May 22, 2025 • 36 mins
"Why didn't she just leave?" It's a question that reveals how profoundly we misunderstand the dynamics of abuse. Drawing from personal experience as both a childhood sexual abuse survivor and domestic violence survivor, I'm pulling back the curtain on why this question hurts victims and protects abusers.
The truth is that leaving an abusive relationship isn't simply a matter of walking out the door. Trauma bonding creates powerful psychological attachments that feel impossible to break. Statistics show the most dangerous time for any abuse victim is when they attempt to leave, with significantly increased risk of severe violence or homicide. When an abuser controls your finances, your career, and has isolated you from support systems, the question becomes not "Why didn't you leave?" but "Where would you go? How would you survive?"
Many victims develop learned helplessness after repeated failed attempts to change their circumstances. After experiencing the consequences of resistance – like we've seen in viral videos of abusers violently attacking partners who tried to leave – victims learn that compliance feels safer than escape. This isn't weakness; it's a survival strategy.
What's truly devastating is how victim-blaming perpetuates cycles of abuse by reinforcing the abuser's narrative. When we question victims rather than perpetrators, we validate the messaging they've heard from their abuser: that no one will believe them, that they provoked the abuse, that they somehow deserved what happened.
If someone trusts you enough to share their experience of abuse, please don't ask why they stayed. Ask what support they need now. Remember that your empathy could be the lifeline that helps them find their way to safety and healing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sorry, but anyway I'm kind of nervous.
I haven't went live in a longtime but I didn't get an episode
yesterday, so I really want toget one out today.
If you can hear me and itsounds mic'd, let me know,
because I want this mic to bethe one I'm using.
I don't want it to just bepicking up from my phone.
(00:20):
I'm trying to get this micworking so that I can film, so
that it's catching the audio formy podcast.
But if that won't work, oh well, my little pod track for not
working right now was not on mybingo card.
So anyway, while I'm trying toget this working, let me just
tell you what I want to talkabout.
(00:40):
I want to talk about this wholevictim blaming thing with
Cassie, because actually this iseasier for me to get with my
glasses off, because there isjust so so many people women
included, which is just sodiscouraging that are coming for
Cassie and Holly.
But this whole thing of whydidn't she just leave, why
didn't you just leave?
(01:01):
Leaving is so much harder thanyou think if you've never been
in that scenario and for thoseof you who've been through abuse
situations.
Sorry, I'm distracted.
I'm still trying to get thisset.
For those of you who've been inabuse situations, leaving is
not just a simple thing, andwhat I want to talk about today
is I have notes here because Ididn't want to forget what I was
talking about is just the firstof all, the complexities and
(01:24):
nuance of abuse situations, butalso particularly with Diddy and
Cassie.
Like Diddy's a billionaire,he's an actual, powerful
billionaire.
This doesn't take into accounthis power.
I mean, there's, you know, Ithink there's some evidence to
that.
He, like, blew up somebody'scar, kid cuties, car, whatever.
Um, we all saw the video ofwhat he did to her when she
(01:46):
tried to leave.
We can see it with our eyeballs.
We saw that a year ago, but now, apparently in court today,
there was even more, even moreevidence that came out.
So that too, we're just goingto talk about that too.
We saw that as a as an actualthing.
(02:06):
That happened.
If someone was to ask whydidn't she just leave?
We can see why she didn't leave.
Okay, I'm just going to give upon that because it's driving me
crazy.
Um, so that's one.
But also the dynamics of traumabonding like for those, the
average person who's neveractually been trauma bonded,
that's a real thing.
That's the actual real thing.
(02:27):
I'm sure a lot of you haveheard of Stockholm syndrome,
which is slightly different, butpeople do develop Stockholm
syndrome as well.
So, anyway, welcome to Out hereTrying to Survive.
I'm Grace.
I talk about self-love, healingand all the things that we, as
women of color, need to survive.
And I talk very healing and allthe things that we, as women of
color, need to survive.
(02:47):
And I talk very, very, veryopenly about how I was an abuse
victim and how I took a longtime to leave, in part like
Cassie, because I was completely, fully, completely, fully
dependent on my ex financially.
And, don't forget y'all, cassiewas signed to bad boy records.
So she and she said in the caseeither yesterday or today, she
(03:11):
literally said, um, he had mycareer in his hands, so she was
fully under his control.
A dynamic that's present alwaysin any abuse situation is that
the more dependent the person ison the abuser, the more the
harder it is to leave, the moreentangled it is psychologically.
We see this a lot with childparent relationships.
(03:34):
Right, because a child is fully, completely dependent on the
parent and if the parent isabusive, obviously it's hard to
leave.
But that dynamic in a boyfriend, girlfriend situation and we're
also, when we talk about Cassieand Diddy, we also need to be
very aware of the age differenceand just the age that she was.
(03:54):
She said that she was 19 or 20when they met 21, 22 when all
this stuff was going on, and shesigned a 10 record deal with
bad boy records to start.
And I just heard something, bythe way, trigger warning content
warning for those of you whoare essay victims.
I just want to be real cautiousof that, because I'm also an
(04:17):
essay victim and sometimeshearing these details about the
case can be kind of a lot.
So I just wanted to kind of putthat out there.
But I just heard today that sheeither testified earlier today
or yesterday that the first timeshe met him or, I'm sorry, the
first time that she signed forbad boy, that he did that he
requested and did oral on herand that she had never had that
(04:41):
done before and it was shockingand she went home and cried
about it, basically, whichexposes the power dynamics, like
right away.
So he set up a really, reallytoxic power dynamic right away.
But when you're 19 or 20 yearsold, however she, however old
she was when she signed the dealfor bad boy records records.
(05:05):
That's a very impressionabletime.
That's a very impressionabletime for a young woman and he
was what?
40 at the time.
So there's already, you know,coercion present some levels of
psychological menacing.
I don't even say abuse at thattime, but when you start off
something like that and then fornow people to say, especially
(05:26):
women, to say why didn't shejust leave, that's like really
really maddening.
So yes, I want to talk aboutthat because I think that all of
these things are very commonmisunderstandings of abuse and
as a survivor of SA for those ofyou who don't know my stories I
was SA'd by my dad from, youknow, from a very from as early
as I can remember until I was 10.
(05:48):
And I at no point this issomething specific I wanted to
address that I at no point wasever held down.
I was never at gunpoint.
I was never.
It was never a violent essay.
It was an understood dynamic ofa father-daughter relationship,
(06:09):
which is really, really sad.
But the reason why I wanted tobring that up specifically is
because I think when sometimespeople look at this situation
with Cassie and Danny, justbecause it's so public but we
all know women who've been here,and I was in a domestic
violence marriage as well andwhat we can see is that, um,
(06:29):
what we can see is that youdon't have to be held down at
pew, pew point, um, to becoerced into doing certain
behaviors.
And so when people are talkingabout Cassie, she willingly did
(06:50):
this or willingly did that andthat proves somehow that she
wanted it or that she wasn't avictim of human trafficking or
SEDGS trafficking.
I'm not sure what I can say ornot say, so I'm just going to
use use the coded social medialanguage.
Y'all don't understandmanipulation and control, and I
(07:11):
think it's.
I think what I went through as akid is a great example of that,
because, I quote unquotewillingly participated.
And what's really sad, what'sso sad too, is that what people
are doing to Cassie now.
They did to me when I was onthe stand, when I was like 10
years old, like I remember.
I remember my dad's lawyerasking me well, you wanted it,
(07:33):
didn't you?
You asked for it, didn't you?
And I'm?
And I was like literally it was10 years old being asked that
question, y'all, which is insane.
Like he should never have beenallowed to ask me that as a kid
still a kid, still only 10.
And I at that point, you know Iwas confused and I was just
like, yeah, I think I said Idon't even actually remember
(07:55):
what I said.
To be honest with you, I don'tremember what I said, but the
point is is that what Iunderstood, what I understood
now, like if a lawyer were toask me that now, what I
understood now is that it wasimplied that I had to.
I had to participate.
I was also, like a lot of abusevictims, very trauma bonded to
my dad in the sense that thatwas the only way that I was able
(08:18):
to get love from him orcompassion from him or kindness
from him is I knew what I had todo.
There was something that Cassiesaid earlier today that I heard
just actually just heard fromJesse Wu's video about this,
where she actually said thatthere's a few times she did
fight back, but she didn't wantto keep fighting back because
when she kept fighting backearly in the beginning, he would
(08:39):
be surprised and he would getangrier and the abuse would be
worse, the physical violencewould be worse.
And so she came to a pointwhere she just where she
literally said on the standyesterday or today.
She said I just realized like Ijust have to while he was
physically assaulting her, justhad to wait until it was over,
because it was going to beeasier for her if she just
waited until it was over.
I'm so frustrated by this.
(09:02):
By the way, this is really,really making me mad.
This isn't working.
This is like a hundred dollarsfor it not to be working already
is just insanity anyway.
Um, so yeah, but I also feellike there's a lot of like
misogynoir present.
Um, just actually just basicass misogyny present.
(09:24):
Uh, both for men and women,when we look at, uh, especially
high profile case, high profilecases where we're still only
getting snippets, y'all.
We don't know the whole story.
We're getting snippets, but wealso have saw video.
That's what I don't understandabout these women.
(09:44):
There's a woman on my Facebookyesterday which this reminds me
I'm going to go back and blockher when this is over but she
said basically the quote saidbasically Diddy is on trial for
being a freak Sis, sis, he isnot.
(10:04):
We saw the video, we saw theabuse.
(10:25):
Victim blaming is extremelypervasive and causes significant
harm to individuals who haveexperienced abuse, and it
perpetuates cycles of violence.
It involves placingresponsibility for the abuse on
the person who was harmed ratherthan on the perpetrator.
This can manifest in seeminglyinnocent questions or statements
(10:51):
like why didn't they just leave?
What were they wearing?
Which you know, as we all know,is what a lot of people say to
RAPE apologists or victims RAPEvictims like, maybe what you
were wearing?
And actually, as a side note, Isaw a really powerful museum
display I mean not in person,but like it got posted on
Instagram and the display showed, um, it was like a museum
display and it had all theseoutfits of what people were
(11:13):
wearing when they got REPED andone.
And it evolved from like littleclothes up to women clothes and
it started off with like alittle girl's dress Actually,
that just gave me the chills, um, because I was a little girl
when I got essayed but it waslike a little girl's dress and
then, like you know like,obviously like a little, it was
(11:34):
the actual clothes too.
It was really powerful a little, a little tennis skirt and like
a little girl's t-shirt withlike a unicorn on it and
basically it was just regularclothes.
It it was all regular clothes.
None of it was like stripperclothes or hooker clothes or
whatever.
It was just oh anyway, it'sjust really sad that stuff like
that, those kinds of lies, getperpetuated and the kind of
(11:56):
damage that does y'all cannot beundone.
It cannot be undone in societyin a big culture way, but also
like psychologically for thevictims, the way that victims
blame themselves.
Already I've talked about thisa lot before but, like in my
situation when I was essayed bymy dad, I blamed myself for so
(12:16):
many years, in part this isreally really important here in
part because of what my dad'slawyer did when he was on, when
I was on the stand.
He did everything in his powerto make me feel like you asked
for this, you wanted it, yousought it out, you da, da, da,
da da, without literally takingresponsibility Like.
(12:38):
This man was 44 when I was born.
Okay, so when this abusehappened it was between, like,
when he was between 45 years oldand 55 years old, and I was age
one or less, hopefully, I don'teven know to age 10.
And this lawyer acting like anda father, daughter acting like
(13:01):
I wasn't groomed all the way tohell to participate in that
stuff willingly.
It's insane Anyway, but theamount of damage, if you look at
that timeframe one to 10 iswhen it happened 10 until 43 or
something, 30 years of mebelieving it's my fault.
Because of this kind of language, because society perpetuates
(13:22):
people, women must have donesomething to provoke it.
You know, in this situationwith Cassie like well, she
willingly participated in thesefreak offs.
So, anyway, multi victimling isincredibly multifaceted but
also dangerous and alsoextremely violent.
This is why a lot of victimsthe reason I say it's dangerous
(13:43):
is because it's the reason why alot of victims don't come
forward, the reason why, even inmy life, like there is a
situation that I've alluded toin the past but I will probably
never come forward about it,because this person is kind of
well-known, not like superwell-known, but enough that I
would never want the backlash,enough that I would never want
the backlash.
I just I can't.
(14:08):
I just can't deal with thebacklash.
People are far less likely toreport, far less likely to
report the view I'm sorry Ialready said that to seek help
and also at least leaves victimsbeing completely isolated.
If they think number one, noone's going to believe them.
Or if they do, ask them whythey didn't seek help.
Also, another thing that thisdoes is re-emphasize the
(14:33):
abuser's narrative it makes whenwe immediately call into
question why didn't someone justleave?
Or blame Cassie for this kindof stuff.
It actually makes peoplebelieve that the abuser is right
off jump and that they'rethey're the ones telling the
truth.
Off jump and I do understand.
(14:54):
Guilty until until, I'm sorry,innocent until proven guilty.
I get that.
But at the same time in thiscase we have lots of we've had
lots of evidence for over a yearof guilt of abuse, of coercion,
of physical violence and otheraccusers too.
It's reasonable to want toprotect the abused first.
(15:18):
That feels more reasonable tome, but again, this might be
just as a as a survivor myself.
So I want to get into a coupleof the reasons that it's very
difficult to leave in general.
One of them is trauma bonding.
Trauma bonding is a very strongattachment.
(15:40):
Actually, let me just read thedefinition so you know the
actual definition.
Trauma bonding is apsychological response to abuse
where the victim develops astrong emotional attachment to
their abuser.
It often occurs in cycles whereabuse of positive reinforcement
, like kindness and affection,are interspersed with abuse.
It creates a very powerful,often confusing bond that can be
(16:02):
incredibly difficult to breakas the victim clings to the hope
of good times returning.
I'm only smiling because I wasso trauma-bonded to my ex.
It was unreal.
But I've seen other definitionsof this where it actually says
like you physically develop likea peptide addiction to an
abuser when you are in a traumabonded situation.
(16:26):
There's been several studiesdone on this.
When you are nice to someoneand you give them a lot of good
things and you almost like givethem an overabundance of the
things and they get addicted toit and then you take it away or
you start treating the personbadly, they will do anything to
get back to that.
What they felt like they weregetting before, that they never
had.
So it's especially violent forassault victims.
(16:47):
I'm going to since nobody'shere right now, anyway, I'm
going to see if I can fix this.
I'm just so sad about it.
Y'all Like, this has never notworked.
I'm so sad about it.
So, yeah, when I was with myex-husband which I do have the
(17:13):
full story of surviving verysevere verbal and narcissistic
abuse up on my YouTube channelLook under my folders and you
can see one.
But what I went through I'venever experienced anything like
trauma bonding before.
The fact that Cassie wasprobably trauma bonded to Diddy
is so likely is so likelytrauma-bonded to Diddy is so
likely.
It's so likely.
(17:33):
And she actually did mention itin, I think, in earlier, late
yesterday's testimony, because Iheard from Jessie Wu's live
that she did late last nightthat Cassie was talking about
just like, and her ex or no, hercurrent husband too was talking
about just the excitement ofbeing around someone who's super
popular and super rich and allof the good things.
(17:56):
You do get good things.
And the thing is, if Cassie wastrauma-bonded to Diddy because
she did say she really loved himin the beginning, he was very
charismatic.
The thing is, with abusers likeDiddy, they're extremely
charismatic, they're extremelyfun to be around People like
them.
I mean y'all, look at the orangedemon who leads America right
(18:18):
now, not to me, but to hisfollowers.
He's extremely charismatic,people want to follow him.
Like he's such a bigpersonality.
That's part of how he got to bewhere he is.
That does not take away fromthe fact that he's an orange
demon, okay.
Does not take away from thefact that he's an orange demon,
okay.
But same thing with Diddy likethat big personality that like
make everybody feel loved andhappy, like that kind of plus
(18:40):
being a billionaire and beingable to just spoil people like
crazy, like that's.
That in and of itself can be avery powerful drug.
But she did say when she firstgot with him she really felt
like she loved him.
Um, and I was just laughingwhen I heard Jesse say that
about like she was talking about.
She was like when people saylike, oh my God, she's all that
for money, dah, dah, dah.
And then she was like you dothat for day, day, day, no money
(19:03):
at all.
And I was thinking when I waswith my ex, he was supporting us
.
We weren't wealthy, you know,by any means, but he was
supporting us and he wasliterally keeping me alive
Because at that point I was just, I just had our baby, I had two
kids with my first husband andI was completely, fully,
(19:24):
emotionally sorry, financiallydependent.
That led to the trauma bonding,the idea that I need him and I
can't piss him off too bad, Ican't do anything.
That would be too likeoutlandish or too crazy, and it
leads to the trauma bonds.
So, even though all that's inthe back of your mind, when he
would do something and he'd bereally nice for a little while,
(19:44):
or I would cry really hard and Iwould just tell him how hurt I
was and then he'd be nice for alittle while and then, once the
abuse started, the pain is somuch deeper it's hard to explain
than just like a normalsituation where you're not
trauma bonded.
I've had boyfriends beforewhere they weren't nice or
whatever, not not like abusive,like that, but like it just
(20:04):
doesn't hurt as bad when you'renot trauma bonded.
But when you're trauma bondedthe pain is so acute I really
can't explain it.
I feel like I will just keepsaying the same thing over and
over again.
But anyway, so that's one thing.
Stockholm syndrome is anotherthing.
Y'all have probably heard of.
These are like think ofsituations, like call situations
, but it's often usedinterchangeably with trauma
(20:25):
trauma.
But it's not the same thing.
Stockholm syndrome is morespecific.
Like it happens when, likehostages or abuse victims
develop positive feelings orempathy towards their captors or
abusers and so as a survivalstrategy, the victim actually
aligns with the abuser tominimize the perceived threat.
So I actually honestly reallythink that a lot of America is,
(20:47):
has some especially the womenhas some level of Stockholm
syndrome towards the orangegaming.
But that's just, that's just myopinion.
But we see it in thosesituations Like I forgot what it
was like, where they, all youknow, ate a bunch of applesauce
and ended up killing themselvesBecause the, the, the, it was a
hostage situation.
(21:07):
Stockholm syndrome is wild, butall we know.
Even though I don't understandthat one as much, I know it's
real.
The third one is learnedhelplessness.
So if you have prolongedexposure which I really think
Cassie probably fits into thisscenario a little bit, anyway if
you have prolonged exposure toa situation outside of your
(21:28):
control, where you have a senseof powerlessness that has been
developed and reinforced by anabuser, you start to believe
that you cannot escape, that youcannot change your
circumstances, that you cannotget free, even when an
opportunity arises.
It's really, really demonic.
And people who are very good atbeing abusive and narcissistic
(21:50):
which I believe that Diddy isand was they're good at setting
up this dynamic and making youfeel like you are absolutely
stuck and trapped.
It's really, really, really Isaid really too many times See
now, like toxic bond, and I justI really think, if you've never
(22:22):
been there, please don't bejudgmental.
That's all I'm saying.
Also, if you've never been inthis scenario, maybe don't speak
on it.
You know part of the reasonthat I speak on it is because
I've been in a long, because Iwas essayed for that many years
and then because I got into amarriage later with an abuser,
which is so unfortunate, becauseI actually experienced trauma,
(22:44):
bonding, because I know whatit's like to feel, learned
helplessness, because I wasstarting to feel isolated.
That's another thing abusers dois isolate you from your
friends and family and supportsystem and when you do that,
when they do that, it makes ithard for you to get out.
So for Cassie, she said in hertestimony yesterday that one
(23:04):
time her mom saw her busted lipand black eye and she
acknowledged to her.
She said Diddy did this to methe other week for the first
time, when reality had beenhappening already for a full
year and she'd never told hermom.
Because what's going to happen?
The fear that she might have,that he might do something to
her mom.
(23:25):
This is the next one Oftenfearing retaliation from abusers
.
People don't leave because theyfear retaliation abusers.
People don't leave because theyfear retaliation.
For those of you who don't knowthis, please listen A woman is,
(23:46):
I think it's 100 times morelikely to be deeply physically
wounded or unalived when you'retrying to leave.
When you're trying to leave,that's the most dangerous time,
when people say, just foolishly,why didn't they just leave,
without considering if you livein the same house, if you're
married, if you share money, ifyou share accounts, if you share
children, sharing the car?
(24:06):
There's a lot of things that Imean.
Yes, financial dependence ispart of it, but especially with
the children thing, if you'reafraid that someone is going to
harm your children or harm you.
We've all heard the stories.
I mean just in this last week,accidentally, not even on
purpose, just scrolling throughPeople magazine or whatever have
seen three stories of menunaliving their wives,
(24:29):
girlfriends and kids when shewas trying to leave.
It's an extremely dangeroustime.
So before you ever, ever, everutter the words, why didn't she
just leave?
Please, please, think aboutthat.
But also, when you're talkingabout Diddy and Cassie, please
just go look at the video.
Yesterday they released thefull video In the last year I
(24:52):
think it was a year ago when wesaw the partial video of her
trying to leave the hotel roomand her dragging him, dragging
her back by her hair, and Ithink we saw her kicking her too
.
I don't remember the wholevideo because I didn't want to
look at it too much and Idefinitely don't want to look at
what was just released,although if you have morbid
(25:12):
curiosity, I believe it's on TMZ.
So again, we see what happenswhen she tried to leave.
Another thing is lack ofresources.
If you don't have access tosafe housing or legal assistance
, obviously it's hard to leaveand for me, when I didn't leave
my abusive ex, it was part ofthat, because where the hell was
(25:33):
I going to go with a young baby, his baby, no money, two other
kids and no job and severely,chronically underslept and being
abused and literally a friggingbasket case.
So because there were peoplewho said that to me and it was
(25:54):
so, so painful, it was justreally, really painful.
Here's just a few things.
I feel like we need to rememberthat it's really important to
approach allegations with asense of empathy for the victim
(26:15):
Empathy and I really feel likeif people had been through this,
I really feel like that's whatit comes down to.
People who've been through itreally always usually have a
modicum of empathy for thevictim that just other people
don't seem to have.
It's kind of wild to me, likeit's wild to me, y'all, that
there's anyone right now whosupports Diddy, even after just
(26:36):
the video came out, like whyisn't that enough?
Why isn't that enough?
That was violent as hell.
And also, if you look at thatvideo again this is from a
survivor perspective you can seethat that wasn't the first time
.
That wasn't the first time hedid all that stuff to her.
You can see that this is anestablished pattern.
(26:58):
So I'm I'm just incredulous.
Another thing is, when we talkto abuse victims, this is not so
much about Cassie, because noneof us very likely are going to
ever talk to or interact withCassie, point going to talk to
(27:22):
or interact with some woman inour family or ourselves who are
currently or will be abusedphysically, emotionally,
spiritually, verbally,psychologically, financially by
some man in their life.
Focus the conversation not ondissecting the person's past or
present or what are you doing orwhat are you doing to provoke
and all this stuff, and focus onthe actions of the person
(27:42):
they're claiming is abusing them.
That is really, really, reallya helpful place to start.
What are the actions?
How is it hitting you?
What are the actions?
How do you feel about it?
What are the actions?
What do you need from me and Isay this as someone who suffered
from verbal, and the abuse thatI suffered from my dad was
(28:03):
clearly sexual, but from myex-husband it was more
psychological and it wasnarcissistic in nature and it
was verbal in nature.
The verbal abuse was actually.
They both were awful.
I've never experienced anythinglike those things with anyone
else in my life before or since,and I would never wish it on my
(28:23):
worst enemy Never.
But the reason why that was sochallenging in part verbal abuse
is because it's not provable.
There's no marks.
You know what I'm saying?
There's no black eyes, there'sno busted lips, there's no hotel
footage.
You know what I'm saying?
There's no black eyes, there'sno busted lips, there's no hotel
footage.
It's just someone trying toliterally drive you crazy 30 to
(28:46):
50 times a day and it eats atyour soul in a way.
I really can't quite explain.
But when I would talk to peopleabout it without any prior
knowledge of it which Iunderstand because it's just not
talked about a lot A lot ofpeople still don't understand
narcissistic abuse, even withall of the awareness that's been
put out on the internet.
It was really really hard whenpeople would focus on what I was
(29:07):
doing to provoke that kind ofresponse in him.
Oh, it was so sad, that's allI'll say.
It's so sad.
So I know probably we're notgoing to talk to Cassie, but
you're probably going to talk tosomeone else who's going to say
things like I don't know, Ifeel crazy.
It's just that when he and I'mnot talking about somebody
(29:28):
calling somebody like a stupid Bword, a stupid ugly effing B
word every day, if my ex wascalling me a stupid ugly effing
B word every day, man, thatwould have been so much easier
to deal with.
It had been so clear Like okay.
Name calling is one of the 15forms of verbal abuse Like okay,
(29:48):
done.
The crazy thing is is that thefirst time my ex ever called me
the B word was after he movedout and while we were in the
middle of our divorceproceedings, because I suddenly
lost all my folks and I justdecided to like literally go ham
because I wasn't as scared ofhim anymore as I was before.
(30:10):
So the whole time I was beingseverely verbally abused, to the
point verbally andnarcissistically abused, to the
point that it gave me complexPTSD PTSD that I still struggle
with and I never got called theB word.
That's the kind of nuancedabuse I'm talking about and
(30:31):
that's what made it so painfulwhich, by the way, if you're
here, please leave me a.
Leave me a like.
Again, this is my first livepodcast episode.
I've never done this before, soI'm a little nervous not being
able to edit anything and myfreaking this microphone isn't
working.
But if you're here and you'renot following, please follow me.
I'm Gray Sandra.
I have the Out here Trying toSurvive podcast, and this
(30:52):
channel, which is aboutself-love, healing, hope and
surviving and thriving for blackwomen, particularly 35 plus,
who've been through some stuffand trying to heal.
So please, please, please, giveme a like, leave me a comment.
Let me know where you're from.
I'm not looking at commentsright now.
I have them, I have it, so Ican't see it because it's always
so distracting for me when I'monline to see comments and you
know, sometimes people come inhere and they just want to be
(31:15):
mean and it really, reallythrows me off my game because
I'm a sensitive soul.
Okay, so you know, I might aswell just forget this.
This isn't working.
I'm gonna just stop trying tofool with it.
So anyway, um, so yeah, if youcan imagine how difficult it was
for me to not have even that topoint back to and try to
explain to people what it meansfor someone to take power over
(31:36):
you with their language, withtheir body, with everything,
with everything they say insubtle, covert ways, 30 to 50
times a day for ongoing years.
It's incredibly painful to nothave someone be like well, you
must be doing something to to toincite that.
And the truth is no, I wastrying.
(31:57):
I was actually doing everythingI possibly could to avoid it
and failing because there wasliterally nothing I could do to
make him be nice to me and therewas nothing I could do to get
him to stop abusing me.
I realized that at some point.
But you know, when you're avictim and you're in this,
you're just trying and trying,and I think that's what Cassie
is literally trying to explainin her in what she's talking
(32:19):
about.
So I just want us all toactively challenge any victim
laying attitudes or likemindsets that we might have that
you're not even aware that youhave I.
I really hate this for her.
I really hope she probably is,but I really hope that she's
protecting herself from lookingat internet trolls, um, from
(32:42):
looking at people like Boosiewho are in support of Diddy.
Uh, although you know.
Let me just say this real quick.
I just saw on Jesse Wu's livethat went up last night that he
openly acknowledged to hiring anescort to RAPED his his
12-year-old son at the time.
And just let me just put thatout there.
(33:05):
That's who Diddy has supportinghim A man who hired an escort
to RAPED his 12-year-old son.
That's who Diddy has supportinghim.
So, as a woman, if you fix showlips to support Diddy, just
know that you're joining Boosie,that you're joining that crowd.
I mean you just I hope.
(33:25):
I hope you're ashamed ofyourself in the most loving,
kind way.
I hope you're ashamed ofyourself If you support him.
After you saw that video, causethat's enough.
Some people might be likethat's it, that's enough, that's
enough, it's enough for me,it's enough for me.
That did not look like ithappened.
That just was the first time.
It did not look like it.
Um, again, if you're here andyou're new, please leave me a
(33:48):
like, please comment um andsubscribe to the channel.
Um, I don't often do lives anddon't do live podcasts, but we
here today, so anyway, doesanybody?
Well, actually, I don't know ifI have my questions turned on.
I don't think I do.
Anybody have any questions forme about just what I went
through with my own situation,trying to escape an abusive
(34:10):
intimate partner marriage, orwhat happened with my dad
getting free from that.
Oh, I guess I will say realquick another thing that is
really sad is seeing these drawyou know the artist mock-ups of
the court and seeing Cassiecrying, being on the stand,
talking about this.
(34:31):
It's so hard to do, y'all, it'sso hard to do.
It takes so much bravery andI'm so proud of myself because I
did that at 10.
I really, I just really lookback and just think what a
kick-ass little girl.
I can't believe I did that at10.
I cannot believe that I sat upthere and had a lawyer question
me and detailed 10 years ofabuse.
(34:52):
Um, calmly, without shedding atear, without did I cry?
I don't think I did.
Yeah, I don't.
I don't think I cried on thestand and you know, maybe that
was in some ways God'sprotection of me, because I had
literally no idea the immensityof what was happening and I had
no idea that my dad was going togo to prison afterwards.
(35:15):
It just it takes a lot ofbravery and a lot of courage and
for those of you who weren'there at the beginning of the
live, I literally said there isan essay thing that's happened
to me.
Well, it happened over 10 yearsnow, so we're beyond the
statute of limitations anyway,but that I would probably never,
ever talk about publicly.
Because right now I know theenormity of talking about these
(35:38):
things publicly and what canhappen to you and how people
will dissect your life and tearyou apart, and I will probably
never do it.
I don't know if I had knownwhat was going to happen to my
dad when I was 10 years old if Ihad done it.
So I'm so proud of Cassie.
I think it's such a beautiful,beautiful thing that she did.
That she's doing to not onlyreclaim her voice because
(36:00):
sometimes, as a victim, when youtalk about these things, you're
literally reclaiming your own,you're calling your own power
back to you but also to protectother people from this happening
too, because she's not the onlyvictim in this story.
Obviously, this case, thiswhole case, is about sexual
trafficking.
This story, obviously this case, this whole case, is about
(36:23):
sexual trafficking, about humantrafficking.
Lots of other people, escortsincluded, not just her.
So I'm really proud of her.
I'm really, really proud of her.
Again, give me a like.
If you're new here, give me asubscribe, and I try to do new
episodes every Wednesday at 3 pmEST.
So thank you so much forjoining.
I really appreciate it, since Ihaven't been on live for a year
(36:44):
A year.
This was fun, though Maybe I'lldo it again.
Anyway, thank you so much forbeing here and I will see you
guys later.
Bye.
Sorry, but anyway I'm kind of nervous.
I haven't went live in a longtime but I didn't get an episode
yesterday, so I really want toget one out today.
If you can hear me and itsounds mic'd, let me know,
because I want this mic to bethe one I'm using.
I don't want it to just bepicking up from my phone.
(00:20):
I'm trying to get this micworking so that I can film, so
that it's catching the audio formy podcast.
But if that won't work, oh well, my little pod track for not
working right now was not on mybingo card.
So anyway, while I'm trying toget this working, let me just
tell you what I want to talkabout.
(00:40):
I want to talk about this wholevictim blaming thing with
Cassie, because actually this iseasier for me to get with my
glasses off, because there isjust so so many people women
included, which is just sodiscouraging that are coming for
Cassie and Holly.
But this whole thing of whydidn't she just leave, why
didn't you just leave?
(01:01):
Leaving is so much harder thanyou think if you've never been
in that scenario and for thoseof you who've been through abuse
situations.
Sorry, I'm distracted.
I'm still trying to get thisset.
For those of you who've been inabuse situations, leaving is
not just a simple thing, andwhat I want to talk about today
is I have notes here because Ididn't want to forget what I was
talking about is just the firstof all, the complexities and
(01:24):
nuance of abuse situations, butalso particularly with Diddy and
Cassie.
Like Diddy's a billionaire,he's an actual, powerful
billionaire.
This doesn't take into accounthis power.
I mean, there's, you know, Ithink there's some evidence to
that.
He, like, blew up somebody'scar, kid cuties, car, whatever.
Um, we all saw the video ofwhat he did to her when she
(01:46):
tried to leave.
We can see it with our eyeballs.
We saw that a year ago, but now, apparently in court today,
there was even more, even moreevidence that came out.
So that too, we're just goingto talk about that too.
We saw that as a as an actualthing.
(02:06):
That happened.
If someone was to ask whydidn't she just leave?
We can see why she didn't leave.
Okay, I'm just going to give upon that because it's driving me
crazy.
Um, so that's one.
But also the dynamics of traumabonding like for those, the
average person who's neveractually been trauma bonded,
that's a real thing.
That's the actual real thing.
(02:27):
I'm sure a lot of you haveheard of Stockholm syndrome,
which is slightly different, butpeople do develop Stockholm
syndrome as well.
So, anyway, welcome to Out hereTrying to Survive.
I'm Grace.
I talk about self-love, healingand all the things that we, as
women of color, need to survive.
And I talk very healing and allthe things that we, as women of
color, need to survive.
(02:47):
And I talk very, very, veryopenly about how I was an abuse
victim and how I took a longtime to leave, in part like
Cassie, because I was completely, fully, completely, fully
dependent on my ex financially.
And, don't forget y'all, cassiewas signed to bad boy records.
So she and she said in the caseeither yesterday or today, she
(03:11):
literally said, um, he had mycareer in his hands, so she was
fully under his control.
A dynamic that's present alwaysin any abuse situation is that
the more dependent the person ison the abuser, the more the
harder it is to leave, the moreentangled it is psychologically.
We see this a lot with childparent relationships.
(03:34):
Right, because a child is fully, completely dependent on the
parent and if the parent isabusive, obviously it's hard to
leave.
But that dynamic in a boyfriend, girlfriend situation and we're
also, when we talk about Cassieand Diddy, we also need to be
very aware of the age differenceand just the age that she was.
(03:54):
She said that she was 19 or 20when they met 21, 22 when all
this stuff was going on, and shesigned a 10 record deal with
bad boy records to start.
And I just heard something, bythe way, trigger warning content
warning for those of you whoare essay victims.
I just want to be real cautiousof that, because I'm also an
(04:17):
essay victim and sometimeshearing these details about the
case can be kind of a lot.
So I just wanted to kind of putthat out there.
But I just heard today that sheeither testified earlier today
or yesterday that the first timeshe met him or, I'm sorry, the
first time that she signed forbad boy, that he did that he
requested and did oral on herand that she had never had that
(04:41):
done before and it was shockingand she went home and cried
about it, basically, whichexposes the power dynamics, like
right away.
So he set up a really, reallytoxic power dynamic right away.
But when you're 19 or 20 yearsold, however she, however old
she was when she signed the dealfor bad boy records records.
(05:05):
That's a very impressionabletime.
That's a very impressionabletime for a young woman and he
was what?
40 at the time.
So there's already, you know,coercion present some levels of
psychological menacing.
I don't even say abuse at thattime, but when you start off
something like that and then fornow people to say, especially
(05:26):
women, to say why didn't shejust leave, that's like really
really maddening.
So yes, I want to talk aboutthat because I think that all of
these things are very commonmisunderstandings of abuse and
as a survivor of SA for those ofyou who don't know my stories I
was SA'd by my dad from, youknow, from a very from as early
as I can remember until I was 10.
(05:48):
And I at no point this issomething specific I wanted to
address that I at no point wasever held down.
I was never at gunpoint.
I was never.
It was never a violent essay.
It was an understood dynamic ofa father-daughter relationship,
(06:09):
which is really, really sad.
But the reason why I wanted tobring that up specifically is
because I think when sometimespeople look at this situation
with Cassie and Danny, justbecause it's so public but we
all know women who've been here,and I was in a domestic
violence marriage as well andwhat we can see is that, um,
(06:29):
what we can see is that youdon't have to be held down at
pew, pew point, um, to becoerced into doing certain
behaviors.
And so when people are talkingabout Cassie, she willingly did
(06:50):
this or willingly did that andthat proves somehow that she
wanted it or that she wasn't avictim of human trafficking or
SEDGS trafficking.
I'm not sure what I can say ornot say, so I'm just going to
use use the coded social medialanguage.
Y'all don't understandmanipulation and control, and I
(07:11):
think it's.
I think what I went through as akid is a great example of that,
because, I quote unquotewillingly participated.
And what's really sad, what'sso sad too, is that what people
are doing to Cassie now.
They did to me when I was onthe stand, when I was like 10
years old, like I remember.
I remember my dad's lawyerasking me well, you wanted it,
(07:33):
didn't you?
You asked for it, didn't you?
And I'm?
And I was like literally it was10 years old being asked that
question, y'all, which is insane.
Like he should never have beenallowed to ask me that as a kid
still a kid, still only 10.
And I at that point, you know Iwas confused and I was just
like, yeah, I think I said Idon't even actually remember
(07:55):
what I said.
To be honest with you, I don'tremember what I said, but the
point is is that what Iunderstood, what I understood
now, like if a lawyer were toask me that now, what I
understood now is that it wasimplied that I had to.
I had to participate.
I was also, like a lot of abusevictims, very trauma bonded to
my dad in the sense that thatwas the only way that I was able
(08:18):
to get love from him orcompassion from him or kindness
from him is I knew what I had todo.
There was something that Cassiesaid earlier today that I heard
just actually just heard fromJesse Wu's video about this,
where she actually said thatthere's a few times she did
fight back, but she didn't wantto keep fighting back because
when she kept fighting backearly in the beginning, he would
(08:39):
be surprised and he would getangrier and the abuse would be
worse, the physical violencewould be worse.
And so she came to a pointwhere she just where she
literally said on the standyesterday or today.
She said I just realized like Ijust have to while he was
physically assaulting her, justhad to wait until it was over,
because it was going to beeasier for her if she just
waited until it was over.
I'm so frustrated by this.
(09:02):
By the way, this is really,really making me mad.
This isn't working.
This is like a hundred dollarsfor it not to be working already
is just insanity anyway.
Um, so yeah, but I also feellike there's a lot of like
misogynoir present.
Um, just actually just basicass misogyny present.
(09:24):
Uh, both for men and women,when we look at, uh, especially
high profile case, high profilecases where we're still only
getting snippets, y'all.
We don't know the whole story.
We're getting snippets, but wealso have saw video.
That's what I don't understandabout these women.
(09:44):
There's a woman on my Facebookyesterday which this reminds me
I'm going to go back and blockher when this is over but she
said basically the quote saidbasically Diddy is on trial for
being a freak Sis, sis, he isnot.
(10:04):
We saw the video, we saw theabuse.
(10:25):
Victim blaming is extremelypervasive and causes significant
harm to individuals who haveexperienced abuse, and it
perpetuates cycles of violence.
It involves placingresponsibility for the abuse on
the person who was harmed ratherthan on the perpetrator.
This can manifest in seeminglyinnocent questions or statements
(10:51):
like why didn't they just leave?
What were they wearing?
Which you know, as we all know,is what a lot of people say to
RAPE apologists or victims RAPEvictims like, maybe what you
were wearing?
And actually, as a side note, Isaw a really powerful museum
display I mean not in person,but like it got posted on
Instagram and the display showed, um, it was like a museum
display and it had all theseoutfits of what people were
(11:13):
wearing when they got REPED andone.
And it evolved from like littleclothes up to women clothes and
it started off with like alittle girl's dress Actually,
that just gave me the chills, um, because I was a little girl
when I got essayed but it waslike a little girl's dress and
then, like you know like,obviously like a little, it was
(11:34):
the actual clothes too.
It was really powerful a little, a little tennis skirt and like
a little girl's t-shirt withlike a unicorn on it and
basically it was just regularclothes.
It it was all regular clothes.
None of it was like stripperclothes or hooker clothes or
whatever.
It was just oh anyway, it'sjust really sad that stuff like
that, those kinds of lies, getperpetuated and the kind of
(11:56):
damage that does y'all cannot beundone.
It cannot be undone in societyin a big culture way, but also
like psychologically for thevictims, the way that victims
blame themselves.
Already I've talked about thisa lot before but, like in my
situation when I was essayed bymy dad, I blamed myself for so
(12:16):
many years, in part this isreally really important here in
part because of what my dad'slawyer did when he was on, when
I was on the stand.
He did everything in his powerto make me feel like you asked
for this, you wanted it, yousought it out, you da, da, da,
da da, without literally takingresponsibility Like.
(12:38):
This man was 44 when I was born.
Okay, so when this abusehappened it was between, like,
when he was between 45 years oldand 55 years old, and I was age
one or less, hopefully, I don'teven know to age 10.
And this lawyer acting like anda father, daughter acting like
(13:01):
I wasn't groomed all the way tohell to participate in that
stuff willingly.
It's insane Anyway, but theamount of damage, if you look at
that timeframe one to 10 iswhen it happened 10 until 43 or
something, 30 years of mebelieving it's my fault.
Because of this kind of language, because society perpetuates
(13:22):
people, women must have donesomething to provoke it.
You know, in this situationwith Cassie like well, she
willingly participated in thesefreak offs.
So, anyway, multi victimling isincredibly multifaceted but
also dangerous and alsoextremely violent.
This is why a lot of victimsthe reason I say it's dangerous
(13:43):
is because it's the reason why alot of victims don't come
forward, the reason why, even inmy life, like there is a
situation that I've alluded toin the past but I will probably
never come forward about it,because this person is kind of
well-known, not like superwell-known, but enough that I
would never want the backlash,enough that I would never want
the backlash.
I just I can't.
(14:08):
I just can't deal with thebacklash.
People are far less likely toreport, far less likely to
report the view I'm sorry Ialready said that to seek help
and also at least leaves victimsbeing completely isolated.
If they think number one, noone's going to believe them.
Or if they do, ask them whythey didn't seek help.
Also, another thing that thisdoes is re-emphasize the
(14:33):
abuser's narrative it makes whenwe immediately call into
question why didn't someone justleave?
Or blame Cassie for this kindof stuff.
It actually makes peoplebelieve that the abuser is right
off jump and that they'rethey're the ones telling the
truth.
Off jump and I do understand.
(14:54):
Guilty until until, I'm sorry,innocent until proven guilty.
I get that.
But at the same time in thiscase we have lots of we've had
lots of evidence for over a yearof guilt of abuse, of coercion,
of physical violence and otheraccusers too.
It's reasonable to want toprotect the abused first.
(15:18):
That feels more reasonable tome, but again, this might be
just as a as a survivor myself.
So I want to get into a coupleof the reasons that it's very
difficult to leave in general.
One of them is trauma bonding.
Trauma bonding is a very strongattachment.
(15:40):
Actually, let me just read thedefinition so you know the
actual definition.
Trauma bonding is apsychological response to abuse
where the victim develops astrong emotional attachment to
their abuser.
It often occurs in cycles whereabuse of positive reinforcement
, like kindness and affection,are interspersed with abuse.
It creates a very powerful,often confusing bond that can be
(16:02):
incredibly difficult to breakas the victim clings to the hope
of good times returning.
I'm only smiling because I wasso trauma-bonded to my ex.
It was unreal.
But I've seen other definitionsof this where it actually says
like you physically develop likea peptide addiction to an
abuser when you are in a traumabonded situation.
(16:26):
There's been several studiesdone on this.
When you are nice to someoneand you give them a lot of good
things and you almost like givethem an overabundance of the
things and they get addicted toit and then you take it away or
you start treating the personbadly, they will do anything to
get back to that.
What they felt like they weregetting before, that they never
had.
So it's especially violent forassault victims.
(16:47):
I'm going to since nobody'shere right now, anyway, I'm
going to see if I can fix this.
I'm just so sad about it.
Y'all Like, this has never notworked.
I'm so sad about it.
So, yeah, when I was with myex-husband which I do have the
(17:13):
full story of surviving verysevere verbal and narcissistic
abuse up on my YouTube channelLook under my folders and you
can see one.
But what I went through I'venever experienced anything like
trauma bonding before.
The fact that Cassie wasprobably trauma bonded to Diddy
is so likely is so likelytrauma-bonded to Diddy is so
likely.
It's so likely.
(17:33):
And she actually did mention itin, I think, in earlier, late
yesterday's testimony, because Iheard from Jessie Wu's live
that she did late last nightthat Cassie was talking about
just like, and her ex or no, hercurrent husband too was talking
about just the excitement ofbeing around someone who's super
popular and super rich and allof the good things.
(17:56):
You do get good things.
And the thing is, if Cassie wastrauma-bonded to Diddy because
she did say she really loved himin the beginning, he was very
charismatic.
The thing is, with abusers likeDiddy, they're extremely
charismatic, they're extremelyfun to be around People like
them.
I mean y'all, look at the orangedemon who leads America right
(18:18):
now, not to me, but to hisfollowers.
He's extremely charismatic,people want to follow him.
Like he's such a bigpersonality.
That's part of how he got to bewhere he is.
That does not take away fromthe fact that he's an orange
demon, okay.
Does not take away from thefact that he's an orange demon,
okay.
But same thing with Diddy likethat big personality that like
make everybody feel loved andhappy, like that kind of plus
(18:40):
being a billionaire and beingable to just spoil people like
crazy, like that's.
That in and of itself can be avery powerful drug.
But she did say when she firstgot with him she really felt
like she loved him.
Um, and I was just laughingwhen I heard Jesse say that
about like she was talking about.
She was like when people saylike, oh my God, she's all that
for money, dah, dah, dah.
And then she was like you dothat for day, day, day, no money
(19:03):
at all.
And I was thinking when I waswith my ex, he was supporting us
.
We weren't wealthy, you know,by any means, but he was
supporting us and he wasliterally keeping me alive
Because at that point I was just, I just had our baby, I had two
kids with my first husband andI was completely, fully,
(19:24):
emotionally sorry, financiallydependent.
That led to the trauma bonding,the idea that I need him and I
can't piss him off too bad, Ican't do anything.
That would be too likeoutlandish or too crazy, and it
leads to the trauma bonds.
So, even though all that's inthe back of your mind, when he
would do something and he'd bereally nice for a little while,
(19:44):
or I would cry really hard and Iwould just tell him how hurt I
was and then he'd be nice for alittle while and then, once the
abuse started, the pain is somuch deeper it's hard to explain
than just like a normalsituation where you're not
trauma bonded.
I've had boyfriends beforewhere they weren't nice or
whatever, not not like abusive,like that, but like it just
(20:04):
doesn't hurt as bad when you'renot trauma bonded.
But when you're trauma bondedthe pain is so acute I really
can't explain it.
I feel like I will just keepsaying the same thing over and
over again.
But anyway, so that's one thing.
Stockholm syndrome is anotherthing.
Y'all have probably heard of.
These are like think ofsituations, like call situations
, but it's often usedinterchangeably with trauma
(20:25):
trauma.
But it's not the same thing.
Stockholm syndrome is morespecific.
Like it happens when, likehostages or abuse victims
develop positive feelings orempathy towards their captors or
abusers and so as a survivalstrategy, the victim actually
aligns with the abuser tominimize the perceived threat.
So I actually honestly reallythink that a lot of America is,
(20:47):
has some especially the womenhas some level of Stockholm
syndrome towards the orangegaming.
But that's just, that's just myopinion.
But we see it in thosesituations Like I forgot what it
was like, where they, all youknow, ate a bunch of applesauce
and ended up killing themselvesBecause the, the, the, it was a
hostage situation.
(21:07):
Stockholm syndrome is wild, butall we know.
Even though I don't understandthat one as much, I know it's
real.
The third one is learnedhelplessness.
So if you have prolongedexposure which I really think
Cassie probably fits into thisscenario a little bit, anyway if
you have prolonged exposure toa situation outside of your
(21:28):
control, where you have a senseof powerlessness that has been
developed and reinforced by anabuser, you start to believe
that you cannot escape, that youcannot change your
circumstances, that you cannotget free, even when an
opportunity arises.
It's really, really demonic.
And people who are very good atbeing abusive and narcissistic
(21:50):
which I believe that Diddy isand was they're good at setting
up this dynamic and making youfeel like you are absolutely
stuck and trapped.
It's really, really, really Isaid really too many times See
now, like toxic bond, and I justI really think, if you've never
(22:22):
been there, please don't bejudgmental.
That's all I'm saying.
Also, if you've never been inthis scenario, maybe don't speak
on it.
You know part of the reasonthat I speak on it is because
I've been in a long, because Iwas essayed for that many years
and then because I got into amarriage later with an abuser,
which is so unfortunate, becauseI actually experienced trauma,
(22:44):
bonding, because I know whatit's like to feel, learned
helplessness, because I wasstarting to feel isolated.
That's another thing abusers dois isolate you from your
friends and family and supportsystem and when you do that,
when they do that, it makes ithard for you to get out.
So for Cassie, she said in hertestimony yesterday that one
(23:04):
time her mom saw her busted lipand black eye and she
acknowledged to her.
She said Diddy did this to methe other week for the first
time, when reality had beenhappening already for a full
year and she'd never told hermom.
Because what's going to happen?
The fear that she might have,that he might do something to
her mom.
(23:25):
This is the next one Oftenfearing retaliation from abusers
.
People don't leave because theyfear retaliation abusers.
People don't leave because theyfear retaliation.
For those of you who don't knowthis, please listen A woman is,
(23:46):
I think it's 100 times morelikely to be deeply physically
wounded or unalived when you'retrying to leave.
When you're trying to leave,that's the most dangerous time,
when people say, just foolishly,why didn't they just leave,
without considering if you livein the same house, if you're
married, if you share money, ifyou share accounts, if you share
children, sharing the car?
(24:06):
There's a lot of things that Imean.
Yes, financial dependence ispart of it, but especially with
the children thing, if you'reafraid that someone is going to
harm your children or harm you.
We've all heard the stories.
I mean just in this last week,accidentally, not even on
purpose, just scrolling throughPeople magazine or whatever have
seen three stories of menunaliving their wives,
(24:29):
girlfriends and kids when shewas trying to leave.
It's an extremely dangeroustime.
So before you ever, ever, everutter the words, why didn't she
just leave?
Please, please, think aboutthat.
But also, when you're talkingabout Diddy and Cassie, please
just go look at the video.
Yesterday they released thefull video In the last year I
(24:52):
think it was a year ago when wesaw the partial video of her
trying to leave the hotel roomand her dragging him, dragging
her back by her hair, and Ithink we saw her kicking her too
.
I don't remember the wholevideo because I didn't want to
look at it too much and Idefinitely don't want to look at
what was just released,although if you have morbid
(25:12):
curiosity, I believe it's on TMZ.
So again, we see what happenswhen she tried to leave.
Another thing is lack ofresources.
If you don't have access tosafe housing or legal assistance
, obviously it's hard to leaveand for me, when I didn't leave
my abusive ex, it was part ofthat, because where the hell was
(25:33):
I going to go with a young baby, his baby, no money, two other
kids and no job and severely,chronically underslept and being
abused and literally a friggingbasket case.
So because there were peoplewho said that to me and it was
(25:54):
so, so painful, it was justreally, really painful.
Here's just a few things.
I feel like we need to rememberthat it's really important to
approach allegations with asense of empathy for the victim
(26:15):
Empathy and I really feel likeif people had been through this,
I really feel like that's whatit comes down to.
People who've been through itreally always usually have a
modicum of empathy for thevictim that just other people
don't seem to have.
It's kind of wild to me, likeit's wild to me, y'all, that
there's anyone right now whosupports Diddy, even after just
(26:36):
the video came out, like whyisn't that enough?
Why isn't that enough?
That was violent as hell.
And also, if you look at thatvideo again this is from a
survivor perspective you can seethat that wasn't the first time
.
That wasn't the first time hedid all that stuff to her.
You can see that this is anestablished pattern.
(26:58):
So I'm I'm just incredulous.
Another thing is, when we talkto abuse victims, this is not so
much about Cassie, because noneof us very likely are going to
ever talk to or interact withCassie, point going to talk to
(27:22):
or interact with some woman inour family or ourselves who are
currently or will be abusedphysically, emotionally,
spiritually, verbally,psychologically, financially by
some man in their life.
Focus the conversation not ondissecting the person's past or
present or what are you doing orwhat are you doing to provoke
and all this stuff, and focus onthe actions of the person
(27:42):
they're claiming is abusing them.
That is really, really, reallya helpful place to start.
What are the actions?
How is it hitting you?
What are the actions?
How do you feel about it?
What are the actions?
What do you need from me and Isay this as someone who suffered
from verbal, and the abuse thatI suffered from my dad was
(28:03):
clearly sexual, but from myex-husband it was more
psychological and it wasnarcissistic in nature and it
was verbal in nature.
The verbal abuse was actually.
They both were awful.
I've never experienced anythinglike those things with anyone
else in my life before or since,and I would never wish it on my
(28:23):
worst enemy Never.
But the reason why that was sochallenging in part verbal abuse
is because it's not provable.
There's no marks.
You know what I'm saying?
There's no black eyes, there'sno busted lips, there's no hotel
footage.
You know what I'm saying?
There's no black eyes, there'sno busted lips, there's no hotel
footage.
It's just someone trying toliterally drive you crazy 30 to
(28:46):
50 times a day and it eats atyour soul in a way.
I really can't quite explain.
But when I would talk to peopleabout it without any prior
knowledge of it which Iunderstand because it's just not
talked about a lot A lot ofpeople still don't understand
narcissistic abuse, even withall of the awareness that's been
put out on the internet.
It was really really hard whenpeople would focus on what I was
(29:07):
doing to provoke that kind ofresponse in him.
Oh, it was so sad, that's allI'll say.
It's so sad.
So I know probably we're notgoing to talk to Cassie, but
you're probably going to talk tosomeone else who's going to say
things like I don't know, Ifeel crazy.
It's just that when he and I'mnot talking about somebody
(29:28):
calling somebody like a stupid Bword, a stupid ugly effing B
word every day, if my ex wascalling me a stupid ugly effing
B word every day, man, thatwould have been so much easier
to deal with.
It had been so clear Like okay.
Name calling is one of the 15forms of verbal abuse Like okay,
(29:48):
done.
The crazy thing is is that thefirst time my ex ever called me
the B word was after he movedout and while we were in the
middle of our divorceproceedings, because I suddenly
lost all my folks and I justdecided to like literally go ham
because I wasn't as scared ofhim anymore as I was before.
(30:10):
So the whole time I was beingseverely verbally abused, to the
point verbally andnarcissistically abused, to the
point that it gave me complexPTSD PTSD that I still struggle
with and I never got called theB word.
That's the kind of nuancedabuse I'm talking about and
(30:31):
that's what made it so painfulwhich, by the way, if you're
here, please leave me a.
Leave me a like.
Again, this is my first livepodcast episode.
I've never done this before, soI'm a little nervous not being
able to edit anything and myfreaking this microphone isn't
working.
But if you're here and you'renot following, please follow me.
I'm Gray Sandra.
I have the Out here Trying toSurvive podcast, and this
(30:52):
channel, which is aboutself-love, healing, hope and
surviving and thriving for blackwomen, particularly 35 plus,
who've been through some stuffand trying to heal.
So please, please, please, giveme a like, leave me a comment.
Let me know where you're from.
I'm not looking at commentsright now.
I have them, I have it, so Ican't see it because it's always
so distracting for me when I'monline to see comments and you
know, sometimes people come inhere and they just want to be
(31:15):
mean and it really, reallythrows me off my game because
I'm a sensitive soul.
Okay, so you know, I might aswell just forget this.
This isn't working.
I'm gonna just stop trying tofool with it.
So anyway, um, so yeah, if youcan imagine how difficult it was
for me to not have even that topoint back to and try to
explain to people what it meansfor someone to take power over
(31:36):
you with their language, withtheir body, with everything,
with everything they say insubtle, covert ways, 30 to 50
times a day for ongoing years.
It's incredibly painful to nothave someone be like well, you
must be doing something to to toincite that.
And the truth is no, I wastrying.
(31:57):
I was actually doing everythingI possibly could to avoid it
and failing because there wasliterally nothing I could do to
make him be nice to me and therewas nothing I could do to get
him to stop abusing me.
I realized that at some point.
But you know, when you're avictim and you're in this,
you're just trying and trying,and I think that's what Cassie
is literally trying to explainin her in what she's talking
(32:19):
about.
So I just want us all toactively challenge any victim
laying attitudes or likemindsets that we might have that
you're not even aware that youhave I.
I really hate this for her.
I really hope she probably is,but I really hope that she's
protecting herself from lookingat internet trolls, um, from
(32:42):
looking at people like Boosiewho are in support of Diddy.
Uh, although you know.
Let me just say this real quick.
I just saw on Jesse Wu's livethat went up last night that he
openly acknowledged to hiring anescort to RAPED his his
12-year-old son at the time.
And just let me just put thatout there.
(33:05):
That's who Diddy has supportinghim A man who hired an escort
to RAPED his 12-year-old son.
That's who Diddy has supportinghim.
So, as a woman, if you fix showlips to support Diddy, just
know that you're joining Boosie,that you're joining that crowd.
I mean you just I hope.
(33:25):
I hope you're ashamed ofyourself in the most loving,
kind way.
I hope you're ashamed ofyourself If you support him.
After you saw that video, causethat's enough.
Some people might be likethat's it, that's enough, that's
enough, it's enough for me,it's enough for me.
That did not look like ithappened.
That just was the first time.
It did not look like it.
Um, again, if you're here andyou're new, please leave me a
(33:48):
like, please comment um andsubscribe to the channel.
Um, I don't often do lives anddon't do live podcasts, but we
here today, so anyway, doesanybody?
Well, actually, I don't know ifI have my questions turned on.
I don't think I do.
Anybody have any questions forme about just what I went
through with my own situation,trying to escape an abusive
(34:10):
intimate partner marriage, orwhat happened with my dad
getting free from that.
Oh, I guess I will say realquick another thing that is
really sad is seeing these drawyou know the artist mock-ups of
the court and seeing Cassiecrying, being on the stand,
talking about this.
(34:31):
It's so hard to do, y'all, it'sso hard to do.
It takes so much bravery andI'm so proud of myself because I
did that at 10.
I really, I just really lookback and just think what a
kick-ass little girl.
I can't believe I did that at10.
I cannot believe that I sat upthere and had a lawyer question
me and detailed 10 years ofabuse.
(34:52):
Um, calmly, without shedding atear, without did I cry?
I don't think I did.
Yeah, I don't.
I don't think I cried on thestand and you know, maybe that
was in some ways God'sprotection of me, because I had
literally no idea the immensityof what was happening and I had
no idea that my dad was going togo to prison afterwards.
(35:15):
It just it takes a lot ofbravery and a lot of courage and
for those of you who weren'there at the beginning of the
live, I literally said there isan essay thing that's happened
to me.
Well, it happened over 10 yearsnow, so we're beyond the
statute of limitations anyway,but that I would probably never,
ever talk about publicly.
Because right now I know theenormity of talking about these
(35:38):
things publicly and what canhappen to you and how people
will dissect your life and tearyou apart, and I will probably
never do it.
I don't know if I had knownwhat was going to happen to my
dad when I was 10 years old if Ihad done it.
So I'm so proud of Cassie.
I think it's such a beautiful,beautiful thing that she did.
That she's doing to not onlyreclaim her voice because
(36:00):
sometimes, as a victim, when youtalk about these things, you're
literally reclaiming your own,you're calling your own power
back to you but also to protectother people from this happening
too, because she's not the onlyvictim in this story.
Obviously, this case, thiswhole case, is about sexual
trafficking.
This story, obviously this case, this whole case, is about
(36:23):
sexual trafficking, about humantrafficking.
Lots of other people, escortsincluded, not just her.
So I'm really proud of her.
I'm really, really proud of her.
Again, give me a like.
If you're new here, give me asubscribe, and I try to do new
episodes every Wednesday at 3 pmEST.
So thank you so much forjoining.
I really appreciate it, since Ihaven't been on live for a year
(36:44):
A year.
This was fun, though Maybe I'lldo it again.
Anyway, thank you so much forbeing here and I will see you
guys later.
Bye.
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