
involved they wereautomatically like okay, well,
(25:19):
she's high risk or whatever.
It is Like they're on higheralert because when they get her
ID and run it and see that shehas all of these charges she had
had scuffles with the policebefore, so they're on edge with
her.
And my mom didn't even stop,she just kept on driving and we
went to the store, waited forher to call me and I told her
(25:43):
like we got to go get her.
And my mom actually wentwithout me to go and get her and
brought her back Because Icouldn't move, I was just.
I laid and laid and laid fordays.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
I missed work because of that.
Oh my God.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
And I will never forget going back to that gas
station and my bosses being likewhat the hell happened to you,
Like what happened to you andwho do we need to go?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
again.
Why was this a question fromyour bosses and not from your
mom?
I'm sorry to ask that question,but that is what immediately
popped up.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Your guess is as good as mine.
I feel like my mom.
She went through her ownabusive relationships, so maybe
she felt like she needs to stayout of my business, or it'll be
worse for me If she's stillstruggling with her own traumas
of having dealt with an abusershe doesn't want to make it
worse?
I have no idea that's somethingwe have not addressed to this
(26:48):
day.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I hope you're able to one day, though, because you
deserve to know.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
I hope you're able to one day, though, because you
deserve to know.
I feel like at this point, I'mnot even sure if I care to know
I should, but that's one ofthose things I've had to work on
with resentment, along with afew other things.
When it comes to her, she didwhat she could with what she had
(27:16):
, and she's way better now.
She would never do that.
Now we have come to a 10 timesbetter place than we have ever
been in my life, and so I'm justthankful for that, and I don't
I'm not even, I don't even wantto go back and rehash it all.
It's not, it's almost not worthit to me, because I've tried to
(27:39):
come to peace with the entiresituation and my life myself.
Right, I've had many differenttherapies and medication.
I'm currently on a medication,I'm currently seeing a therapist
and I'm just dealing.
You know I deal with it my ownway, in my own time, and it's
(28:01):
not anybody else's job to tryand make me feel better can I
ask you a question, though?
Speaker 1 (28:08):
sure, when you were laying there after you had to
shower and clean yourself up andput makeup on to cover your
bruises, or in the days after,when you couldn't move, what
were the thoughts that weregoing through your head?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
I wish she would have killed me.
I wish she would have killed me.
That was a big one, because Ifelt like there really is no
escaping because, like I said,my mom said nothing and she was
the only one that was closeenough in vicinity to reach.
So it's like, even if I wasrunning from her because she was
trying to stab me to death orshoot me or whatever, what's my
(28:54):
mom going to do?
Right, like it just felt like Ihad no escape.
No, nothing, I had nothing.
Speaker 1 (29:04):
I need you to stop what you're doing right now and
listen to every single wordthat's about to come out of my
mouth, especially if youidentify with what Kiana was
just talking about.
There is life after this.
There is life after abuse.
(29:28):
There are days where you willbe able to breathe without
flinching, where you won't haveto cover your bruises anymore,
where you will be free to existwithout apology, without fear,
(29:50):
and you didn't deserve whathappened to you or what is
currently happening to you andsurviving it, that's the bravest
thing you have ever done.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
And I just continuously thought about how I
had nothing and I wish I hadnever met her and I wish that
she had killed me in that moment, so then at least I'd be at
peace and everybody could justmourn me and get on with their
life and I'd never have to dealwith anybody again.
That's the thing thatcontinuously replayed in my mind
and that is what eventually ledto me actually attempting,
(30:28):
because I just felt so alone andso disgusted that I would even
allow something like that right,like why didn't I do more?
Why didn't I fight harder?
How could I have let heroverpower me like that?
And I feel like especiallybecause she's not a man and this
(30:49):
might sound weird to say butlike I feel like other people
when they think about same-sexrelationships.
And you know she got beat up bya woman and she's also a woman
who cares.
You know it's not the same, orit doesn't feel as large as a
man doing it, because typicallya man's usually going to be
taller than you, bigger than you.
He already has the advantageright off the bat.
(31:12):
And for me now granted, like yousaid, I had no food.
My brain isn't working right.
My body's already struggling tojust do the bare minimum of
walking to work and thenstanding there.
Of course I wasn't gonna beable to fight her off.
I didn't have any muscle, Ididn't have any anything.
And she's working out andfreaking, playing basketball
(31:32):
with these fools and eating allthe food in the house.
So I couldn't have.
Possibly I couldn't have.
Possibly I would have had tohave some kind of weapon and
there was no time for thatBecause, like I said, she went
into the other room.
I'm thinking she's gettingsomething.
I had no idea that what I saidtriggered her so hard.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
And she just came in swinging Slow, like you just
walk in the room slow and punchme right in the face and then
immediately you're punching andpunching, and punching.
All I can do is shield.
I have no way to fight backanymore.
I'm in a ball.
(32:20):
But yeah, so in those days afterthat's, all I could think was I
wish she had killed me, and itwas probably, I want to say, a
month or two before I actuallyattempted.
So it had gotten to a pointwhere I wasn't even speaking to
my mom.
I wasn't speaking to anybody.
I was hardly speaking to myfriends and it was only through
text when I could at work anddelete it so that she didn't
(32:44):
know I was texting anybody.
Cause she took my phone everyday.
Every day, when I came homefrom work, I get a scroll
through of my phone to see whatI'm doing, who I'm talking to,
what's going on.
And there was one day where shehad an appointment.
I don't even know what kind ofappointment it was, but someone,
I think like her social workeror therapist, whatever, came to
(33:07):
get her and they went to theappointment.
Cool, it's a day off, I don'thave to work, I'm laying there
like I don't care about anything.
I don't care about anything andI actually have a picture, which
is really sad.
I took a picture right before.
(33:30):
I don't know why.
Maybe it was like this is thelast picture I want to take and
I want it to be cute or you canput this on my obituary or
whatever.
But I got my little Mac and Iset it up and I took my picture,
wrote a letter on my Mac aswell, left it like that in the
(33:50):
room, like that in the room, andshe had these pills I think it
was lithium or something that'ssupposed to be a mood stabilizer
and I just thought screw it,threw the whole bottle back.
Then I thought, maybe that'snot enough, threw some Tylenol,
(34:11):
just as much as I could withoutthrowing up.
When it got to a point offeeling like, okay, I'm going to
throw up, I stopped and I cried.
I locked myself in my room andI cried and cried and cried and
cried and cried and cried andcried and then I don't know what
possessed me.
I thought you know what, maybeI don't want anybody to find me
in here.
I left the house.
I just started walking.
(34:32):
I'm just walking down thesidewalk, thinking, okay,
eventually I'll pass out, I'llbe here in the forest somewhere
and maybe they'll find me.
Maybe they won't, who cares?
I just didn't want anybody tocome home and save me.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Can you imagine the kind of rock bottom that feels
like you can't even imaginesurviving one more day of abuse,
that you would rather end itall yourself?
This feeling Tragically.
Common Studies have shown thatsurvivors of intimate partner
(35:10):
violence are at a significantlyincreased risk of suicide.
In fact, victims of domesticviolence are more than three
times likely to attempt suicidecompared to those who haven't
experienced abuse and, accordingto the CDC, over half of all
(35:34):
female victims of homicide hadexperienced intimate partner
violence prior to their death.
And that is not a coincidence.
That is a crisis.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
I guess, like if she got home before I was actually
dead.
Now there's a chance.
I'm not going to be dead and Ireally want to be dead, so I'm
walking into the middle ofnowhere.
I have not okay, take your timetold this part of my story like
(36:12):
actually in detail ever, soit's hard to rehash that part.
Um, I don't know how or why, ormaybe she got an inkling, but
my bestie calls while I'mwalking this forest and she
(36:37):
could tell something was wrong,because I'm like slurring and I
don't even know how I sound toher, you know, and she freaks
out, calls my other best friend.
They both get on the phone withtheir parents, their parents
get on the phone with mygrandparents.
It was like a game of telephonewhere everybody's calling and
calling and calling each otherand she's on the phone with me,
(36:59):
like well, what's going on, likewhat's happening, and I finally
just fessed up and I told her Iwas like I love you so much,
but I don't want to be hereanymore and I've decided I don't
want to be here anymore.
I've decided I don't want to behere anymore.
I've already started my process.
I hope you can find peace withthis, because I have found peace
with it at this point, right,and she's begging me to go back
(37:21):
to my house.
She's begging me and begging me, and begging me.
And at this point I'm like youknow what, who cares?
I've already told her I mightnot even make it back to my
house, because I feel like I'mmade of rock.
And I do make it back to myhouse.
So I just walked back and I layin my bed and I'm starting to
(37:46):
drift off at this point, right,so I'm laying in the bed.
I'm like all right, this is itfor me.
Cool, I feel content.
I turned my phone off by thetime I got back to the house
because I was just didn't wantto talk to anybody anymore.
And I remember, as I'm fallingasleep, hearing the front door.
(38:07):
So the police are here, theambulance is here, the fire
people are here, likeeverybody's at this apartment,
but I am already falling asleep.
They burst into my door.
They're doing whatever they'redoing.
I have no idea, because I don'teven remember that part.
I remember a little bit of theambulance ride and then being at
(38:30):
the hospital and then throwingup my guts Like they shoved
there's like the sludge,charcoal, whatever that they had
me drink or they put into mystomach.
I do not even remember how Idrank it and was just throwing
up and throwing up, and throwingup and throwing up.
And everybody's there at thispoint.
(38:50):
She's there, my grandma's there, my mom is there, my brother's
there, everybody's there at thispoint.
She's there, my grandma's there, my mom is there, my brother's
there and my best friends arethere.
Like everybody is at thishospital and I don't even know
what's.
I'm just like why, what?
Why?
Why?
I was so upset.
My grandma was so upset thatshe was like yelling at me, like
(39:11):
if I wanted to kill myself orshe wanted to kill herself, she
would know how to do it properly.
Like she was that upset.
She never said any sidewaysthing like that to me before,
but she was obviously afraid andso upset that she's yelling and
I start screaming at her.
You don't understand, nobodyunderstands.
(39:31):
Everybody get the out of myroom, like freaking out to the
point where now the hospitalpeople have to come in.
Everybody's got to get outbecause I'm hysterical and I'm
begging them to not sedate mebecause now they're like okay,
well, if you don't chill out,we're going to have to sedate
you and I'm terrified.
That's like my worst fear tohave these medical doctors
sedating me, heck, no, like it'sone thing for me to do it, but
(39:55):
you guys I don't trustAbsolutely not.
And it was just.
It was so shitty and eventuallyI got to a regular room cause
this was in like the emergencyarea.
So then they put me into aregular room where I could have
visitors and everybody kind ofcame in and nobody.
(40:15):
I got plenty of whys right andI tried to just brush it off
Like you just don't understand.
I hate living, I hate life, Ihate everything.
But the whole time I actuallyhad everything written down in
that letter, everything writtendown in that letter, all of the
traumas that I had endured insecret, both childhood and
(40:44):
current, on that laptop in myroom.
So my partner then comes homeshe was actually the one I got
to rewind a little bit because Isaid she was at the hospital.
She did go to the hospital butshe went back home first and my
roommates had locked the door.
So she's banging on the doorLike somebody.
Let me in.
They cracked the door open andare, like Kiana's not here.
She just went to the hospitaland ambulance and shut the door.
(41:07):
None of my family told you know, was giving a crap to let her
know what was going on.
I don't even know how she gotto the hospital was giving her
crap to let her know what wasgoing on.
I don't even know how she gotto the hospital, I have no idea,
but she made it there andeverybody obviously was looking
at her like you shouldn't behere.
Why are you here?
You're obviously the cause ofthis because you're the only one
(41:29):
that's been around her for allthis time.
We were together for like ayear and some.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
I found her for all this time.
We were together for like ayear and some, and that was just
.
She stayed with me too.
She stayed with me there in thehospital because I had to have
a suicide watch person.
So I had a.
The person whose violencehelped push her to the edge of
life and death stayed with herin the hospital, and to an
outsider that might look likelove.
It might even make the survivorsecond guess themselves.
Make the survivor second guessthemselves.
If she was really abusive, whyis she here?
Maybe she does care, maybe shedidn't mean it.
(42:21):
But here's the truth.
Abuse is not just cruelty.
It's confusion, heavy on theconfusion.
It's the constant back andforth between I love you and I'm
hurting you, between violenceand tenderness, between terror
(42:42):
and comfort.
It's what makes it so hard toleave.
That's what makes it so hard totrust yourself, and this kind
of moment where the abuserswoops in to care for you after
causing you harm is often partof the cycle.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
She stayed in the hospital every night until they
finally were like okay, I thinkI was there for two or three
days before they decided, okay,we're going to put you in psych.
And I started freaking out likeno way, and it was either they
put me in or I signed myself in.
But they didn't tell me that ifI signed myself in, I couldn't
sign myself out.
(43:23):
My mom had to sign me outbecause I freaked out, I pulled
my IV out of my arm, I wastrying to leave the hospital and
they were like either we sedateyou and we put you in or you
chill out, excuse me, and yousign yourself in, which seems
illegal to me.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
Did your ex find the letter on your computer?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
She did, but she didn't say anything.
Okay, she didn't say anything.
It wasn't until I was beingforced into psych.
My mom came to get my thingsbecause I couldn't have anything
in there and she's all why, why, whatever.
And I'm like did nobody readthe letter that I wrote?
(44:08):
Go into my house, open up mycomputer.
There's no password, nopassword.
You could just see it's rightthere.
I left it up.
It's not like I closed it out.
I left it up so that as soon assomeone opened the computer,
it's right there.
So she did go to my house andfind that letter and she did
read it.
(44:30):
I feel like that should have putperspective into her mind.
Yeah, and maybe she was afraidthat I would try again because I
was in there for longer than Ishould have been.
In my opinion.
I couldn't keep any food downwhile I was in there, so they
also thought that I was likebulimic or something like that,
(44:54):
like I have extra thingshappening.
They're trying to give memedicine for that and really
it's just nerves.
It's nerves.
I'm terrified of this place.
I'm rooming with a person who'sgot her own thing going on.
An adult psych ward is scaryLike it is not happy, fun time
and just full of people thatonly tried to kill themselves,
(45:16):
as people that tried to killother people.
As people that have multiplepersonalities.
Schizophrenia, all of it.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
I guess we're all just down here.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
I never really thought about it like that,
especially people who tried tokill other people yeah, like and
it's, of course, only peoplewho tried to kill other people
with their mental illness andthey haven't been tried and
whatnot.
Yeah, that's where they're keptbefore they don't put them in a
general jail that's terrifying,that's downright terrifying,
yeah yeah, and I don't know ifit's just that specific area
(45:49):
that I was in that city or ifit's the state or how it works,
but that's how it was when I wasthere, and I was there for, I
think, a month or more and myfirst couple of weeks I had
meetings with my therapist, thedoctor, group, therapy, outside
(46:10):
time, whatever, but they weremaking notes and then they would
meet with my mom to be like,okay, so what do we think?
Do we think she should getreleased?
Do you think she should staylonger?
Nobody's consulting me.
They're all consulting eachother and I'm sitting in these
meetings like hello, I'm righthere and we're talking about me
(46:31):
like I'm not here.
And my partner is also in thesemeetings, despite my mom having
read this letter.
Yes, despite my mom having readthis letter and seeing what was
going on, she still allowed herto come with in these meetings.
She brought her with to thesemeetings.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Not only did her abuser read the letter, she
still showed up at the hospitaland, instead of being kept away,
like she should have been,instead of being held
accountable like she should havebeen, she was invited into the
room, allowed to sit in ondiscussions about Kiana's mental
(47:13):
health, about her care, abouther release.
And just to be clear, thisisn't just wildly inappropriate,
this is dangerous, this isre-traumatizing and it's a
massive failure on every adultwho should have been protecting
(47:35):
Kiana.
When survivors say they feelinvisible, that they feel
dismissed, this is why, whenthey say they can't trust the
system, this is why Because,even after nearly dying, even
(47:58):
after laying everything out inwriting, her abuser still had
access.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Her abuser still had access still had a voice and
still had a seat at the table.
So they're all having theirlittle powwows of how I should
stay here and I swear to God, Iswear.
I feel like that's the onlyreason I was there for as long
as I was Was because she already, when I was self-harming you
remember her screaming to my momthat I was insane and that I'm
(48:33):
self-harming.
So now she's putting it intothe doctor.
Well, she has the history ofself-harm and now she's a
concerned partner that has beenhelping me this whole time and
I'm like y'all are making mefeel actually insane.
Maybe I should just stay inhere because I feel like it's
this real fucking life.
This cannot be real life.
Were you ever able to like?
Speaker 1 (48:57):
present any type of like evidence or anything with
your letter to the doctors.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
No.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
No.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
They would have had to bring my computer in and she
never did.
Nobody ever brought thecomputer in to there, and nobody
.
That was just their reasoning,right, like they just took it as
like okay, that's her suicideletter, it's never going to see
the light of day.
Right, like, cause, she lived,she's not dead, we're just going
to leave it there.
Wow, I still, to this day,think I only got out because
(49:31):
Thanksgiving was coming up andmy mom was like I can't go home
to Thanksgiving without Kiana orwithout me.
Sorry, I said my name.
No, it's okay.
No, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (49:51):
Okay, so it was more like a look thing for her.
Speaker 2 (49:55):
You think that's?
Speaker 1 (49:56):
how I feel.
Yeah, how deeply painful is itwhen your pain is minimized to
protect someone else'sreputation, when your mental
health crisis becomes aninconvenience and when the
question isn't is she safe?
But how will this look?
And it's especially complicatedwhen it comes from a parent,
(50:19):
because there's a part of youthat still wants to be seen by
them, that wants someone to sayI failed you and I am so sorry.
Okay, so I want to talk aboutwhen you were finally signed out
(50:40):
of the mental hospital, or, um,what did you call it?
A psych, a psychiatric hospital?
Um, and you went home.
You said that you ended upmoving in with your grandmother.
So you didn't go back.
Did you drop out of school?
Speaker 2 (51:02):
Yes, and then cause I didn't even attend while I was
in the hospital, obviously, andthat was several months, so they
just dropped me.
So I say several, it was acouple of months, but I didn't
know that.
Shortly after everything hadgone down, I know that my
partner was living in thatapartment but I couldn't,
(51:25):
obviously pay rent because Iwasn't working Right.
So my grandparents came, packedup all my stuff, broke my lease
and brought it home and I feellike so, when my mom was like
okay, here comes Thanksgiving,I'm going to bring you.
(52:01):
And I went straight home tothem.
I don't even know like, becausemy mom, when I got released,
she obviously picked me up andhad my partner dropped her off
at her house and then took mehome, and that was not quite the
last I saw of her, but that waslike they were ending it for me
they were like you're notseeing her again.
When I got back to mygrandparents' house, my
grandparents were like she isnot allowed in this home, she is
not allowed in this car.
I don't want to hear her on thephone.
That is it, you are done,there's no more.
(52:26):
And I was devastated but alsoglad.
It was almost relief more thandevastation.
It felt like I still had thatfear of not being with her Right
, because the good times werereally good, insanely good, but
the bad times match that Right.
(52:46):
So then the bad times were inactual hell, and so it was a
relief.
It was, but I remember beinghysterical and it is more of
like you can't tell me what todo.
I'm an adult but obviously I'mnot stable enough at all.
And looking back on it, theywere a hundred percent.
(53:07):
Where were you sooner?
That should have happened waysooner.
But how would they know?
Yeah, if they were not thereand I was barely talking to them
?
I don't know.
I feel like my child.
I'm going to pull up on you IfI don't hear from you for X
amount of time.
I'm pulling up.
What are you doing?
Where are you?
What's going on?
(53:27):
Like?
I need to see what's happeningand know that you're alive.
Speaker 1 (53:32):
Mm-hmm Agree.
Speaker 2 (53:35):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:38):
So after this though you were relieved.
You were in your healing era,guess um.
Speaker 2 (53:49):
But then you said it was yeah, she was still trying
right, because I went back towork at the same place down the
street from my house that I wasworking when I met her um, and
there was another person therewho he I had told him a little
bit of my story, not a ton, um,and he had witnessed her
(54:12):
skulking around the gas stationsince I'd come home because she
wasn't allowed in my house, andso I had to explain what it was
and what was going on.
And he was the one who reallyencouraged me to cut all ties
like to her face.
I don't want to see you anymore, I don't want to talk to you
anymore, because it was never.
It never came from me.
(54:33):
I never told her I'm nottalking to you, I'm not whatever
.
Like, if she texted me, I'mgoing to text you, I will, even
though my entire family was likeno, I felt like I need to do
what I need to do.
I never saw her outside of meworking there because I couldn't
(54:54):
bring her home and I didn'thave a car.
I'm not going to walk to theother side of town.
I wasn't that up there, but shewould come to, she would walk
from the other side of town tobe at my job.
So he was the one that was likeyou have to let this go.
(55:15):
Like I promise you, like if youdo this, I'll stand 10 toes
down behind you, like he was sodie hard, would not.
Let me.
Like he would tell her you gotto get, you got to get out of
here, yeah.
So he's the one that actuallyencouraged me to stand 10 toes
down myself and I did Long storyshort with that guy.
(55:39):
I ended up marrying him andthat was a whole other
rollercoaster ride in itselfthat I'm not going to get into.
That was a whole other rollercoaster ride in itself that I'm
not going to get into.
But when I was newly married I'dsay like a year in, maybe I get
a phone call.
I'm waiting to pick him up fromwork.
So I'm in the car waiting forhim to get out of work, minding
(55:59):
my business, my phone's ringing.
It's a number I don't know, Idon't answer it, let it go to
voicemail.
And then I listen to thevoicemail and it's you have a
collect call from blah blah blah, women's prison.
And I'm my mind is like oh, myfreaking, you just know yeah,
(56:19):
yeah.
And then she didn't say her name.
She said it's me Pick up thephone when they give you time to
say your name or whatever it is.
It was me pick up the phone andI you time to say your name or
whatever it is.
It was me pick up the phone andI didn't.
Obviously because I'm listeningto this as a voicemail and I
start freaking out like Ideleted the voicemail, I blocked
the number, but then I had tolook and you used to be able to
look up people that were in thejail or in the prison.
(56:42):
Yeah, and I did actually end uphearing through the grapevine
because some of her friends werehalfway in my circle, like I
knew them, but not super well.
So they actually told me thatshe was arrested for trying to
set her girlfriend on fire inher sleep.
Speaker 1 (57:03):
I cannot believe that .
You just told me that she was.
You found out that she was.
The reason that she was inprison was because she tried to
catch her girlfriend on fire.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Yeah, she tried to set her on fire, so it was
attempted murder or somethinglike that.
She was away for a long time.
I have no idea what happened toher.
I don't know when she got outor how her life is now.
But wow, that was it.
It like blew my mind and Ithought that really could have
(57:39):
been my me, I mean, and italmost was me on more than one
occasion where she almost triedto kill me and then I tried to
kill myself, and it could havejust gone back and forth until I
actually was dead and thank godthat the other girl was not
dead oh my god, yeah, do youthink it was the man, or do you
think?
Speaker 1 (57:58):
do you think that was real?
Speaker 2 (58:03):
the medication made me feel like it was real, but
maybe the manifestations werenot as real, right, like maybe
there were other voices orsomething, but not literally a
switch in your brain where nowyou're actually a different
person, because it was neverconsistent, like I said, where
(58:26):
you're most of the time youremember, and then the one
really horrible time you don'tremember.
That makes no sense, yeah, thatmakes no sense at all.
And the randomness of that onehorrible time where normally it
was brought on by an argument,but this time it was a
conversation and I saidsomething you didn't like.
That makes no sense.
(58:47):
There was no warning to thatone, so I feel like I only half
believe it.
Yeah, that's a hard one.
I only have struggled with myown mental illness, but like
feeling with my own mentalillness, but like feeling I
(59:10):
don't know, I don't even knowhow to describe it.
It's just, it's an insane thing, it's an insane story to tell.
Hearing it coming out of mymouth again, it makes me feel
like what the heck, like Ireally lived through that you
did, you did.
It's crazy, there's so manyother women I know that have
stories that are just as insaneor even more insane, and the
(59:33):
fact that we're all alive isphenomenal.
Speaker 1 (59:36):
The thing.
The thing is is like I like tobrief Victor on some of these
stories before I go into aninterview, because I like to
know your story.
So it's like kind of my way ofpracticing, like getting to know
the story.
And I said to him.
I said I don't know why I'malways surprised, but I'm always
(59:59):
surprised, yeah, it's insane,like each time I think that I've
heard something, yeah, horrible.
I think that I've heardsomething yeah Horrible.
I think that I've heardsomething that yes, Can't
possibly blow your mind anymore.
Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
And then you're just like oh okay, it gets 10 million
times worse.
It can get 10 billion timesworse.
Speaker 1 (01:00:23):
Yeah, I'm so glad that you're here and that yeah,
(01:00:43):
I'm so glad that you're here andthat you got to be.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
You get to be a mom to a beautiful healthy little
boy and you get to live yourlife and discover what makes you
happy and what brings you joy.
Now, yeah, and I work on thatevery day.
I work on that every day andkeep track.
Still, it's been almost 11years self-harm free.
That I'm like.
Yes, I keep track of that forthe most part, and it's just
another small way I feel like Iclaim my freedom every day.
(01:01:07):
Every day and I just got to keepon claiming it, keep on doing
that, keep on putting in thework to be a better me and to
learn from those ridiculousexperiences that I've had.
And I'm glad.
I mean, I'm not glad for theexperience, but I'm glad to be
on the other side of it and ableto learn from it.
Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
So there's one question that I ask everyone
that comes on the podcast, andit is if you could give one
piece of advice to any victimwho may be listening that is
still in an abusive situation.
Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
What piece of advice would you give them?
That's a really hard questionbecause it feels like anything I
say is going to feel impossiblein the moment, right, like if
you're actively in an abusiverelationship and I tell you, get
out.
That's way easier said thandone.
But maybe find a person because, like me, I was isolated, right
.
But if I had just sent a textor two maybe to my best friend
(01:02:17):
or someone that I really trusted, that I knew would do something
, or that would jumpstart somesort of action, or even just
listen to me to have thatbackstory, to have my evidence,
to have something, get a trustedperson.
Whoever you have around you Imean, I don't care if it's the
(01:02:40):
person that works at the gasstation by you, because that's
the only place you're allowed togo to tell somebody, talk to
somebody, anybody.
Most of the time I feel like,especially now, most women are
going to want to jump intoaction.
Most women are going to want tohelp you.
If somebody, a stranger, walkedup to me today and was like I
(01:03:04):
need help, I'm about to you, Iwill do whatever I can to help
you.
That's my two cents.
Find a trusted person, findsomebody who you think will
listen Actually, not who youthink will listen, because you
probably think nobody willlisten, but somebody will.
Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Somebody will.
Somebody will hear you butsomebody will, somebody will,
somebody will hear you.
And it comes your support andyour saving grace comes from the
most unexpected places andfaces, absolutely so don't,
don't go excluding anyone.
(01:03:45):
Just make sure that they'resafe before you share.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Thank you so much for sharingyour story and being here today.
I am just in awe of you and thefight that you fight for
yourself every day and yourrecovery.
You are so strong.
Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
I don't know that you see it in yourself, but I see
it in you, so thank you so muchfor still being here.
Thank you for letting me comeon here and share with you and
tell the story for the firsttime.
It was a good experience.
I feel like a bit of a relief,honestly.
Speaker 1 (01:04:24):
What you just heard wasn't just a story.
It was someone's life.
It was survival.
Kiana brought us into some ofthe darkest moments of her life,
moments that no one should everhave to endure and she spoke
with a kind of bravery thatdoesn't always feel loud, but is
(01:04:46):
loud in impact and herwillingness to tell the truth
that saves lives.
If you're listening right nowand this story hit close to home
, I just want to remind you thatyou do not have to carry this
alone, Whether you're still init or years removed.
(01:05:07):
There's a place for you.
If you're ready for community,we would love to welcome you
inside the Survivor Sisterhood,our private Facebook group built
by survivors for survivors.
It's a safe place to be seen,heard and supported.
And if this episode moved you,if it made you feel less alone
or it helped you understandsomeone better, please take a
(01:05:32):
moment to give this podcast fivestars and leave a review.
Your reviews help push thesestories further.
They help us reach more victimsand survivors who are still out
there searching for hope, whoare still out there searching
for hope.
And we're also just 300 streamsaway from hitting 1,000 monthly
(01:05:52):
downloads.
That is a huge milestone, thatmakes us eligible for podcast
sponsorships, and that meansmore resources, more stories,
more impact.
You can help get us there justby sharing this episode with
someone who needs to hear it.
Thank you for being here.
(01:06:15):
Thank you for listening withyour heart.
You are not alone.
You were never crazy and youdeserve a life that feels like
freedom.
Until next time, remember theworld is a better place because
(01:06:37):
you are in it.
Speaker 2 (01:06:39):
Thank you.
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