March 18, 2025 • 22 mins
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It is important that you listen to the part 1 of this episode first: Running For Our Lives: The Murder I Designed Before I Could Drive - Episode #82A
In this illuminating conclusion to our two-part series (Episode 82B), trauma specialist Erica Bess expertly analyzes the psychological aftermath of childhood domestic violence exposure revealed in Fatima Bey's harrowing account.
"When your child hears you screaming in the other room, imagine the horror inside that they feel," explains Erica, revealing how children become co-survivors of abuse directed at their caregivers. This episode delves into the cascading traumas following the family's midnight escape—living in a hotel room, constant fear of discovery, and the development of adjustment disorder and PTSD that created hypervigilance lasting for decades.
Erica provides professional insight into one of the most chilling revelations from part one: the children's plan to eliminate their mother's abuser out of desperation. This powerful discussion illuminates how violence can perpetuate when children feel powerless to protect those they love.
Yet amidst this darkness emerges an inspiring transformation—how all three sisters channeled their trauma into healing professions. This episode offers profound understanding for survivors, parents concerned about household conflict's impact on children, and those supporting domestic violence survivors. Join us to explore trauma's enduring effects and the remarkable human capacity to transform pain into purpose.
To learn more about Erica Bess, The Trauma Master, please click the link below.
If you are hearing impaired, have data limitations, or connectivity challenges, we made a Podcast Blog just for you!
To learn more about what I do besides podcasting, please visit https://www.FatimaBey.world
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Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Fatima Bey (00:01):
Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast, the only
international podcast focused onteens, connecting young voices
and perspectives from around theworld.
Get ready to explore the issuesthat matter to today's youth
and shape tomorrow's world.
I'm your host, fatima Bey, theMindShifter, and welcome
(00:23):
everyone.
This is part two and I have myguest here, erica Bess.
She is the trauma master andthis is the perfect episode to
have someone on who specializesin trauma, since I just told you
about mine.
So I'm going to mostly be quietfor this episode.
I'll be here to respond andanswer questions, but Erica is
(00:47):
going to take over as thetherapist who specializes in
trauma and she's going to pickapart everything I just said.
Erica.
Erica Bess (00:56):
Hi everybody.
I am going to dissecteverything pretty much that
Fatima just told us and sharedwith us, and I want to thank you
for even being able to sharethat, because I know that that
experience was very traumaticand even though it's years later
, it still has a certain effecton anybody who would have gone
(01:19):
through that.
So I really appreciate the factthat you were able to tap in
and share that with everybody,all of your viewers, because I'm
sure that that helped a lot ofpeople who are actually going
through it currently as a child,or a child who's actually
dating somebody who is similarto somebody who was like the man
that your mother was dating.
So I appreciate that.
(01:41):
So let's break it down.
So at 12 years old, that's avery fragile age.
It's right before becoming ateenager.
So it's like the last littlebit of adolescence about to go
into teenage years, which islike the hardest time,
especially for a femaletransitioning into becoming a
(02:01):
confident young woman.
And because Fatima's foundationwas sort of rocked at such an
early age, it created a lot ofinstability as far as like when
she explained that her motherwas being beaten and then
hospitalized.
Whenever a person's, a child'scaregiver and their safety is
(02:23):
being challenged or threatened,it causes a child to go through
a period of instability and justbeing plain scared, because
their mother represents safetyand protection for them.
So if their safety andprotection is being threatened
in their mom's life, it createsthe same fear and lack of
(02:47):
protection for a child as well.
So a lot of times when womenhear, oh, you know, your kids
are going through somethingbecause you're in an abusive
relationship, a lot of themthink that they're going through
the majority of the trauma.
But your kids are going throughjust as much as you are, if not
even more, because they have anatural instinct to want to
protect you, just like a parentwants to protect a child.
(03:11):
So your child, especially a12-year-old child who's a little
bit older, who has a lot moreawareness than you would expect
to be at 12 years old, they areable to realize that, hey, my
caregiver's safety is beingthreatened.
This threatens my safety and mysister's safety.
I'm the oldest out of the three.
(03:32):
I have to do something toprotect them and I don't want to
see this anymore because that'sdaily trauma of that experience
that she's gone through.
So the next part about it I wantto talk about is the
abandonment part and having toescape, so having to abandon
your home from Minneapolis andthen escaping, and then having
(03:56):
to just wake up one day thinkingyou're going to school and then
your mom's telling you to go,pack your bags and put whatever
you can in your bag, as much asyou can fit, that in itself is a
trauma because you are leavingyour stable household, told to
get up and pack what you can,and then you're leaving
everything behind.
A lot of times when childrenare uprooted especially in this
(04:20):
situation where you actually hadto escape for your own lives it
causes something calledadjustment disorder in children.
Adjustment disorder could alsohappen with adults, but in
children.
In this case, it shook yourfoundation, which was your
household, and it took you fromeverything that you knew that
was stable and it just uprootedyou.
And then having to then escapeand hide, that created a sense
(04:44):
of fear and having to look overyour shoulder while you're
trying to get to safety andimagine, like a 12-year-old
feeling that and then youryounger sister's feeling that,
on top of it, that must havebeen so traumatic for you guys
having to hide in the back seatwhen you guys were making that
escape route.
Another thing that I thought wasimportant to point out was your
(05:05):
mom's lack of support that shereceived when trying to make
that escape having to take threechildren and herself to safety
and then only being able to relyon her mom for a little, a few
weeks, and then thank God forAunt Lizzie being able to drive
you there and then you guysbeing able to hide in the
backseat.
(05:25):
But the lack of support thatmom received, that's a huge
factor, because when you'regoing through something like
that, you need support fromwherever you can get it from,
whether it's financial, whetherit's oh, let me donate you some
blankets or some clothes,because you guys didn't have
much on you.
So it's like whatever kind ofsupport that she could have
(05:48):
received at that time, I knowshe would have accepted it with
open arms, but not everybody wasavailable, for whatever reason.
So that's a trauma withinitself.
Also, having to deal with thelack of financial stability and
then also having to deal withthe physical trauma that your
mom went through and then theemotional trauma that you and
your sisters experienced whenyou had to move into the hotel.
(06:11):
That was another environmentaltrauma, you know, just a lower
level of lifestyle.
So you were probably exposed tothings around the area of the
hotel that weren't the bestsituation.
So that could also cause alittle uncertainty and a little
instability, because there's alot of negative things going
(06:32):
around you Not to say that thatstuff was going on in your
specific hotel room, but juststepping out of that safety of
the hotel room and then becomingused to living in a hotel and
then having to stay there fornine months and then, mom,
finally being able to get anapartment at nine months which
sounds like a great thingbecause it's your own place, but
it's still not like the housethat you came from and what
(06:54):
you're used to and then havingto stuff the clothes and the
pillows and not having thefurniture.
That's another trauma, becauseyou don't have the finances to
be able to make the house warmand cozy again and you have to
wait until you get enough moneyto buy furniture and buy pillows
and buy clothes and kind oflike restart.
It's like you guys had toessentially start over a few
(07:16):
times and there's nothing wrongwith that, but it's traumatic in
the sense of having to do thatover and over again, having to
adjust to that and not havingthe things that you need once
you did move into the apartment.
It does create that sense ofnot being on the right level,
that you need to besocietal-wise.
It makes you feel less than,and then feeling less than can
(07:39):
develop low self-esteem, likeFatima mentioned in the part one
of episode.
She said that her self-esteemwasn't where it needed to be but
that was because her foundationwas shaken so many times at
such a young age and I don'tknow if therapy was a thing back
then for your family, was thatlike normalized back then?
(08:00):
Yeah, so Fatima navigated allof this stuff pretty much on her
own and then I know Aunt Lizziewas able to help her with some
things as far as navigating andlearning and growing on her own.
But navigating basically allthat trauma at such a young age
on her own, she's a force to bereckoned with.
(08:20):
I have to say that for sure.
For sure, because that's noteasy for an adult to have to do,
let alone a 12-year-old.
That's amazing.
Moving into that new space, it'sa whole new adjustment and I
believe that because of what shewent through, she became aware
of other people's trauma.
(08:40):
So triggers as far as likemaybe walking down the street
and seeing somebody else puttingtheir hands on their girlfriend
.
That's an immediate trigger,because what that trauma
manifested in Fatima was adiagnosis which a lot of people
don't even realize they havewhen they've gone through
something.
It's called post-traumaticstress disorder.
So we've got the adjustmentdisorder from the uprooting and
(09:03):
the instability and then thePTSD from the post-traumatic
experience that causes things inyou today that could be like
such as hypervigilance, whereyou're always kind of looking
over your shoulder or just kindof hyper aware of possibilities
(09:23):
of, of unsafe situations, andhaving to look over your
shoulder and feel like that allthe time creates instability and
kind of like anxiety withinyourself because you're always
having to be ready and preparedfor something and that drains
somebody.
Having to always be alert andalways ready for something to
(09:44):
happen, because even whensomething doesn't happen, you're
always ready for it, and thatjust drains a person after a
while.
So that's a lot on top of thatas well.
I'm not sure if I touched on ittoo much, but when, like I said,
when her caregiver was beingendangered, it shook her
foundation and she realized justeven if she never saw her
(10:05):
mother get physically hit, justhearing her mother screaming in
the next room or fighting forher life, that is enough to mess
your child up for years to come.
When your child is not able tosave you and hears you screaming
in the other room, imagine thetrauma and just the horror
(10:29):
inside that they feel that theycan't help save their mom.
Their mommy is their everything, their savior, their comfort,
where their love comes from.
And because they're not able toeven feel safe as far as that,
they can't even protect theirmom.
And a child wants to protecttheir mom just as bad as a mom
wants to protect their child.
So don't think, because you'rethe adult, that you're the one
(10:51):
always supposed to be doing theprotecting your child.
If they're old enough and smartenough, they're going to want
to make sure that you're okaytoo, and so the fact that you're
not okay and you're choosing tostay in a relationship that is
being abusive to you, you'reabusing your children just as
much, if not even more.
So I think that when shementioned speaking to her
(11:15):
stepfather and that she hadmentioned something about oh,
you're not going to do that tomy mom, or something like that,
and he got upset, he took it acertain way, but that's because
he didn't know that she wassaying that coming from a
traumatic place because she hadovercome such a big trauma and
honestly, like she said, if hermom didn't move her and her
(11:35):
sisters out at that time, thatthat murder would have been
committed.
And I know her she would havedone it Whether her sisters were
on board or not.
She would have found a way toget it done.
So thank God mom did leave whenshe did, because it would have
probably been within that nextcouple of weeks for it to go
down.
She's like, oh yeah, we wereplanning it.
And when she says that she'splanning something, it's going
(11:56):
to happen.
So I think that the fact thather stepfather took it a certain
way she maybe didn't mean forit to come off that way to him
and that he took it that waybecause he didn't realize the
impact of the trauma that shehad experienced dealing with
this previous person who haddealt with her mom and handled
her in the wrong way.
(12:16):
Previous person who had dealtwith her mom and handled her in
the wrong way.
And I think that when you gothrough such an experience like
that, you become extreme with itand you're like, hey, this is
never happening again, so don'teven think in your mind that
you're going to do somethinglike this to my mom because it
ain't happening, you'll be deadbefore it happens.
And it's like, oh, I'm serious.
But I hope it never has to cometo that extreme.
(12:37):
And luckily, because he's agreat man, it would never come
to that experience.
But because of Fajima's traumashe had to let him know that hey
, I don't know you that well Ifit does get to that extreme,
that this is going to happen.
So she had to let it be known.
But that is a scary place tohave to be and have to say to
somebody when you've gonethrough something like that,
(12:58):
because it's so real for her thefact that she couldn't talk
about it for years, up until shewas in her twenties.
It was a lot because she had toprocess everything and probably
couldn't even process it withher mom.
Like she said, she told her moma few years ago and that's big
in itself that she was able tosay it out loud.
Talking about trauma is verydifficult.
(13:20):
The experience itself ishorrible and then having to
speak about it is sometimesmakes you relive your trauma and
it's like it's supposed to healyou in the same time.
But it's hard to get through it.
Sometimes when you've gonethrough something and you're
trying to explain it to somebody, you can't get through it
without your throat choking upand you getting that rock in
(13:41):
your throat and then your eyesstart tearing and it's like dang
.
This happened so many years ago.
You don't even realize how muchit has affected you, let alone
the children in the world whoare experiencing it right now
and, like she said, her tearswere for them because she knows
what it's like to be in youguys' shoes.
(14:02):
So any of the children,teenagers who are going through
this situation and your parentsor your mom is being abused or
your caretaker is being abused,she knows exactly what that
feels like and the tears arejust flowing and that's what
makes this so raw and real.
And I hope that the rightpeople heard this episode today
(14:23):
and know that there is hope andyou can get out of that
situation and encourage yourloved ones who are going through
this to get out, as well asyour parents.
The planning of the murderthat's the juicy stuff.
Grateful that you left thatsituation, but I do believe that
(14:44):
when you've gone through such atraumatic experience and you've
experienced your mother gettinghurt over and over, I think
there a coldness develops insideof the children, who are
starting to think violent,because they become violent too.
And it's like you're not anormally violent person but
(15:07):
because of what you've gonethrough and experienced through
the trauma vicariously, throughyour mom and what she was
experiencing, you experienced itjust as if you were going
through the same thing.
What she was experiencing, youexperienced it just as if you
were going through the samething.
So it makes you a littletougher than you have to be and
makes you a little bit moreviolent, because that's what
you're exposed to.
So she was going to fightviolence with violence and end
(15:27):
it all by murdering him.
Thank God she didn't have to dothat and that things worked out
the way they did, but I dobelieve that if her mom chose to
stay and continued to stay withthe man, that I think I really
do believe that it would havehappened as well and that would
have caused even more trauma.
(15:49):
I believe that there's a lot ofhealing that took place today
through Fatima even telling herstory, and I think that what she
did here today was basicallyhealing herself on the podcast,
but through healing you guys, bysharing her story.
(16:10):
So her healing is comingthrough healing you guys and
telling you to get out of thatsituation, get away from if
you're a teenager and you're inthat type of relationship, get
out now, don't become thegrownup woman that has to deal
with a certain kind of partnerlike that and to open your eyes
now.
So there's a lot of healingtaking place right now, in this
(16:32):
very moment of this episode, forthese other women to hear, to
get out and have the strength towalk away and not to be afraid
to walk away.
I think that it was veryimportant when she mentioned
that if she hears a certain bangor a noise, that it could
trigger the trauma that silencedher until her twenties and now
(16:54):
she's able to speak about it andnow able to share it with you
guys.
So hopefully you guys won'thave to wait 20 years to be able
to speak about your traumas andbe able to say what you need to
say and stand up for what'sright, and also to help wake up
your caregiver as well, so thatthey can get out of that
situation, because the longeryou stay, the harder it is to
(17:15):
walk away.
And children that witness anyviolence against their
caregivers I think it completelyshakes their core foundation
and then you begin to have lowself-esteem when your tend to go
(17:36):
to places or people looking forlove in the wrong places,
because you don't know what itreally is, because it was never
really fully established for youand the trauma kind of takes
over and overpowers that.
But what love you didexperience.
So I think that once yourself-esteem is in that negative
place and it doesn't getaddressed or you don't go to
(17:58):
therapy to build it up Because,let's be honest, a lot of people
, a lot of families back in theday were not taking their kids
to therapy for traumas.
We were told to not talk aboutit.
We were told to just move on.
We were told to just sweep itunder the rug and act like oh,
we'll just act like it didn'thappen.
But that doesn't do anybody anygood.
It's just a lie, and to sitthere and continue to live your
(18:22):
life as a lie is only going tojust breed more toxicity within
you and then it causes moretrauma after that.
So we just need to be honestand that's the only way we're
going to heal.
And I really just want to thankFatima for having me come on as
a commentator about trauma, tobreak down each segment of her
(18:44):
trauma and be able to identifythe things that she's gone
through and overcome, and I justwant to say thank you for the
opportunity, fatima for comingon, and I once again want to say
to anyone listening if you'rein the situation and you heard
my pleas, you believe what Ijust said.
Fatima Bey (19:03):
But I just said in episode one, and you want to get
out, go to FatimaBeycom, go tothe other help page, Click.
If you just go to the otherhelp page, you can find the
people around you that arewilling to help.
It's a national service andonly within America.
It's a national service that wecan find services around you
(19:24):
wherever you are.
Please do it today.
And now for a mind-shiftingmoment.
The mind-shifting moment isabout planting a thought seed,
so I want to plant this thoughtseed in your head, young ladies,
women.
(19:45):
What I didn't mention before wasthat this took place in the 80s
.
There was no domestic violenceawareness back then.
There wasn't people around thatunderstood what that even was,
knew how to recognize it.
There weren't organizations outthere that specifically were
there to help victims.
(20:05):
There was just the police, whomay or may not care or may or
may not believe you or may ormay not act like it's a big deal
.
As a victim back then especially, you were truly alone.
My mother was truly alone andshe had three girls to take care
of while trying to manage allof this on her own.
She stayed because she wasscared, not because she wanted
(20:28):
to, because she didn't know whatelse to do.
But she finally got shookenough to say I got to do
something.
And let me tell you, ladies,where there's a will, there's a
way.
My mother's living proof ofthat.
She made the decision tofinally get out.
But I want to point this out toyou as well.
Your children are learningright now.
They're watching you right now.
When you get out, they will seehow strong their mother was.
(20:53):
They may not see it right now,but when maturity hits and they
get to see the whole picturebecause now they're mature
enough to actually understandthe whole picture they're going
to see things differently andyou may be the hero in their
story.
When they begin to recognize,like I do with my mother, I
recognize now wow, she's amazingWith all of that.
She didn't turn to substances,she didn't turn to drugs, she
(21:15):
didn't latch on to the nextloser.
She worked very hard and kepttaking care of her girls.
And I also want to pointsomething else out.
We did get something out ofthat situation.
If we hadn't moved to New York,my mother would have never met
my stepfather, which was one ofthe best things that ever
happened to her.
Not only that, but I'm FatimaBae, the mind shifter.
I'm a mind shift coach.
I'm public.
My other sister is a doctoratetherapist, Dr Bae, and my other
(21:40):
sister is a spiritual healer.
She focuses on healing peopleand then helping them to have a
better future.
So what you hear there is allthree of us got into therapeutic
fields, just differently.
All three of us are abouthelping and healing other people
.
If you get out, your childrenmay take all of this garbage and
(22:02):
turn it into something good.
I just want to plant thatthought seed today, something
good.
I just want to plant thatthought seed today.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to follow or subscribeto MindShift Power podcast on
any of our worldwide platformsso you too can be a part of the
conversation that's changingyoung lives everywhere.
(22:22):
And always remember there'spower in shifting your thinking.
Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast, the only
international podcast focused onteens, connecting young voices
and perspectives from around theworld.
Get ready to explore the issuesthat matter to today's youth
and shape tomorrow's world.
I'm your host, fatima Bey, theMindShifter, and welcome
(00:23):
everyone.
This is part two and I have myguest here, erica Bess.
She is the trauma master andthis is the perfect episode to
have someone on who specializesin trauma, since I just told you
about mine.
So I'm going to mostly be quietfor this episode.
I'll be here to respond andanswer questions, but Erica is
(00:47):
going to take over as thetherapist who specializes in
trauma and she's going to pickapart everything I just said.
Erica.
Erica Bess (00:56):
Hi everybody.
I am going to dissecteverything pretty much that
Fatima just told us and sharedwith us, and I want to thank you
for even being able to sharethat, because I know that that
experience was very traumaticand even though it's years later
, it still has a certain effecton anybody who would have gone
(01:19):
through that.
So I really appreciate the factthat you were able to tap in
and share that with everybody,all of your viewers, because I'm
sure that that helped a lot ofpeople who are actually going
through it currently as a child,or a child who's actually
dating somebody who is similarto somebody who was like the man
that your mother was dating.
So I appreciate that.
(01:41):
So let's break it down.
So at 12 years old, that's avery fragile age.
It's right before becoming ateenager.
So it's like the last littlebit of adolescence about to go
into teenage years, which islike the hardest time,
especially for a femaletransitioning into becoming a
(02:01):
confident young woman.
And because Fatima's foundationwas sort of rocked at such an
early age, it created a lot ofinstability as far as like when
she explained that her motherwas being beaten and then
hospitalized.
Whenever a person's, a child'scaregiver and their safety is
(02:23):
being challenged or threatened,it causes a child to go through
a period of instability and justbeing plain scared, because
their mother represents safetyand protection for them.
So if their safety andprotection is being threatened
in their mom's life, it createsthe same fear and lack of
(02:47):
protection for a child as well.
So a lot of times when womenhear, oh, you know, your kids
are going through somethingbecause you're in an abusive
relationship, a lot of themthink that they're going through
the majority of the trauma.
But your kids are going throughjust as much as you are, if not
even more, because they have anatural instinct to want to
protect you, just like a parentwants to protect a child.
(03:11):
So your child, especially a12-year-old child who's a little
bit older, who has a lot moreawareness than you would expect
to be at 12 years old, they areable to realize that, hey, my
caregiver's safety is beingthreatened.
This threatens my safety and mysister's safety.
I'm the oldest out of the three.
(03:32):
I have to do something toprotect them and I don't want to
see this anymore because that'sdaily trauma of that experience
that she's gone through.
So the next part about it I wantto talk about is the
abandonment part and having toescape, so having to abandon
your home from Minneapolis andthen escaping, and then having
(03:56):
to just wake up one day thinkingyou're going to school and then
your mom's telling you to go,pack your bags and put whatever
you can in your bag, as much asyou can fit, that in itself is a
trauma because you are leavingyour stable household, told to
get up and pack what you can,and then you're leaving
everything behind.
A lot of times when childrenare uprooted especially in this
(04:20):
situation where you actually hadto escape for your own lives it
causes something calledadjustment disorder in children.
Adjustment disorder could alsohappen with adults, but in
children.
In this case, it shook yourfoundation, which was your
household, and it took you fromeverything that you knew that
was stable and it just uprootedyou.
And then having to then escapeand hide, that created a sense
(04:44):
of fear and having to look overyour shoulder while you're
trying to get to safety andimagine, like a 12-year-old
feeling that and then youryounger sister's feeling that,
on top of it, that must havebeen so traumatic for you guys
having to hide in the back seatwhen you guys were making that
escape route.
Another thing that I thought wasimportant to point out was your
(05:05):
mom's lack of support that shereceived when trying to make
that escape having to take threechildren and herself to safety
and then only being able to relyon her mom for a little, a few
weeks, and then thank God forAunt Lizzie being able to drive
you there and then you guysbeing able to hide in the
backseat.
(05:25):
But the lack of support thatmom received, that's a huge
factor, because when you'regoing through something like
that, you need support fromwherever you can get it from,
whether it's financial, whetherit's oh, let me donate you some
blankets or some clothes,because you guys didn't have
much on you.
So it's like whatever kind ofsupport that she could have
(05:48):
received at that time, I knowshe would have accepted it with
open arms, but not everybody wasavailable, for whatever reason.
So that's a trauma withinitself.
Also, having to deal with thelack of financial stability and
then also having to deal withthe physical trauma that your
mom went through and then theemotional trauma that you and
your sisters experienced whenyou had to move into the hotel.
(06:11):
That was another environmentaltrauma, you know, just a lower
level of lifestyle.
So you were probably exposed tothings around the area of the
hotel that weren't the bestsituation.
So that could also cause alittle uncertainty and a little
instability, because there's alot of negative things going
(06:32):
around you Not to say that thatstuff was going on in your
specific hotel room, but juststepping out of that safety of
the hotel room and then becomingused to living in a hotel and
then having to stay there fornine months and then, mom,
finally being able to get anapartment at nine months which
sounds like a great thingbecause it's your own place, but
it's still not like the housethat you came from and what
(06:54):
you're used to and then havingto stuff the clothes and the
pillows and not having thefurniture.
That's another trauma, becauseyou don't have the finances to
be able to make the house warmand cozy again and you have to
wait until you get enough moneyto buy furniture and buy pillows
and buy clothes and kind oflike restart.
It's like you guys had toessentially start over a few
(07:16):
times and there's nothing wrongwith that, but it's traumatic in
the sense of having to do thatover and over again, having to
adjust to that and not havingthe things that you need once
you did move into the apartment.
It does create that sense ofnot being on the right level,
that you need to besocietal-wise.
It makes you feel less than,and then feeling less than can
(07:39):
develop low self-esteem, likeFatima mentioned in the part one
of episode.
She said that her self-esteemwasn't where it needed to be but
that was because her foundationwas shaken so many times at
such a young age and I don'tknow if therapy was a thing back
then for your family, was thatlike normalized back then?
(08:00):
Yeah, so Fatima navigated allof this stuff pretty much on her
own and then I know Aunt Lizziewas able to help her with some
things as far as navigating andlearning and growing on her own.
But navigating basically allthat trauma at such a young age
on her own, she's a force to bereckoned with.
(08:20):
I have to say that for sure.
For sure, because that's noteasy for an adult to have to do,
let alone a 12-year-old.
That's amazing.
Moving into that new space, it'sa whole new adjustment and I
believe that because of what shewent through, she became aware
of other people's trauma.
(08:40):
So triggers as far as likemaybe walking down the street
and seeing somebody else puttingtheir hands on their girlfriend
.
That's an immediate trigger,because what that trauma
manifested in Fatima was adiagnosis which a lot of people
don't even realize they havewhen they've gone through
something.
It's called post-traumaticstress disorder.
So we've got the adjustmentdisorder from the uprooting and
(09:03):
the instability and then thePTSD from the post-traumatic
experience that causes things inyou today that could be like
such as hypervigilance, whereyou're always kind of looking
over your shoulder or just kindof hyper aware of possibilities
(09:23):
of, of unsafe situations, andhaving to look over your
shoulder and feel like that allthe time creates instability and
kind of like anxiety withinyourself because you're always
having to be ready and preparedfor something and that drains
somebody.
Having to always be alert andalways ready for something to
(09:44):
happen, because even whensomething doesn't happen, you're
always ready for it, and thatjust drains a person after a
while.
So that's a lot on top of thatas well.
I'm not sure if I touched on ittoo much, but when, like I said,
when her caregiver was beingendangered, it shook her
foundation and she realized justeven if she never saw her
(10:05):
mother get physically hit, justhearing her mother screaming in
the next room or fighting forher life, that is enough to mess
your child up for years to come.
When your child is not able tosave you and hears you screaming
in the other room, imagine thetrauma and just the horror
(10:29):
inside that they feel that theycan't help save their mom.
Their mommy is their everything, their savior, their comfort,
where their love comes from.
And because they're not able toeven feel safe as far as that,
they can't even protect theirmom.
And a child wants to protecttheir mom just as bad as a mom
wants to protect their child.
So don't think, because you'rethe adult, that you're the one
(10:51):
always supposed to be doing theprotecting your child.
If they're old enough and smartenough, they're going to want
to make sure that you're okaytoo, and so the fact that you're
not okay and you're choosing tostay in a relationship that is
being abusive to you, you'reabusing your children just as
much, if not even more.
So I think that when shementioned speaking to her
(11:15):
stepfather and that she hadmentioned something about oh,
you're not going to do that tomy mom, or something like that,
and he got upset, he took it acertain way, but that's because
he didn't know that she wassaying that coming from a
traumatic place because she hadovercome such a big trauma and
honestly, like she said, if hermom didn't move her and her
(11:35):
sisters out at that time, thatthat murder would have been
committed.
And I know her she would havedone it Whether her sisters were
on board or not.
She would have found a way toget it done.
So thank God mom did leave whenshe did, because it would have
probably been within that nextcouple of weeks for it to go
down.
She's like, oh yeah, we wereplanning it.
And when she says that she'splanning something, it's going
(11:56):
to happen.
So I think that the fact thather stepfather took it a certain
way she maybe didn't mean forit to come off that way to him
and that he took it that waybecause he didn't realize the
impact of the trauma that shehad experienced dealing with
this previous person who haddealt with her mom and handled
her in the wrong way.
(12:16):
Previous person who had dealtwith her mom and handled her in
the wrong way.
And I think that when you gothrough such an experience like
that, you become extreme with itand you're like, hey, this is
never happening again, so don'teven think in your mind that
you're going to do somethinglike this to my mom because it
ain't happening, you'll be deadbefore it happens.
And it's like, oh, I'm serious.
But I hope it never has to cometo that extreme.
(12:37):
And luckily, because he's agreat man, it would never come
to that experience.
But because of Fajima's traumashe had to let him know that hey
, I don't know you that well Ifit does get to that extreme,
that this is going to happen.
So she had to let it be known.
But that is a scary place tohave to be and have to say to
somebody when you've gonethrough something like that,
(12:58):
because it's so real for her thefact that she couldn't talk
about it for years, up until shewas in her twenties.
It was a lot because she had toprocess everything and probably
couldn't even process it withher mom.
Like she said, she told her moma few years ago and that's big
in itself that she was able tosay it out loud.
Talking about trauma is verydifficult.
(13:20):
The experience itself ishorrible and then having to
speak about it is sometimesmakes you relive your trauma and
it's like it's supposed to healyou in the same time.
But it's hard to get through it.
Sometimes when you've gonethrough something and you're
trying to explain it to somebody, you can't get through it
without your throat choking upand you getting that rock in
(13:41):
your throat and then your eyesstart tearing and it's like dang
.
This happened so many years ago.
You don't even realize how muchit has affected you, let alone
the children in the world whoare experiencing it right now
and, like she said, her tearswere for them because she knows
what it's like to be in youguys' shoes.
(14:02):
So any of the children,teenagers who are going through
this situation and your parentsor your mom is being abused or
your caretaker is being abused,she knows exactly what that
feels like and the tears arejust flowing and that's what
makes this so raw and real.
And I hope that the rightpeople heard this episode today
(14:23):
and know that there is hope andyou can get out of that
situation and encourage yourloved ones who are going through
this to get out, as well asyour parents.
The planning of the murderthat's the juicy stuff.
Grateful that you left thatsituation, but I do believe that
(14:44):
when you've gone through such atraumatic experience and you've
experienced your mother gettinghurt over and over, I think
there a coldness develops insideof the children, who are
starting to think violent,because they become violent too.
And it's like you're not anormally violent person but
(15:07):
because of what you've gonethrough and experienced through
the trauma vicariously, throughyour mom and what she was
experiencing, you experienced itjust as if you were going
through the same thing.
What she was experiencing, youexperienced it just as if you
were going through the samething.
So it makes you a littletougher than you have to be and
makes you a little bit moreviolent, because that's what
you're exposed to.
So she was going to fightviolence with violence and end
(15:27):
it all by murdering him.
Thank God she didn't have to dothat and that things worked out
the way they did, but I dobelieve that if her mom chose to
stay and continued to stay withthe man, that I think I really
do believe that it would havehappened as well and that would
have caused even more trauma.
(15:49):
I believe that there's a lot ofhealing that took place today
through Fatima even telling herstory, and I think that what she
did here today was basicallyhealing herself on the podcast,
but through healing you guys, bysharing her story.
(16:10):
So her healing is comingthrough healing you guys and
telling you to get out of thatsituation, get away from if
you're a teenager and you're inthat type of relationship, get
out now, don't become thegrownup woman that has to deal
with a certain kind of partnerlike that and to open your eyes
now.
So there's a lot of healingtaking place right now, in this
(16:32):
very moment of this episode, forthese other women to hear, to
get out and have the strength towalk away and not to be afraid
to walk away.
I think that it was veryimportant when she mentioned
that if she hears a certain bangor a noise, that it could
trigger the trauma that silencedher until her twenties and now
(16:54):
she's able to speak about it andnow able to share it with you
guys.
So hopefully you guys won'thave to wait 20 years to be able
to speak about your traumas andbe able to say what you need to
say and stand up for what'sright, and also to help wake up
your caregiver as well, so thatthey can get out of that
situation, because the longeryou stay, the harder it is to
(17:15):
walk away.
And children that witness anyviolence against their
caregivers I think it completelyshakes their core foundation
and then you begin to have lowself-esteem when your tend to go
(17:36):
to places or people looking forlove in the wrong places,
because you don't know what itreally is, because it was never
really fully established for youand the trauma kind of takes
over and overpowers that.
But what love you didexperience.
So I think that once yourself-esteem is in that negative
place and it doesn't getaddressed or you don't go to
(17:58):
therapy to build it up Because,let's be honest, a lot of people
, a lot of families back in theday were not taking their kids
to therapy for traumas.
We were told to not talk aboutit.
We were told to just move on.
We were told to just sweep itunder the rug and act like oh,
we'll just act like it didn'thappen.
But that doesn't do anybody anygood.
It's just a lie, and to sitthere and continue to live your
(18:22):
life as a lie is only going tojust breed more toxicity within
you and then it causes moretrauma after that.
So we just need to be honestand that's the only way we're
going to heal.
And I really just want to thankFatima for having me come on as
a commentator about trauma, tobreak down each segment of her
(18:44):
trauma and be able to identifythe things that she's gone
through and overcome, and I justwant to say thank you for the
opportunity, fatima for comingon, and I once again want to say
to anyone listening if you'rein the situation and you heard
my pleas, you believe what Ijust said.
Fatima Bey (19:03):
But I just said in episode one, and you want to get
out, go to FatimaBeycom, go tothe other help page, Click.
If you just go to the otherhelp page, you can find the
people around you that arewilling to help.
It's a national service andonly within America.
It's a national service that wecan find services around you
(19:24):
wherever you are.
Please do it today.
And now for a mind-shiftingmoment.
The mind-shifting moment isabout planting a thought seed,
so I want to plant this thoughtseed in your head, young ladies,
women.
(19:45):
What I didn't mention before wasthat this took place in the 80s
.
There was no domestic violenceawareness back then.
There wasn't people around thatunderstood what that even was,
knew how to recognize it.
There weren't organizations outthere that specifically were
there to help victims.
(20:05):
There was just the police, whomay or may not care or may or
may not believe you or may ormay not act like it's a big deal
.
As a victim back then especially, you were truly alone.
My mother was truly alone andshe had three girls to take care
of while trying to manage allof this on her own.
She stayed because she wasscared, not because she wanted
(20:28):
to, because she didn't know whatelse to do.
But she finally got shookenough to say I got to do
something.
And let me tell you, ladies,where there's a will, there's a
way.
My mother's living proof ofthat.
She made the decision tofinally get out.
But I want to point this out toyou as well.
Your children are learningright now.
They're watching you right now.
When you get out, they will seehow strong their mother was.
(20:53):
They may not see it right now,but when maturity hits and they
get to see the whole picturebecause now they're mature
enough to actually understandthe whole picture they're going
to see things differently andyou may be the hero in their
story.
When they begin to recognize,like I do with my mother, I
recognize now wow, she's amazingWith all of that.
She didn't turn to substances,she didn't turn to drugs, she
(21:15):
didn't latch on to the nextloser.
She worked very hard and kepttaking care of her girls.
And I also want to pointsomething else out.
We did get something out ofthat situation.
If we hadn't moved to New York,my mother would have never met
my stepfather, which was one ofthe best things that ever
happened to her.
Not only that, but I'm FatimaBae, the mind shifter.
I'm a mind shift coach.
I'm public.
My other sister is a doctoratetherapist, Dr Bae, and my other
(21:40):
sister is a spiritual healer.
She focuses on healing peopleand then helping them to have a
better future.
So what you hear there is allthree of us got into therapeutic
fields, just differently.
All three of us are abouthelping and healing other people
.
If you get out, your childrenmay take all of this garbage and
(22:02):
turn it into something good.
I just want to plant thatthought seed today, something
good.
I just want to plant thatthought seed today.
Thank you for listening.
Be sure to follow or subscribeto MindShift Power podcast on
any of our worldwide platformsso you too can be a part of the
conversation that's changingyoung lives everywhere.
(22:22):
And always remember there'spower in shifting your thinking.
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