Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Surviving the Shadows: Mia Hanks on Overcoming Narcissistic Abuse
What happens when the person you trust most becomes your greatest enemy? This episode of Against All Odds, the Less Than 1% Chance podcast, features Mia Hanks, a remarkable survivor of nearly three decades of covert narcissistic abuse. Fresh off the release of her poignant memoir, "Bride-Made, a Memoir" Mia shares her courageous journey from realizing the insidious nature of her abuse to finally breaking free. We explore the chilling realities of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), including gaslighting and other manipulative behaviors that distort a victim’s sense of reality.
Why do victims find it so hard to leave their abusers? Mia and I discuss the intricate web of psychological conditioning and financial control that traps victims in these toxic relationships. Hear Mia’s firsthand account of the emotional turmoil, fear, and guilt that keep many from seeking help, as well as the manipulative tactics abusers use to alienate them from friends and family. By raising awareness and educating future generations, we aim to arm listeners with the knowledge to recognize and combat these abusive behaviors.
Navigating a divorce with a narcissist is no easy feat, and Mia provides invaluable insights into the emotional and practical challenges involved. From the vindictive actions during divorce proceedings to the disturbing patterns of control, including sleep deprivation, Mia’s story sheds light on the hidden struggles many endure. We also discuss the path to healing, emphasizing the importance of overcoming guilt and validating the trauma experienced, even amidst fleeting moments of normalcy. This episode is a must-listen for anyone seeking to understand or escape the clutches of narcissistic abuse.
Connect with Mia:
Instagram: @Npd.andme
TikTok- @npdandme
Book: Bride-Made, A Memoir
Website: https://miajhanks.com/
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Welcome back to the Against All Odds the Less Than 1% Chance podcast with your host, maria Aponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds, and my hope is that we can all see how life is always happening for us, even when we are the Less Than 1% Chance.
Speaker 2:Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the Less Than 1% Chance podcast with your host, maria Aponte. I hope you're doing fantastic today. I am so incredibly honored that I have this guest on today. You won't see her face, you'll actually see the cover of her book. I am just in awe with what I've learned so far about her. I am so incredibly appreciative of the fact that she's here. Her name is Mia Hanks. She's a survivor of narcissistic abuse. She was married to a covert narcissist for 29 years and has recently published a memoir titled Bridemaid a memoir. She hopes that with her book, she can help other victims find their voice and speak out about narcissistic abuse. She's really passionate about healing from narcissistic abuse, gaslighting, coercive control, divorcing a narcissist. Those are topics that she is super passionate about and I know that this is going to serve so many and I have just so much respect for the strength that it takes to remove yourself from this situation. So, mia, welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you, I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to have you here. Do you want to get into a little bit of your story and then we'll go into some questions after that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure. So you read my bio. I was married to a covert narcissist for 29 years and finally was able to understand what I was going through. And it took a long time to figure it out, but once I did I was able to get away and start a new life. So it's been a journey, for sure, and I decided I guess I'll give you a little bit about why I wrote the book I'm not an author bit about why I wrote the book. I'm not an author, I've never written before.
Speaker 3:But when I was going through, when I realized that what was happening to me was abuse and that my ex-husband was in fact a narcissist, I started doing a lot of research about narcissism, and there are a lot of great books out there.
Speaker 3:I read lots and lots of them. The problem I found was that all of these books were written generally by a psychologist, a therapist, and they were very academic. And what I wanted to find, what I wanted to read, was someone who had actually lived this and I just couldn't find anything out there really. So I decided, once I had gotten away and gone through some therapy and done some healing, I really thought there might be a need for a memoir type of a book from someone's perspective who had lived these things. So that's why I wrote it and I hope that it's helpful to other people out there that might be in similar situations that where they're not sure what they're going through. And I include a lot of tips and, for instance, tips on leaving a narcissist. That's a very difficult thing to do, so I hope that it's. I hope that people can benefit from the information in there and, just from my experience, I hope it can help people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. Can you give some background, because I know that this word is said a lot more lately, but not everybody understands what it is. So can you give some background on what is narcissistic personality disorder?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So narcissism is probably an overused term and really everyone has some narcissistic traits. It's just human. But narcissistic personality disorders is a different thing in that it is a personality disorder. These people, they just they tend to lack empathy. They are very self-serving, everything is about them and so they are master manipulators and they're all about control. So when you're with a narcissist, it is 100% them 100% of the time, and you slowly lose yourself to these people. They will take everything you have emotionally and they just don't have any remorse. It's just, it's about them and no one else. So everything that they do, seemingly nice, generally has an agenda behind it. So it's a hard thing to grasp if you haven't lived it. Most people that have not lived in such a situation can't believe that those kinds of things happen.
Speaker 3:And myself I was very young when I got married. I was 21. And I came from a very sheltered background. No trauma in my past, just a very idyllic childhood. And I came into this marriage very naive. I didn't. I had never known a narcissist, I had never known anyone with this level of personality disorder, and so I just didn't think these kinds of people existed. It just wasn't. I couldn't wrap my head around it. So I spent the better part of my marriage convinced, through gaslighting and whatnot, that the issues were me, it was all me, it was not him, and so that's why it took so so long for me to finally start figuring it out. Narcissists, they don't get better, they tend to get worse with age. So you just reach a breaking point.
Speaker 2:So again, another word that's being used a lot and I don't know if people truly understand it. Can you explain what gaslighting is?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so gaslighting it is a word that suddenly gained a lot of popularity. Gaslighting is something that narcissists will do. Almost all narcissists use this tactic, and it's basically where they change the narrative to make you think that you're going crazy. And it actually comes from. There was a play, and I'm not sure it was a very old play, maybe from the forties or something, and then later it was a movie, but it was a play called Gaslight and it was about I haven't seen it, but I understand it's about a husband who tried to make his wife think she was going crazy.
Speaker 3:He would dim the gaslights in the evenings and she would notice, and then he would tell her no, I didn't do that, you're losing your mind. So that's where the term originates. But they'll do things like they'll say if you're upset about something they said or did, they'll say, well, it wasn't that big of a deal, you are just too sensitive. And then you really start to second guess yourself and say, well, maybe it wasn't a big deal, maybe I am crazy, maybe I'm too sensitive and I'm taking things too seriously. And so you start to convince yourself that, yeah, they're right, I'm wrong, I must be losing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I have a question or maybe just a kind of a story that so I have three kids and my youngest is 15 and she got into this long distance relationship. He was like three and a half hours away. They met via a mutual friend, never met each other, and so this was always all over the phone and maybe like a month into them quote unquote dating. At that time it was like their one month. Quote unquote dating. At that time it was like their one month. And he posts on Snapchat like this huge, like, oh my gosh, love bombing. My girlfriend's perfect, I love her so much, she's beautiful. This huge, huge paragraph about how much he loves his most perfect girlfriend. And then she posts something not as long, it was like maybe less of a paragraph than what he had. And I caught her with her a phone when she was not supposed to have it, because I take their phones overnight. I saw the messages and he was basically telling her what is that? It is that all you're posting, is that all oh?
Speaker 4:and I was like oh, my god, like I was hyperventilating is. I was like, oh my god, I see this is like a start of a really horrible life if this is what she's allowing to happen.
Speaker 2:And I again, she's 15. So I had to be there and I have two older ones, so I just had to be very careful of how I said things. And she was still asleep and so I took the phone. So she knew that I had the phone and I didn't give her phone, and so when she wakes up in the morning, I had already meditated, I worked out, I was like I need to get my head in straight so that I can approach this so that she doesn't feel attacked. I was on our way to an appointment with her and I was like so obviously, that I found this like old phone that we had. And she's like, yeah, I figured, old phone that we had. And she's like, yeah, I figured, and. And so I was like so I looked through your messages and I saw this conversation happening, and I'm not here to tell you whether or not you should be with him, or that's your choice, right?
Speaker 2:But, my job as your mom is to make you aware of things that I need you to be aware of. So his post for your one month-aversary was so beautiful, super sweet, very loving, and that's amazing. And then he was telling you that you were not enough. So he was telling you that you were not enough. So he was telling you that you were perfect in the post and that you were amazing and all the things, and then telling you that you didn't do enough and making you feel bad for not posting as much as he did. And and I just want to tell you, my love, that that is a combination of love, bombing and gaslighting.
Speaker 2:And I need you to be very aware that I don't know this kid. He's 14, 15 years old. I don't know how he was brought up, so I can't tell you what he is accustomed to. However, that is not okay. That is the start of a very abusive relationship and I really need you to be aware of that. And she stayed quiet, thankfully, that same day later in the afternoon, she had a therapy appointment and I'm so incredibly grateful that things happened the way they did, but she went in there. Yeah, it was perfect. It was so perfect. I truly feel like everything that happens always tends to like fall into place somehow or another.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so it was this big coincidence that she did. And when she got out of therapy she was. She was like, well, mom, I have to have three conversations. I was like, OK, and she was like, well, mom, I have to have three conversations. I was like, OK, and she's like the first one is with you. I'm so sorry that I took that old phone. I I will accept the consequences to that because I know that was wrong, because we had a whole conversation about that. The second is with her boyfriend and she said I do realize that's what he was doing and I do realize that I felt horrible about myself and that I really need to work on me.
Speaker 2:I need to let him know that he needs to work on whatever is happening with him, and if he wants to work on it as a couple, that's fine. But I need to work on me and loving me more and I was like, oh my God, what is happening? This?
Speaker 3:is awesome, that is awesome.
Speaker 2:And then so she had this conversation with him and they ended up breaking up like a month later, which is what needed to happen anyways, but I wasn't going to be the one to tell her that, because I was a teenager too, and I would have been like, oh no, you told me, no, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, and then the third conversation was one with my boyfriend, which is we've been together for five years, so her stepdad and how she's just appreciative of the role that he plays in her life and that she can talk to him about everything and really feels grateful for that. So it was just an awesome situation all around and hopefully with that she is now more equipped to see those signs, and that's the problem.
Speaker 3:Most people are not. Yeah, they don't. Um, they would see something like what you just described and really not think that much of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I feel bad, but it's not that big of a deal and that's just the start.
Speaker 2:Maybe he's right, Maybe I didn't post as much. And how can you be told that you're perfect and amazing and beautiful and then you're not enough? Like what?
Speaker 4:Just, oh my gosh, I saw that and I was like, oh my God, I'm here in my office reading these messages and I'm like, oh my God, okay, I need to go meditate, I need to calm down before I go in there, and like guns blazing. And I was like, okay, I need to calm down.
Speaker 2:And I did, and it was the way like myself five years ago, when my oldest was 15, would have been totally a different scenario. So I feel like I'm grateful that I've grown as a parent, but what you were describing I was like, oh my God, that was my like scary. Oh goodness, don't start this so early. Let's get this, let's get this aware.
Speaker 3:It starts so slow and so, quote, unquote, innocent, yeah. And then, before you know it, you're in the thick of it, and then you're stuck, you're stuck. Basically, so the more gaslighting and the more control that's heaped on you, the more stuck you feel and you just don't think you can get out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what do you think are the reasons that many victims stay with their abusers for so long?
Speaker 3:I think a lot of victims really are convinced that they are the problem and that if they will change, if they will work on themselves, then they can make the relationship work, because that's how you're conditioned to believe. And another reason that I think victims stay is, well, a couple. Another reason is out of fear. They just don't want to know what the alternative, what the consequences could be to them leaving, and so, out of fear, it's just, it seems, the safest thing to do. But another reason people stay is another thing that narcissists do is financial abuse. So in a lot of these relationships, the narcissist is controlling all the money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so even if you're in a high socioeconomic tier, it really doesn't matter, because if you can't access that money, if you can't, I had my husband, had all these accounts and he had a credit card and all these cards and such. All I had access to was just the day-to-day checking account. I had a debit card and all these cards and such I all I had access to was just the day-to-day checking account. I had a debit card and that was it. And so, fortunately, I had my parents and they are the ones that ultimately helped me get out.
Speaker 3:But if I hadn't had them. I had no funds to like. I could have gone in and gotten a hotel for a couple of nights, but I had no funds or resources to say, go get an apartment. I wouldn't have been able to do that. I'm living in this beautiful, big home behind gates and yet I had no resources to even go get myself an apartment. So how did it have been for my parents being able to help me? My only option, again being in this big, beautiful home, would have been to go to a shelter.
Speaker 3:Yeah that would have been my only option, and so I think a lot of women are in that situation and that is their only option. They can stay where they are, they can go to a shelter. So there's just there are not a lot of good options.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree, there's it's. I have a friend of mine that had to escape a very abusive relationship and with two kids in a shelter, it was just hard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think most people just don't want to go that route and most assuredly, when you leave a narcissist, the first thing they're going to do is cut off any funding they're going to during the bank account which was my experience 29 years of marriage and I didn't even have he kept the bank account so low that I couldn't even buy groceries. So they can get revengeful and it is a scary time. It is scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I bet. So what are the? Obviously there's financial challenges in leaving a narcissist, but are there any other things that that they tried to put in your way as obstacles.
Speaker 3:Yeah, in my situation I dealt with a lot of guilt, and a lot of that was from all of the gaslighting. It took me a long time to understand that he was the one that had the issues. I was still second guessing myself and he knew that. So he tried to make amends and whatnot. They weren't sincere, but nonetheless he tried because he knew he could play on that guilt factor. So they do that. And then the other thing that they do and my ex-husband did this is they will start going to your friends and your family and saying she's on hinge, she's having a midlife crisis, you've got to talk to her, make her come back. She's just going crazy, and really what they're doing is damage control just going crazy. And really what they're doing is damage control. They're getting out there to everybody they can, as fast as they can, to let people think that that you were the problem, that you're having this breakdown and that's why you left, because they can't have their image tarnish.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, my ex-husband did that and I think it's a very common tactic. It's a race to see who can get to the most people the fastest and if they can get their story out there and make you look ridiculous a case that's happening currently with a lady that her husband was a pastor.
Speaker 2:Is a pastor, was a pastor yes, I'm familiar with this. I've seen this as well, that he speaks to the whole church, yes About her mental state and like, oh my gosh, yeah, can it be any more evident? That's exactly what he is Is that like exactly it's been.
Speaker 3:It's been all over social media and people are reacting to it. It's scary. It is so scary how sure they are that they are right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's just, it makes me very having daughters particularly. I know that this isn't just a woman thing, but having daughters it. It terrifies me, especially having gone through just a situation with a 15-year-old, and I'm very vocal and I love that you were able to put your story in a book for people to be able to experience, even your words, what you experience, because I feel like like these aren't things that normally are talked about, and had our parents been more aware of this, these situations and vocalize. I'm very open with my kids. I talk to them about absolutely everything experiences that I've gone through and everything, because I remember having gone through some experiences as a teenager that I didn't feel I could talk to my parents about, and and and I want the exact opposite of that for my kids. I want them to come to me about absolutely everything, and so these stories are so important which, honestly, I'm going to get your book and I'm going to read it so that I can have that in my back pocket for my daughter to be able to read or at least listen to the story.
Speaker 2:I gauge what I'm obviously telling each of the kids, but and this is like so important because it fuels awareness it. It feeds that awareness to so many people and I I truly like hope that all people like read this and are aware of the signs, because it's so scary. My sister was in an abusive relationship very narcissistic as well, but it was physical abuse as well, and so I remember feeling the like powerless feeling of I. She completely closed us off because she knew that as soon as I found out, or anybody found out what was happening, like it would have been embarrassing to the victim.
Speaker 3:That's another factor, and in my situation, no one knew what was really going on because it's embarrassing. And that's one thing that I struggled with when I decided to write my book was this is embarrassing. And the therapist that I was seeing said no, it's not embarrassing. And I said but it is. To me it's embarrassing to admit that I put up with this for as long as I did and that I lived this way for so long. And you get into this groove where you don't want people to know. So you do tend to shut down and close people off because you don't want them to know what's really happening. So and that's another reason why I think people end up staying in these relationships, it's just the embarrassment factor.
Speaker 2:I think people end up staying in these relationships. It's just the embarrassment factor. Yeah, yeah, I definitely can see that.
Speaker 3:So what are the challenges in divorcing a narcissist? Well, they're very vindictive and they don't. They, you know, they're not people that can handle the word no. So right away, when you leave a narcissist, that is a huge blow to their ego. They are going to try to get revenge. So in my situation, when I left my ex-husband, like I said, he tried to drain the bank accounts, make it to where I couldn't even buy groceries. They have no, they're relentless. They just they don't care how much they hurt you at that point, because you are no longer a supply to them. They don't, they can't own you anymore. So it's the anything they have to do to hurt you. They will. But yeah, the divorce process, just doing things like drawing the process out as long as they can. One thing he thought he could do is just wear me down. When we went to our divorce mediation. We were there for 10 hours.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh 10 hours.
Speaker 3:So he just thought the longer he could hold out and the longer he could fight, he was waiting for me to give up, just give in. And so that's what they'll do. They'll just try to wear you down to the point that you say I'm tired, I just want out. You just take everything, I just want out and I don't want to fight anymore. So they're just relentless. And that's the biggest challenge in divorcing them. And then the weird thing is they don't care because they don't have that empathy in a normal divorce with normal neurotypical people. Generally, I would think the husband would want to make sure that it's on some level the mother of his children was being taken care of, but not with a narcissist. They don't care if they could leave you homeless, living under the freeway, they would be proud of themselves. So that's the biggest challenge. They literally do not care, and once you've left, that's it. They're done with you and they don't care what they have to do to hurt you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's really tough because you have these like expectations of people that they can't even fulfill and it's so hard to process the why are you, why were you doing this? Yeah it, yeah. It's really really hard because then they also don't take into account, like, how this is hurting our children or right our family, and to see that this is their parent, and it blows my mind. I wholeheartedly believe that just people that I'm close to have been married to narcissists and it is very frustrating, even watching it happen, that you're like who is this person? What are they thinking? Why are they talking to their kids about their parents that way, like just, and everything that you're saying is like oh my gosh, yeah, yeah, check, check, check, oh wow, this is it just blows my mind, it's crazy how they're all so much alike.
Speaker 3:It's almost like they have this playbook that they all follow. It's just down to like the weird things that they do. That I thought was just my ex-husband, and the more research and reading I did and talking to people, I realized these little quirks. It's typical of narcissists. For example, sleep deprivation. They like to use sleep deprivation. They like to keep you sleep deprived so that you are in a fog and when you're tired and worn down you're easier to control. Yeah, oh, my gosh, Something with my ex-husband, but in fact I've heard so many people talk about that. My narcissistic husband won't let me sleep or they keep waking me up on purpose so that I'm tired all day. So it's just weird little quirky things like that that they all do and it's very odd.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's so interesting. But that makes sense because, yeah, absolutely, you're way easier to control when you're just so exhausted.
Speaker 3:Yes, and then, of course, that leads to health issues I experienced in the last, probably two years of my marriage. I was experiencing chronic pain, headaches, stomach aches. I felt nauseous all the time and I was just over tired, just so, so fatigued, all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Isn't it? And I say this from my own experience. But isn't it crazy how when your body is in dis-ease, it creates this disease and when you heal that dis-ease, everything kind of falls back into place.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was about two weeks after I officially moved out. It was amazing how different I felt. I wasn't experiencing so much pain and I realized so much of how I was feeling was because I was under so much stress. You live in this fight or flight mode all the time. It's just not. It's just not good. It really does impact your health in ways that you can't see.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So that's, if for no other reason to leave, do it for your health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree. I wholeheartedly believe that. So do you believe that a narcissist can ever change?
Speaker 3:Unfortunately I don't. I hate to sound so like a doom and gloom, but I just don't think so. Npd is. It is a personality disorder and there's not a cure. And the problem is you can go to therapy with a narcissist all day long. It does not do any good. I did that, in fact, with my ex-husband. We went to two different marriage therapists. It doesn't work. Narcissists love to go to therapy because they can prove it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, they charm the therapist and it's then they get the therapist on their side If it's an unexperienced therapist. Now we ultimately ended up with a really good therapist who had a lot of experience, and after about the eighth session she actually kicked him out of therapy, which was I didn't think therapists did that, but she actually told him. She said she said I can't help you. Did that, but she actually told him. She said she said I can't help you. She said you're not self-aware. And she said you are not willing or able to see things from other people's perspectives. And for that reason she said I know amount of therapy is going to help you. And she literally told him I wish you luck, don't come back. So no, I don't think that they can get better. There might be a fraction of a percentage of narcissists that decide they want to become self-aware. That's just not the nature of their personality, so I only see that they get worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And my ex-husband. He just got progressively worse and worse and worse, more insidious, just mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because they also have more time to continue to like cause. They're very convinced of their story, so they have more time to just like fester on that story, and I could see that. I could definitely see that. So what limiting beliefs or roadblocks did you have to overcome in order to get to where you are today? And then, which ones are you, which ones do you love? Like helping other people work through themselves?
Speaker 3:Well, for me, the biggest roadblock, the biggest issue that I had after I left and just dealing with the healing side of it, was the guilt I felt guilty for leaving and I told the therapist I was seeing, which I think therapy was a big help for me. I told her, I said I kept saying I've ruined his life because when I left it did turn his world upside down. And she said no, he tried to ruin your life. So I had to turn that around and realize that no, I didn't. It made life inconvenient for him for a while going through this messy divorce. It was a very hostile divorce but it didn't ruin his life. So it took time for me to realize that.
Speaker 3:The other thing that I felt guilty about was I kept saying every day wasn't bad. So how do I know that I did the right thing by leaving? Because there were good days, we did have good times and I was talking to a friend about this and my friend said this isn't a math problem. One good day does not cancel out a bad day. And then the best kind of advice that I was given was there are not enough good days in the world to make up for one day of trauma that he put you through and that was a huge, eye-opening statement. Yeah, it really did. The guilt that I was experiencing just vanished at that point and that just replayed in my head. If just one day of trauma, one day of trauma, is too much, yeah. So if we have 364 good days and one horrible day of trauma, that's too much.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That guilt was the biggest factor for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I could see that and we tend to attach ourselves to the good times. We tend to attach ourselves to the good times, yes, and, but it was so good and I was so in love, or it's so sad. That's what we do and we like don't see the, don't see those really tough days, or that. Or you don't want to remember the heartbreak and you sobbing in your room or whatever. You learn to block it out.
Speaker 3:You just block it out and the next day is a good day. So you move on. And another thing narcissists will do they call it breadcrumbing. So when they think they've pushed you maybe a little bit too far, they reel you back in by the. They might buy you a gift, they might take you out to a nice dinner, they might be really nice for about a week. And then that sort of you start to forget well, that was really bad, but look at these nice things he did, and you focus on the good and you suppress the bad. And yeah, that's another reason that I think people end up staying. It's just this give and take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they continue to hold on to the good days. Yes, so that's such a cycle, and it's scary that I feel like they do it even unconsciously. They don't even realize that this is the type of human you're being and just programmed that way, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm so incredibly happy that you got out, because no one deserves to live that way and I agree, I think that therapy is the seriously. I think everybody in the world needs to find a good therapist. Yeah, yeah, we would be much happier people and more healed people, because it is so hard to navigate sometimes and when you have a third party perspective that can guide you in a way that is that kind of makes you dig in deep, because they typically do, and that's why we don't do the work on our own is because that dig deep moment is so hard to yeah, it's easier just to suppress it yeah.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, when we do suppress, it just eats away at us even more so it really does.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, so I can't wait to read your book. I am very excited for our listeners to listen to this episode. I think it just opened up a lot of conversations and I truly hope that your story. I think it's such a blessing to see how life is happening for you and not to you, right, so you could look at it as I'm the victim of this, or you could say, okay, I experienced this and what purpose can I find from it? And I think that this book is such a beautiful purpose.
Speaker 3:I hope so. You were talking earlier about. I think one of the biggest questions that victims will get asked is why do you stay so long? And that's one thing that is. It's very interesting and I think there are a lot of answers like I talked about, but in my book I put a quote in. There are a lot of answers like I talked about, but in my book I put a quote in and I think it's the best explanation for the best answer for that question, and it's a quote I found online and it's actually by Stephen King, the author and I. My understanding is if this is something that he said during an interview. I haven't seen the interview, but I thought the quote was just. It really sums it up, so it's just a short little paragraph so I can. I share it. Yeah, absolutely Okay.
Speaker 3:There's a phrase the elephant in the living room which purports to describe what it's like to live with a drug addict, an alcoholic and ab. People outside such relationships will sometimes ask how could you let such a business go on for so many years? Didn't you see the elephant in the living room? And it's so hard for anyone living in a more normal situation to understand the answer that comes closest to the truth. I'm sorry, but it was there when I moved in. I didn't know it was an elephant, I thought it was part of the furniture. There comes an aha moment for some folks the lucky ones when they suddenly recognize the difference. So I think that's a good explanation, for, like, I married very young and I love the part where it says I thought it was part of the furniture.
Speaker 2:I thought this was how it was part of the furniture.
Speaker 3:I thought this was, this was how it was supposed to be. I thought this was normal and as time went on, I made it my normal. Yeah, I normalized the abuse. So I think that's probably the best explanation for why does somebody stay? Why could somebody stay for 29 years? You really normalize the abuse.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's where the awareness needs to come into play, and we need to stop normalizing it, because it's not normal.
Speaker 2:Agreed. That's an amazing quote. Thank you for sharing that. I so appreciate it. Thank you so much, listeners.
Speaker 2:I hope you got so much out of today, just like I did. All the information for me is book in the show notes, and these are great conversations to open up. And these are great conversations to open up especially with younger generations that are not as aware of what can, because I married young too, so I can attest to the fact that we just didn't know these scenarios, and even if you're not the recipient of this type of abuse hopefully you're not However, you can help prevent somebody that you love from experiencing these things with the stories that you hear. So I hope that's what this podcast helps you with is to show you the stories of people that have overcome so many things, and that it opens up conversations about these situations so that your loved ones are more informed and aware of the people that come into their lives. So, mia, thank you again. Listeners, thank you so much, and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Peace out, guys. Love your life.
