October 30, 2025 • 49 mins
In this episode, Christine and guest writer Janice Formichella dive into how domestic abuse doesn’t just harm intimate relationships—it impacts friendships too. Based on Janice’s article “Let’s Talk About It: 5 Ways That Domestic Abuse Corrodes Friendships,” they explore the hidden ways abuse isolates survivors and how friends can better support healing and reconnection.
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Fifty Shades of Bullshit is broadcast live Thursdays at 4PM PT on K4HD Radio - Hollywood Talk Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com). Fifty Shades of Bullshit TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Fifty Shades of Bullshit Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following show contains adult content. It's not our intent
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(00:21):
directed to those show hosts. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey everyone, and welcome to fifty Shades of Bullshit. I'm
your host, Christine Lalan and this is the podcast where
we uncover the truth about online dating.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Now let's begin. Hey, I don't know what's happening. Hey everyone,
us Christine and this is fifty Shades of Bullshit. Today
we have a very interesting topic. We are going to
be discussing a very a topic, a topic that is
(01:06):
I think very important. So we're gonna have Janie Formicella
with us today.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Hello Janice, Hello, my dear, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm gonna talk about I have a little intro here
about the show. We talk a lot about how domestic
abuse destroys romantic relationships, but we don't talk enough about
how it also damages friendships and other relationships in your life.
When someone is in an abusive situation, isolation becomes part
(01:39):
of the control. So today we have a podcaster, writer,
and advocate Janie for Michella. She's joining me to discuss
her article. Let's talk about it, five ways to domestic
that domestic abuse corrodes friendships and how we can better
understand and support both survivors and their friends through that
(02:00):
difficult process. So happy to have you, Janie.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yes, thank you so much and everyone. It's on my
website Jennifromachella dot com. It kind of took me a
couple months to finally put it together and push publish,
So yeah, I love it. I'm really glad that you
wanted to talk about this. It means a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, it was really a well written article, and both
you and I are well adverse to this type of topic,
so I was very excited to have this as our
topic today. So one of the let's go with you, Janie.
(02:41):
Let's we have talked a lot about how both you
and I on this show have been in domestic violence situations.
We were both in a long term relationship, married, et cetera,
to men who were abusive, and we're going to talk
(03:02):
about the friendship element of this or other family members
kind of element of this, and tell us a little about,
you know, your thoughts on this janus and how it
really affected your life. I have a bunch of stories too,
but we'll we'll get to that.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Well, I will say before so, I was divorced and
then met my abuser, and it was just it was
a very classic.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Situation and that he had a lot of the qualities.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
That my husband lacked or that I had been really
wanting in the marriage.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
But most of all, he was a lifelong I was
not his first target. I was not the first.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Woman that who he had dated, who he had done
this to, and I think he just kind of knew
what he was doing. I got, like, very classically love
bombed and just was completely what I would call at
the time, swept off my feet. Like even my healthiest
you know, friends were saying, you know, this was just
such a great opportunity.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
This guy is such a catch, and so before.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I knew it, I was not only in an exclusive
relationship with him with a promise ring that I did
get a praise for eight grand By the way, that's
another story about how that aspect of it unraveled.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
But I had.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Also moved overseas to be with him within only about
six months, and it was I already knew that there
were some issues. He had stayed with me in New
York and had gotten violence pretty early on. But then,
just so classically, I'm in another country. I was miss popularity.
(04:48):
When I was living in New York. I had everything
going for me in the world, this amazing, enormous, juicy,
supportive group of friends, and it was just like a
bit by bit by bit by bit, it all started
crumbling around me. The first time that he became very,
very physically abusive. I told maybe three or four of
(05:10):
my friends about it. Of course everyone shocked, told my
parents as well. Everyone is shocked, encourages me to leave,
and of course, in the heat of the moment, I
say I'm going to and do And a week later,
everyone's texting me wondering what's going on because they haven't
heard from me.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Well, that would be because I had decided to go
back with him back.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Yeah, And so then we stayed together another year and
by the time I finally left for good. The police
had actually gotten involved, he was put in jail for
what ultimately ended up happening, and by that time, hardly
any of them were still with me.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And we can we talk about something really quick before
you move on with that thought, Jennis, because I do
want people to understand that you can be in a
abusive relationship like this and when you leave, you have
every intention of never going back. But you've got to
(06:15):
understand how skilled these people are who are abusers, because
when you're talking about a relationship like this, they charm
everybody around them, and everybody thinks that they are the
cat's mew. Everybody thinks that these are perfect people, and
they're very very good at it. They're conmon basically, And
(06:39):
you've got to also get it that when we leave,
and we have every intention of being gone, the reason
why we go back is because these fools get hold
of us again and convince us in our pained, damaged
bodies and minds. Okay, they have got us convince because
(07:01):
we really wanted to be this way. They convince us
that they will change, they will never do it again.
They are really sorry, they're very humbled. They would never
ever do it again, and then we come back and
it happens again, and it is a cycle that repeats
itself very destroyingly. I don't know the other words.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
And quickly and yeah, and in my case, he was
an alcoholic who hadn't had you know, first of all,
he would ball like a baby, you know, begging me
to come back after the first after the first time,
and yes, of course, apologizing a lot. But then it
(07:43):
became also, I can't live without you, threats against his
life if I didn't come back.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
His family got involved, encouraging me to go back.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Horrifyingly enough, my parents had been very charmed by him,
and even though they knew what happened, I believe it
or not, my dad encouraged me to go back to him.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I can I can see that, especially you know, you
come from a Mormon background. They're all about preserving the family.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
The family, Yeah, and a little bit of social currency also,
because you know, he was wealthy.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
He went to Cambridge.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
We were living in Frankfurt, and I think there was
something very appealing about that to my dad. But that's
I'm not here to talk about that, but right, but
tell us.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
No, I'm sorry, I did not mean to tell you, I'm.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Just saying my family aside.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
But by the time, yeah, that I left, I had
stopped talking to almost everyone. The people who I had
considered to be my closest circle were just nowhere to
be seen.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Well, that's what we're gonna talk about.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
And even at the time, I felt a little sorry
for myself in a way, because you know, I'm now
moving from Europe back to the State and I have
no friends. There was some like financial manipulation and so
I had hardly any money in my bank account, like
my resources has sort of dwindled in various ways, and
(09:12):
so now I'm living with my folks again. Yeah, so
that kind of sucked. So I felt sorry for myself
in that regard, because who wants to, you know, live
with these dick hiads when you're like thirty five.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
Or something, you know. But I never really.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Was that angry at my friends. I have to say,
I always felt like I wish people would have fought
harder for the friendship, but at the same time, I'm
not sure what I would have done type of thing.
And I could totally see their side from the very beginning,
and that's why I wrote this article because we don't
talk about the fact that, yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
How do you be there for someone who's an abusive situation?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah you can, and you can try, but you can
also have your own you know, you can also be
knocked down in so many ways when you try to
have somebody, some toxic person in your own life.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I have a couple of thoughts on that. I think
a lot of people underestimate how emotional manipulation can affect friendships.
That It's like, it's not always about control at home,
it's control in the of the entire environment. And it's
heartbreaking to realize that, you know, a survivor's friends often
(10:25):
feel pushed away when they really need to stay more
connected because sometimes friends take that distance personally, not realizing
that it's part of the abuse.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yes, that is one thing. Yes, that that can happen.
Is isolation and not hearing from someone for a while
is one aspect of white friends can there can have,
distance can be created between friends, is just the mirror isolation.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
That's just one way.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Though I've talked about, you know, my daughters on this podcast,
I haven't talked about them in a while. I do
have a distant relationship. I don't have a relationship with
one of my daughters because she is in this type
of situation and he has cut her off, separated her,
(11:16):
you know, from a friend group, her sisters, her family,
and hardly anybody gets to speak with her anymore. And
it's kind of a little rough. Today's my granddaughter with her.
It's her birthday today. So you know, it's moments like
this that you know, the family's out here, the friends
(11:36):
are out here wanting to be part of it. In
sometimes we're thinking that it is the person that is
shutting us out, but it's really not. It's the abuser
who's making that impossible for them to stay connected.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yeah, and I will say, if you truly think that
a friend of yours is in an abusive situation and
you don't hear from them, keep trying. The thing is
like that's so hard to do when you don't feel
like it's a two way situation. But like, don't this
is not something to take take personal, right, But at
(12:12):
the same time, you're a human being, like friendships are
supposed to be, you know, reciprocal, And so that's why
I also I want to try the article because I
don't put blame on almost anyone. I would say, I
have a probably a couple of harsh things i'd say
to maybe one person involved here, But mostly I just
think that people were just pushed their wits end, didn't
(12:34):
know what to do, gave me all the good advice
in the world, only to see me go back. You know,
the friendship wasn't being kept up, and yeah, it dwindled away.
I don't want to be friends with somebody who's not
giving back to me correct really honest.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, but you know, when you know that a friend
is in that kind of situation and they're pushing you away,
I mean, it only makes logic that you would, you know,
try to be there as much as possible in any
way that you can, and even if it's just a
reassurance to let them know that they have someone there,
(13:10):
that they're You're not going anywhere it no matter what
is happening, you will always be there and when they're ready,
you're gonna, you know, go into action.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
But also on my part, I will say that when
I did finally like so, I must have left four times,
to be honest, and the violence, as you know, got
worse each time. And so the first couple of times,
people are like, we got you, will do anything for you,
this is this is shocking, You're in danger.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
But then the third time, like what do you do?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Like it just it feels like it's not even a thing,
even though the abuse was actually getting worse and more violent.
I think people just kind of became numb to it
and also just didn't feel like anything's gonna happen anyways,
so right, they weren't as invested and engaged with it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
That just scares the shit out of me. I would
you know, I've been there, so I would never ever
ever abandoned. Listen. My daughter doesn't speak to me, but
I noticed a while ago that she hasn't blocked me
on her phone. Okay, so I send her messages all
the time, just saying how proud I am of her,
(14:21):
how how she she's you know, a great mom, how
much she's loved, and that no matter what, we're here
for her, even if it means we never hear until
she's ready. You know, I'm fine with that. I'm not
fine with any of it.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
But your situation is so different from me, and we
should that we should do another episode about the mom wound.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, we should. Actually I don't have anybody on my
four year anniversary episode, we should do that.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
I would love to because we're on complete opposite sides
of the of the scenario, and so I think that
could be very healing for both of us.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think so too. What do you think are some
of the subtle ways that abuses manipulate friendships to keep
control over their partners.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Well, the isolation. The isolation is like kind of an
obvious thing. I never really I would have thought I
would move to Europe, but it just felt like the
most obvious thing in the world when he presented it
to me. I had a thriving life in New York
and I think and actually.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
When he first asked me to be exclusive, he's saying
he's going to move there.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Uh, he was never never going to work, so that
would definitely be one thing. I also think like he
had a really subtle way and this didn't really get
to me, but I saw him try. Is that he
would talk shit about everyone. He didn't like a single
person that I was friends with, and that didn't affect me.
(15:55):
I had kind of started to not take his opinion
to heart pretty quickly, but I saw him trying trying
to do that, but then also making you reliant on
the person so that you don't feel like you can
rely on anyone else.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
I'm just completely.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Reliant on this person for all of your basic needs,
even emotional.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah. Yeah, they really make it to where you are
their only support financially, emotionally, mentally, physically, I mean just
everything they do makes it to where they you can't
survive without them, at least they try to make you
feel that way.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
And I did feel that way because I had the friends.
You know, my money was in his account. I didn't
have my own apartment, and so yeah, I didn't really
think I had anyone to lean on except him.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
My ex husband that did this to me used to
go and pick up my checks at my job. This
is before direct deposit. Okay, this is you know, thirty
some years ago, and used to go and pick up
my checks and deposit them, but he would deposit them
in his own personal account and I wasn't allowed to
(17:08):
be on an account, and then I had no money,
So that was that was.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Very similar situation.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, I was like putting all of my money into
the insurance for his car, only to find out right
before we broke up that the reason why he couldn't
get his own insurance is because he had too many eyes.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
That was never mentioned.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Of course.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I was just kind of talked into doing this thing
because it's going to help me to get residency.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, what do you think are some common mistakes that
friends make when they're trying to help.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
I can't necessarily speak to that.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I have to be honest because in my case and
in so many you try so hard in the in
the beginning, and people say, just listen, just be there,
don't judge. And I actually think that's what a lot
of people do. That's what just everyone. No, that's what
everyone did for me. Everyone was just like, what can
we do? I'm here for you. This is awful, Like
(18:07):
this sounds like a complete nightmare, but I'm still here
for you. It's just like they got completely drained of
their energy, you know, in the year after.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, I think friends should just this is hard. It's
hard for me to explain how I think people should
behave in yeah, because I see a logic to it
that I don't understand how others don't. I let me
tell you when I was I think it was about
(18:38):
four times that I left as well. None of the
abuse for me started until we got married, and it
happened the week we got back from our honeymoon, and
it was terrible. The police where i Utah was where
(18:59):
I live, and they when I would call them to say, hey,
my husband's trying to murder me, they would come and
get him. And we lived in the same apartment complex
as his mother, just in a different building and.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
They say him by the way.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Take him down to her place and drop him off
and call it house the rest and tell him he's
not supposed to go near me. Well, the minute they left,
he was back down there. The family did not help
at all on his side at all. They were just
happy that the abuse wasn't happening to them anymore. Did
(19:33):
not tell me that he was abusive to them. They
just thought that because he wasn't abusing me when we
were dating, and they weren't abused, he wasn't abusing them,
that he would then just be not abusing anybody that
I was.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Well, my ex's family was so pro a stain together
because they didn't want to do with it anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, go on, So for me, when I would leave,
he would do all these things, I would stay with
a friend of mine, and I gave him an ultimatum
and I just said, hey, you have a certain amount
of time by this date. I picked a date and
I said it was six months into the really to
(20:16):
the marriage that the date was from. And I just said, hey,
if you don't get help, like real help, like get
into therapy, get you know, counseling, you know, and you
get it on your own, not me getting it for
you totally, because that's a big deal. I said, I'll
stay otherwise I'm leaving on this date. And I chose
(20:40):
to leave on that date. A lot of really horrible
things happened on that date. That was an excruciating day
for me that I have to live with for the
rest of my life. But I'm good with it now.
I'm good. The thing about it is is that that
friend that I would go to, she decided she was
(21:02):
going to move with me because I needed to get
out of the state. I needed to leave fast. So
she decided to move with me, and she lived with
me for about three months in this other state, and
(21:23):
she decided she was going to go back to Utah
and not live out there anymore. She didn't really like it.
She didn't really love it, and I was getting situated.
I was being you know, I was in a good
so I was doing a little better, and she decided
(21:47):
to go back. And when she went back, she decided
to befriend my ex and became friends with him and
his family and pretty much told him a bunch of
crazy lies about me and what I was doing, and
I don't know, trying to survive. Well, you know, I
(22:08):
was pregnant from that last day that I was there.
Take that as you may, and you know, I had
to do a lot of surviving, a lot of like
get my head up and moving forward because I had
somebody else to take care of at that point. But
my friend abandoned me and went to the other side,
(22:29):
to the enemy and was your friends with them.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I'm glad that you speak this, because I didn't experience
that with my abusive situation. He had no friends. Which
women of the world who are listening to this, if
you date someone who doesn't have friends, do not tell
yourself that it's because they're an academic.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Or quirky or dictation to the job. This is a
red flag. Okay.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah, So this situation that that didn't come up. But
I will say as far as like mistakes that friends
can make when you know you have a friend going
through something like this or even just a bad breakup,
I don't care what the politically correct thing to say
or do is take a side, like, seriously, have the courage.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
To stand up for your friend.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yeah, you might be friends with both of them, so
the fuck what your friend needs you right now? You
need to, you know, draw a hardline, be there for
the person who needs your be there for the person
you're closer to.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Mm.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Yeah, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
You're not going to be closer to the abusers that
I don't really have.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I think I've told you this a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
My ex was on like a popular local band, and
I was amazed to find out that my friends were
still going to his shows and also heartbroken.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And I've seen red.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
I've seen Red twice in my life, and that was
I think the first time that I saw Red is
when I when I found out about that, And I
know what that's like to be that furious.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
It's it's it's damaging for your psyche, okay, because you
look at it and think, wait a minute, they're supporting
that abuser knowing full well what they did to you,
and then they have the balls to do that. It's
like I.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Had gone to them and like told them about how
bad the relationship was and everything that he was doing
to me and how tortured I was, and how I
didn't want to go home at night and I would
walk around the block, you know, so that maybe he
would be a sleep or too high when I got home.
And yeah, to discover this take aside, I will never
say that I'm staying neutral in a breakup. If my
(24:50):
that my friend is going through Yeah, no, it's there's
no such thing.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Either you take aside or you're you have no courage
and no integrity.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I personally think friends need to, you know, learn that
they can be a safe place without judgment. And if
they can't do that, they're not your friends. They really aren't.
And sometimes the best thing that anyone can say is, hey,
I'm here whenever you're ready, because getting ready to do
(25:21):
that is a massive thing. It's not just emotionally and mentally,
it's also being able to have the uh, the god,
don't know the word. It feels like it's a full
body thing. It's impossible to explain how hard it is
to be ready for that and to know that you
(25:44):
have no money and you have no means of going somewhere.
I mean, for me, I got lucky. My family, some
of my family came to Utah from Wyoming and threaten
him that you do it again. This is going to
be a big thing. It stopped for like a couple
of weeks, and then it started up again, and that's
(26:06):
when I knew it was time to go. And then
then you know it was time to go when I
found out I was pregnant, because I knew I had
to save my child. That's all there was to it.
I had to save myself and save my child because
I knew that he would kill us. I knew it.
The thing about it is is that I got lucky
(26:27):
enough to where my family drove out and spent a
few hours grabbing everything that we could for me, and
that was mine and left. And it was my cousin
that helped me move out here. Thank Heavens for that.
Otherwise I don't know where I would have gone. I
don't know. I stayed with family friends in Colorado. They
(26:49):
helped me get on my feet. I just I don't know.
It was really a hard thing to get through. And
when you don't have your friends there for you, it's
like where the fuck you do you turn?
Speaker 4 (27:03):
You have to be able to A year and a
half before all this started, I could have had, you know,
a wonderful place to stay in multiple states. And also,
not to mention the fact that I was living in
New York City, I had no one I could know
what I could call. And it's not just because they
were worn out, Christine, but I was so embarrassed I
(27:23):
stopped reaching out to people. Honestly, it was embarrassing. No,
I was naturally, Yeah, I've.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Been in that spot feeling like how could I have
kept how one could I have chosen somebody that fucked up?
And how could I have not seen it? Well? I
was damaged at the time too. I was not healed
from my trauma. So when you come through trauma, you
tend to pick people that are familiar, and unfortunately that
(27:52):
is other trauma until you can recognize it. When you
start to recognize it, that's when you can, you know,
make a conscientious decision to see.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
The red flags next time. It's much easier said than done, though,
so I did do it. I have to say I did.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yeah, it took me lots of extra bad men to
get there.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
I swung the opposite way.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Actually, after this all went down, I was I became
like the most avoid in person. Just any form of
like any sign that some like that a man wanted
to get close would just disgust me, you know, for
the couple of years after that because I just I
don't know, I didn't. Yeah, I was too scared to
get close myself.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
I was under the impression that I couldn't do anything
by myself, that I wasn't good enough to do everything
by myself. So I felt like, up until I started
healing four years ago, I thought that I had to
have a man in my life to save me, rescue me,
do anything I needed to do. And after all these like.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
Fifteen years fen years of doing it by myself, constantly
though thinking I had to find somebody to help me
do it.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
And then I sat back and went, WHOA wait a minute,
I just did it all by myself.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Well, that's so interesting because when I met you, this
is where you were at like really like really wanting
a relationship. But in my I seeing you, I'm thinking
You're the most independent woman out there. And so when
we would talk about like going out to dinner by yourself,
going to a bar by yourself, going on a trip
by yourself, and you you flat out told me you've
(29:38):
never done it. That feels weird. And I thought, of
all the women you know, like, why is she so
resistant to this? I thought that was so interesting. Well,
because that's how I saw you at all.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
No, because what I showed the world was this confident,
independent god all of for shit together, a person. I
was a good like I'm really good at masks. My
mask work is fucking prime.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
But I always respected you, though I did come to
know that that.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Was a desire of your We did.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
And here we are all these years later, three or
four years later, and you know, I'm traveling by myself,
I'm doing I am letting go of my condo, I'm
letting go of all my jobs, I'm letting go of
everything and just walking away and with what man, not one.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I'm proud of me.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
But you're stepping into the person and the human that
you that you were. She was just waiting for you, right.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
She didn't know she's been waiting a very long time.
Tell us, Jennie, how did you start to step through
the trauma and start to heal and you know, repair
(31:08):
relationships or be in a place where you could trust
a relationship again. And I mean friendships, not not so
much male relationships. I'm talking about the friendships here.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
That is such a loaded question that actually I wasn't.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Really thinking of I'm good at loading. So I will
say that after this all happened, this is when for
people who followed me that I moved to Australia and
I was very hesitant to I kept on dating, but
I wouldn't on the intimacy. I just would want to
(31:44):
be taken out and call my.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Shopping spreeze and stuff.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
But you have failings, I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
But then as far as friendships go, I surrounded myself
with a lot of people and kind of like spread
the friendship and the love around, I will say, And
that did kind of work for me for a while.
But I will say then I became this really compulsive
(32:13):
socializer where I just had to be with people all
of the time. And I think, and I can tell
myself get emotional that that was kind of a band
aid to put on what I was, what I was
trying to avoid, you know, the pain being rejected by
my friends, being rejected by my family, having gone through
(32:34):
this traumatic, violent experience, and really what got me to
the point where I am now with actual deep friendships
and my best relationship ever is I had to take
a little while to be my own partner, be my
own best friend, be my own best company, and get really,
really really good with that, and then I was able
(32:57):
to offer anything else to anyone.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I get that now. First, I want to do a
quick shout out to Phil. Thanks for coming and listen
and Phil waybody. I often want to make a cook
comment here about the fact that people can be abused
mentally and emotionally and verbally without the physical violence.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
You can that I had it all, and I have
to say, and I don't drubbed, but yes, this is
I want to say this because people are People think
that it's not abuse unless he hits you. And I
cannot tell you the amount of times.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
That's what people have said. Did he actually hit you?
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Okay, that's easy read now, like those exact words, but
I will say, yes, all of that happened and the
physical terrifying, but what he put me through mentally and
psychologically was worse, was worse.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
And I just want to to make that comment about that,
because I think that it's one thing when friends watch you,
friends and family watch you go through a physically abusive situation,
but they don't seem to understand a lot when it
happens just without the physical, it was worse.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
It was worse.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
It can be horrific because people don't really understand. They're like, oh,
how abused can you really be? If you're still there
and he's not hitting you. And this can be the
other way around. This could be a woman abusing a man.
My nephew is being abused by his girlfriend and he
has been for years and finally he's getting to a
(34:43):
place that he's done. And I'm the only one that's
stuck by him, and he thanks me profusely. I give
him my little advice. I say, listen, honey, this is
always going to be this way, and I say my thing,
and he takes it, you know, and I just say,
I'm here if you need me, that's it. And then
I back off and I let him come to me.
(35:06):
But it is hard for people to understand what is
happening when somebody's not being physically abused, or they don't
even realize how bad it is. Some people don't even
know their friends and family are being abused and they
just see them pulling away. Yep, Yeah that's hard.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Yeah, it is hard.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
But again, like you might tell yourself that this is
someone's pattern, that they do this when they're in relationships,
because you don't really know. And that's why I wrote
the article, is because I actually could see the other
side of it so clearly, and I am not a
person who plays the victim.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
I refuse and so yes, I lost some.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Of the most important friendships that I still ever had
to this day, but I don't blame them for it.
And I have to say, as I mentioned to you
over text, I was in a similar situation recently where
I did actually lose a friend because I couldn't stay
friends with his partner. And yeah, the I tried to
(36:11):
hold on to it, but in the end, yeah, everything
trumbled around me.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah. You know, healing friendships after abuse is really about
courage because it means choosing trust again, and it's really
hard for some people.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yeah, and like, how do you really come back from that.
It's so hard. I mean, I would like to think
that my front door would be open. I would do
anything for this man if he came back to me.
But you know, I've been really, really hurt, you know,
by the whole thing, and I gave him everything that
I had. This guy's complete, you know, someone I wouldn't
(36:47):
never even want to see again. And yeah, could I
trust him again? I'm sure, I'm sure he could trust
me again. Why why wouldn't he?
Speaker 5 (36:56):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I think it's hard because you know, grief goes both ways.
There's a lot of grieving when you were in these
types of relationships, But grief goes both ways because the
survivor grieves who they were, and friends grieve the person
that they lost greatly well.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
And that's something I said in the article, is another
way that the friendship gets kind of chipped away that
you're used to seeing this person in like a certain light.
When I got into this, this relationship, I was like
the feminist icon.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
I did party promotion.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
You know, people saw me as like this powerhouse and
uh like I feel yeah, emotional going into all of this.
And so then these people who held me in such
high regard and thought the world of me, saw me
doing this to myself and in this completely different light.
They Yeah, of course their perception of me changed. I
(37:53):
don't think people even knew how to relate to me.
They had no respect for me, you know, like you can't.
It's hard to have a friendship with someone you don't respect.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
And it's subconscious as well.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Like I don't think they said, oh, she's with him,
I don't respect her. I just I think that people
are just like confused and like slowly this happened.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
If when you're when you have friends that have never
been through something like this before, they don't understand what
you're feeling, what you're going through, what it's like on
that other side, So you know it, it is hard
for them. I think that a lot of them do
lose respect or do have this problem with you know,
(38:36):
looking at you and feeling like, well, like she even
wants help. Of course we want help. We don't even
know how to do it ourselves, much less how do
we accept it from our friends. It's and that's what
the abuser is banking on. They're banking on the dissolving
of the people in your life and the isolation because
(39:01):
the more they have you to themselves easier it is
to keep you. And this is enjoyable for them. This
is very, very very enjoyable for them.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
He never express one word of regret.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
No.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
See, don't you have friendships that I that I that
I had lost or people who had stopped returning my
calls or no, no, nothing, But that's great.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
They were ship anyways.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Right, well, right, okay, that's kind of important to me.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
But whatever exactly, I do have some advice for listeners,
and you're welcome to chime in here, Jennie. I have
three points. One for survivors, one if you're a friend
in two, three for every for everyone. So if you're
a survivor, I have three points for you. Don't blame
yourself for the friendships that faded. Isolation was part of
(39:51):
the abuse. Start small, Send a text, make a coffee plan,
or write a message of gratitude for your friends if
you want to try to keep that in Real friends
won't demand explanations. They'll meet you where you are. That's
a big one. And we tend to think that our friends,
you know, abandon us. Well, I gotta tell you if
(40:14):
a friend abandons you during this time, I'm not really
quite sure how close of a friend they were.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Agreed, But also, look at what your definition of abandoned
is and like what the actual narrative is. And that's
kind of what I was trying to get out with
this article, is like, let's look at both sides of things.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
If you're a friend, here's some advice for you. Keep
communication open without pressure. A simple thinking of you can
mean more than you know. Don't try to fix your
friend's situation. That's impossible. Focus on listening and affirming their worth. Please,
that's the most important fucking thing that makes me by it,
(40:54):
And avoid criticizing the abuser Directly focus on your friends
safety in feelings, because that is also a big part
of losing friends, is you're fearful of the safety. Phil says,
does anyone who has survived abuse ever fully trust in
future partners?
Speaker 5 (41:14):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (41:14):
When you heal.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Yeah, that's why I was.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
It really benefited me to be single for so long
and also learn how to take relationships slow and be
willing to walk away. It is possible to take me
of yours, but I do.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah, I agree. For everyone, here's some advice understand that
abuse isn't just physical, emotional, financial, and psychological, because abuse
are equally damaging abuses abuse encourage professional support, not just friendship.
Therapy and survivor networks are vital. And the last one
(41:55):
I have for that is healing is slow, but every
act of compassion rebuilds the bridge that abuse tried to burn.
So that is my advice for today. I do know
that it is vital to have friendships, especially when you're
(42:16):
going through because this kind of thing, because anybody who
can try to hang in there with them, they will
eventually leave. Hopefully, but I think they do eventually leave.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
In most cases, yes, but it could take years.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
It could take years, I agree.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
And if it doesn't take years, it's going to be
a lot of chaos, a lot of drama. And that's
another thing actually that I put in the article is
that this is so taxing on people. When you are
in some sort of you know, you know, a physical altercation,
when you are being abused, when you are having to
(42:53):
like flee in the middle of the night, this is chaos.
This is stressful for people to here to help you through,
to try and come up with answers, to try and
be there for you. This is very, very, very braining,
and so when it's happening constantly only to see you
go back and then just so you're already exhausted because
(43:15):
you just helped your friend. Now they're back, and what
are you thinking now? Like when am I going to
have to go through this again? Like I can't, Like,
you know, some people have to kind of walk away
from the friendship because they're looking after their own well being.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah, but then I know what it was like to
be in that situation and watch, I mean walk away
and you think, I have no one and I have
nowhere to go, I have nothing, Like thank god I
had the friend I had who would take me in
each time, and I'd say, I want to be gone.
(43:49):
I want to be gone, but I don't know what
to do. He keeps sucking me back in and I
don't know what to do. And it's it's a difficult thing.
I mean, she was great until she wasn't. That was,
you know, when she abandoned me for to be his
friend instead, which was really sorry, fucking weird. All of
a sudden, I noticed there's something on my ceiling.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Is it the ghost of this person?
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah? I get it.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Starts up there.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
So, and I did have a friend who I'm still
friends with, who brand. He was with me during the
during the time, and we're still very close today. So
I do want to say, like I did, I did
have someone and it I don't know how he took
it because it was just chaos and drama in his
(44:42):
ear just for weeks, and I don't know. He just refused.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
I get it, Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
It was he refused to create any space with me
at all, even you know sometimes when you want to
hear from me after I went to Australia, he would
always put so I do, and if he ever listens
or sees any of this content, I want him to
know it's everyone except you.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
But I did.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Hardly have any friends left, including like the person in
my life who I thought I could actually like grow
old and retire with, was one of my first friends
to leave.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
It's hard. And you know my friends that were at
a distance, that were in other states.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
That was him.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
They stuck in there with me.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Ye friends.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Yeah, yeah, good point, actually, very good point.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, that's crazy. That's hard because you're thinking I just
need someone to hug me right now, and then you
know your friends are at a just thank God for
my friends that were at least you know, in other
states saying you know, we're here for you, We're here
for you. You know. It's and this is also before
social media was big. I mean social media now it's
(45:55):
a lot different. You know, people women do. I have
seen them going on social media, you know, saying hey,
this is what I'm going through and then I'm you know,
and they get a lot of support emotionally, you know,
from people and financially. A lot of people go on
to social media and they are helped by other people.
And I think that's incredible. But you know that wasn't
(46:19):
for us back in the day.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
No, but we got through it and it has made
it blonde bombshells that we are today I am.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
And the confident ones as well. I would.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
I just definitely want to say, just real quick, I'm
not one of the people who says that I'm thankful
for what I went through because it may be into
the person I am today, but that I did not
need to be slapped around. I didn't need to be
going down to know, you know, precinct and I have
I have learned from it, but I will also say
(46:53):
it's definitely not not worth it.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
If you have someone going through this, please be there
for them.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
I agree. Now, I will say my little two cents
about where you're coming from on that I actually am
in a place in my life that I believe that
I designed my life before I came here. I chose
each thing because each checks and balance has changed my
life and made me incredible today today, I am an
(47:20):
incredible motherfucking woman. I'm a great friend, I'm a great partner,
I'm a great I'm better mom, and my whole life
has changed, and my whole drive is different, my whole
experience is different. Without all those things that I went through,
I wouldn't be the person I am today. So that's
how I feel about life, and I respect how you feel.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
I think I've been.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
There be an amazing woman and that maybe I didn't
need to go through that to get here.
Speaker 5 (47:48):
But however I did it. Hey, Halla, here, I am right.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Thanks for the love, Bill, we appreciate that. Well. I
gotta say that, you know, when we have such a
good topic and the time flies, it's it's a bummer.
But this was really an amazing topic, and I really
appreciate your vulnerability in your soul. I adore you as
my friend and as a fellow, a person who can
(48:18):
do these shows with me because I hopefully we can
help somebody today. We have an incredible show. Next week,
I have I have Jesse Marie coming on and we're
gonna be talking about kink and sex toys and all
that fun stuffing calendar. Okay, yeah yeah, so same time,
(48:44):
same place next week. Thank you for being here, Jennis,
thank you everyone for listening, and until next week, let's
just keep this fucking shit real.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
So if you enjoyed this episode, please share with your
friends life and follow us on Instagram at fifty Shades.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Of Underscore Bullshit and.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Facebook at fifty Shades of Bullshit.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Thanks so much for listening, and we really hope to
see you again next week
The following show contains adult content. It's not our intent
to offend anyone, but we want to inform you that
if you are a child under the age of eighteen
or get offended easily, this next show may not be
for you. The content, opinions, and subject matter of these
shows are solely the choice of your show hosts and
their guests, and not those of the Entertainment Network or
any affiliated stations. Any comments or inquiry you should be
(00:21):
directed to those show hosts. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hey everyone, and welcome to fifty Shades of Bullshit. I'm
your host, Christine Lalan and this is the podcast where
we uncover the truth about online dating.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Now let's begin. Hey, I don't know what's happening. Hey everyone,
us Christine and this is fifty Shades of Bullshit. Today
we have a very interesting topic. We are going to
be discussing a very a topic, a topic that is
(01:06):
I think very important. So we're gonna have Janie Formicella
with us today.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Hello Janice, Hello, my dear, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
I'm gonna talk about I have a little intro here
about the show. We talk a lot about how domestic
abuse destroys romantic relationships, but we don't talk enough about
how it also damages friendships and other relationships in your life.
When someone is in an abusive situation, isolation becomes part
(01:39):
of the control. So today we have a podcaster, writer,
and advocate Janie for Michella. She's joining me to discuss
her article. Let's talk about it, five ways to domestic
that domestic abuse corrodes friendships and how we can better
understand and support both survivors and their friends through that
(02:00):
difficult process. So happy to have you, Janie.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
Yes, thank you so much and everyone. It's on my
website Jennifromachella dot com. It kind of took me a
couple months to finally put it together and push publish,
So yeah, I love it. I'm really glad that you
wanted to talk about this. It means a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Yeah, it was really a well written article, and both
you and I are well adverse to this type of topic,
so I was very excited to have this as our
topic today. So one of the let's go with you, Janie.
(02:41):
Let's we have talked a lot about how both you
and I on this show have been in domestic violence situations.
We were both in a long term relationship, married, et cetera,
to men who were abusive, and we're going to talk
(03:02):
about the friendship element of this or other family members
kind of element of this, and tell us a little about,
you know, your thoughts on this janus and how it
really affected your life. I have a bunch of stories too,
but we'll we'll get to that.
Speaker 4 (03:20):
Well, I will say before so, I was divorced and
then met my abuser, and it was just it was
a very classic.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Situation and that he had a lot of the qualities.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
That my husband lacked or that I had been really
wanting in the marriage.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
But most of all, he was a lifelong I was
not his first target. I was not the first.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Woman that who he had dated, who he had done
this to, and I think he just kind of knew
what he was doing. I got, like, very classically love
bombed and just was completely what I would call at
the time, swept off my feet. Like even my healthiest
you know, friends were saying, you know, this was just
such a great opportunity.
Speaker 5 (04:03):
This guy is such a catch, and so before.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
I knew it, I was not only in an exclusive
relationship with him with a promise ring that I did
get a praise for eight grand By the way, that's
another story about how that aspect of it unraveled.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
But I had.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
Also moved overseas to be with him within only about
six months, and it was I already knew that there
were some issues. He had stayed with me in New
York and had gotten violence pretty early on. But then,
just so classically, I'm in another country. I was miss popularity.
(04:48):
When I was living in New York. I had everything
going for me in the world, this amazing, enormous, juicy,
supportive group of friends, and it was just like a
bit by bit by bit by bit, it all started
crumbling around me. The first time that he became very,
very physically abusive. I told maybe three or four of
(05:10):
my friends about it. Of course everyone shocked, told my
parents as well. Everyone is shocked, encourages me to leave,
and of course, in the heat of the moment, I
say I'm going to and do And a week later,
everyone's texting me wondering what's going on because they haven't
heard from me.
Speaker 5 (05:28):
Well, that would be because I had decided to go
back with him back.
Speaker 4 (05:33):
Yeah, And so then we stayed together another year and
by the time I finally left for good. The police
had actually gotten involved, he was put in jail for
what ultimately ended up happening, and by that time, hardly
any of them were still with me.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
And we can we talk about something really quick before
you move on with that thought, Jennis, because I do
want people to understand that you can be in a
abusive relationship like this and when you leave, you have
every intention of never going back. But you've got to
(06:15):
understand how skilled these people are who are abusers, because
when you're talking about a relationship like this, they charm
everybody around them, and everybody thinks that they are the
cat's mew. Everybody thinks that these are perfect people, and
they're very very good at it. They're conmon basically, And
(06:39):
you've got to also get it that when we leave,
and we have every intention of being gone, the reason
why we go back is because these fools get hold
of us again and convince us in our pained, damaged
bodies and minds. Okay, they have got us convince because
(07:01):
we really wanted to be this way. They convince us
that they will change, they will never do it again.
They are really sorry, they're very humbled. They would never
ever do it again, and then we come back and
it happens again, and it is a cycle that repeats
itself very destroyingly. I don't know the other words.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
And quickly and yeah, and in my case, he was
an alcoholic who hadn't had you know, first of all,
he would ball like a baby, you know, begging me
to come back after the first after the first time,
and yes, of course, apologizing a lot. But then it
(07:43):
became also, I can't live without you, threats against his
life if I didn't come back.
Speaker 5 (07:49):
His family got involved, encouraging me to go back.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Horrifyingly enough, my parents had been very charmed by him,
and even though they knew what happened, I believe it
or not, my dad encouraged me to go back to him.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
I can I can see that, especially you know, you
come from a Mormon background. They're all about preserving the family.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
The family, Yeah, and a little bit of social currency also,
because you know, he was wealthy.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
He went to Cambridge.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
We were living in Frankfurt, and I think there was
something very appealing about that to my dad. But that's
I'm not here to talk about that, but right, but
tell us.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
No, I'm sorry, I did not mean to tell you, I'm.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Just saying my family aside.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
But by the time, yeah, that I left, I had
stopped talking to almost everyone. The people who I had
considered to be my closest circle were just nowhere to
be seen.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 5 (08:46):
Well, that's what we're gonna talk about.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
And even at the time, I felt a little sorry
for myself in a way, because you know, I'm now
moving from Europe back to the State and I have
no friends. There was some like financial manipulation and so
I had hardly any money in my bank account, like
my resources has sort of dwindled in various ways, and
(09:12):
so now I'm living with my folks again. Yeah, so
that kind of sucked. So I felt sorry for myself
in that regard, because who wants to, you know, live
with these dick hiads when you're like thirty five.
Speaker 5 (09:26):
Or something, you know. But I never really.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
Was that angry at my friends. I have to say,
I always felt like I wish people would have fought
harder for the friendship, but at the same time, I'm
not sure what I would have done type of thing.
And I could totally see their side from the very beginning,
and that's why I wrote this article because we don't
talk about the fact that, yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:50):
How do you be there for someone who's an abusive situation?
Speaker 4 (09:53):
Yeah you can, and you can try, but you can
also have your own you know, you can also be
knocked down in so many ways when you try to
have somebody, some toxic person in your own life.
Speaker 3 (10:04):
I have a couple of thoughts on that. I think
a lot of people underestimate how emotional manipulation can affect friendships.
That It's like, it's not always about control at home,
it's control in the of the entire environment. And it's
heartbreaking to realize that, you know, a survivor's friends often
(10:25):
feel pushed away when they really need to stay more
connected because sometimes friends take that distance personally, not realizing
that it's part of the abuse.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
Yes, that is one thing. Yes, that that can happen.
Is isolation and not hearing from someone for a while
is one aspect of white friends can there can have,
distance can be created between friends, is just the mirror isolation.
Speaker 5 (10:53):
That's just one way.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Though I've talked about, you know, my daughters on this podcast,
I haven't talked about them in a while. I do
have a distant relationship. I don't have a relationship with
one of my daughters because she is in this type
of situation and he has cut her off, separated her,
(11:16):
you know, from a friend group, her sisters, her family,
and hardly anybody gets to speak with her anymore. And
it's kind of a little rough. Today's my granddaughter with her.
It's her birthday today. So you know, it's moments like
this that you know, the family's out here, the friends
(11:36):
are out here wanting to be part of it. In
sometimes we're thinking that it is the person that is
shutting us out, but it's really not. It's the abuser
who's making that impossible for them to stay connected.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
Yeah, and I will say, if you truly think that
a friend of yours is in an abusive situation and
you don't hear from them, keep trying. The thing is
like that's so hard to do when you don't feel
like it's a two way situation. But like, don't this
is not something to take take personal, right, But at
(12:12):
the same time, you're a human being, like friendships are
supposed to be, you know, reciprocal, And so that's why
I also I want to try the article because I
don't put blame on almost anyone. I would say, I
have a probably a couple of harsh things i'd say
to maybe one person involved here, But mostly I just
think that people were just pushed their wits end, didn't
(12:34):
know what to do, gave me all the good advice
in the world, only to see me go back. You know,
the friendship wasn't being kept up, and yeah, it dwindled away.
I don't want to be friends with somebody who's not
giving back to me correct really honest.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, but you know, when you know that a friend
is in that kind of situation and they're pushing you away,
I mean, it only makes logic that you would, you know,
try to be there as much as possible in any
way that you can, and even if it's just a
reassurance to let them know that they have someone there,
(13:10):
that they're You're not going anywhere it no matter what
is happening, you will always be there and when they're ready,
you're gonna, you know, go into action.
Speaker 4 (13:20):
But also on my part, I will say that when
I did finally like so, I must have left four times,
to be honest, and the violence, as you know, got
worse each time. And so the first couple of times,
people are like, we got you, will do anything for you,
this is this is shocking, You're in danger.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
But then the third time, like what do you do?
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Like it just it feels like it's not even a thing,
even though the abuse was actually getting worse and more violent.
I think people just kind of became numb to it
and also just didn't feel like anything's gonna happen anyways,
so right, they weren't as invested and engaged with it.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
That just scares the shit out of me. I would
you know, I've been there, so I would never ever
ever abandoned. Listen. My daughter doesn't speak to me, but
I noticed a while ago that she hasn't blocked me
on her phone. Okay, so I send her messages all
the time, just saying how proud I am of her,
(14:21):
how how she she's you know, a great mom, how
much she's loved, and that no matter what, we're here
for her, even if it means we never hear until
she's ready. You know, I'm fine with that. I'm not
fine with any of it.
Speaker 4 (14:36):
But your situation is so different from me, and we
should that we should do another episode about the mom wound.
Speaker 3 (14:43):
Yeah, we should. Actually I don't have anybody on my
four year anniversary episode, we should do that.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
I would love to because we're on complete opposite sides
of the of the scenario, and so I think that
could be very healing for both of us.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
I think so too. What do you think are some
of the subtle ways that abuses manipulate friendships to keep
control over their partners.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Well, the isolation. The isolation is like kind of an
obvious thing. I never really I would have thought I
would move to Europe, but it just felt like the
most obvious thing in the world when he presented it
to me. I had a thriving life in New York
and I think and actually.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
When he first asked me to be exclusive, he's saying
he's going to move there.
Speaker 4 (15:32):
Uh, he was never never going to work, so that
would definitely be one thing. I also think like he
had a really subtle way and this didn't really get
to me, but I saw him try. Is that he
would talk shit about everyone. He didn't like a single
person that I was friends with, and that didn't affect me.
(15:55):
I had kind of started to not take his opinion
to heart pretty quickly, but I saw him trying trying
to do that, but then also making you reliant on
the person so that you don't feel like you can
rely on anyone else.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
I'm just completely.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
Reliant on this person for all of your basic needs,
even emotional.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah. Yeah, they really make it to where you are
their only support financially, emotionally, mentally, physically, I mean just
everything they do makes it to where they you can't
survive without them, at least they try to make you
feel that way.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
And I did feel that way because I had the friends.
You know, my money was in his account. I didn't
have my own apartment, and so yeah, I didn't really
think I had anyone to lean on except him.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
My ex husband that did this to me used to
go and pick up my checks at my job. This
is before direct deposit. Okay, this is you know, thirty
some years ago, and used to go and pick up
my checks and deposit them, but he would deposit them
in his own personal account and I wasn't allowed to
(17:08):
be on an account, and then I had no money,
So that was that was.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Very similar situation.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Yeah, I was like putting all of my money into
the insurance for his car, only to find out right
before we broke up that the reason why he couldn't
get his own insurance is because he had too many eyes.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
You know.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
That was never mentioned.
Speaker 5 (17:31):
Of course.
Speaker 4 (17:32):
I was just kind of talked into doing this thing
because it's going to help me to get residency.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, what do you think are some common mistakes that
friends make when they're trying to help.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
I can't necessarily speak to that.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
I have to be honest because in my case and
in so many you try so hard in the in
the beginning, and people say, just listen, just be there,
don't judge. And I actually think that's what a lot
of people do. That's what just everyone. No, that's what
everyone did for me. Everyone was just like, what can
we do? I'm here for you. This is awful, Like
(18:07):
this sounds like a complete nightmare, but I'm still here
for you. It's just like they got completely drained of
their energy, you know, in the year after.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Yeah, I think friends should just this is hard. It's
hard for me to explain how I think people should
behave in yeah, because I see a logic to it
that I don't understand how others don't. I let me
tell you when I was I think it was about
(18:38):
four times that I left as well. None of the
abuse for me started until we got married, and it
happened the week we got back from our honeymoon, and
it was terrible. The police where i Utah was where
(18:59):
I live, and they when I would call them to say, hey,
my husband's trying to murder me, they would come and
get him. And we lived in the same apartment complex
as his mother, just in a different building and.
Speaker 5 (19:11):
They say him by the way.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
Take him down to her place and drop him off
and call it house the rest and tell him he's
not supposed to go near me. Well, the minute they left,
he was back down there. The family did not help
at all on his side at all. They were just
happy that the abuse wasn't happening to them anymore. Did
(19:33):
not tell me that he was abusive to them. They
just thought that because he wasn't abusing me when we
were dating, and they weren't abused, he wasn't abusing them,
that he would then just be not abusing anybody that
I was.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Well, my ex's family was so pro a stain together
because they didn't want to do with it anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
Yeah, go on, So for me, when I would leave,
he would do all these things, I would stay with
a friend of mine, and I gave him an ultimatum
and I just said, hey, you have a certain amount
of time by this date. I picked a date and
I said it was six months into the really to
(20:16):
the marriage that the date was from. And I just said, hey,
if you don't get help, like real help, like get
into therapy, get you know, counseling, you know, and you
get it on your own, not me getting it for
you totally, because that's a big deal. I said, I'll
stay otherwise I'm leaving on this date. And I chose
(20:40):
to leave on that date. A lot of really horrible
things happened on that date. That was an excruciating day
for me that I have to live with for the
rest of my life. But I'm good with it now.
I'm good. The thing about it is is that that
friend that I would go to, she decided she was
(21:02):
going to move with me because I needed to get
out of the state. I needed to leave fast. So
she decided to move with me, and she lived with
me for about three months in this other state, and
(21:23):
she decided she was going to go back to Utah
and not live out there anymore. She didn't really like it.
She didn't really love it, and I was getting situated.
I was being you know, I was in a good
so I was doing a little better, and she decided
(21:47):
to go back. And when she went back, she decided
to befriend my ex and became friends with him and
his family and pretty much told him a bunch of
crazy lies about me and what I was doing, and
I don't know, trying to survive. Well, you know, I
(22:08):
was pregnant from that last day that I was there.
Take that as you may, and you know, I had
to do a lot of surviving, a lot of like
get my head up and moving forward because I had
somebody else to take care of at that point. But
my friend abandoned me and went to the other side,
(22:29):
to the enemy and was your friends with them.
Speaker 4 (22:32):
I'm glad that you speak this, because I didn't experience
that with my abusive situation. He had no friends. Which
women of the world who are listening to this, if
you date someone who doesn't have friends, do not tell
yourself that it's because they're an academic.
Speaker 5 (22:52):
Or quirky or dictation to the job. This is a
red flag. Okay.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
Yeah, So this situation that that didn't come up. But
I will say as far as like mistakes that friends
can make when you know you have a friend going
through something like this or even just a bad breakup,
I don't care what the politically correct thing to say
or do is take a side, like, seriously, have the courage.
Speaker 5 (23:21):
To stand up for your friend.
Speaker 4 (23:24):
Yeah, you might be friends with both of them, so
the fuck what your friend needs you right now? You
need to, you know, draw a hardline, be there for
the person who needs your be there for the person
you're closer to.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Mm.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
Yeah, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
You're not going to be closer to the abusers that
I don't really have.
Speaker 5 (23:45):
I think I've told you this a couple of times.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
My ex was on like a popular local band, and
I was amazed to find out that my friends were
still going to his shows and also heartbroken.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And I've seen red.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
I've seen Red twice in my life, and that was
I think the first time that I saw Red is
when I when I found out about that, And I
know what that's like to be that furious.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
It's it's it's damaging for your psyche, okay, because you
look at it and think, wait a minute, they're supporting
that abuser knowing full well what they did to you,
and then they have the balls to do that. It's
like I.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Had gone to them and like told them about how
bad the relationship was and everything that he was doing
to me and how tortured I was, and how I
didn't want to go home at night and I would
walk around the block, you know, so that maybe he
would be a sleep or too high when I got home.
And yeah, to discover this take aside, I will never
say that I'm staying neutral in a breakup. If my
(24:50):
that my friend is going through Yeah, no, it's there's
no such thing.
Speaker 5 (24:54):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Either you take aside or you're you have no courage
and no integrity.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
I personally think friends need to, you know, learn that
they can be a safe place without judgment. And if
they can't do that, they're not your friends. They really aren't.
And sometimes the best thing that anyone can say is, hey,
I'm here whenever you're ready, because getting ready to do
(25:21):
that is a massive thing. It's not just emotionally and mentally,
it's also being able to have the uh, the god,
don't know the word. It feels like it's a full
body thing. It's impossible to explain how hard it is
to be ready for that and to know that you
(25:44):
have no money and you have no means of going somewhere.
I mean, for me, I got lucky. My family, some
of my family came to Utah from Wyoming and threaten
him that you do it again. This is going to
be a big thing. It stopped for like a couple
of weeks, and then it started up again, and that's
(26:06):
when I knew it was time to go. And then
then you know it was time to go when I
found out I was pregnant, because I knew I had
to save my child. That's all there was to it.
I had to save myself and save my child because
I knew that he would kill us. I knew it.
The thing about it is is that I got lucky
(26:27):
enough to where my family drove out and spent a
few hours grabbing everything that we could for me, and
that was mine and left. And it was my cousin
that helped me move out here. Thank Heavens for that.
Otherwise I don't know where I would have gone. I
don't know. I stayed with family friends in Colorado. They
(26:49):
helped me get on my feet. I just I don't know.
It was really a hard thing to get through. And
when you don't have your friends there for you, it's
like where the fuck you do you turn?
Speaker 4 (27:03):
You have to be able to A year and a
half before all this started, I could have had, you know,
a wonderful place to stay in multiple states. And also,
not to mention the fact that I was living in
New York City, I had no one I could know
what I could call. And it's not just because they
were worn out, Christine, but I was so embarrassed I
(27:23):
stopped reaching out to people. Honestly, it was embarrassing. No,
I was naturally, Yeah, I've.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Been in that spot feeling like how could I have
kept how one could I have chosen somebody that fucked up?
And how could I have not seen it? Well? I
was damaged at the time too. I was not healed
from my trauma. So when you come through trauma, you
tend to pick people that are familiar, and unfortunately that
(27:52):
is other trauma until you can recognize it. When you
start to recognize it, that's when you can, you know,
make a conscientious decision to see.
Speaker 4 (28:04):
The red flags next time. It's much easier said than done, though,
so I did do it. I have to say I did.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
Yeah, it took me lots of extra bad men to
get there.
Speaker 5 (28:17):
I swung the opposite way.
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Actually, after this all went down, I was I became
like the most avoid in person. Just any form of
like any sign that some like that a man wanted
to get close would just disgust me, you know, for
the couple of years after that because I just I
don't know, I didn't. Yeah, I was too scared to
get close myself.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
I was under the impression that I couldn't do anything
by myself, that I wasn't good enough to do everything
by myself. So I felt like, up until I started
healing four years ago, I thought that I had to
have a man in my life to save me, rescue me,
do anything I needed to do. And after all these like.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
Fifteen years fen years of doing it by myself, constantly
though thinking I had to find somebody to help me
do it.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
And then I sat back and went, WHOA wait a minute,
I just did it all by myself.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
Well, that's so interesting because when I met you, this
is where you were at like really like really wanting
a relationship. But in my I seeing you, I'm thinking
You're the most independent woman out there. And so when
we would talk about like going out to dinner by yourself,
going to a bar by yourself, going on a trip
by yourself, and you you flat out told me you've
(29:38):
never done it. That feels weird. And I thought, of
all the women you know, like, why is she so
resistant to this? I thought that was so interesting. Well,
because that's how I saw you at all.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
No, because what I showed the world was this confident,
independent god all of for shit together, a person. I
was a good like I'm really good at masks. My
mask work is fucking prime.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
But I always respected you, though I did come to
know that that.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
Was a desire of your We did.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
And here we are all these years later, three or
four years later, and you know, I'm traveling by myself,
I'm doing I am letting go of my condo, I'm
letting go of all my jobs, I'm letting go of
everything and just walking away and with what man, not one.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
I'm proud of me.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
But you're stepping into the person and the human that
you that you were. She was just waiting for you, right.
Speaker 3 (30:48):
She didn't know she's been waiting a very long time.
Tell us, Jennie, how did you start to step through
the trauma and start to heal and you know, repair
(31:08):
relationships or be in a place where you could trust
a relationship again. And I mean friendships, not not so
much male relationships. I'm talking about the friendships here.
Speaker 5 (31:19):
That is such a loaded question that actually I wasn't.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
Really thinking of I'm good at loading. So I will
say that after this all happened, this is when for
people who followed me that I moved to Australia and
I was very hesitant to I kept on dating, but
I wouldn't on the intimacy. I just would want to
(31:44):
be taken out and call my.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
Shopping spreeze and stuff.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
But you have failings, I don't think so.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
But then as far as friendships go, I surrounded myself
with a lot of people and kind of like spread
the friendship and the love around, I will say, And
that did kind of work for me for a while.
But I will say then I became this really compulsive
(32:13):
socializer where I just had to be with people all
of the time. And I think, and I can tell
myself get emotional that that was kind of a band
aid to put on what I was, what I was
trying to avoid, you know, the pain being rejected by
my friends, being rejected by my family, having gone through
(32:34):
this traumatic, violent experience, and really what got me to
the point where I am now with actual deep friendships
and my best relationship ever is I had to take
a little while to be my own partner, be my
own best friend, be my own best company, and get really,
really really good with that, and then I was able
(32:57):
to offer anything else to anyone.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
I get that now. First, I want to do a
quick shout out to Phil. Thanks for coming and listen
and Phil waybody. I often want to make a cook
comment here about the fact that people can be abused
mentally and emotionally and verbally without the physical violence.
Speaker 4 (33:23):
You can that I had it all, and I have
to say, and I don't drubbed, but yes, this is
I want to say this because people are People think
that it's not abuse unless he hits you. And I
cannot tell you the amount of times.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
That's what people have said. Did he actually hit you?
Oh my god?
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Okay, that's easy read now, like those exact words, but
I will say, yes, all of that happened and the
physical terrifying, but what he put me through mentally and
psychologically was worse, was worse.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
And I just want to to make that comment about that,
because I think that it's one thing when friends watch you,
friends and family watch you go through a physically abusive situation,
but they don't seem to understand a lot when it
happens just without the physical, it was worse.
Speaker 5 (34:20):
It was worse.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
It can be horrific because people don't really understand. They're like, oh,
how abused can you really be? If you're still there
and he's not hitting you. And this can be the
other way around. This could be a woman abusing a man.
My nephew is being abused by his girlfriend and he
has been for years and finally he's getting to a
(34:43):
place that he's done. And I'm the only one that's
stuck by him, and he thanks me profusely. I give
him my little advice. I say, listen, honey, this is
always going to be this way, and I say my thing,
and he takes it, you know, and I just say,
I'm here if you need me, that's it. And then
I back off and I let him come to me.
(35:06):
But it is hard for people to understand what is
happening when somebody's not being physically abused, or they don't
even realize how bad it is. Some people don't even
know their friends and family are being abused and they
just see them pulling away. Yep, Yeah that's hard.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Yeah, it is hard.
Speaker 4 (35:29):
But again, like you might tell yourself that this is
someone's pattern, that they do this when they're in relationships,
because you don't really know. And that's why I wrote
the article, is because I actually could see the other
side of it so clearly, and I am not a
person who plays the victim.
Speaker 5 (35:46):
I refuse and so yes, I lost some.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Of the most important friendships that I still ever had
to this day, but I don't blame them for it.
And I have to say, as I mentioned to you
over text, I was in a similar situation recently where
I did actually lose a friend because I couldn't stay
friends with his partner. And yeah, the I tried to
(36:11):
hold on to it, but in the end, yeah, everything
trumbled around me.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Yeah. You know, healing friendships after abuse is really about
courage because it means choosing trust again, and it's really
hard for some people.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Yeah, and like, how do you really come back from that.
It's so hard. I mean, I would like to think
that my front door would be open. I would do
anything for this man if he came back to me.
But you know, I've been really, really hurt, you know,
by the whole thing, and I gave him everything that
I had. This guy's complete, you know, someone I wouldn't
(36:47):
never even want to see again. And yeah, could I
trust him again? I'm sure, I'm sure he could trust
me again. Why why wouldn't he?
Speaker 5 (36:56):
But I don't know.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
I think it's hard because you know, grief goes both ways.
There's a lot of grieving when you were in these
types of relationships, But grief goes both ways because the
survivor grieves who they were, and friends grieve the person
that they lost greatly well.
Speaker 4 (37:14):
And that's something I said in the article, is another
way that the friendship gets kind of chipped away that
you're used to seeing this person in like a certain light.
When I got into this, this relationship, I was like
the feminist icon.
Speaker 5 (37:29):
I did party promotion.
Speaker 4 (37:31):
You know, people saw me as like this powerhouse and
uh like I feel yeah, emotional going into all of this.
And so then these people who held me in such
high regard and thought the world of me, saw me
doing this to myself and in this completely different light.
They Yeah, of course their perception of me changed. I
(37:53):
don't think people even knew how to relate to me.
They had no respect for me, you know, like you can't.
It's hard to have a friendship with someone you don't respect.
Speaker 3 (38:02):
Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
And it's subconscious as well.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Like I don't think they said, oh, she's with him,
I don't respect her. I just I think that people
are just like confused and like slowly this happened.
Speaker 3 (38:14):
If when you're when you have friends that have never
been through something like this before, they don't understand what
you're feeling, what you're going through, what it's like on
that other side, So you know it, it is hard
for them. I think that a lot of them do
lose respect or do have this problem with you know,
(38:36):
looking at you and feeling like, well, like she even
wants help. Of course we want help. We don't even
know how to do it ourselves, much less how do
we accept it from our friends. It's and that's what
the abuser is banking on. They're banking on the dissolving
of the people in your life and the isolation because
(39:01):
the more they have you to themselves easier it is
to keep you. And this is enjoyable for them. This
is very, very very enjoyable for them.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
He never express one word of regret.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
No.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
See, don't you have friendships that I that I that
I had lost or people who had stopped returning my
calls or no, no, nothing, But that's great.
Speaker 5 (39:26):
They were ship anyways.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Right, well, right, okay, that's kind of important to me.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
But whatever exactly, I do have some advice for listeners,
and you're welcome to chime in here, Jennie. I have
three points. One for survivors, one if you're a friend
in two, three for every for everyone. So if you're
a survivor, I have three points for you. Don't blame
yourself for the friendships that faded. Isolation was part of
(39:51):
the abuse. Start small, Send a text, make a coffee plan,
or write a message of gratitude for your friends if
you want to try to keep that in Real friends
won't demand explanations. They'll meet you where you are. That's
a big one. And we tend to think that our friends,
you know, abandon us. Well, I gotta tell you if
(40:14):
a friend abandons you during this time, I'm not really
quite sure how close of a friend they were.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Agreed, But also, look at what your definition of abandoned
is and like what the actual narrative is. And that's
kind of what I was trying to get out with
this article, is like, let's look at both sides of things.
Speaker 3 (40:33):
If you're a friend, here's some advice for you. Keep
communication open without pressure. A simple thinking of you can
mean more than you know. Don't try to fix your
friend's situation. That's impossible. Focus on listening and affirming their worth. Please,
that's the most important fucking thing that makes me by it,
(40:54):
And avoid criticizing the abuser Directly focus on your friends
safety in feelings, because that is also a big part
of losing friends, is you're fearful of the safety. Phil says,
does anyone who has survived abuse ever fully trust in
future partners?
Speaker 5 (41:14):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (41:14):
When you heal.
Speaker 5 (41:16):
Yeah, that's why I was.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
It really benefited me to be single for so long
and also learn how to take relationships slow and be
willing to walk away. It is possible to take me
of yours, but I do.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Yeah, I agree. For everyone, here's some advice understand that
abuse isn't just physical, emotional, financial, and psychological, because abuse
are equally damaging abuses abuse encourage professional support, not just friendship.
Therapy and survivor networks are vital. And the last one
(41:55):
I have for that is healing is slow, but every
act of compassion rebuilds the bridge that abuse tried to burn.
So that is my advice for today. I do know
that it is vital to have friendships, especially when you're
(42:16):
going through because this kind of thing, because anybody who
can try to hang in there with them, they will
eventually leave. Hopefully, but I think they do eventually leave.
Speaker 4 (42:28):
In most cases, yes, but it could take years.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
It could take years, I agree.
Speaker 4 (42:32):
And if it doesn't take years, it's going to be
a lot of chaos, a lot of drama. And that's
another thing actually that I put in the article is
that this is so taxing on people. When you are
in some sort of you know, you know, a physical altercation,
when you are being abused, when you are having to
(42:53):
like flee in the middle of the night, this is chaos.
This is stressful for people to here to help you through,
to try and come up with answers, to try and
be there for you. This is very, very, very braining,
and so when it's happening constantly only to see you
go back and then just so you're already exhausted because
(43:15):
you just helped your friend. Now they're back, and what
are you thinking now? Like when am I going to
have to go through this again? Like I can't, Like,
you know, some people have to kind of walk away
from the friendship because they're looking after their own well being.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Yeah, but then I know what it was like to
be in that situation and watch, I mean walk away
and you think, I have no one and I have
nowhere to go, I have nothing, Like thank god I
had the friend I had who would take me in
each time, and I'd say, I want to be gone.
(43:49):
I want to be gone, but I don't know what
to do. He keeps sucking me back in and I
don't know what to do. And it's it's a difficult thing.
I mean, she was great until she wasn't. That was,
you know, when she abandoned me for to be his
friend instead, which was really sorry, fucking weird. All of
a sudden, I noticed there's something on my ceiling.
Speaker 5 (44:13):
Is it the ghost of this person?
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah? I get it.
Speaker 5 (44:17):
Starts up there.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (44:21):
So, and I did have a friend who I'm still
friends with, who brand. He was with me during the
during the time, and we're still very close today. So
I do want to say, like I did, I did
have someone and it I don't know how he took
it because it was just chaos and drama in his
(44:42):
ear just for weeks, and I don't know. He just refused.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
I get it, Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
It was he refused to create any space with me
at all, even you know sometimes when you want to
hear from me after I went to Australia, he would
always put so I do, and if he ever listens
or sees any of this content, I want him to
know it's everyone except you.
Speaker 5 (45:08):
But I did.
Speaker 4 (45:10):
Hardly have any friends left, including like the person in
my life who I thought I could actually like grow
old and retire with, was one of my first friends
to leave.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
It's hard. And you know my friends that were at
a distance, that were in other states.
Speaker 5 (45:24):
That was him.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
They stuck in there with me.
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Ye friends.
Speaker 4 (45:31):
Yeah, yeah, good point, actually, very good point.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Yeah, that's crazy. That's hard because you're thinking I just
need someone to hug me right now, and then you
know your friends are at a just thank God for
my friends that were at least you know, in other
states saying you know, we're here for you, We're here
for you. You know. It's and this is also before
social media was big. I mean social media now it's
(45:55):
a lot different. You know, people women do. I have
seen them going on social media, you know, saying hey,
this is what I'm going through and then I'm you know,
and they get a lot of support emotionally, you know,
from people and financially. A lot of people go on
to social media and they are helped by other people.
And I think that's incredible. But you know that wasn't
(46:19):
for us back in the day.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
No, but we got through it and it has made
it blonde bombshells that we are today I am.
Speaker 5 (46:30):
And the confident ones as well. I would.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
I just definitely want to say, just real quick, I'm
not one of the people who says that I'm thankful
for what I went through because it may be into
the person I am today, but that I did not
need to be slapped around. I didn't need to be
going down to know, you know, precinct and I have
I have learned from it, but I will also say
(46:53):
it's definitely not not worth it.
Speaker 5 (46:55):
If you have someone going through this, please be there
for them.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
I agree. Now, I will say my little two cents
about where you're coming from on that I actually am
in a place in my life that I believe that
I designed my life before I came here. I chose
each thing because each checks and balance has changed my
life and made me incredible today today, I am an
(47:20):
incredible motherfucking woman. I'm a great friend, I'm a great partner,
I'm a great I'm better mom, and my whole life
has changed, and my whole drive is different, my whole
experience is different. Without all those things that I went through,
I wouldn't be the person I am today. So that's
how I feel about life, and I respect how you feel.
Speaker 5 (47:42):
I think I've been.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
There be an amazing woman and that maybe I didn't
need to go through that to get here.
Speaker 5 (47:48):
But however I did it. Hey, Halla, here, I am right.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Thanks for the love, Bill, we appreciate that. Well. I
gotta say that, you know, when we have such a
good topic and the time flies, it's it's a bummer.
But this was really an amazing topic, and I really
appreciate your vulnerability in your soul. I adore you as
my friend and as a fellow, a person who can
(48:18):
do these shows with me because I hopefully we can
help somebody today. We have an incredible show. Next week,
I have I have Jesse Marie coming on and we're
gonna be talking about kink and sex toys and all
that fun stuffing calendar. Okay, yeah yeah, so same time,
(48:44):
same place next week. Thank you for being here, Jennis,
thank you everyone for listening, and until next week, let's
just keep this fucking shit real.
Speaker 2 (48:54):
So if you enjoyed this episode, please share with your
friends life and follow us on Instagram at fifty Shades.
Speaker 3 (49:03):
Of Underscore Bullshit and.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Facebook at fifty Shades of Bullshit.
Speaker 3 (49:09):
Thanks so much for listening, and we really hope to
see you again next week
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