Healing From Emotional Abuse

Healing From Emotional Abuse: Healing From Childhood Abuse: with Brittani Duval

INTRO: How can you heal from abuse? What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute. Over 28,800 people every day. And the sad fact is, we still don't talk about it enough. Healing from emotional abuse isn't a band-aid situation, but it doesn't have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the world have been impacted by their narcissist, yours doesn't have to. To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life your host and founder of the Healing from Emotional Abuse Philosophy Marissa F Cohen.
 
MARISSA: Overcoming narcissism and healing from emotional abuse is so important to your mental health and to living the life of freedom, confidence and peace. Today, we're talking with Brittani Duvall about child abuse and how it impacts your mental health for the rest of your life. But before we start, I want to brainstorm ways that I can help ease your healing journey. Imagine that you're standing on a cliff. And on the other side of a deep canyon is the life that you dream of. A partner who connects with you, supports you and empowers you and makes you laugh and smile. A life filled with freedom, confidence and peace. I've been where you are now, standing on the edge, dreaming of that life. And I've built the bridge between where you are now and that dream that seems so far away. Let me walk you across the bridge and literally hand you the life of your dreams. It's possible! I've walked this path with thousands of other survivors who now live a free, confident and peaceful life. Let's walk this path together. Don't waste any more time feeling lonely, worthless or exhausted. Schedule a call with me today at ScheduleACallWithMarissa.com - M-A-R-I-S-S-A. 
 
Welcome back to Healing from Emotional Abuse. Today we have an amazing guest, Brittany Duvall. She's a spiritual truth advisor, a queen of authentic vulnerability and a visionary entrepreneur who lovingly guides and encourages women to their truth from mental health shame, through her Rooted In Truth method. She's a survivor, a mother to a beautiful toddler daughter, and the wife of an amazing husband. She's the creator of the event - Let's Talk About It Navigating to Freedom and Truth from Mental Health, Shame and Stigma for Business and Life. Welcome on Brittany! Thank you so much. I'm so happy to have you today.
 
BRITTANY: I'm so happy to be here. So thank you so much.
 
MARISSA: Of course. So before we get really started, tell us about yourself.
 
BRITTANY: Oh goodness, that's a heavy question. So I live in Arizona, I like she said, I'm a wife and I have a toddler daughter, her name is Annabelle. So I actually have a background in graphic design. And that was like, what I feel is my healing up until now. And so with that, I had my daughter, I struggled with postpartum depression and then I was like, okay, I can't go back into the workforce. It was just way too overwhelming for me. And so my husband supported me in that. And so I started my freelance design business, which I still do that on the side. But it's kind of like, slowly gone away in a sense, because I lost my brother about a year ago to suicide. And so with that, it really was kind of like a wake-up call for me of like, okay, we all struggle with our mental health. And we all are in our own stuckness with COVID and everything else. So I really wanted to take a stand and support people with where they're at and how they can bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be. And so that's where I've been working on launching my coaching business currently.
 
MARISSA: Thank you for sharing that. I'm so sorry about what you went through with your family. So would you mind telling us your story of survival, like what you went through and how you got here?
 
BRITTANY: When I was in sixth grade, it was a lot of trauma that I experienced, where I was sexually abused, particularly molested. And so with that, it happened more than once. And it really took everything out of me. Like I felt like I died inside. I struggled a lot with that and then it wasn't until my freshman year of high school that I eventually told my family of what happened. And so I held it in for that long and during that time, I remember being in my room and literally just sobbing by myself. I would close the door and while this was going on, my parents were fighting and having their own issues. So it was just kind of like I was alone. And so my way of coping was coloring in my room, it was singing, it was dancing, it was listening to music. And every time my mom would come in, I would literally wipe my tears and pretend that everything was okay when it really wasn't. And then once I finally told my family, it was just like another layer of experiencing different emotions, because it was about them and not about me. It was like, oh well, why don't you tell me sooner? Or oh, that happened to me too. Or, oh how did I not see this or know about it? And that's, I think the initial response that a lot of people have, is they internalize it and make it about them, instead of actually listening to the survivor of what they experienced. So that was another layer of like, okay, not feeling seen and heard again, for holding it in for that long, and then having to tell and gaining the courage to tell. And then still not feeling seen and heard. And so walking through that even more, by this time, I was starting to gain into the dating world. And so in the dating world, I dated a lot of people who were addicts, who were struggling with their own stuff. And I began to see myself as naturally taking care of them because I understood what it felt like to be in that situation. And so I had my own experience, even with them, like emotional abuse because there was an addict who cheated on me and did all the other things. I've had somebody tell me that I was crazy, I had people tell me to gain a backbone. So there were lots of different experiences that I had in the dating world. And then once I got to college, just something snapped. I was just like, I can't do this anymore. I was even considering taking my own life. I had all the thoughts and that's when I went into a mental health hospital for eight days. And in there, there was just so much more coming out of me that I didn't even know because you're in a free state, so you forget everything. And so more stuff began to come up, that I didn't even know that actually happened in the initial trauma that I had. And so I had to walk through more. And then it came to gaining more courage of, okay, I want to actually do something about this now. So that's when I decided to get a restraining order on the person who molested me and then started to go through my process of court. And I basically got everything. And it was basically to the time, like ready to go to court. And I think this is so often what happens is, then you're like, oh, I have to actually see that person when I go to court. And so everything just shut down. And I was like, nope, I can't do this anymore. And so I cancelled everything out. I think over time, in my experience of mental health and all of the things, the mental health system helped me up until a certain point. And that point was when I had my daughter, and I was like, okay, I know I need more now. I'm ready for more, I need more, this isn't supporting me anymore. And so that's when I stepped into the personal development coaching world. And then like a whole other level of like, basically like a spiritual awakening. I'm sure lots of people are talking about it now that you understand what that means. But essentially, it's like a whole, like, your life in front of your eyes and you're seeing your life for what it is. And I started to pick a part of like, where things were coming from, and what my true truth was. And so that's basically where I got to really look at was this somebody telling me what I am? Or is this what I actually believe? And so I got to really dive deep into that. And that's what's really been my transformation and healing is like, pulling apart of the things that people have put on me in the outside world, and what I actually believe is true for me. So, yeah, that's where like, my whole transformation has really lied.
 
MARISSA: That's an incredible journey. I mean, you were so young when it started. Do you mind if I go back to that a little bit? So when you were experiencing it, was there ever any education or anything about what sexual abuse is in your past, in school and anything to give you the verbiage or to express what was happening to you?
 
BRITTANY: No. I just knew it wasn't okay. It felt like, I just have this gift of knowing and inside, I knew it was not okay. I didn't know how to express it, I didn't know how to walk through it. I just knew it wasn't okay. And so, it was interesting, because honestly, there's one piece that I can't remember. And it's I don't know what got me and compelled me to ask my mom to see a counselor. But something inside of me asked to see a counselor. I think, partly, my dad has his own mental health as well. So I've seen him in his own mental health. And he had seen a counselor and stuff. So it was like, I knew it was okay to see a counselor through my dad, but I just, I don't know, something compelled me to ask. And so it was through the counselor that she supported me into realizing, oh, and I think what I remember most that literally just scared the shit out of me, if you will, was when she was like, oh we need to report this. And I was like, oh wait, no, no, I don't want that. I'm just here to get support. And so I felt like everything like turning inside of me of like, wait you have to report this. And I think that's another scary piece of walking through, especially as young as I was, because I was just so confused. So it was through the counselor that I gained education, and then she was the one that really supported me in the talks that I got to have with both my mom and dad of telling them.
 
MARISSA: I'm glad you had that as an outlet, because a lot of people don't know that they can go to counselors or don't have that ability. So I think that that's amazing that you were able to get that much support even though it was scary, that she's a mandatory reporter. I have my own kind of yes and no support of that process. But do you mind telling us about the court process, I know that you didn't eventually go through with it. But on average sexual abuse cases take about four years to get from initial report to court?
 
BRITTANY: Yeah, I don't feel like... It didn't take that long, I think. I don't know if it's because of like, the person who did it admitted it very quickly, so it didn't really take that long. So it was several times of going into this facility where the detective was. And it didn't even feel good, just going, you know, your walk. And it was literally like I felt like it was amazed to get into the room. We had, I think, two different meetings in this particular room where we were on a phone call, it was like those old, well, it's not a super old fashion, but an old enough fashioned phone in the room and it's all connected to wires and listening and all this stuff. And it was just like, the things that you see on TV that you never thought you would even be in a situation that you would experience that. I felt very numb through the whole process. It was just like I numbed myself out. Because I knew that I wanted to do this for myself. But then I was also scared of all the repercussions of what could happen. I can't even remember the full timeline, but it was just literally in a matter of a few months that everything was like... The detective finally called me and he was like, well, we got everything and like, we sat down and we talked about it. And it was just like you know you're going to have to see him, you're going to have to point him out in court and you know you're going to have to do all these things. And he's like, you know, this is where a lot of people do back out. And so, I tried to be strong, and I really, really contemplated it for a while, I asked for some time to think about it. And it was going back and forth, back and forth. And it made me sick, because I was just like, I don't know if I can do this. And I think because it was still early on enough in my journey of healing that because I had just gotten out of a mental health hospital and literally went straight into it. But I was just like too soon for me. And I was like, I don't think I'm ready.
 
MARISSA: I feel that it is good that the perpetrator admitted it right off the bat. That alone is a one in a million situation. Did you feel a sense of closure when that happened? Or did that make you feel worse?
 
BRITTANY: So my reasoning, because everybody has a reasoning for why they were going through the process too. In my personal reasoning, and I know this is like, the goodness of my heart and not -- it wasn't out of anger, it wasn't out of hate or anything, which I know a lot of people have when they experience that. But for me, it was like, no, I wanted to go to court because I just wanted him to get help. Because I knew it happened to him too. And so usually, that's the cycle. And so like, for me, out of the goodness of my heart, I just wanted to go to court because I knew no matter what, on the outside world, that he wouldn't get help. So it's like wanting to go to court, so that it was kind of like a mandated thing that he would get help and get the help that he needed, so that he could not continue to create that cycle. I didn't want him to go to jail. I just wanted him to get help, and I wanted him to get better.
 
MARISSA: That makes a lot of sense. I mean, it was a person that you had relationship with. And so that's a person that you have emotions towards. It makes sense. This might be a dumb question, but as an adult, who was a child that went through this process, would you recommend to parents that they push for the same thing? Would you as an adult, recommend that other adults who have children who have gone through something similar, would you encourage them to pursue the legal process?
 
BRITTANY: I would say it depends on your intentions. That is my personal truth. Because obviously, if you're coming from a place of anger and hate, then that's on you. But if you're coming from a place of love and compassion, of understanding that it is an actual real cycle that people have experienced, then you know that there's goodness in intentions in your heart, and it's coming from a good place. Obviously, yes, it is the most horrific thing out there. And I would never wish it on anybody. Years later, I actually found out it happened to my brother too. And I literally dropped to my knees, bawling my eyes out, because I did not want that to happen to my brother too. Because when he was five years younger, so I felt responsible. And so it's like, you obviously don't wish it upon anybody. And I get that. And we're all human. And we all are experiencing very traumatic things in many different ways. So I feel like it really depends on your intentions. That's just my opinion.
 
MARISSA: Thank you very much. What advice would you give to survivors to help them heal?
 
BRITTANY: I would say the biggest thing that has really supported me is I'm constantly seeking for growth. I'm constantly seeking, how can I grow myself and continue to allow myself to get better in all areas of my life? Because clearly, once that happens, it affects every area of your life too. It affects how you show up in friendships, it affects how you show up in relationships, because there's obviously that trust factor that gets very much broken. And so for me, I've constantly been in areas of growth of like, okay, how can I heal this part of me, or this part of me, that has clearly been affected by trauma and PTSD and all that stuff? Obviously, counseling supported me in many different ways. I had literally hands full of counselors, because I constantly was, once I got to a point where I was stuck and stagnant with a counselor, I would go on to the next one. And it wasn't like, I'm going to constantly switch counselors, it was just like, I saw where I was at, I acknowledged where I was at and I was like, okay, now I want to do more. And this person isn't getting me to that next place yet. So I'm going to seek somebody else who can get me to that next place. At one point, I think I had a huge fear of seeing a male counselor. And so at one point I found myself struggling in a relationship that I was with. And I needed a male perspective. So I actually stretched myself to finally see a male counselor because I knew that I needed that male support with where I was at in that period of my life. And then, you know, like I said, once I struggled with postpartum depression, it was finally in that sense of like, okay, this has supported me thus far and I want to go more. So then I saw a Facebook Ad that stepped me into investing in a coach. And then I really spiraled into a personal development experience that took me to that next level. And again, constantly getting new coaches that can support me in different areas of my life to continue to grow. So growth is a big thing.
 
MARISSA: That's awesome. And I'm really glad that you sought out different counselors. I think that we get so nervous with mental health, I don't know, there's such a stigma with mental health in this society, that it's so hard to get people to even go to therapy, let alone recognize when you've learned everything you need to learn from one person, now it's time to move on to the next; or having tried one therapist or counselor, that doesn't really work for you and then assuming that every other counselor is going to be the same way. So thank you for highlighting that because I think that's so so important to hear.
 
BRITTANY: Yeah, definitely. I have a therapist friend, she's a friend of mine, and she's a therapist and something she prefaced, she wrote an article about this recently of like, it's not the therapist, it's the modality of which the therapist knows. And there are so many different modalities out there and that's not talked about. And so that's where it might not even be the therapists themselves. It just might be what they know, and how they teach. And so if you give yourself a chance to seek out those different therapies, you will start to realize what works and what doesn't. And it's just like anything else. But I think we get so stuck with ourselves in wanting it to be and look a certain way. And it might not always be that way, the first time around.
 
MARISSA: Absolutely. So tell us a little bit more about what you do and how people can get in touch with you. Because I think that your knowledge base is mental health stigma and helping people overcome that. And I think that for this particular community, that's so important. So how can people get in touch with you and work with you?
 
BRITTANY: So I am in the process of building out a coaching program currently. My event is happening until April 4th, currently. And so with that, you can go to Let's Talk About It. My event that I have 42 speakers, speaking on different -- and that's another thing. It's different modalities that have supported them in their transformation from mental health shame. You know, there are people speaking on yoga, there are people speaking on just their health overall, what they eat, and obviously many, many different things. I have my therapist friend on there as well. And so there are so many different perspectives. And so that's the biggest thing that's happening right now in my space. For how you can get in to my space, just follow me along on Facebook as I continue to grow and open more things because I literally just shifted into this space a few months ago. So I'm really honestly looking for feedback right now of how I can support you of where you're at. And really supporting how you can go from your shame, and really pulling apart and uncovering and getting out of the boxes of what you identify yourself as. Because I think a lot of times we put these attachments of what we are diagnosed as our identity, but they don't define us. They don't limit us. It doesn't make you incapable. It's just another label that we don't need to attach to us of who we are in our truth of who we are. And so I'm really wanting to see what are the needs right now and how I can support you to really get to the truth of who you are. And allow yourself to shine and stand in your power and know that you are worth it.
 
MARISSA: I love that! Thank you so much for doing such amazing, important work and for showing people that you aren't what you're diagnosed with. We get this diagnosis and then just feel like we have to fit in the stereotype of it. And I hate that. So thank you so much for doing what you're doing. And thank you for being here and chatting with me today. I really appreciate your time and your openness with us.
 
BRITTANY: I'm so grateful. Thank you so much.
 
[Outro]: If you enjoyed this podcast you have to check out www.marissafayecohen.com/private-coaching. That's www.marissafayecohen.com/private-coaching. Marissa would love to develop a Made for You Healing Plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck alone and hurt and live a free, confident and peaceful life. Don't forget to subscribe to the Healing from Emotional Abuse Podcast and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MarissaFCohen and Instagram at Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We'd love to see you there.
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: Healing The Family: with Orsika Julia

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the worlds have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
 
Marissa: Welcome back to Healing From Emotional Abuse. Today, I'm really excited to bring back Orsika Julia, who came on earlier last year to talk about her book 52, which is now available on Amazon and through her website. 
 
Orsika: Yes. 
 
Marissa: Perfect. And also, these brand-new courses that she has created and are in the process of creating, and her coaching program to help adults who have experienced domestic violence get through it. So welcome on. Thank you so much for being here. 
 
Orsika: I freaking love being here. Marissa, your energy is amazing. You are just the best. It's all I got to say. So, thank you like, yeah, just thanks. 
 
Marissa: Stop it. I'm so happy to have you on here. I would love to start. I know that we went over this a little bit last time you're here. But just to give a little bit of background about what you experienced, and what brought you from where you were to what you're doing now. 
 
Orsika: Absolutely. So, I was married to a narcissist, and I saw the red flags and chose to ignore them. Because my self-esteem was in a place where I thought that's all I deserved in life. I was a single mom, freshly single mom, with two little kids, they were I don't even know, like seven and five, somewhere in that range. And I thought that I was used goods. And I thought I only deserved this person who behaved in a way that I liked to begin with, because he bought me flowers, and he bought me jeans and jewelry in the flowers. And he worked third shift. So, he'd come home and it was like, “Oh my gosh, he loves me.” And then I bore him a son. And then it all turned. The switch got flipped and the mean, really came out. And even though I was warned by my amazing mother, she's like, this is not the person. By then I had already gotten pregnant. And it was like, Okay, I'm stuck with him. And so, I wanted to stay with him, not because I enjoyed the abuse people, but because I really wanted the family dynamic. But then I realized that it’s not worth my abuse and the abuse that the children started to receive as well. So, I packed my things up my three children, my dog, my cat, my lizard, and we drove from Oklahoma to Illinois. 
 
Marissa: Wow. that's a lot. And it wasn't just you that had to heal after that. Right? It was healing the whole family. What was that like? 
 
Orsika: Tough, it was really, really tough. Because by the time we've left, the kids were three, nine and eleven. Yeah, they were three, nine and eleven. And so especially that an 11-year-old, she's a strong-willed child and beautiful and is now a grown woman. It's been 10 years. So, she's a grown woman on her own. But she is a strong-willed child and healing her, and she and I got the brunt of the abuse. She got most of the emotional abuse, and I did my best to protect her. And there were arguments where he would say if she doesn't listen, I'm going to take care of her. To which my response was, if you lay a hand on her, I will shoot you. And I wasn't kidding. Like, don't you dare lay hands on her because I will shoot you. I didn't shoot him because he didn't lay his hands on her. I am also not ever going to shoot him. I like my freedom. I like my life and I look horrible in orange or stripes. So, I'm just saying, Yeah, healing, the oldest and myself was really very, very challenging. My middle one was always your quintessential, whatever age she was at. And she's just all fun loving and bubbly. And, she really didn't get affected by anything because everybody loves her and I didn't realize how much my son was about to endure. So, for the year that we were separated before the divorce was finalized, my son was molested by his father. And then healing that has taken many more years than anticipated. But you just pay attention to your child, and you give them what they need. And you don't give the child back to the perpetrator. 
 
Marissa: I think you make a really good point there. I think a lot of people a lot of parents of children, especially after this or you know, parenting after abuse is really difficult. But I think a lot of parents don't really know what to do in that situation. You know, Oh, well, it’s still their father or their mother, whoever the abusive parent is What do I do in that situation? Do you have any insight for them? 
 
Orsika: Well, you know, take We will action and oftentimes, the court system will say, Well, this is still the person's parent and you have to by law, hand the child over. I would say, before you leave, take necessary steps, let your local police department or Sheriff's Department know why you're leaving, so that you have that base covered. Write a statement, as soon as you get it so that you have that base covered. What I did with my son is I recorded, manually recorded not on the phone, that phone conversations, which thankfully, I never had to use in court. But I recorded the phone conversations, I took pictures of the abuse, because every time he was handed back to me, there were new bruises that were unexplained. And having been a former preschool teacher, we know, you have to know the list of signs of abuse. And let's say there's 20 things on the list and my son exhibited 17 of those. So, I'm taking pictures, right? And I'm documenting everything. So, when you're a parent, document, document, document, document, that's the best thing. And then you can go with substantial evidence and say, these are all the things that have happened, it's really important to document. And if you are feeling unsafe, then get a protective order. And believe your child, like my child was three and four years old. So, he was finishing up his third year. And then it happened in his fourth year as well. And I mean, four-year-old don't come up with stuff that was you know, he was saying to me. So believe your child, that doesn't mean jump to conclusions. Like when he told me what was going on. I am very logically, because that's the way my brain works, I was able to take a step back before I saw red took that deep breath. And I was like, let's think through this logically. So, I felt like a four-year-old. And I said, Okay, did this happen when this happened? He's like, no, this happened when this happened? And he's like, no. And so, I was able to process through it. And then he just blurted out exactly what happened; exactly where. And I was like, Okay, so then we went and took a, what is it the SAME test, sexual assault medical exam. And he talked to one of the counselors, and I had to take him to counseling because of the anger that he was exhibiting, and other behaviors. So, he was in counseling at four years old. And he spoke to the counselor of the incidents, and he was in counseling again, and nine, because I paid attention to his behavior changes. And when you see those slight behavior changes, immediately seek help, because most of us aren't counselors, and we don't have the proper tools to help our children properly. So, if you're working on fixing things at home, because of the shame and blame and guilt, you don't want other people to know, which I totally understand and totally respect at the end of the day. It's not about you, at that point. It's about healing that child, to the utmost degree, right? You can heal yourself. But other people, you'll need tools to heal the child. And I mean, honestly, I had to go to counseling, too. So why would I have taken that away from my son? Right? That's just selfish. 
 
Marissa: And I think to that point, children, especially children that are that young, don't have the vocabulary to express what they've dealt with, or what they're going through. And so, I think at that point, it's really important for them to have an ally, who can kind of guide them towards expressing those feelings without judgment. I think counseling can be very, very helpful when it comes to healing from abuse. I know that I say otherwise, by offering other options. But I don't think that therapy is bad. I don't you know; I think that it's a great tool for people that it works for. 
 
Orsika: Yeah, I think so. And, you know, I think therapy and coaching are similar, right? But it's more challenging to coach a child. That's so young, one. And two, you need the therapists to help you in the court system. So as a coach myself, if somebody came to me, with a four-year-old, I have no leg to stand on in court. Whereas the therapist does. And there are therapists who are available pro bono. Because for a while, I was like, how am I going to pay for this, and then I found my resources, and I use my resources, and there's plenty out there. So, it takes a little effort. But it's doable. 
 
Marissa: Yeah. Also looking. If this is a problem for anyone listening that, you know, they can't afford therapy. You can look into Sliding Scale therapy, or therapists that do sliding scale, and they'll work with you on pricing something that you can afford that isn't outrageous. 
 
Orsika: Yeah, that's a great point. Thank you, Marissa. 
 
Marissa: Of Course. So, tell me what it was like being a single mom after domestic violence. 
 
Orsika: It sucked. We're done. And have a good night, everybody. Yeah, I mean, that pretty much summarized it. We lived in my brother's basement for seven months with his family. I mean, it wasn't like a Harry Potter in the bottom of the closet kind of like we had, like it was good. We still lived in his basement. And I'm eternally grateful for that. It was a lot; it was a lot because I wanted to heal my children first. I didn't realize them because I hadn't really delved into personal development. I didn't realize them that you serve from your overflow. So, I should have hindsight 2020. Right, I should have healed myself first in order to heal them better. But I kept giving to them from my empty saucer. So, I was giving them like rice cakes, right? It's like empty calories, just going into my mouth and that's kind of how I was parenting. So, I wish I would have invested in myself and taken some sort of support, coaching, personal development, something. It was really, really hard. And I think I went through a lot more than necessary. Had I had somebody to hold my hand and say, you're going to make it through. I felt very alone. Lots of shame, lots of lane, lots of guilt. Lots and lots of loneliness hours on end of tears, didn't sleep more than five hours. I mean, it just sucked. It just sucked. 
 
Marissa: So, this feels like a really good segue to talk about your courses. So, you have gone through as a single mom, after domestic violence, you've had to heal yourself. You've had to parent after abuse, you've had to heal your whole family. 
 
Orsika: Yes. 
 
Marissa: So now you, this strong, amazing, brilliant woman who I love so much. You're a coach. And you've created courses to help other adults who have experienced domestic violence, abuse narcissism, overcome that and help heal themselves and heal the whole family. Tell me about that. 
 
Orsika: So, my main course is six weeks out of the quicksand. And that gets you out of the quicksand of the I mean, the quicksand that you've been living in. That, that survival mode, and then post that there's other courses as well, you can find them on my website outofthequicksand.com. But my main one is the six weeks out of the quicksand. And that's just six weeks of coaching you did to not be in that muck and grossness because you're not going to be able to soar and fly and be the person that you've been created to be if you're still stuck in the quicksand. And if you're up to here in the quicksand and not breathing, or let's say up to here and barely breathing, then how is that going to serve anybody? How are you going to be able to heal your whole family if you're not willing to heal yourself? 
 
Marissa: Do you have any like little tidbits of information, you can sneak to us? 
 
Orsika: Sneaking tidbits of information, there is something that really, really helped me and this is in the course as well. But there's something that really helped me a lot. It's called the mirror exercise. And if you're not familiar with it, it's really powerful. It's, it was the first leap that I took to honestly and truly love myself. So basically, you go to the mirror every night, and you say, hey, whatever your name is. So, for me, “Hey, Orsika, I'm really proud of you for …"and you name three things that you're really proud of you yourself for doing that day. And then you say, I love you, and you Peace out. Right. And we learned this from our mentor, Jack Canfield. And I was like, this is the dumbest thing ever. So, here's the caveat, you were to do this for 30 days straight. If you're going to do 27, he was 28. You get to start all over. And there's whole psychology about that. But we do the we do the mirror exercise. And I hated it. I hated it. Day one. I was like, “I love you for brushing your teeth getting dressed and breathing? Okay, Love you. Bye.” That was it. But the point of that is to make eye contact with yourself so that you see yourself as a real valid human. So, you see yourself, not just this, this thrown away, stupid person who fell for this narcissist, because I've been there. So, I fully understand and I fully feel what you're feeling. But to really value yourself as a human being. And it was really, really hard for me for the first five to seven days. And then well, five and six days. And then day like seven ish. I was like, hey, Orsika. You know what you did today? Yeah, you brushed your teeth. See the difference? Because the first time I was like, “You brush your teeth. I love you bye.” And by day seven, I was like, “You brushed your teeth. You walked the dog and took a shower. I love you did good kid. See you later bye.”. And so, as the time progressed by like day 21, I was able to come up with maybe it was 14. But whenever However, many days later, I was able to come up with more than three things that I loved about myself. And I was able to really have that heart to heart with myself. And I was really able to find the value in who I was. And we were actually traveling when I was doing this exercise. And I so didn't want to miss a day that I literally want to talk to myself in the phone because I didn't want to get up in the bathroom because we were traveling with somebody, I barely knew is my daughter's ex-boyfriend. And anyway, I was like sitting there looking at myself in my phone for 30 days. So, the mirror exercises. It's a big one. 
 
Marissa: Thank you so much for sharing that. I love that exercise.
 
Orsika: Though, did you in the beginning? 
 
Marissa: No. In the beginning, I did the same thing. I was like, I love you. Congratulations for 
 
Orsika: You bought groceries today. Oh, yeah. 
 
Marissa: You woke up. 
 
Orsika: You know, and the important thing is to talk to yourself, and to really be proud of waking up brushing your teeth, and showering, because there are people who go through depression that, showering is a challenge. So, I understand that it sounds really minor, but it's really pretty major. Because then once you learn how to love yourself, then you could do your little gratitude jar. Is that what we call it? Marissa? 
 
Marissa: Accomplishment Jar. I mean, I can speak on that. As far as the depression goes, when I was like, really, in my feelings with depression, I would go a week without showering. I mean, it's just, it's gross to like, think about now. But it was so hard to roll out of bed, let alone do something that would make me feel better. So being able to do these exercises, and Orsika is full of brilliant exercises and activities and things that you know, will help you. 
 
Orsika: I think one of the benefits of being a parent, possibly kind of crass, but bear with me for a second. I didn't have the luxury of being depressed. I had to get up and take my kids to school, I had to cook for them. I understand that there are parents who don't do that, because they're so depressed, that they just really physically cannot get out of bed. And I'm not minimizing that at all right? Like, I think it's very important to feel the feels. But I also am very thankful for my children for not allowing me to go there. Because I could have very, very easily gone there. And the trajectory of my life would be totally different. 
 
Marissa: So, let's talk about you put out a book last year congratulations. In August. Tell us a little bit about your book, and where they can find it. 
 
Orsika: If you just type into Amazon 52 finding gifts while sinking quicksand. It's a book about 52 different events in my life. Some of them are great childhood memories, and how I dealt with rejection as a child. Some of them are not so great. Abuse stories and healing from the abuse. So, I thought it was an easy read. But my editors like there's nothing easy about this. I'm like, I mean, apparently, it's a heavy read, but I think it's an easy read. So just read it. It's pretty quick read, don't you think Marissa? 
 
Marissa: I do I love it. I think it's an it's not an easy read. It's an emotional read. Yeah, definitely going to have to like put it down, take a break, pick it back up in a day, but it's so worth it. And I learned so much about you and about myself from reading it.  
 
Orsika: And the whole point of it, like the reason I broke it up into 52 stories, well, one per week, right? Because we have 52 weeks in a year, but so that you can pick it up, read a story, put it down. So, if you do one story a week, that's you got your year covered. So, you can see I've read something this week for those of you who are not readers, and they're not long stories, they're like what a page and a half 
 
Marissa: About that. And they're they really are easy reads, but I took something away from every single story. You know, you're welcome. I mean, it's a testament to your writing, you know, and your, the way you express yourself, it's really personal. It just like it hits you and you start to see similarities between you. And like our stories like our stories and how they overlap and how we're all going through something very similar. Everyone who's experienced domestic violence and everyone who's experienced abuse and narcissism. Like we're all related in that way. Right? We have a common foundation. So, where and how can people get in touch with you, when they inevitably want to join your courses and they want you to coach them and work with them and their families. 
 
Orsika: So outofthequicksand.com and you can get a hold of me there I'm under contact us. You can send me an email Orsika@outofthequicksand.com. Yeah, that's the easiest way email would be easiest way for sure. 
 
Marissa: Awesome. Thank you so much for being a human and for helping this community. And God I just I love you and I love your heart and I love your work. And I'm just so inspired by you all the time. So, thank you. 
 
Orsika: I feel totally the same. Thanks Marissa. 
 
 
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: April 24 Tik Tok Trend: How To Stay Safe

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the worlds have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa: Hi, I'm just waiting for my partner in crime Orsika to jump on here, so that we can start talking about some very important topics today. One second to try and find her. So, one of the things that Hello, 
 
Orsika: Hello, 
 
Marissa: How are you today? 
 
Orsika: I am great. How are you today? 
 
Marissa: I'm good that today. I think our topic is did you lose me, I think. 
 
Orsika: Nope, I have you now. 
 
Marissa: Okay, cool. Awesome. So, do you want to introduce yourself, and then we'll talk about the topics we're going to talk about today. 
 
Orsika: I think that's a great idea. So my name is Orsika Julia. And I am the owner of out of the quicksand, which is specifically designed, it's my business specifically designed for parents who have overcome domestic violence and want to just live a better life for life of healing and forgiveness. And, you know, just get out of your quicksand because living in survival mode, let's be honest, sucks. As a parent, fresh out of, you know, when you're fresh out of domestic violence as a parent, you kind of tend to forget about yourself care, because you're wanting to care for your family. So I come and guide you on how to really heal your family through healing yourself. So that's what I do. 
 
Marissa: Awesome. And I'm Marissa, I'm a healing coach and a bestselling author. I work with survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault as well, to help them on their healing path using my three point philosophy called the healing from emotional abuse philosophy. And so welcome. And today, oh, Orsika, and I want to talk about this, this TikTok trend, the National rape day trend that's being talked about a lot. And so do you want to start, or should you 
 
Orsika: You get to start with your sister? And I'll just take it right after you? Yeah, it's so because I don't TikTok. 
 
Marissa: So I actually barely TikTok and people kept sending it to me, which is the only way I found out about it. 
 
Orsika: Awesome. I'm glad they did. 
 
Marissa: I know me too. So if you're not familiar, the TikTok trend was it says created by six men that were saying that April 24 is National rape day and then that sexual assault and rape is legal on April 24, and encouraging people specifically encouraging men to rape as many women as they can this coming Saturday on April 24. Now, that caused a frenzy backfire from survivors and women all over the world, making videos warning their friends, warning people around them what's happening and to be aware of Saturday Night, because this group of people was basically giving advice on how to successfully sexually assault as many women as possible. According to the USA Today, they haven't actually found any evidence at that original video exists. And I don't know, but I do know that the frenzy it's caused has created a lot of fear in the survivor community and truly in the in the community of women online. So which do you have any, any insight or any quick thoughts about that? 
 
Orsika: Yeah, thoughts? I think that's totally disgusting. Like, what is our world coming to Right? Like? Why? Let me back up for the men to have these thoughts that this is okay. Really, really hurts me for their soul and for their life? Like, what? upstanding gentlemen which obviously, they aren't. Yeah, but what human Okay, like, let's not even give them all those condolences and caveats, but what human who is of sound, mind and spirit? think that this is okay. So they're very, very broken. And we have to understand that like, people who hurt people come from a very broken place. I'm not saying it's okay by any means. Because I was raped by my husband, ex now but by the husband. And it's nowhere near okay, but to understand that these people are very, very hurt, you know, and they're just going to continue hurting. And the more fire or more coals that we put on the fire, the more hurt people are going to hurt people and that's just not okay. That's just not okay. 
 
Marissa: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I definitely am fundamentally against people banding together to rape a collection of people, I think that's just a disgusting thought. And it's horrible. You're a better person than I am. Because for me, I don't even care about their condolences. I'm just like, are there anything I state? Right? I don't care about their mental state, like if you have the wherewithal to plot together to, to, to hurt as many people as possible, like, my hope is that they're trying to find actively trying to find the people that started this and all of the people that continue to, to enforce this idea, and throw them all in jail. I mean, I would love to see them all behind bars for at least a week. And the reason that I stopped at a week is because less than 2% of convicted rapists actually spent one day in jail, less than 2%. And so having people that are potentially attempted rapists who are perpetuating this awful rumor or, you know, event should all be 
 
Orsika: Hate crime, really hate crime? 
 
Marissa: Absolutely. They should all be locked up. 
 
Orsika: I guess my question for them is do you have a mother? We all do? And how would you feel if somebody raped your mother? As she was taking her dog for a walk? How would you feel if this was your little sister? Like? Just that? Okay. It's just an I understand, I truly do that hurt people hurt people, right? Like I said, but how would you feel? How would you feel? If it was your mother? How would you feel if it was your baby sister? Or heck better yet? Dare I say? How would you feel if it was your daughter? How would you feel if somebody came up to your daughter who was going on a walk? Just casual walk, and she got gang raped? 
 
Marissa: I mean, the thought of that gave me chills, and I don't even want to explore that thought, you know, having gone through it myself, and you haven't gone through it yourself. You know, I understand the toll that it takes on the victim on the survivor. And the very thought of that, like makes me itch. 
 
Orsika: Yeah, especially when you think of like, the 12 year old daughter, the 13 year old daughter. So if you happen to be watching our happy little video, and you think that this is okay, you have a relative who is a female? Is it okay? Think about it. Like it's stupid. And it's asinine. 
 
Marissa: I agree. It's never okay. It's never ever. And as, as for any survivor listening, if this did happen to you know that it wasn't your fault, and there was nothing that you could have done in that moment that you didn't do to protect yourself. So let's, I could talk about how much I hate assault. But let's move to ways for survivors are ways for people to keep themselves safe, in case, April 24, is what they're saying it's going to be a case it is basically people breaking out and assaulting as many people as possible, what are some ways that people can keep themselves safe in any scenario? 
 
Orsika: Well, for one living in fear is not an option, right? That's not going to keep you safe. That's just going to keep you close to it. And that's not okay, either. So, I mean, definitely don't just hide in a corner unless, unless you're raped, like, let's say, you've been through it, and it's been recent, then please stay inside and hide in a corner. Like that's okay. Like, it's totally okay. But more importantly, just be aware of your surroundings and go with people. So go out by yourself, ladies, like, just use common sense, don't you think Marissa like, don't go out by yourself. If you can avoid staying in the dark, you know, evil lurks in the dark corners, right? And just stay in, if you if you must be out at night, you know, let's say you want to go clubbing or you're at a friend's birthday party or whatever, then just be smart and go in groups. And that means travel in the car and groups. You know, they're unfortunately, you know, the evil that is out there is smart, right? And you think, Oh, I went to my car and a group and we all Park together but you don't. And I'm not saying this to put fear in you, but you don't know what's in the car. So travel in packs, 
 
Marissa: Traveling packs with people you trust a minute? Yeah. Because Yeah, 85 I'm sorry. 90% of sexual assaults take place by somebody who's an acquaintance of the survivor. And I think 85% of those are somebody that's in an intimate relationship. And so not only traveling paths, which is so important, and be very aware of your surroundings, but only go out with people that you trust, trust. You know, just keep yourself safe. You know, if you put a drink down, don't pick it back up. There are over 55 different drugs and things people can put in drinks, that will knock you out for at least eight hours, including but not limited to vising. If you squirt a couple drops of vising, the eye drops into somebody's drink, they're going to be in the bathroom all night. If you empty a whole bottle, which is like what that big, right that right, take two seconds to empty, that thing knocks you out for eight straight hours. So put it 
 
Orsika: And this doesn't let me piggyback off of that, too. This isn't just men raping women. Right? Like, you can't have a woman raping a woman. And you can't have a man raping a man. So this isn't just going out and rape all the women, you know, this is like, just be cognizant traveling packs that you trust and be aware of your surroundings. Always, not just Saturday, like always. 
 
Marissa: Absolutely. Another trend that I saw, I think a couple years ago, was people drugging men, so that they could take the you know, their, their partner, the female they were with away with no fight. So even if you're a man, you know, put your drink down, do not pick it back up. If it's really that much of an issue, because the drink was expensive. Then text. Hold on Twitter, text me and I'll Venmo you like, I'll buy another drink? Because I'd rather you be safe than and be out $12 then, you know, then have this happen more to people who don't deserve it? You know? Right? Right. Right, anybody deserves it. 
 
Orsika: Just putting that out there. 
 
Marissa: Nobody deserves to get paid just for choice in words. What other ways? Can people keep themselves safe? Aside from traveling in packs? And you know, not picking their drinks, surrounding themselves by just trying to get in? 
 
Orsika: I mean, don't say again, don't stay in from fear, but stay in, you know, 
 
Marissa: Make a choice to stay in a choice? 
 
Orsika: Absolutely, like have your gathering and somebody's apartment or house or, you know, keep it safe. I mean, that's, it's more fun that way anyway, because you don't have to deal with the idiots in the world. 
 
Marissa: Right? Or if you are going out or doing something during the day or at night, what about sharing your location with somebody or sharing your somebody, you know, just in case, I always have my location shared with three people. It's always my mom, and then two people who are either in the vicinity or who I have spoken to and told them where I'm going that way. If something were to God forbid, happen, knock on wood. People know where I am. 
 
Orsika: Yeah, and that's something so this is the generational difference, right? Like versus just a tinge younger than I am just a little bit. She's my, she's my younger sister, but from another mister. But like, I don't even think about that. Right. And your generation and younger definitely thinks about that. And I think it's great. So I have my, my son, he's, you know, I can find him wherever he goes, right? Because I have that turned on for him. But I don't really go anywhere that people don't know where I am. But I think that's an amazing recommendation, like, have your location device on. Right. That way. If you are in trouble, then the authority can find you faster as well. 
 
Marissa: Absolutely. There's an interesting story that I Well, a person who came to the safe house I was working out a couple years ago, the only reason she knew where she was when she woke up after a night of being drugged and sexually assaulted was because she called an Uber to her location, and then was able to look back at the location that she called Uber from, and that's how they found the perpetrator. And if she didn't have her location on that wouldn't have been an option. Right? 
 
Orsika: And I love that that is an option. And I understand why people don't want to have their location and all the time. Like I get that you want your private life to be private, but it could save your life. So be smart. Get over your pride and turn location on. 
 
Marissa: Absolutely. Can you think of anything else? Because I'm kind of I got my second vaccine today. I have my microchip in. I'm just kidding. But yeah, no, so I'm like, slightly groggy. But do you have any other ideas or tips and tricks that people could use? 
 
Orsika: Techniques I mean, really common sense. Take a pocket knife are allowed to take pocket knives into places you know, just a little bit each pocket knife. They're what 15 bucks or so. 
 
Marissa: Something like that. I think as long as it's smaller than your palm at least scans Illinois and New Jersey. You can legally have it with you. 
 
Orsika: Well, Michigan laws are totally different 
 
Marissa: In New Jersey or Illinois, but Pepper Spray pepper spray. Sure. I mean, you got 711 for like, Yeah, absolutely. 
 
Orsika: And this, we're not saying this folk to put fear into your brain or into your soul or anything like that we're saying this just so you use your common sense. And sometimes we forget things like, I wouldn't have remembered to turn off turn on my location, because again, I really don't go out, I definitely don't go clubbing. And when I do go out, it's, you know, to visit Marissa. So, in her nice, comfortable place. I mean, I have a firm to take care of, I don't really have the luxury of I don't give myself the luxury of going out and quote unquote, right. So, again, we're not saying this to diminish your intelligence, we're saying this to keep you protected, and maybe give your ideas that are not in the foreground of your of your mind, right. And if you have any other suggestions or thoughts of ways people can keep each other safe and themselves safe. definitely leave it in the comments we would love to hear. Because I'm sure that we didn't cover everything right. Marissa 
 
Marissa: Yeah, definitely. 
 
Orsika: Yeah. And I'm sure people will come up with amazing things, right, a skateboard and beat the crap out of somebody with a skateboard or longboard, I guess it's like, look around, be aware of your surroundings, and see what you can use to protect yourself if the need is there. I mean, if you're drinking a drink, and you need to whack somebody upside the head with the beer bottle, then by all means it's better than getting raped or sexually assaulted. 
 
Marissa: Absolutely. And be friendly with your server or bartender. And I don't mean like, tip them generously. You know, I mean, like, you know, let them know that you're, you're nervous, or if you need help, like they are trained generally, to take care of situations like that, or have protocols in place to take care of something like that. Sure. You can easily get you out, they can get you separated from somebody who you're afraid of. If you're starting to not feel, well get to a safe place with a safe person. Now it's all coming, you know, 
 
Orsika: Ask for help. It's okay to ask for help. 
 
Marissa: People are generally like, Oh, my gosh, programmed to want to help you, right? We all want to help each other in a way. Except people who are scumbag rapists, you know, I mean, they don't want to help you. 
 
Orsika: They want to help themselves. 
 
Marissa: Exactly. And it's not about sexual urge, either. It's about power and control. So, like Orsika said, being aware of your surroundings, knowing who's around you knowing escape routes, you know, having things in place like a longboard or pepper spray or mace, mace, whatever, whatever, knife, whatever makes you feel safe. I used to keep a foghorn in my purse, and a rape whistle. I'm not kidding. I had a friend who bought them for me because I had to cross the street to get home, like cross the highway to get home from work. And so I used to keep that in my bag. And I only ever had to pull the foghorn out once thank goodness
 
Orsika: Thank goodness it was there. Because if not, then, you know, who knows? 
 
Marissa: Exactly. So, like Orsika said, if you have any other suggestions, or thoughts or questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comment box. We will be, you know, around all week, monitoring the video and monitoring the advice you guys give and just keep each other safe. You know? 
 
Orsika: Yeah. And if you have any, go ahead, I'm sorry Marissa 
 
Marissa: As you say, it really sucks that this is even like a topic of conversation we have to have, 
 
Orsika: It really does. And I was going to say if you all have any need for just the support, you know, if you've been through sexual assault, or rape or domestic violence that Marissa and I, that's what we do. That's our specialty. That's our gift and our passion. So, you know, aside from this video, if you are a domestic violence survivor or survivor of sexual assaulters, you know, survivor of rape, then please reach out to us whichever one you know, either one of us will be more than happy to just hold your hand and love on you. 
 
Marissa: Absolutely. And I have an idea that I have not run by Orsika yet but 
 
Orsika: It's a perfect idea. I'd love it.
 
Marissa: Okay, so I think what we're going to do, I'm speaking for you on Saturday, it's going to be probably a very triggering day or an emotional day for a lot of people. So we will have a zoom, maybe going all day, you know, we'll have a Zoom Room available. And if anybody feels nervous or scared or triggered or wants to talk or just you know, needs a pep talk, want some advice for coping skills. Message one of us and we'll send you the link to the zoom video. That will be all day on Saturday. We're here for you. And we're happy to help. 
 
Orsika: I'll take the morning shift, shift. Marissa has the right one because you know I'm old. No kidding. 
 
Marissa: Perfect. I'll do the midnight shift. Perfect. Yeah. Do you have anything going on that you want to talk about anything to promote your new programs.
 
Orsika: I do, but I'm not going to do that right now just to not take away from I don't want my gosh, these words right who got the shot? We can talk about those next week. I just personally, I just feel like this is the time to really focus on what potentially has been put out there for Saturday. I just think it's so important that I don't want to diminish that I want to be able to give my full support to that and we'll talk about what I have to offer next week. 
 
Marissa: Sounds good and then I'll do the same. 
 
Orsika: Well, thanks, friend. 
 
Marissa: Thank you Have a great rest of your night and if anybody needs anything message one of us okay, 
 
Orsika: Absolutely. Have a good night. All fine.
 
 
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: Military Sexual Trauma Movement: with Shonta Block and Jen Norris

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the worlds have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa: Welcome back to Healing From Emotional Abuse. Today, I have two really awesome guests I'm really excited to chat with. The first one is Shanta Block. She's the sister of Kamisha Block, who was murdered in Iraq by someone in her chain of command, the military label the death as a friendly fire and then attempt to cover it up. And we're going to talk a lot more about that in a minute. And we also have on Jennifer Norris, who is a veteran and an active military advocate fighting for the rights of people who are unlawfully treated by the military. And I'm so excited to delve more into that because they explain this way better than I do. So welcome on, guys. 
 
Jen: Thank you for having me. 
 
Shonta: Thank you for having me. 
 
Marissa: Of course. So, the first thing I really want to talk about is you to have different but similar stories. So Shonta, you did not serve, correct? You just your sister Kamisha did. 
 
Shonta: Right. 
 
Marissa: So how did you two find each other? 
 
Shonta: Well, Jen, would you like to answer that one? 
 
Jen: Sure. This is kind of how it played out my life. One of my first research projects was to learn more about the non-combat deaths of our soldiers overseas. So, by non combat deaths, I mean, that's the label that the military gives it in an effort to hide what's considered non-combat, meaning suicide, homicide, or some other unknown cause of death. So, I wanted to bring light to all the non combat deaths overseas and find out what the common denominator was. And in my research, I learned about Kamisha. And learned, because of the family's efforts, that it was labelled "friendly fire,” when in fact, it was a homicide by someone in her chain of command. And so, as I moved forward in life, and in my advocacy, I was fighting for Kamisha and the rest of the soldiers that had died overseas in suspicious circumstances. And one day, I was sitting here watching, Investigation Discovery and Kamisha’s story was on a show called Forbidden: Dying For Love. Finally, we got an opportunity to see what really happened over there because the family, their advocacy efforts had reached a bigger audience, including myself. So, it reignited my fire to talk about those cases and deal with it now that we knew the truth about Kamisha. And somewhere along the line, Shonta just found me, and it was like a dream come true, actually, that I'd be working with her on behalf of her sister. Because before I even knew Shonta, I was fighting for Commission's rights and what had happened to her and everything else, and trying to find ways that we could have prevented what happened to her. So, it was an honor that her sister reached out to me, and that we're now in a partnership to stand up for those that have lost their lives. Especially since 9-11. 
 
Marissa: Wow, well, first of all, thank you for doing everything that you're doing. That's incredible. And so important. I mean, you're giving a voice to the literal voiceless, in a situation where they already are out of control. So, thank you so much for doing that. And I think it's so special that you guys have created a partnership out of something so horrible. So Shonta do you want to tell us a little bit about what happened to your family? 
 
Shonta: Yes. So, in the beginning, before my sister was murdered, I had gotten a phone call from her. And she just kept saying, “He won't leave me alone. He won't leave me alone.” And I said, “Is there anybody that you can talk to?” She said, “There's nobody. There's nobody, I can talk to you here." And I said, “Maybe there's a church there?” And she said, “No, I'm in Iraq, Shonta. There’s no church to go to.” And I was like, “Well, I mean, do I need to call the Red Cross?” You know, I didn't know how serious it was. You know, she was like, no, no. I said, Well, you know, you're coming home next month on leave, you'll be alright. You know, you'll be home next month. You know, in the very next week, it was the day before my birthday stateside, but over there it was my birthday. So, she contacts me and I talked to her on webcam for a few minutes and she tells me happy birthday and I'm like, it's not till tomorrow, and she’s, Like over here it is the 17th. And I'm like, okay, you know, and I said, you want to see your nephew. And she was like, Yeah, because she hadn't seen yet. I was pregnant when she left.  And she was he was a month and a half old, and I put him in my lab and she was crying. And I told her that I had to pack the diaper bag, because we were going to celebrate my birthday that night with my friends, and go to dinner. And so I was packing in the diaper bag. Well, I seen my sister's killer in the webcam. I seen his face, like, go right into the webcam. And I didn't pay no mind to it, though. You know, I was packing the diaper bag. And I told her I loved her and went on to mom's and dropped Hayden off, my son, and started going down the road. And there was like a really nice car going really slow. And I was like, why are these people going so slow down my parent’s road. They live on a dead end, you know? And I look and it was to service members in the vehicle. And I was like, Oh my God. And I kind of knew, you know, I was like, thinking in my mind, I was like, man, they don't come to your house tell you they're hurt. They're going to call you, you know? I'm freaking out and turn the truck around. And I get to the end of the street and I didn't even kill the vehicle And I got out. And they were facing me. And I seen that bottle behind that Chaplain’s back, and I just lost it. I mean, I just lost it. I told him just don't even tell me. Just don't even say it. And I saw my mom, mom and my dad come out on the front porch, and my mom just went to scream and she was just screaming at the top of her lungs. And, and my dad, I watched him cry for the first time. They said that my sister was shot by friendly fire, one shot to the chest. And it took five days to get her body home and they said her body was flown to Washington DC to be dressed. And then when it got here, it was sent to the funeral home first and I let my mom and my dad go in their first month. Like Come on. I said, “Why don't why don't you and Dad go in there first. You and Pop go in there first. And I'll wait right here by the door, I won't go nowhere. In just a couple minutes come get me. Just go in there first.” And so, I waited by the door. Mom come just a few minutes. And she said, “Shonta. You ready?” And I said yes, ma'am. So, I walked up, walk in there and mom and dad stepped to the back of the room. And she said go ahead and go up there Shonta.  So, I walked out there, and I looked down and my sisters got a bullet hole in her head with a putty patch on it. Just looked like putty stuck in it. And it wasn't her hair on her head. It was a bun glued on the back of her head. My sister's hair was to her chin. And I turned around I said mom, she's been shot in the head. I said this is not even her hair on her hand. And she said Shonta, I know. She said nobody comes in this room. She said, we got to get home and we got to get on the phone. And we need some answers. And what do you do when you're just a civilian? You're up against the government? What do you do? So, mom got hime and she calls the casualty assistance officer, and she says I want to know what happened to my daughter, and I want to know who killed her. I want to name. So a little while later they call back and they give a fake name. I said his name was Carl Brandon. And I got to think and I was like well, I don't think Brandon's a last name. Pretty sure that's a first name. This is not a last name. Something just don't sound right. And she said no. So, she calls back. She says I'd like to get a full name, please and then they call and they said Brandon Paul Norris. Like, Oh, my God. 
 
Marissa: You okay? 
 
Shonta: Yeah. So, you know, time goes on. And we finally get a report. You know, we had to go to the congressman's office. And actually, he told the military, they had six months to get a report on his desk in the very last day of the six months is when the report showed up, and half of it was missing. Actually, even more than half after years went by, we found out that we really only have about a quarter of it. 440 pages out of about 2200. Well, we didn't know in there, even the congressman question that you know, and you just never get nowhere because there's really not any laws set up. It's like they have immunity. They can murder your own and get away with it. And I believe I know that. 
 
Marissa: I would say I know for sure that they know that. And they take advantage of that. As we've heard on other episodes of Breaking Through Our Silence, and as we've heard from stories from hundreds of other families like Vanessa Guillen’s Family. And it's not okay. 
 
Shonta: Right. So, time went on mom fought and fought. Congress and Brady actually pulled the officers in his office, and let us question them. They would not talk about anything. Pretty much like what they were supposed to be doing, you know, like maybe what their job was. I mean, just talking around everything. They never really answered any question. And we knew that soldiers over there were placed on Gag orders, that they weren't allowed to talk to my family. There was really nothing that you could do at the time and about, I don't know, years went on and Investigation Discovery Channel did that documentary that Miss Norris mentioned earlier. And soldiers seen it and started coming forward. A lot of times, because of fear of retaliation, they don't speak about it. But it's 10 years later at this point. They're out, their stateside. They don't have that hand over them, you know. So, then they all started speaking up and said, Miss Block, this is what happened. This is what happened. I was able to get the case reopened, and it ended up being the first homicide case in the Army to ever be reopen by the Pentagon — by the DODIG — Department of Defense Investigating General. Later on, Miss Norris had found out, by the records, this is the first one. And people kept saying that, I really didn't realize what they were saying. And now I understand. What if there was never a homicide case ever reopened stateside ever? Or there was only one. This is the situation that we have going on in the military. This is what we're dealing with. It's reality. 
 
Marissa: I want to go back and focus on the significance of the person who killed her. And if you don't mind talking about it. So, you said that you saw her killer in the camera, in the webcam when you spoke to her earlier that day. So, do you know anything about him or who he was? 
 
Shonta: Yeah. I mean, she had met him in Fort Hood, in a restaurant bar thing. His friend said that he walked over to her. And later, about, I know he started abusing her at Fort Hood. I don't know that it was reported to the PSG, the platoon sergeant. He was actually friends with the killer, because he was an officer there. And so, they let him slide on everything. Well, my sister gets sent to Iraq in a few months, you know, only maybe three months of being at Fort Hood. Well, Brandon Norris is still at Fort Hood. And he's got some training to do. And my sister goes to Iraq. Well, all of a sudden Brandon shows up in Iraq. So, who placed him in Iraq, then placed him as her squad leader? Who pulled the string? Who gave him full access to her, I want to know? In another country, where you know where to turn to. No FBI, no state police, no, nothing? 
 
Marissa: That's disgusting.
 
Shonta: Nowhere to turn to. But the ones that are actually letting it happen and doing it. 
 
Marissa: And allowing after reports are being made of abuse, and stalking. Allowing him access. 
 
Shonta: So, they get in Iraq, then it goes to abusing her again. Well, a couple of soldiers go in and report it. The PST does nothing. So, then they go to the first sergeant. And they tell him and the captain sitting in there. And that soldier ends up getting moved that day, right then for telling. And this is a male, not a woman, because in the military. I mean, that kind of I mean, they look at males, and that's disgusting, too. They look at them as more than a woman, you know, a woman gets called a soul instead of a soldier, you know? And they're not, you know, they're not another body. These soldiers are men and women, gettin’ murdered by our own people. And the families are not getting answers, and they're not getting justice. 
 
Marissa: Since the case was reopened, have you guys received any additional assistance from the military or is this still an uphill battle? 
 
Shonta: No, they closed it. They closed it right when Vanessa died. That's when it got closed. 
 
Marissa: Interesting, 
 
Shonta: And they said no new findings and hurried up and closed it. And then the first sergeant that I'm after, that was recorded to he just took retirement in Fort Hood two days on the eighth before the independent investigation got there. And he Just had an IG case on him. The first ever homicide case for a cover up. That's what my papers from the Pentagon. 
 
Marissa: God, it's just bullshit on top of bullshit, essentially. 
 
Shonta: Right? 
 
Jen: Completely. 
 
Marissa: So, Jen, do you mind weighing in on this? Because this is what you do. 
 
Jen: Yeah. So okay, all of this was by accident. I want to start off with that. I was a victim of crime while I was in the military. And I witnessed the injustice and how they pretend that the military justice system is equal to the civilian justice system. In fact, it is not. It is set up to protect people in leadership. And that's basically the bottom line. So, I learned the hard way that although the people that I reported, and eventually pled out, in fact, what that meant was, they asked me to agree to the terms of which were, “If you agree to these terms, it all goes away.” And they don't even have to report that anything even happened to any higher authority. So, it can all be swept under the rug at the lowest level. And the Pentagon and Department of Defense, even if they did care, wouldn't even know about it. So that's what inspired me to actually get involved once I was forced out for post traumatic stress, was what an unfair system this is. You give my perpetrators full military retirement, yet you're kicking me out because I have post traumatic stress from what they did. What kind of system is this? So, the reason that I had empathy for Kamisha especially, is because I could have been Kamisha. I was in a situation where I worked as a satellite communications technician, and there were like five people on the team. If I had deployed overseas with my perpetrator, who was also in my chain of command, he was the supervisor. What would I have done? Where would I have turned. there is no 9-11 overseas. I lost my father right after 9-11. So, my new command or spared me from going overseas because he knew I wasn't doing well mental health wise because of the loss of my father. And that's what saved me from going into positions like that overseas, where there's no escape. But at the same time, Congress and everybody knows that women in combat ban have been lifted, more women are going to go overseas, yet they still haven't fixed the situation overseas as to where do you turn to if your chain of command fails you, Or they're the perpetrator themselves? Why do we have to choose death? Because their policies are messed up? 
 
Shonta: Yeah. 
 
Marissa: Absolutely. 
 
Jen: It's unbelievable to me that we have not had this conversation, yet they're bragging every day, about women making strides here, there and everywhere, knowing that we could all get sent overseas on a moment's notice and be a Kamisha Block. What happened to her can happen tomorrow, and it happened stateside to Vanessa Guillen to show the entire nation it can happen on a federal base too. We can't just quit our jobs. We can't just say Oh, I'm sorry. I don't want to work for my rapist anymore without a federal AWOL charge.
 
Shonta: And the deaths aren't getting labelled right, so we really don't even know how bad it is. I mean, look at Lavina Johnson. She was shot in the wrong side of the head. I mean, acid was poured in her mouth, you know. And they call it a suicide. They call it a suicide. 
 
Marissa: That's disgusting. 
 
Jen: So, there's no checks and balances for the military overseas. There's no one to turn to reopen an investigation. There's no one to question them about how things happen. And they're hiding behind the non-combat death label. There's a story behind each and every one of those non-combat deaths, whether it be from suicide, or homicide, it really doesn't matter at this point. Because if I’d gone overseas, with my rapist, I can see taking my life. I got to get away from him after the cases and I still wanted to take my life. So why wouldn't I want to take my life overseas, if the only alternative was him raping me every day, or beating me or whatever it is that he could do overseas, and there's no one around to stop it. It's no different than being trapped in a domestic violence relationship, you know, with a significant other. they're your family. you depend on them for your life. So, if you anyone's Wondering why the soldiers that post-traumatic stress so bad, if they do make it out alive, that's why. 
 
Marissa: And the worst part about it is that you are legally bound to stay. Or else you're dishonorably discharged and have the most difficult time having getting a job like doing little things, because of that dishonorable discharge, because you stuck up for yourself and did what you needed to do to survive. 
 
Jen: Right. And so, Congress has been giving us crumbs all along. We asked for what the Vanessa Guillen Act is asking for now, back in 2010-2011-2012 timeframe. And we asked for specifically, the Military Justice Improvement Act, which would basically start changing the military justice system to mirror the civilian justice system. So instead of it going to your boss who can hide the crime, or can choose not to do anything about it, because they're buddies with your perpetrator, or whatever it might be. They want to protect their career, there's all kinds of number of reasons that they're covering things up. They couldn't do that anymore, because then you'd report to a police department or, you know, some sort of investigative authority, who would then investigate the situation. And then present it to a prosecutor who then decides whether or not there's a case to move forward. We all we're asking for is that the military justice system, mirror the civilian justice system, and make the system so that the commander is held responsible too, because they could be the rapist. Why are they immune from being held responsible? Because really, what the military is telling the entire country is, we're going to investigate ourselves and commanders are judge, jury and executioner. And yeah, there's no checks and balances for that. If you don't like it too bad. Oh, you think that case should be reopened? There is no way to reopen it what we said goes. That’s not okay. 
 
Marissa: That's your right. That's not okay. So, what is it that we can do, as a country to change that? To make it fair, and to make it safe, because I don't have kids yet, but I know as a human that if my child wants to serve, I will most likely throw a tantrum until they don't, because of all these horrendous stories. And it's not because I'm anti-America, or anti-military, I think that we need protection. But I'm so scared for, for people for any service member, especially women, because we're vulnerable and put at a significant disadvantage. 
 
Jen: Yeah, I was the only female in my work center. And so, I was an automatic target. So, if I go overseas with this group, and one of them turns out to be the rapist, most likely I'm going to be the chosen victim. So, you're definitely put at a disadvantage in that way. So, what I want to see happen is, so Kamisha’s case woke me up to the fact that she wasn't a victim of sexual assault, she was a victim of more of an interpersonal violence. So, one of the things that we need in place is an expedited transfer. So that would be a way for the military member to escape their perpetrator, whether it be from sex assault, domestic violence, stalking, hazing, bullying, whatever it is. But unfortunately, right now, the expedited transfer policy only covers sex, assault, and rape. And I don't want to see the military member have to wait and get assaulted or raped before they can get away from their perpetrator. I'd like to see it expanded so that if they're dealing with escalating sexual harassment, or interpersonal violence, or whatever the situation might be, that they'd be given this expedited transfer to get them away from this person who's obsessed with them and won't leave them alone. Because once you're a victim of that, you figure out really quick, like, Wow, I've been targeted. And no matter what I say, or do I can't stop this. So, we literally need someone to help us escape these situations that otherwise we can't escape without getting federal charges. And where do you go in a place like Iraq? You know, even if you wanted to go AWOL? What are you going to do go run into one of the villages? Like there's nowhere to turn. You know what I mean? Like this is the reality of this situation out in the desert. All I know is why haven't we had this discussion and why haven't they fixed this? And that's going to be the number one thing is to get us to safety, because if you report, it now is a motive for homicide.
Shonta: Right. They get retaliated on. 
 
Jen: And Senator Kirsten Gillibrand recognized that with the Military Justice Improvement Act, why we needed to change the reporting system was, because two-thirds of the people that reported to the military got retaliated against including myself. I got retaliated against so badly, that I had to change squadrons to escape the abuse, because I made him lose his job. That's why they hated my guts. Not that he was a rapist. Not that he was an assaulter or harasser, even though some of them witnessed it. I made him lose his job. No, he didn't lose crap. He got through retire was full military benefits. But as if I'm going to have this conversation with the, you know, judgmental, cruel people. 
 
Shonta: Here we go. Seeing that again. In Kamisha’s cases, this first sergeant is now Sergeant Major and in charge of military police at Fort Hood. And he gets out on retirement two days from the independent investigation. He sneaks out on retirement, too. 
 
Jen: Yep, one of the main players, in Kamisha’s case, helping cover this whole thing up overseas, that Fort Hood had the audacity to retire him in the middle of everything. And he's been at that base since at least 2007 because that's when Kamisha was there. So, of all the people in the world, this guy has institutional knowledge of what's been happening at Fort Hood for years, and they retire him. 
 
Shonta: Right, because he's the military police. So, when there's a crime scene, they show up, the military police show up.
 
Jen: But what people don't realize is that everybody reports to the commander. So, it would be like in the civilian justice system, saying everybody's got to report to the judge. So, I would have to report to the judge, the police would have to report to the judge. You know, it, basically, that's what the military justice system’s Problem is. Is this one person controls everything, including how it's investigated, what said in an investigation report, whatever. Because the bottom line is, the military does not want you to know that people have been murdered overseas because they don't want to impact their recruiting efforts to get new, young, fresh faces in that have no idea what they're getting ready to step into. So, they can just keep making the same mistakes over and over at our expense. When in fact, all they'd have to do is have a decent justice system that actually cared about things. Include all the reports that are made, so that you'd have multiple people that could you could go to court with to get the one person who was the serial offender, and give them an expedited transfer to get them to safety and let them get some help. Yet, here we are. 
 
Marissa: I have a difficult time even considering these mistakes. Because I have like I said, I've never served, the closest I got was to was being a contractor for the Army Reserve. And even I know that the most vulnerable population are E1-E4. And if I know that being an outside third-party person, the military definitely knows that. And I would, I would even go as far as say they exploit that because they don't protect those people. And by knowing, having that knowledge, and making no effort to protect the enlisted soldiers who are fighting for this country, who are literally like the foundation of you know, our service, our Armed service, to not protect them is ridiculous, and to not put protections in place for those people that they know are vulnerable is intentional. 
 
Jen: That's how it feels. That I have moral injury from knowing everything that I know, especially after doing the research and then meeting the families who are left behind with the not never getting answers. Not having a justice system that they can get the case reopened. Getting treated like crap and having to deal with all kinds of red tape and bureaucracy. Because no one knows where to turn. No one knows that the commander is in charge of everything. Like they're coming at it from you know, I've never been in the military. I don't even know where to start. And not realizing that they have to actually contact a commander, not a police officer, not a detective, or whatever. And then that person can stop that, and then it goes nowhere. So yeah, I can't believe, today, in 2020, we’re having a conversation that we can't reopen, there isn't a streamlined process for reopening cases. Federal cases that occur on federal bases or overseas. 
 
Marissa: And even that there’s, in 2020, no accountability. Right? Like you guys said, it's 100% of the commander's discretion. 
 
Jen: Right. 
 
Shonta: Yep. And part if the problem, when the investigators show up on the crime scene is, they have anything to do with it. Like in my sister's case, you know, they were reported to, I don't know how many times. So they didn't do anything. So then when these investigators show up, they will they didn't probably ever even get informed of that. You know? Where does it go? Right? And a fair part of the problem. When the investigators show up on the crime scene, if they have anything to do with it, like in my sister's case, you know, they were reported to, I don't know how many times so they didn't do anything. So then when these investigators show up, they will they didn't probably ever even get informed of that, you know, where does it go? And then if you find something out later, you give it to these investigators, will they tell these commanding officers, and they give them a head start on what you know, because they're running the investigation. 
 
Jen: They can easily sabotage any investigation to protect themselves. And you know, let me make it clear too. That we're not saying every single commander is going to do this, and they're all covering everything up. I'm saying, the opportunity to be able to cover something up is there.  There’s no checks and balances to prevent that. And the reason that we're calling it out now is that there's been too many families that have stated, I don't believe my child died by suicide, in country, A, B, or C, 
 
Shonta: Right? My paperworks not lining up. You know? And these soldiers have come forward, and they're saying this.
 
Jen: Right. So, and I'm seeing the same stories over and over, because I'm doing the military-wide research. So, it's hard to find the information in the state, because not everything goes national. But where there is a lot of valuable data for us to learn to, from as a society is overseas with all the non combat deaths If we start looking into that, to find out how we can solve the problems in the military, whether it be suicide or crime, we have to look at why they've chosen to take their life if we can determine that. And by doing that, we reach out to the Gold Star families, the people that knew them the best to find out why they did it, so that we could find ways to prevent it. Because until we actually find out why, And we start going at the root of the problem like that, you know, we're just going to keep spinning. And that's what we're seeing too is every year sweeping legislation to prevent this or that, and then nothing happens. The numbers go up, the numbers of suicides are the highest they've been. At Fort Hood alone, they've lost more soldiers to homicide in the last five years than they have overseas. And Fort Hood is symbolic of the rest of the bases. They're just more secretive. So that's why I tapped into non-combat deaths overseas, because all the press releases are on the Department of Defense website, currently, until they delete that too, and take that information away from us. But for now, it's on there. And you can clearly look through and see whether they died in combat or non-combat death. And then from there, you can google the person's name, and find out whether or not the family thought form in the media or whatever, because that's really the only place they can turn to try and hold these guys accountable. And so that you're out there. Yeah, that's how I realized it was multiple families that had fought for justice but we didn't know nationwide because it was only local. And so, once you put start putting all those families together and seeing they're all saying the same thing, that's when you start noticing a pattern, and that's where you start realizing, Okay, wow, I didn't realize there's no place to turn to reopen a case. A federal case if it was on a base or overseas. Where’s the checks and balances here? 
 
Marissa: Right. On the civilian side, about 40% of female homicide victims previously made reports on their abusers of abusive behavior. And those ended up being the killers. So, I would be curious to know what that number is for military. Especially because making a report doesn't necessarily grant something written, you know, right. So, I would like to know How many female homicide victims made reports of stalking, harassment, abuse, rape, before they were then murdered? 
 
Shonta: Absolutely, that what came out from doing the research is I'd find the non combat death I started with females, because it's a smaller population and not as overwhelming. There's a lot of males that have died from non-combat deaths, two that I care very much about and want to explore more. But I started out with the females. And I realized there was a common theme over and over from the parents that they soldier had reported rapes, the soldier had reported harassment, the soldier had reported, in Kamisha’s case, interpersonal violence over and over and over. And then that's what caught my attention was, wait a minute, these are crimes that could have been prevented. And because of military policy, these people are having to choose death, whether it be by their perpetrator, or they take their own lives. And that we can fix. And that's the mission that I'm on right now is fixing the military policy necessary to get these people to safety. So, they can live and not die because the military doesn't have the right policy in place. And where do they turn to you with the chain of command fails them? We need some sort of bug out plan and overseas locations. Especially Kamisha. She shouldn't have had to chosen death, because no one would help her. And she had nowhere to turn. And that's our current situation. That's reality right now for the US military. 
 
Marissa: So, what advice do you guys have for either families of people serving, or people that are serving to help keep themselves safe? And for the families to help keep their family member their service member family safe? 
 
Shonta: Oh, man, all I can say is mind your business, and don't do nothing extra for nobody. 
 
Marissa: Isn't that awful thing to think? I mean, you're right… 
 
Jen: Pray that you don't become a victim. Because once you do, life as you know it, it will never be the same. Because you can't just get out of the military, you have to stay in and deal with their abuse until you can get out of the military. And why should an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old or a 22-year-old die when the military is a temporary situation? Why can't we just fix our discharge policy, if you hate us that much that you're going to bully us to death? Because we had the nerve to report and inconvenience you and your job? You know, why can't you just like find some compassionate way to let them get help and then get out? Instead of them having to choose death? Why aren't we having that conversation? And as long as everything goes good in your career, you'll be good. But until you have to deal with the military justice system, in any capacity, you'll find out really quick, you're going to get sold out quicker than you know what, until we take the power out of the chain of command and put it in the hands of somebody else, like a police department where that's their only job. Just do what we do in our own communities with our police departments not have my dad being in charge of the entire town. You know? Really, that's what they're asking us to do in the military. Dad, you’re going to use your iron fist to run this town through those police departments. You know, really, that's what they're saying. So, we can until we can change that we're not going to be able to really give people hope on the military justice end. But there are laws that people can help fight for, in the meantime, to provide those safety measures so that we can prevent anything happening to their loved one should they choose to join the military. So, they can contact their congressional members and help support the Brandon Act, which would be a law that is named for Brandon Caserta. And it would allow people to get mental health treatment, as opposed to choose suicide while they're in the military. So at least that would be some measure of hope for them until they can get out, or their situation can change. Then we've been fighting for the Military Justice Improvement Act since 2013. That would remove the decision making of felony crimes out of the hands of the commander and into the police department, detectives, prosecutors’ hands to make those decisions. So more along the lines of independent investigations. And then recently they've come out with a Vanessa Guillen Act, that's tackling the sexual assault and sexual harassment issue that we’re dealing with, that lead to other crimes. So, if we take these crimes more seriously, then we can prevent the homicide. So, you know, you'll find the terms of that bill in the online in the IAmVanessaGuillen And then there's other bills too And I list everything on my website, military justice for all. Basically, I track the military legislation history as well so that I know what to share with people and they know what to ask for. So, we can make these changes. But we really need people to like take action on our behalf to get these issues addressed as quickly as possible. Because Meanwhile, people are dying in the data backs it up, like our suicides are the highest they've been active duty wise, our veteran suicide is high, we'd like to prevent them from even getting post traumatic stress to begin with, so if we tackle things on the military, and we could actually make some real change and save some lives. 
 
Marissa: And what about you, Shonta? Do you have any, as the sister of a of a veteran? Do you have any advice for families that might be going through this? 
 
Shonta: I mean, don't give up. I mean, I know it's an endless battle right now. And I know there's really, I mean, there's no laws and stuff set up for justice at the moment. But I mean, I have written a bill for accountability and justice. And hopefully family, you know, it'll get passed and families will be able to get answers and justice. And then a court system that just like, you know, there is in the state when there's a murder. Right now, there's nothing like that. So, I mean, don't give up and he could send for four years, and you can always be trying to do a DODIG report, you know, if something's wrong. It's still no hope when they're investigating themselves, because it just gets given right back to the same in the the investigation. I don't know. Just don't stop, you know, always tell your story. 
 
Jen: Because collectively, their voices do speak and her bill that she's talking about, is the first time that anybody's asked for a way to reopen investigations in the military. Because really, what she's saying is, if we don't reopen this, like we're letting a killer roam free, potentially. And so the family has evidence of some sort where we can bring it forward to an independent investigator and get it reopened as a homicide, potentially, then we're doing our job, which is trying to put criminals away, and why they wouldn't have anything in place to deal with that is beyond me. But it's the same organization that doesn't have one place to go to find out all the unsolved homicides that they do acknowledge, and missing cases. Nothing surprises me, it seems that the institution's reputation is more important than actually solving cases. God forbid, they put unsolved cases on and turn off a new recruit that, you know, has no idea how dangerous the military really is. So therefore, them hiding the data hurts people because we can't make informed consent on whether or not we want to join a dangerous organization or not. Do we even want to take that chance? So, the Kamisha Block Accountability And Justice Bill would be an excellent answer to help us start solving some of these unsolved cases with all these other families that have come forward and collectively said, something's wrong with this investigation. I don't think this is suicide. It's a homicide. 
 
Shonta: And I think the numbers would go down. I mean, if we started seeing accountability, why wouldn't the numbers go down? 
 
Jen: Exactly. 
 
Marissa: Right. If they're held accountable, the people that are doing the awful things, and will be probably kicked out of the military, are discharged. And it will scare other people from taking advantage of the vulnerable population. 
 
Jen: It really is important that people contact their congressional members because like the squeaky wheel does get the grease, and we really need civilians by the numbers. What it boils down to is, if the military doesn't take care of their crime issues, it's spilling out into the civilian world. And my research backs up that they've been let out under these kinds of circumstances and then turn around and kill somebody in the civilian world. So, the military, not dealing with their issues is already impacting civilian society and has been for years. And nobody says anything until after the fact when they're in court and finally can get the data that's hidden to find out, “Oh, wow, he was problematic in the military, too." So, it's coming out in these court cases, but I think collectively we need to talk about its impact on our civilians as well. Their policy is killing our civilians. 
 
Marissa: You're absolutely correct. I think it needs to start from the top and work its way — clean house and work its way into the foundation. Thank you so much for being here today and for chatting with me. You brought up and touched on a lot of really important topics and made some really awesome points And I'm hoping that in the next year, all of these bills will pass : The Brandon Act, The Kamisha Block Accountability and Justic Bill, The Vanessa Guillen Act. That's our job as civilians is to protect the people that are protecting us. We're now fighting for their freedom as well and for their safety.
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: How the MeToo Movement Changed The World: with Tiferet Solomon

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the worlds have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa: Welcome back to Healing From Emotional Abuse. A couple months ago, there was a news report that hit the US for about 10 minutes about a gang rape in Israel in Eilat — a small city at the bottom tip of the country, on the Red Sea, which has been compared to Las Vegas-ish. And it didn't get a ton of media coverage. But apparently in Israel, it opened up the big to do about misogyny and the rape culture of Israel. So, I have the incredible honor of bringing on a friend of mine Tiferet Solomon. She is a bold, amazing Israeli activist who fights for the change in legislation around rape and rape culture. She'll tell you a little bit more about this. But four years ago, she had a rape attempt, and was able to get herself out of the situation. And we'll talk more about that in a minute. She has been fighting to change the legislation and policy in regards to rape drug victims in Israel. Thank you so much for being here Tiferet. I'm so excited to talk to you.
 
Tiferet: It's my pleasure, Marissa, thank you for inviting me,
 
Marissa: Of course. So, you had an experience, a rape attempt? Do you want to tell us a little bit about that, because I think that's kind of, as you said, what put you on the path to doing what you're doing today?
 
Tiferet: Right. So, about four years, actually, it's, it's four years ago and two months, to be exact. I was given a ride to this guy who I met through a Facebook group. I was going up north for the weekend. And I posted on a Facebook group for rides because it is a very small country. And the farthest distance you can go is about eight hours from one end to the other. So, it's very common that people will share rides, also they share with the cost and also, you know, it's nice to have company. So, I wasn't doing an eight-hour ride, I was doing a two-hour ride. But I posted it on Facebook group, I'm going up north, if anyone wants to join. And there were four people who join me, it was fine, everything was good. And then one of them said, I'd actually love to come back with you on Saturday night, back to Jerusalem. And I was more than happy to do so and we just talked the entire ride on the way back. It was just he and I. It was comfortable. I felt very safe and very listened to. Now, after the fact that I realized that I felt so safe and listened to it because he was listening intently to every single word I said and collecting as much information from me as possible. When we reached Jerusalem, it was like 12:39. I was supposed to go to a friend's birthday party. It was later so I wasn't sure if that's still there or not. And he said, would you like to come up with a bit of refreshments before you go? And I was like, you know what? Sure. 15 minutes, it's fine. As I mentioned, the car ride seemed comfortable and nice. And it seemed that we were actually really connecting. There was no sexual tension at all whatsoever. I have to like make that clear, because sometimes people go oh, maybe those mixed messages. No, not at all. I was very, very blunt and very clear about the fact that, that was not where I was at all. It was more just, we had a good time talking together. So, we went up to his house, his roommate was gone. I took with him my bottle of water, just in case I wanted to drink something. We went upstairs we were standing in the hallway outside like his bedroom / the kitchen / the bathroom. And he said, Let's go out for a smoke. And he asked me, wait do you want to drink? And I said No, I'm good. He's like water, coffee tea. And I was like, holding up the bottle in my hand with like a bit of a weird facing. Yeah, I bought with me. Thanks. I'm good. He's like, okay, I'll get the tobacco because then it's like common that people won't cigarettes as opposed to buying pre-rolled. And then he started rummaging on his table on his desk table in his bedroom, which was odd because I noticed on the corner, there was the package of tobacco just sitting there. I'm like, Okay, what am I supposed to do while he's doing this? And then I said, you know, fine, I'll go use the bathroom. And so, I said, I'm going to go excuse myself. When I came out of the bathroom, he came out from a different room with a different case of tobacco which again, you know, it's all of these things that you notice after the fact. In advance I didn't think it was weird because Chainsmokers, thank God I‘m not anymore, but tend to have a lot of tobacco is just lying randomly around the house. So, I really didn't think too much of it at the time. We went up to 12 pillows for both of us a cigarette, and like a single one, though. And who started talking. Mostly he was talking, I asked, you know what he does for a living. Tell me a little bit more about this project you're working on. And as he's talking and smoking, and I noticed, at some point that I lost train of thought he was talking about things that made sense, he was telling me about his book. And I would hand him the cigarette at times, and he would continue talking. And then each time it went down by the time he came to take a puff, and then he'd light it again. But then continue talking, and then come to take a puff. And again, it was out again. He’d light it, and then continue talking. And then he just gives it back to me, he wasn't really smoking. Again, things you don't notice in advance only after the fact. And at some point, I noticed, though, that I can't understand what he's talking about. Not because the words he's saying, aren't words that make sense, but rather, there's no logical connection between a moment ago, he was telling me about the book he's writing. And now he's throwing to me these random words from the field of Political Science and International Relations, which is the field of study that I was majoring in at the time in the university, and I told him about this during the car ride. And he's just throwing these random, like, you know, it's because of the Colonialization of the Post-Modern Economic Effects of and like, nothing made sense. But it was words that was supposedly comfortable for me. And I was trying to focus in and listen to what exactly he's saying and see, okay, maybe I'm just like, not following his train of thought. But once I listened more I realized, yeah, no, there's no logic here. I'm not even sure how long we've been sitting here. And like, everything started feeling very misty. And I said, what time is it? And he didn't answer you continue talking and was talking is very low, calm, monotonic voice. And I said, I think it's late and I should go. And he, again, didn't react, continue talking. He had his train of thought, and he was going with it. And I realized, okay, I feel like I'm losing consciousness. I feel like I'm losing grasp of reality, and like, something was really off. And I was scared that if I stood up and left, maybe he would try to stop me because something wasn't adding up. And I was starting to recognize, Okay, wait, I was the only one smoking. All of the things were slowly falling into place. So, I slowly got up. And I said, you know, I'm going to go. And he said, what we're having such a nice time. Don't want to stay? I was like, No, I'm going to head out. And I started slowly walking towards the door keeping like, half of my body turned towards him, half towards the stairs, because I was scared that if I turned around, he would grab me from behind, or try to stop me in a way that would cause me to trip over myself on the staircase. So, I was walking, consciously, out while slowly trying to create more distance between us without alarming him by running. And he's like, wait, I have to give you money for the car. I'm like, No it's really fine. It's all good. And I like open the door, and walked out. The second I left the door of his house, I ran to my car, which was parked like at the bottom of the street, right around the corner from his building. And I saw him from the corner of my eye running after me. And I ran even faster into the car. I locked the door, started the car and drove away as fast as I possibly could. While I was doing this, I called my mom. And I said, Mom, I've been drugged. I'm heading to a safe place where I'm going to call an ambulance and going to go to a hospital. Meet me there. And as I'm talking to her, I feel like I'm losing grip on reality. Like, everything is fading, and everything's blurry. And like, I can feel how I'm fighting to stay away, stay conscious. While I was really feeling like this heavy cloud coming over me and trying to like, wipe me out completely. And I had to stay with my mom on the phone actually, in order to drive because I thought like if I didn't talk out loud, I would lose it right then and then what's in the middle of the street. So, I drove to the side. It was about 500 meters away from his house, maybe a kilometer, and I called an ambulance. Now, I have EMT training in my past. I used to volunteer on an ambulance on a regular basis and, and I know how ambulances are supposed to work. And the ambulance that showed up was horrible. They didn't want to take me to the hospital. The paramedic who is the highest ranking official in the ambulance, sat down on the side lit a cigarette and started laughing and saying to his friend, Forget it. She's drunk or crazy. And I'm begging them in tears telling them you don't understand. I've been drugged, and I need to get to the hospital. And they would just, they thought I was insane. Now one of the first things that I always taught people, when I was teaching them how to volunteer and ambulance was, you are the first person that someone in need is going to meet. The most important thing you have to do is be there for them. Imagine how you would want your grandmother to be treated or your parents or you yourself and do that to the patient that you're meeting. Meaning that you are the first person who is really going to give assistance and, in a time of real dire need. But the way this team acted was so far from it, that I was sure that I concocted in my mind the fact that I actually was able to get out of his house. And I started thinking that I'm actually still at his house, and he's raping me. But in order to not feel what's going on, I am playing in my mind a safe scenario that I know from my past as an EMT, that is trying to overcome the trauma that I'm experiencing live. And it's not really happening. Now, they didn't want to take me away to the hospital, and this is going on. I ended up like trying to call another ambulance. But there's only one Ambulance Service really that people use and it's out. And I told him, I'm here with the ambulance, and they don't want to take me to the hospital. I need them to take me. And so thankfully, the person at the call center told them, okay, you're there, you're with her take her to the hospital. Now, besides this traumatic treatment that I had, from their side, they never once mentioned that there's a hospital in Jerusalem that actually has a, we call it an Acute Care Center. It's what it's used for people who are brought to the hospital with fear of sexual assault of any kind. The staff there also undergoes professional training in how to treat sexual assault victims. But also, they have legal standing, that allows the testimony and the tests and the entire process to actually be acceptable in court, which is a very important thing to note. So, they never mentioned that the hospital that takes care of that is not the one they took me to. Instead, they said, Yeah, we'll take you to [a different hospital], which is the one I told my mom to meet me at. And that's also what I was thinking. But I didn't know that there's this alternative and how important it was at the time. And again, I'll remind you, they didn't want to take me to the hospital to begin with. So, they brought me to the hospital, and the entire call light I was like, holding on for dear life to not lose consciousness. Because again, I was scared that I'm not actually being saved. But rather I'm still being attacked. And I needed to see a face I didn't recognize before I could let go. And I remember the second they brought me into the ICU, I saw a nurse walking, although I'd never seen him before in my life and that's it. Everything else went dark. That's where I lost consciousness. My mom and cousin apparently were there to meet the ambulance team. They got there already beforehand. And my mom acted as my advocate throughout the entire process because I was unconscious for about nine hours. And she told them, we think she's been drugged. We need blood tests and urine tests. And she said give me the samples, I’ll take them to a private lab. Apparently, that's not acceptable either. Because in order for it to have legal standing, it has to go through a lab that is recognized. At the beginning, the doctors were skeptical, they didn't put me in a room to take care or treat me. They rather just left me lying in the hallway with hope that my symptoms would pass because they, too, thought that I was you know, drunk or under different kinds of influence. Yeah, so that's about what really happened to me during this time, which really caused me to be much more aware of everything that's going on. There were a lot of mistakes that happened though, also in regards to the way the ambulance conducted itself. As I said, the hospital itself my mom pleaded and begged with them, please give me the test. They didn't agree. Then they said we will send them to a different hospital, which is the only Hospital in Israel that has a lab that can really check for, like drugs that has legal standing. And they said okay, we're going to send her blood test and her urine tests to that hospital and follow up with us. Now, there were policemen who came already before I woke up. The second, I gave the call really for an ambulance, the duty is to alert policemen and have them come to the hospital and collect testimony from the victims. They were standing around waiting for me to return to consciousness. My mom gave them my testimony and they said if she wants to come and open a case, then tell her that we already have the complaint filed in and it will be attached to that. And then, after I was released from the hospital, I went immediately to file a complaint, because this is a sad truth, and I think most places, but in Israel it’s know that if you don't give a complaint within the first 24 hours, the chances of it being treated as seriously go down by about 70%. There are many cases that people come in only later, because of the trauma and fear of dealing with it. And the difficulty of really coming in and giving testimony of whatever case it is. People many times don't do it immediately. But there have been a lot of cases in which when you actually come within the first 24 hours, it's treated much more seriously. And it's given a higher priority. I wouldn't say top priority, because unfortunately, sexual assault victims aren't top priority. But it's given somewhat more of a higher one. And also, that when I gave testimony, they told me, "Okay, we need to get your lab results from the hospital to be able to see which drugs were in your system. That's going to be a key part of us continuing with looking into your case, and what happened here. And we are going to let you know if there's any change or development in your case. And it has two years until it's closed automatically.” But they guaranteed me that I'd get updates. Now I have to say for the policeman's credit, the person who interrogated me, who I gave my testimony to was very, very calm; very sensitive. I was terrified, because you hear all these stories of policemen or people who take witness that accuse you. Well, how are you acting? What are you wearing? What was the interactive beforehand, and I was happily surprised that my experience was actually a positive one. And he guaranteed me that they'd be in touch with me. Two weeks later, I called the hospital to see if there was any news in regards to my test results. And I found out that they never sent my blood or urine samples to the hospital that can do the more advanced checks. Meaning the hospital that I was in does very, very basic toxin evaluation and blood and urine. They don't do the more advanced kinds. And they were supposed to send it to this hospital that has a special kind of testing, that also gives it legal standing, and also really has the ability to look for it. And they told me they never did. I call the doctor who was taking care of me and the ICU and I asked if I could have it. And he said what are you talking about? I told them to send it and he was shocked when I told him they didn't. And then he said one moment, I'm going to check something, wait on the line. And he calls me back and he says, I'm sorry, they didn't send it. And I said, “Why? You said that we need it. You said that you guys don't have the ability to at the police told me that we have to have these results in order to do that.” He said, I know. I told them to, they didn't. I'm sorry, I don't know why. So, this was heartbreaking. I mean, I was waiting these two weeks when I was already, you know, pretty much ready to give up on life and hardly getting out of bed at four o'clock in the afternoon. I was waiting for these results. And suddenly I find out that they when I was sent. That was the beginning, I guess, of what really got me involved in this. Because my tests will never send, I started looking into it and researching what usually happens. What's the status of rape drug victims in Israel, and how are they treated. And I found out that many times, the tests aren't even sent to the hospital that needs to have it. Not every hospital has an Acute Room. As I mentioned. Jerusalem specifically, we have three hospitals here. So actually, like you have a variety and you have a choice to go there if you wanted to. But there are other cities that don't have a hospital that has an acute room at all. And even the hospital that I was in who doesn't have the right room to treat me, they were supposed to send my test to the other hospital, which is the only hospital that has the lab to check for these kinds of drugs, and they didn't. And that's something that happens in many, many cases. And the more I looked into it, I found out how common unfortunately it is. There was a journalist in it, who wanted to really discuss this matter. And she reached out to me due to a Facebook post that I wrote seven months later in which I wanted to tell the world what happened to me to raise awareness to let people know that it's not just something you read about in newspapers that happens on the other side of the world, but it's happening here, and happening to people you know, and it's happening to an unassuming woman just gave a ride to a guy and thought that you know, we're talking it's all good so we can go have a smoke on his roof without anything happening. And that caused:
A) A lot of people to also reach out to tell me stories that happened to them. Not necessarily about rape drugs; about rape, about sexual assault, about the depression that came after. About trying to deal with life. About the post trauma that comes up in dates on interactions. I found that this really opened up a can of worms, where people were sharing with me, I was sharing with others and, and I really found out how, unfortunately common not an assault is because that I already know, unfortunately. But the terrible treatment that the system has towards victims of sexual assault of all kinds. So, through my Facebook posts, I started working on legislation and policy changes. And we had our first somewhat successful policy change in December 2018. Where they released a policy that dictates that the hospitals must treat all victims who show signs of a rape drug, according to a specific process, and really take the test that are relevant, and send it to the relevant labs. Go through everything that's supposed to, in theory, a wonderful policy. Unfortunately, now we're finding out that it's not being implemented as it should. And so now, two years later, I am working on getting the implementation of that policy. But I'm happy to say that in these four years, the policy was written. So that changed, and also hospitals stopped throwing out rape drug kits, which was also a huge, huge achievement that we have worked very hard on, because I couldn't stand the fact that anyone else would be treated the way I was. So, there's still a lot more to go. But it's an uphill battle. Things are changing slowly, slowly. But there's a lot to do there. And as time goes on, I just see more and more how lacking the system can be. And when it comes to this matter, which I'm sure you know, you come and you're looking for like that lifeline to save you and help you and protect you. And having the system turn their back on you is horrible. And it can be even worse than not trying to get help at all. So, I'm working to change that.
 
Marissa: You brought up so many good points. Thank you, first and foremost for sharing your story. Because it is heartbreaking. When your first line of defense, looks at you laughs and pulls out a cigarette because they just don't care or they don't believe you. I feel like that's even more horrifying than being told we don't believe you. Because in that person's behavior in the paramedic’s behavior, they basically shut you down and didn't even have the Kahunas right, like they didn't even have the guts to tell you, you we don't believe you. There's like, Oh, she's drunk, let's just this is break time for us now. And that's so disheartening, especially when you're going through something so traumatic, that the first person you meet that's supposed to help you just doesn't care, and then to be continuously shot down by every person you come into contact with. I mean, man, you are, you're a tough cookie, I am so inspired by you. So, thank you for doing what you're doing and changing the legislation.
 
Tiferet: Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you for what you're doing. Spreading the word is definitely, without a doubt, very, very important.
 
Marissa: Thank you very much. But it's people like you who are doing the real changes. So, thank you. Let's talk a little bit about rape culture in Israel. So I, in the states, rape culture is a mixed bag, right? Little boys grow up being taught, you're not allowed to cry, you have to be tough. So that manifests in anger and rage and they don't know how to reach out, they act aggressively. Not all men I'm not trying to generalize, but basically, rape culture is very widely ignored for children. And it manifests in aggressive, abusive behavior later. What is Israel's rape culture Like?
 
Tiferet: Honestly, I think that when you look at rape culture, I wouldn't necessarily look at the fact that men aren't necessarily, sorry little boys aren't necessarily taught to connect to their feelings and express them in a way that they that they feel comfortable with. It's also the fact that men and young boys are taught the way women interact is fake or they're playing a game. When you go on a date with someone and she says no, at the beginning when you try to kiss her, that's just part of the game. Okay, so she's paying hard to get. I had a guy who told me and this was when I was, I want to say 22 or 23. He was 32, I think. Maybe 31. He told me there isn't a woman who doesn't give, there's a man doesn't know how to take. Sorry, it’s a rough translation from Hebrew. But the point was, “There's no such thing as a woman who isn't willing to sleep with you. It's a matter of are you a man doesn't know how to take it.” And I was horrified Because this was four years ago, five years ago. And that was a statement that he saw no problem in saying, and the bigger problem was that it's a sentence that he's heard from other people as well. And its other men who feel this way, as well. So, there's very much that culture of, you know, did you nail her? No, did you get in her pants? Did you play hard to get? And that's something that's still very, very present, and very, very common. And I think that's the bigger problem, where you're teaching men that they should read the signs that the women are giving in the wrong way. And honestly, I'm not disregarding women's part in this also. Women are also taught, don't give in immediately. You can't sleep with a guy on the first date — that turns you into a tramp. There's nothing wrong with sleeping with a guy on your first date if you want to, and if he wants to, and if you both are supportive and respectful and connecting and present in the moment. But like, when it comes to the interactions in between men and women, I feel like we're still teaching these 100-year-old rules of how to do things. And there's something very, very lacking in, Okay, well, much more developed and connected to our emotions and to complexities of life. And don't talk with your friends, or you’re with, especially when you see a group of male friends. Don't talk with your group of male friends about that woman's ass, or how sexy she is, or the fact that everyone has gotten a piece of him. And that's something that for some reason isn't, you know, that I like, and I don't know, if I'm generalizing here, and I don't want to, but it's something very possessive And…
 
Marissa: It's aggressive.
 
Tiferet: And unfortunately, it still is something that you hear on conversations. I think people feel less comfortable about making these comments now in the presence of women, which sometimes they used to do more. But it still might happen between a group of men. You know, in a Facebook group; in a WhatsApp group. I had a friend who told me a few, like two or three years ago that she found that there's this Facebook group that men post naked women. Have pictures of naked women that are sent to them, whether it's by their girlfriends, or by one-night stands or that they find online. And it's disgusting. Whether it's a woman who sent you a picture of her naked by choice, that's fine. But then you're taking it and sharing it with a group of other people who have absolutely no rights to it. And so, there's something very much in the culture itself, I would say that is a little more than a little problematic. A lot problematic. And then there's also and this I can't emphasize enough, the system that doesn't take care of it as they should. For example, a few days ago, there was a case of a man who attacked his wife and her beat up and stabbed her. He was horrible. And he was really taking out all of his anger and aggression on her in the worst possible way, in front of the one-and-a-half-year-old. And the judge decided that he doesn't want to release the name of the man, because he doesn't want to and these are his words, “Hurt his reputation." Now, this is a man who ruined his own reputation within a couple of hours, by beating up and stabbing his wife in front of his child. And the judge doesn't want to release his name because he's trying to protect his reputation?
 
Marissa: I just had a horrible, a horrible flashback to Brock Turner. Did you guys hear about that case at all?
 
Tiferet: Yeah, I mean things travel.
 
Marissa: Yeah. I mean, that sounds like Brock Turner. Oh, well, we don't want to ruin his life. He already ruined his life when he, you know, stabbed his wife. Brock Turner ruined his life when he took an unconscious girl and raped her behind the garbage can. Like that was an action that determines and defines the person's personality.
 
Tiferet: Exactly. But for some reason, when it comes to sexual assault, or rape, there's much more room for temporary insanity. It seems that people don't like to claim temporary insanity, except for one come to these cases. Then it’s like, “Oh, no, he wasn't thinking. He was under the influence of alcohol." Like if he was driving drunk and killed someone you wouldn't treat it that way. But when it comes to sexual assault or rape, oh, no, you know, it's understandable. It happens. Sometimes it's very dismissive. And when the system that is supposed to protect you is dismissive, you can't really expect other people to act other ways.
 
Marissa: I'm so glad that you brought that up. When I lived in Israel, I lived in Herzliyya. And we would go to Herzilyya Pituach and go out to, you know, clubs and bars and whatever. And I noticed that guys, like you had mentioned before, we're so much more willing to come up right behind me put their hands on my waist and pull me into them to dance on me, even if I didn't know them. And, and when I would try and get away from them or move and be kind of polite about it, there was really no change, right? They’d just pull me back in.
 
Tiferet: Right. Because you're playing the game, you're not supposed to give it immediately.
 
Marissa: Right. And I didn't, I mean, coming from America, I didn't know that. So, I learned very quickly that the only way at least in 2010, the only way to get them off you, was to elbow them really hard in the ribs. And if I didn't elbow them really hard in the ribs, they would keep pulling me back in. So, I mean, it makes so much sense now that you said it like that, that it's a game. You know, oh, I'm supposed to pull away because I really want to dance with you, when that's not truly the case. And that element of consent doesn't really matter.
 
Tiferet: Right, for some reason we don’t, and I think this is really a huge lacking, we don't teach enough respect for — well I think it goes both ways. Men aren't taught enough respect. When you hear a no, because they're taught, they're playing the game. And women aren't taught enough, don't play it hard to get. Be straightforward about what you want. There's nothing wrong with choosing this way or the other way. But be straightforward about it. Don't play games.
 
Marissa: Yes, absolutely. So, let's move on to around 2018. Right, the #MeToo movement happened here. And it spread really fast around the world, right? You guys felt the me to movement by you? Right?
 
Tiferet: Definitely. Yes, that was global.
 
Marissa: So, did anything change after 2018?
 
Tiferet: So actually, speaking of the system that's supposed to protect you. So, another article that I participated in was, after MeToo got really, really strong. There was this huge social movement that came from Facebook, where people started sharing their MeToo stories, which happened also in the States, I know. And then in Israel, there was also a MeToo — that I was also assaulted or attacked in whatever way once; and then there was also, MeToo — I turned to the system for help, and I was turned away. And then they did a front-page article on one of the Unwind Edits — it's one of the leading newspapers in Israel. We were a front page spread, they bought six of us to interview about, it was really because of the MeToo, you were attacked, you complained, and then you were turned away. And they did a huge bed of like four or five pages in the weekend newspaper, centerfold, about the six of us who came complained, gave testimony, and then were turned away. And how the system turned their back on us. And that was also a huge thing that MeToo did here, which was positive. And this in the sense of shedding more light on the way the police and the hospitals and the court system acts in regards to sexual assault victims. So, there was also a change in regards to sharing stories of what happened, and also a change in regards to, how was I treated by the system? How did the police treat me? How did hospitals treat me? How did the court system treat me. That started really, I would say, October 2018 and it's only been getting stronger. And specifically now due to the case in Eilat, it got much stronger? The volume in which people are crying out and sharing their side has risen immensely.
 
Marissa: So, let's talk about that. I'm really glad that things are getting better there. Or at least the protocols are tightening up a little bit, so that survivors feel more supported. We're still fighting that battle here, too. But I feel like we are a little bit further along than Israel might be. I don't know if that's rude to say. I didn't mean it that way.
 
Tiferet: No, that’s probably fair. I would say that the social awareness has gotten higher. I don't know that the actual system has gotten much better. But we're working on that as well. Definitely. We're working on that.
 
Marissa: Good, because that's so important. So, let's talk about what happened this year. So, this is how I heard it and I could be wrong. So please correct me if I'm wrong. But the story that we were told was that there was a girl in Eilat who was gang raped. And that was it. That's all we got. So, I don't know what happened after, as far as her healing. But then it's telling us that the rape culture in Israel was being overturned. And there was like a lot of people that were painting over misogynistic phrases, and pictures, and statues, or whatever things that were around Israel, that were misogynistic, were being taken down. Is that accurate?
 
Tiferet: So actually, I didn't hear this side of taking down things that have to do with Israel. I'm sorry about that. What happened was, and I have to say it was a bit of a mess, because also, here information was released in pieces. And the information at the beginning was vague, to say the least. But it started by there was a gang rape a 16-year-old girl with 30 men and that's what most people heard. Exactly. Now. That's what's going on. And for about a week, that's what was on the headlines of every single newspaper, and every single news article out there. A 16-year-old girl was raped by 30 men. And then, you know, the next day, they said, “Oh, it wasn't men, it was some men and some young boys.” And they started trying to understand exactly what's going on but for about a week, we thought it was really 30 men. And what you saw all over Facebook was people crying out. How is this possible? This is a sign of lacking for us as a people. Culturally, we did something wrong if we reached the point where a 16-year-old girl is in Eilat, and is raped by 30 men. And it was really crying of outrage from every single corner. And then about a week later, it was released, “Oh, it wasn't 30 men. It was 10 or about 10.” And then that was I mean, as I say, it's all horrible. It's all awful. When I say interesting, I don't mean in the positive way. But then there was a very interesting change, where suddenly you saw some people writing, “Oh, it's only 10 men. Not that it's good, but it's not 30.” And then you saw other people who came out with declarations of, “To you who said, the difference between 30, and the difference between 10 is meaningful, you’re part of the problem.” And that really brought up even, actually, a larger wave of awareness because they said it doesn't matter if it's 30 or if it's 10. It shouldn't be one to begin with. And, yes, if we're looking at gang rape in this sense, it's horrible no matter what. And there were so many cries of outrage. And people really started posting about it. And there were a bunch of different socialites, whether it's actors, singers, or different relevant social entities, that came up with their own videos saying it was men. This was actually, there were two of them that came out, they are very, very powerful, where they talked about, what you hear as a man in your background. “Now, what does that mean about you as a person? If you actually listen to those people who are telling you, No, did you? Did you nail her? How far did you go? She says, No, then don't listen, try harder…” Like it was it was very, it was done very, very well and very powerfully. And they said, it's our responsibility. It's my responsibility. And these men who are public figures, and very meaningful in the cultural life in Israel, and they came out and said, it's my job to change this. It's your job to change this. What's going on here is something that has to do with us as a people. And it's a horrible sign of our culture and we have to make the changes on a personal level. So, it was very, very negative and it brought out the very, very positive and fruitful results and how the board reacted to it. Unfortunately, we just had this case a few days ago, where a man stabbed his wife. So…
 
Marissa: I'll bet that that's not the first time that he has been aggressive or violent to her. In fact, I'd bet my life on it. Because stuff like that to pattern that grows and grows. Right? Exactly. This was just the final straw. This was the most recent explosion in a series of explosions. So, I'm looking at an article. It's from November 2019. So, it's a little bit old and it's before all of this social media hype. But it said that, 90% of rape cases in Israel are closed without indictment, and that the numbers of people turning to rape crisis centers for assistance has increased by 40% in the last five years. And it's saying that the number of calls or complaints filed to rape crisis centers in 2018 was 51,000 And it was 40,000 in 2013. So, do you think, as an Israeli, do you think that is because everything is starting to put itself together and processes and protocols are being put in place or do you think it's Because it's happening more?
 
Tiferet: I think it's because people feel more supported to share what happened to them. Meaning it's not necessarily things that are happening more. But rather, cases that in the past weren't necessarily brought to light, are now being brought to light. So, I have a friend who due to what happened in Eilat, decided that she's sick and tired of the way things are being dealt with when it comes to sexual assault, and rape in Israel, and she started posting her personal stories. And she said, I'm going to start with the story that most people know about me. That I was raped when I was 14, by someone who was 21 at the time, and she came to the police and complained about it. I guess, nine years later. And the police closed the case, because after researching and looking into the details, they declared that that he didn't really know that she was under age, and it wasn't done through malice. And she proves, and then this is something that you bought out through Facebook; she proves how they knew. He knew that she was 14, because she told him specifically in these messages, they met in a chat room. And he had no problem with going out with her when she was 14 and doing what he did. And so that was the first story she told. And then she started sharing other stories that happened to her. About the fact that when she was a teenager she used to babysit for this family. And after a while her parents were going through a divorce. So, she was going through a bit of a hard time personally. And she liked spending time with this couple who she would babysit their children when they were out. At some point she said they started coming home a little bit earlier. And we just started hanging out the three of us. And then at some point, the husband would invite friends over and she started hanging out with this group of our friends. I remind you, she's 15 at the time babysitting, his children, and he's around 30 years old. And she said that apparently it started becoming a thing that they would invite her to join when they would hang out as a group of friends. And then she was invited by just one of them to hang out. And they ended up sleeping together. And then she was invited by another and it became this thing that they sort of, sorry for terminology, passing her around. And none of them at any point, thought there was a problem here. That she's a 15-year-old girl. Now she, as I mentioned, her parents were going through a divorce. It was a hard time. She felt that she was getting attention, and she felt that she was loved. And she said like, on the one hand she didn't understand really why they're treating her like an adult fully. But on the other hand, she felt very grown up because they were treating her like an adult. And at some point, one of the wives found out what was going on and had a hissy fit at her husband and caused everything to blow up, thank God. And they stopped doing this. And then she started revealing though all of these other cases. And she has like these nine different stories of men who took advantage of her. One of them who came to pick up a date, and they were in the car alone, and he raped her. Another guy who was her neighbor and she had a mouse in her house and she was scared. So, she asked if she could stay there while the exterminator was supposed to come. And then when his girlfriend was in the shower, he walked over and grabbed her breast. And there's so many stories that she's just revealing because she says, I'm sick and tired of the fact that people don't tell their stories, or people behave this way. And the system keeps turning their back on us. And that's also something that you see happening more. People feeling socially comfortable to share their stories, because even if the police aren't fully doing their job, or the court system isn't fully doing its job, they are getting social support. And this way, the victim from Eilat, a different friend of mine started a fundraiser for her, for legal aid due to this. And they reached their goal of, I think, half a million within 24 hours. And then for this woman who was just stabbed by her husband, a different friend started for her also a fund for legal support, and they reach their goal of a million, I think also within like three days. So, you see social media as much more support and much more being done. And the system… It's a bureaucratic system. That's a little difficult to change, but I do, I do believe that it's slowly going to get better.
 
Marissa: That's incredible. Well, you're making amazing strides and the people who you're working with and your friends are also doing such incredible things. I mean, thank you guys for your hard work and I know it can't be easy. You're basically fighting the Empire. Right? You're fighting the head honchos, but you guys are doing such incredible work. So, thank you and just keep fighting, you know?
 
Tiferet: Thank you. Thank you as well. Marissa, you’re helping to also share, and put out the voices and the information.  Yes, we’re all doing this together. And it's our pleasure to try and make the world actually a better place.
 
Marissa: So, my last question for you, I ask everyone who comes on this show, what advice would you give to survivors who are going through the healing process? Who are trying to get help and break their silence after sexual assault?
 
Tiferet: Wow, that's a good one. So, I mean, look, it's sad to say, but Sexual assault is not a new thing. Or something that like my case of being drugged, that wasn't the first time something like that happened to me. I mean, the numerous cases throughout all of my years, starting when I was five years old, that I've been experiencing things like this. But when something comes, that really breaks you, and kills a piece of your soul, which is completely and totally what I felt, it's a small achievement, that sort of Wow, you. I remember thinking, at the time, when I was, again, completely and totally depressed, how to getting out of bed or quit my jobs, stopped University, even though I was right in the middle of doing very well. The fact that I got out of bed at four o'clock in the afternoon was like, Wow, look at that. And the fact that a Sunday would come by, oh, a new weekend would arrive, I'd be like, Whoa, I didn't think like, it's not even that I didn't think I would live but, in a way, I didn't think I would live to see another Sunday. And I really needed something to, to hold on to that was more meaningful than you know, “It's going to be okay,” because I knew it was going to be okay. And one day I was going to be passive. But I was having trouble seeing how that would ever happen. So, I needed something more feasible. And I, one night, it was like, four o'clock in the morning, which also something that happened. I would spend most of my waking hours at night when the rest of the world was asleep, because then I felt most safe and most peace, somewhat at peace, with a quiet world. So, I wonder my bedroom, and I started writing on the wall, my wish list. And it was my list of the wishes that I want to complete At some point, in order to, I guess, make myself happy. It wasn't even happy, because be happy was the first thing on the list. So, it wasn't even be happy. But it was these small goals that I was hoping I could achieve in the next, you know, foreseeable future. And that I felt could help me pull myself out of the hole that I was in. So, you know, it was the first one, as I said, was be happy. And the second one was breathing easily again. And then it also went into other things that were, whether they were they developed due to what I was going to — with eating disorders that went completely and totally out of hand; And so, I had really, as one of my wishes, eat without guilt, or stop throwing up. And I also had things like, be a positive change in society. Not let my own feelings about what people expect of me dictate who I'm going to be. So, there was some really big things there. But there were also little things like, dream Sweet dreams again. And what's amazing, and still to this day, I love looking at that one. It's still relevant. And there are times in my life that I looked at it and I said, Wow, I completed it. And there are times that I said, No, I'm not there yet. Even though last time I looked at it, I felt like I completed most of the things I put on that list. But it's interesting to see how things that were very much relevant then, meet me in a very different place now. And I want to say more positively relevant, because then it was really from a heart place of smile again, or wake up in a good mood. And now it's a much calmer and more settled place. So, I guess what I would give us as advice is set small goals and large ones, and really aim to achieve them. Whether it's in a month or in a year. But I found that setting those small goals in a timeframe that is not you know, one day I'll be happy, but rather much more current day, helps to achieve them succeed.
 
Marissa: I love that. Oh my gosh. I challenge anybody listening to this episode, to make your own list of things that will make you happy or things that you want to overcome and put it somewhere like on your wall next to your bed or on the mirror in your bathroom, so you can see it every day and rate where you are. Oh my gosh, Tiferet that was incredible. Thank you so much for everything you're doing and for being here, and supporting survivors all over the world.
 
Tiferet: Thank you My pleasure.
 
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: Black Trauma: with MST Survivor Traci Sharpe

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the worlds have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa: Welcome back to Healing From Emotional Abuse.  Today, I have Traci Sharpe, again. Returning guest! Gosh, I’m so excited.  Traci Sharpe hosts amazing educational workshops about how to manage yourself after trauma.  It’s about looking at things in retrospect, so people can move forward and heal. She also focuses on how People of Color are less likely to be believed when reporting abuse and assault. Welcome back Traci. I’m excited to have you back.
 
Traci: Hi, Marissa! Thanks for having me back again.
 
Marissa: Of course! Oh my gosh.  Okay, so let’s dive in.  When you and I were talking last time, it came up afterwards that you work with people of color.  Or you, as a person of color, experienced a lot of backlash and a lot of disbelief and doubts when you were reporting.  So, can you tell us about that?
 
Traci: Yes.  And thank you, before I even begin, for having this very difficult conversation. So thank you for bringing this to the forefront.  You know, as I’ve said, my incident began in 2013. And as a woman of color, I followed the process because there are policies in place to report up the chain of command. And I was told that because I was a divorced, woman of color, a single-mom at that point,  that I would not be believed over a decorated officer.
 
Marissa: That’s disgusting. So because of your skin color, that had a negative affect on your report and your wellbeing.  That’s not fair
 
Traci: It isn’t fair. And I have found that this is something that happens.  I, in the beginning, took it personally.  I was thinking, well, why me? I’ve never had a negative review, or negative performance review of any kind. I’d like to think that I have a pretty decent portfolio.  And so, that really took me by surprise, because it wasn’t about the actual incident.  My skin color became the transgression.  And it also became the thing that negated the validity of my report.  Because of the way I looked.
 
Marissa: Did you experience anything like ridiculous backlash, or something that was worse specifically due to your skin color, do you think?
 
Traci: That was all of it.  I was, in the beginning, when I tried to come forward.  Like I said in my past episode, I tried to come forward 3 different times.  So this isn’t like a one-and-done. I tried to report 3 different time.  And each time, I was told there was an issue because of the way I looked.  One of the things that we have to be mindful of with the perpetrators and their enablers, is they use little things against you.  So, when I talked before, when we spoke, I had spoken to you about gaslighting. And so, I can remember one person saying, with everyone PTing like crazy, I need to get myself back in the gym because I’m getting fat. It’s just a matter of conversation.  And that was used against me.  So I looked, and if you see any pictures of me, or even if you know me, then you’d know that I’ve never been overweight.  But that was that one thing that they picked up.  And there would be other little things. Like, my children had to be picked up by six o’clock.  So, those were the self-limiting things. Like, I was told, “Someone else has a nanny, so why don’t you have a nanny?”  You know, typically, who has a nanny? You know what I mean? So, it was just little things like that, that added up to becoming a big problem.
 
Marissa: That’s disgusting. So, they did studies across colleges and had a white woman and a woman of color tell almost the exact same story of assault, and then the participants would have to decide whether or not they believed the story.  And I think across the board, 90-something percent of people believed the white woman.  And most of the people, I don’t remember the exact percentage, I think it was close to 80%, believed that the person of color was lying.  Just based on their skin color.
 
Traci: Absolutely.  And I think what happens with people of color… you know, when you’re hired in these organizations, there’s a honeymoon phase.  So, you feel welcomed and it’s hard to say, and I don’t want to say I was a tokenized hire because  I don’t think that would be fair, but that’s what I began to feel like afterwards.  And, I will tell you, even in presenting, because I am a platform trainer, and even getting up in front of audiences, and teaching for the military, there are times that I have been asked  not to participate in my own projects. And I hate to say this, but I was told that I wasn’t a part of the Blonde Ambitions Corp. And there were two other individuals there who were blonde haired, blue eyes, thin and I was actually asked not to participate. And it’s disgusting.  So you go from the honeymoon phase, to then reality sets in. And so, you start to point out transgressions, or the micro-aggressions.  And what’s gong on with this? I’m the one who put this entire project together, why am I not presenting? And so, I was told that it looks better to have someone that fits the mold and I didn’t fit the mold. 
 
Marissa: That’s disgusting. 
 
Traci: Yes, it really is.  And these are the things we fight.  And this is why I’m so vocal about it.  I know that there are other people who have experienced these same transgressions, and these same repetitive injuries, and people live their lives not speaking up about it.
 
Marissa: And that has to be so painful. Living your life feeling like everything is against you.  I mean, I can’t even imagine that.  I’m a white woman that came from a sheltered home. So I have no idea what that feels like.
 
Traci: Yes, it’s difficult. It is. Because then there is the denial of racism.  Once you bring it up, then there’s the denial.  And then there’s, “Wait a minute Traci, that didn’t happen that way.” And I’m saying, explain.  Because if you help me understand, then I can explain to others what going  on and we can still do really great work here.  But that’s when the targets come into play.  And then it is, “Well, we needed someone to add something else,” when we didn’t need them in the beginning.  And I want to point out that I was the purchase card holder.  The human rights protection official.  There were so many other collateral duties I had that other people didn’t have.  But they didn’t look like me.  So they were the ones that were put out in the forefront.  There have been others who weren’t even trained.  They weren’t platform trainers, who have trained in my place because of the way they looked.  And it is.  It’s really disgusting. 
 
Marissa: I’m so sorry that you went though that, and probably still go through that. That’s so not okay.  And I wish there were better words that weren’t just a strong of obscenities. 
 
Traci: No, there aren’t.  But I think we need to be honest and have the conversations, which is why I’m stepping out and talking about it.  And you know, what happens is, we go and get these educations, and we get all these certifications, and specialties, so when we present a portfolio, it looks a certain way.  And unfortunately, sometimes the view of what the person having that portfolio should look like, it doesn’t match up.
 
Marissa: But that’s a preconceived notion. You can’t identify what a person looks like based on their accolades.  I mean, you’d probably never think that I looked the way I look if you saw my portfolio.  You’d probably think I was like, a 40 year old woman with wrinkles and 12 kids.  I mean, you just, you can’t judge somebody like that.  And that’s the problem in our society, in my very humble opinion. We have these dumb, preconceived notions based on stereotypes.
 
Traci: Yes. yes. And so in addition to fighting the sexual harassment, the sexual assault, and all of the other sexual misconduct and transgressions across the board, this is an added layer. So, it isn’t just the offense.  There are so many caveats to it. So, it isn’t just one fight.
 
Marissa: You are a champion for continuing to fight and continuing to speak out.  Thank you.  And keep shouting this out loud, because this is the kind of dumb stuff that needs to end.  It needs to be silenced.  We need to stop assigning believability to a race or a color.  That’s garbage.
 
Traci: Right. I agree 100%. The thing for me is, as a mature woman, I know that there are so many others coming up behind us, and they need this.  This is a blueprint for them to be able to, just really decipher what’s going on around them.  And ask those questions. And document, document, document.  Sometimes, it helps, other times it doesn’t. But, it will definitely help that person know that they aren’t crazy in this.  A lot of times, and I speak a lot about the gaslighting and the false information, and the, “Well, you know… it wasn’t that way…” But actually it was.  And it’s okay to say that.  It’s okay that you’re failing, and then we need to challenge these beliefs.  And that’s where the issue lies.  Let’s challenge.  Let’s challenge those beliefs, and let’s say, we don’t know what the reception will be.  We don’t know whether or not someone like me can go in, and I’d like to think I’m a pretty decent trainer.  I’ve received great feedback across the board.  And I’ve been doing this for about 15 years now.  And I’ve not had one person have a complaint.  And then, to get to this position, and to have someone judge me just based on what their preference is, because I guarantee you, it wasn’t everyone else’s preference, I would have been harassed the way that I was.
 
Marissa: Thank you for building this blueprint.  You’re doing a huge part in changing the world and changing the way people perceive people and professionals.  I mean, it’s disgusting that this is something that we even NEED to talk about.
 
Traci: It is. It really is.   But we know that it is far reaching.  It isn’t unique unto me. This is the experience.  We have to change the narrative around all of it. 
 
Marissa: Around race. Around sexual assault. Around people of color who have been assaulted. Absolutely. 
 
Traci: Yes. Absolutely.
 
Marissa: Do you mind telling us a little bit about your workshops? I’m intrigued.
 
Traci: So what I do is, I limit them to 10 people.  I have a couple now that I’m doing.  One that has been really successful has been, working with women of color who have experienced sexual misconduct in the workplace.  So, I vet out the participants. I have to vet them because we really unpack some heavy stuff.  And the last thing you want to do is get into a workshop and feel like, either you’re not understood, or that someone is a spy, for lack of better words.  But that someone is in there and the intentions aren’t pure. And what I like to do is, speak to each persons experience.  Because we all have a voice, and there is nothing worse than being lost in translations, with everyone else’s story.  So, that’s why I limit it, my capacity is 10.  Personally, that’s about what I can handle.  I sometimes do 4-hour workshops, sometimes it’s 8-hours, depending on the content we’re covering. So, I cover everything from the actual experience itself, whether it's harassment or the assault.  And then we talk about how to unpack it, and how to reframe it.  And I never let anyone leave without resources.  So, one of the biggest things for me is, whoever participates in my workshops, they leave with a plan. And they can always touch back if we need to revisit it, or whatever.  But they have to leave with a plan to move forward.  Whether that is pursuing the EEO process, finding the right attorney to represent them, finding the right therapist, the right medical doctors.  Whether or not they need to follow up and do research on what medications will work for them, or whether it’s yoga or meditation.  Just making sure they have that information, understanding how it can benefit them, and having a plan.  And one of the biggest parts of the plan is not only having the resources, but having a strong, solid, support system. There are times when we say, “Oh, you know, I can call my mom. Or I can call my sister.” I really teach people how to realistically develop the support system they need.  Because someone loving you, like a parent or a friend or a significant other, it doesn’t always mean that they are able to support you in a way that you need to be supported.  So, that’s basically what I cover in all of the workshops.
 
 
Marissa: That’s amazing! Oh my gosh! So, not only are you helping them fight thought heir trauma, but you’re giving them a community, and you’re giving them a safety plan.  That’s phenomenal! Thank you for doing that.
 
Traci: Thank you for saying that. We have to.  One person at a time.
 
Marissa: I hope you understand the value of that.  People will go to therapy, leave therapy and immediately feel relieved.  Then the next day they wake up lost again.  So by, handing them, and creating with them — making them a big part of their safety plan — I think that that’s so powerful.
 
Traci: Yes, I think it is.  I think we teach victims how to be victims.  I like to teach victims how to be survivors. And if they are at the center of their own plan, then they are empowered to reach out and develop whatever it is they need. The resources are interchangeable. And that’s the thing.  It’s not a one-size fits all for everyone.
 
Marissa: Right. There’s no one right healing journey. It’s very personalized. Thank you so much.  So how can people get in touch with you about your workshops?
 
Traci: They can go to WhichNarrative.com.  It’s www.whichnarrative.com.  They can look over the website.  There are a few resources. I uploaded a few short videos. You know, just to let people know they aren’t alone, and some of the things they are experiencing, some of those visceral responses, are common, so people don’t feel like they’re wayyy out there by themselves.  To contact me on the website, there is a contact sheet they can fill out, and I get the information, and I respond within 24 hours.
 
Marissa: Thats amazing. Thank you for the service you’re doing for survivors, to help them heal. And thank you for speaking with me on this really difficult topic. 
 
Traci: You know, I think we have to. Because there are times when we feel like you’re experience is the only experience.  And no one will get it.  One of the things that I’ve spoken to you about, that I don’t mind sharing with the listeners is, well, my son was gung-ho and ready to join the military until all of this happened. And so, now his whole life has been impacted. He’s not comfortable, and I am not comfortable either, with his name, his last name being the same as mine. And my story being so highly publicized.  We know that there are some people out there that will hold that against him. So, he’s decided now that he’s going to go to college for two years, stay at home, and then he’ll transfer to a four year college.  But that wasn’t his plan.  And I think just letting people know that your whole life is impacted in ways that you never believe it will be. So, it isn’t just your life. It’s those that are attached to you as well.
 
Marissa: It’s not a one person issue.  It becomes a familial issue.  Right? Everybody that you are close to, who is impacted based on your trauma. The people who live in our home, who share you lineage. Everybody is affected.
Traci: Sure.  Even friends. Because if you think about it, when you suffer from anxiety or depression or PTSD, there are times where you turn down invitations.  I can remember a time that for months on end, not wanting to leave the house.  And so, where I was someone who was really social, and got out and did things; I hiked and I connected with friends; and just had a really great social life.  That all came to a screeching halt, because I just was incapable.  And thank god I found a wonderful therapist who let me know that it wasn’t me.  It isn’t you.  It’s what you’ve experienced, and we’ll work through this. And now, I’m able to clearly state my needs or my limitations. So, rather than saying, “I’m not going.” or ducking the phone call, I can say I’m not up to it today. I’m dealing with some things over here, and once I get through those, then sure, we can go have a glass of wine at the winery. 
 
Marissa: That’s amazing. And I’m glad that you’re able to set those boundaries. And for people listening, I hope you know that needing to take space and declining invitations, that’s normal and it’s okay.  Don’t ever feel guilty for needing that time and that space. And knowing how to set boundaries.
 
Traci: Yes, and being able to state it clearly.  Even if you can’t communicate it at that moment, being able to clear that up.  Because it’s empowering. 
 
Marissa: It’s like taking control of your life back. It’s one small step towards taking control.  Thank you so much, again for being here Traci.  You’re phenomenal, and you’re such a wealth of knowledge and information.  I’m so happy that we got connected.
 
Traci: I am too. Thank you Marissa. And don’t forget, if you need help out there, I’m at www.whichnarrative.com
 
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: Wrestling Speaking Out: with BCP and Chelsea Durden

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the worlds have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Rob: All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to a very special BCP / Healing From Emotional Abuse tag-team connection episode. First, before we get to our featured guest at this time, please welcome back, the ultimate tag partner Amazon award-winning multiple time bestseller my good friend Miss Marissa F. Cohen. Marissa, What's up over there? How you doing?
 
Marissa: Hey, everything's good in Chicago, we've got a heat wave. But other than that, we're fine.
 
Rob: Hey, you know, could be worse these days, you know, you count your blessings every day. But again, thank you for three minutes, your time and the platform and I'm super excited to welcome to this show. We're talking about the speaking out movement right now and having these very honest and open discussions, which I think is just the first step in moving forward and creating this Wrestling World. This indie Wrestling World that I love so much, and making it a much better place. So, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show at this time. She is pro Wrestling's necessary evil. The goth Power Ranger herself. Miss Chelsea Durden. Chelsea thanks for a few minutes. How are you?
 
Chelsea: Hi, Thank you for having me on. All right down here heat wave is more like our way of life in Florida.
 
Marissa: Sorry.
 
Chelsea: What's going on?
 
Rob: Good. Florida's a good place to be in you know, in the in the wrestling business, for sure. Real quick. You know, tell us a little bit about your background, kind of like that origin story getting into the business. Did a meteor hit the Earth? And then you became a professional wrestler? How did that all start for you?
 
Chelsea: Well, some people will tell you that I've crawled out of the depths of hell. But the reality is, you know, just like every other pro-wrestler, ever. I started watching Wrestling when I was like five or six years old. I'm trying to take after my brother, as much as I could. And I just grew up, always wanting to do it. And when I was 22, which was six years ago, I just took the plunge and started my pro wrestling journey. And now I  got a little more back problems and neck problems than the average 28-year-old. But boy, what a ride it's been. Even discounting all the negative, it's been such a crazy, crazy ride.
 
Rob: Yeah, absolutely. And you touched on it. And obviously, you know, we'll get into the very serious talk really soon. But obviously, you know, anyone who's following you on Twitter, I saw you, you know, being able to open up and speak out. What was kind of like your first thought when you saw this trending on social media? Was it a bummer? Were you happy? Were its mixed emotions? What were your immediate gut reactions to seeing the speaking out movement trending on Twitter?
 
Chelsea: It was definitely mixed emotions. Because on the one hand, I was glad that people were getting their stories out. And they were, you know, taking a stand against what has always been a very real problem in wrestling. But at the same time, it just hurt so much to see that there were so many other women like me, who had gone through very similar circumstances to me. And, then I go back to the other side of the emotions where, you know, I'm glad they're not alone with their pain anymore. And back to I'm really sad that there's so many of us that it had to create a movement. And I knew, once I saw it on Twitter, and I saw people I knew who were coming out with their own stories. A friend of mine texted me. And he said, I know that you were looking for a sign of when the time would be right to talk about what happened. And if you're still waiting for a sign, I think this is it.
 
Marissa: That's awesome.
 
Rob: Wow. And I was just going to say and Marissa you know, obviously, this is something you can totally relate to, but kind of getting over that hump. You know, you had the friend reach out to you, Chelsea. What kind of made you finally just pull that trigger and really sit down and type out those multiple tweets.
 
Chelsea: It's kind of funny. A couple weeks prior, I had sat down in my living room and constructed that over the course of a few hours. I'm just thinking, you know, I just had to get it out of my head and onto paper or document. And just thinking maybe it would just be a cathartic release for myself. I had like no plans of when I was going to release it. When I was, you know, if I was going to post it publicly or at all, if that was just going to be like a personal thing for me. And because I've been holding on to it for a year and a half at that point, or longer, if you consider how long I was in the situation, I didn't tell anybody about it. And it was like the hammer dropped when the speaking out movement started gaining some traction. So I went to my parents’ house After work, I think it was a Friday. And they knew a little bit of what I had went through, but not all of it. Not some of the heavier parts. And I wanted them to hear it from me before they saw it on the internet. And that experience broke my heart, just seeing my parents completely broken. And then I went home and I revised everything. It took a while and I posted it about maybe 4:30 in the morning, and I went to bed.
 
Rob: Wow.
 
Marissa: Wow. Well, that was really brave for you to post that and truly, extremely brave for you to tell your parents. I mean, I know so many people, including myself, who didn't tell their parents because of fear of the reaction that we'd have from them. So that's really admirable of you to have done.
 
Chelsea: I mean, they're, they're such wonderful people. My parents are my best friends. They're my biggest fans, they come to all the local shows of mine, that they can. You know, they take pictures and video. They buy my shirts. Like they won't let me give them shirts, they buy my shirts. And my dad sends pictures and videos of me wrestling to his friends and his co-workers. I'm so close with them. And that's why I broke my heart so much to tell them but I couldn’t, as much as I wanted to protect them from feeling like they couldn't protect me, they're my mom and dad and I had to I had to tell them if I was going to tell the world then I had to tell them, too.
 
Rob: Absolutely. And for those listening I mean, you know if you haven't read what Chelsea has tweeted out in her speaking out moment, Chelsea, could you give us like kind of just like a short and sweet kind of recap of, I believe it was your trainer, doing terrible, terrible things to you.
 
Chelsea: Yeah, it was my first wrestling trainer, Pablo Marquez in Fort Lauderdale. I started there with him. It was at the time, the only, you know, wrestling school in the area. And I started training with him in July 2014. And then August 2014, is when he assaulted me for the first time. And you know, it's I always knew why women don't report things like that, and what happens to victims with you know, freezing up and, and keeping it a secret and feeling ashamed. And, you know, all of that, like I got it on a surface level. But I didn't really, truly understand why until I actually went through it myself. You know, I had thought of myself as a strong person before. That I would never just take that quietly and I would I would fight back, and I would go to the top and I wouldn't hide it and let it get worse. But I did. And I didn't really understand why that happens until I went through it myself. And part of me felt almost kind of like I deserved it because I had a lot of friends involved in independent wrestling before I actually started wrestling myself. And several of them have warned me, you know, Pablo is really inappropriate with his female students, just don't find yourself alone with him. And you know, be careful if you're if you're going to go there. And I brushed it off as you know, indie wrestling drama, or, “Oh, maybe they're bitter because they don't get booked,” or something stupid like that. But then they were all right. Everybody who warned me everybody who told me to be careful.
 
Rob: It's crazy. I think I remember an instance in that tweet, you know, I personally have such a strong connection with the indie wrestling scene and I work with some really great promoters. Now I'm not going to name drop and shameless promo that's for later. But I will say, it's been so positive to me, I've had such a positive experience with the indie wrestling scene. And to hear these stories, you know, and I see all these, this very young group of talent coming up that are going to go very, very far. I get very, very worried. And we always talk about you know, the good brothers, the good sisters. This family; the respect in the ring. You know, there was that instance, I believe in your tweet where it said there where you came out, you were obviously like bruised and beaten. And one of your, I guess, friends or someone you worked with in the ring kind of saw that something was messed up and you like assured them that everything was fine. I mean, I can understand like, why you know, felt the need to do that. Do you feel like the this is the wrestling community’s issue, to kind of step up now and really kind of take the initiative to look out for each other?
 
Chelsea: It's time now more than ever. There's a lot of good brothers and sisters in independent wrestling and higher-level wrestling. I've been so fortunate to come across so many wonderful, wonderful genuine people who just want to give back to wrestling, and love wrestling, and love teaching, and guiding, and helping. But there are so many who are still stuck in the old ways. Because in a lot of ways, and it's moving away from that now but up until very recently, like the last few years wrestling was really like the outlaw sport. You could have who knows what on your record and still find your place and in wrestling. And you know, lots of shady characters, people with pasts that nobody knew about or did and just kind of brushed it off because maybe they were a great wrestler. That attitude towards that that old school you know, brothers protecting brothers mentality is changing for the better. And it's time now, more than ever, for people to stand up as higher-level a community and protect the people who are coming after us and the people who are just starting to get into the wrestling business. They shouldn't have to go through things like this. There's a lot of old grizzled veterans who want to punish the newer generation, just like they were punished. But it doesn't have to be that way. And that's an old, stupid mindset. Why would you want people to suffer the way you suffered? I certainly don't. I'm saying this at the ripe old age of six seasoned years in wrestling. It's not fair for people to have to go through this, if we have the power to change it. There was no social media in 1995. But now there is and we can take care of people and we can warn people and you know, clean up wrestling for the better.
 
Rob: How do you? How do you know I'm sorry, and Marissa perhaps you could actually like relate to this? Like you always say, speak your truth. Break your silence. Like how did that feel Chelsea to, you know, say the names and you know, tell the story and possibly protect a lot of these up and comers. Was that part of the healing for you?
 
Chelsea: It was incredibly cathartic to finally say something about it, because I felt like I'd been carrying this really, really heavy backpack for so long, that was just getting heavier and heavier. And it was getting worse. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't eating. I was just going through the motions in other aspects of my life. And my friends noticed, my parents were worried, because it was just driving me insane sitting in my head like that. And actually getting it out there, and having people know, instead of just, you know, running into them in different locker rooms, — and then seeing that something's not quite right but they can't really put their finger on it. And not now knowing everything I've gone through. It was such a freeing feeling.
 
Marissa: I can't even imagine what it felt like carrying that around. And then even to make it worse, you're involved in this community that it's really big, but it feels so small. And so, I imagine everybody knows everybody. So, the fear of speaking out… Like, I can't even begin to imagine what that was like.
 
Chelsea: Oh, yeah, it really is such a small community. You know, there are 1000s of indie wrestlers all over who have never heard of each other. But the community is really a lot smaller than people might believe. Everybody knows everybody, especially in Florida. It's such an insular community. And every promotion knows who runs every other promotion, and who's in it, and everybody's secrets, and I knew it would spread really fast. And that was, you know, part of that fear, even for me. I started training at another wrestling school, not terribly far away, and I’m still driving through Fort Lauderdale every day, praying I wouldn't see anybody on the highway on my way down.
 
Rob: Wow. And Chelsea, I wanted to ask you this and I actually screenshot of this and retweeted this a little while ago, and maybe I'll put the screenshot on my Facebook as well. It was a quote you put. You put, “When you work for outed abusers, you're showing all your friends, they can't trust you.” Tell us a little bit your mindset there. I took a lot from that personally.
 
Chelsea: Well, that came from, you know, people I've known for a lot of years now I saw were still working for his promotion and training at his school and other people I knew training with and working for other outlet abusers. And I felt like, so by working for that person, someone who's been outed as having done something so heinous, you're really demonstrating that the things that they've done really aren't a problem for you. And, you know, stepping back and saying, “Oh, well, he never did anything to me, or he's always been, he's always been cool with me.” It's kind of trying to like shrug that responsibility off you have as a person to other to other people. And it felt to me, like you're showing everybody that you know, $40 or $60 bucks or maybe even $100 is more important. More important to you than, you know, sleeping at night.
 
Rob: Yeah, I think you hit that one right on it on the Marissa I'll throw it back to you.
 
Marissa: Well, we had a conversation with another wrestler, and I apologize that I forget who it was, who said something similar, like, well, this person has been accused of rape or sexual assault, and they're still being booked. And promoters were responding with and booking agents were responding with, well, what do you want me to do not book them? Yeah, that's exactly what you shouldn't be doing. And for people to continue to train under this person and work for this person for Pablo. You know, you shouldn't be doing that. Because you're still putting food on his table. You're still allowing him to continue to offend people. And you're pretty much you know, nodding your head at him and saying, like you said, "What you did to these people, how you hurt Chelsea and probably countless other women who trained under him, that's all okay because I never experienced that.” I know I'm pretty much just mirroring what you said. But like, it's just so powerful the way you said it.
 
Chelsea: It's the fact of the matter. It's like I know for a fact other people that he's hurt. And you know, I haven't come out with it or named them or anything because that's not my story to tell it's theirs if they ever choose to tell it. And it just kind of seems, it's I don't know, you really, you find out who your friends are really, really quickly, when you become somewhat of a social pariah in the community. I never wanted this to be like the champion of movement and you know, like holding a flag. It's like I told my mom a really long time ago, probably back in 2014, when I was just telling her different things about indie wrestling, and how things are run. And she would say she was flabbergasted and she'd be like, well, that that doesn't sound right. Or that sounds awful, you should say something about that. You should do something about that. You should speak up about that. And I told her that you could either be a successful wrestler, or you could be the one who suffers in pursuit of, changing the world, or changing your world. And I didn't want to suffer. I just wanted to be a successful professional wrestler. But I realized a couple months ago that I have a responsibility to everyone else, to make sure that this stops happening. Even if one girl who Google's pro wrestling school, South Florida doesn't click on that link, and decides to go somewhere else instead, then that's what I've wanted. That's what I want to do. I don't want anybody to go through what I went through ever again; I don't want anybody. I don't want him to be able to hurt anyone again, and I don't want anybody else to have the room to operate in the shadows and hurt people either.
 
Marissa: I can completely relate to what you're saying. I mean, not in the Wrestling World. But when I started talking about my story, it was way before #MeToo. And it was way before all of this and it really made a lot of people uncomfortable around me. And people stopped wanting to talk to me or be friends with me because I became like you said a social pariah. I was like, the person who, like the “man-hater.” Meanwhile, I had more male friends and female friends, but that's neither here nor there. So, thank you for taking on that role, Even though you kind of have to choose between mental health and success. That's not a fair place to be in. When you started speaking out and went public about this a month ago. Did you did you face backlash? Did you get people breaking their silence to you? What happened in your community?
 
Chelsea: Well, I did face backlash, not right away. At first, I was just completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support. People I had never met and never heard of, were messaging me to tell me their stories. And you know, unload things that had happened to them. And that was really heavy to like, read through, but I was glad that they did it. They don't have to be alone with you know, just suffering inside their head. And I was, you know, people who I hadn't spoken to in years were messaging me and telling me they were behind me and they're proud of me and they love me. And I couldn't believe that. I expected the backlash that did eventually come in the form of everybody in Pablo’s camp double down on backing him.
 
Rob: Yikes.
 
Chelsea: It's like this weird worshipful thing that you know, it's something that I noticed when I was there. At Coastal Championship Wrestling. I noticed that Pablo didn't really like when his students would go to work for other independent promotions. Not even the in the area like not that they were to like his local competition or anything. But he didn't really he didn't really like that he would talk a big game. How he wanted his students to you know, grow and travel and, and work different places and gain experience, but he didn't really like it and he would give a lot of them a hard time. He would only really be okay with people working different shows if he went with them. And it took me a while to realize, but it finally dawned on me that he didn't want his students to see the way things were at other wrestling schools and other independent promotions. Where their younger guys weren't expected to pay their coaches phone bill, or pick them up because he didn't have a car, or like pay for their own opponents.
 
Marissa: Those unprofessional.
 
Chelsea: Those were things, those were things that were happening. And when people see that the grass is, in fact, greener on any other side, they want to leave, and he wants to prevent that. So, his people are very isolated from the rest of the wrestling community and he likes it that way. Because he doesn't want them to see that when they, when they screw up a drill that they don't have to get, kicked out of the ring, or shoved or smacked across the face, or any number of things that I've personally witnessed happen to people, other than me.
Rob: I was just going to say it just you saying all that, like. I mean, obviously, so many things you said, it's like hits a nerve with me, because, you know, I love this business so much, especially the Indies and you know, people I call friends in Indies, whether they're, you know, up and coming stars, or, you know, trying to make a name for themselves, or some of these great promoters. Because it's all about working together, you want to see people succeed. I love it, when in your organizations, we have a lot of great places here in New Jersey that I work with. And there's also one or two really bad places that are finally getting outed and stuff like that. But that's not what it's about. So, to hear all those things like, you know, you think you'd want your students to succeed. I know trainers that are just such amazing, inspiring people. They want to see their students succeed. They want to inspire them. So, my question for you is, you know, I love professional wrestling so much, the Indies specifically. Does this take the shine off for you? I mean, I see you got some great matches coming up. I see a tag team with Red Velvet. That's some super exciting little shameless promo there. But does that take the shine off for you?
 
Chelsea: It could have and it should have. But I, for me, personally, and I know it's not always the case with other people who have gone through similar, and I absolutely don't blame them for not wanting to be involved anymore, or just wanting to move on with their life. But for me, I felt like he had already taken so much from me that I could not let him take wrestling from me. Because he wasn't wrestling. He wasn't the embodiment of wrestling. He's not the end all be all of wrestling. He's such a small microscopic part of it. And I couldn't let him take away what I was born to do.
 
Marissa: Fuck Yes, fuck, yes. That got me fired up. Now I want to start wrestling.
 
Rob: I love it.
 
Chelsea: Make sure you have a good chiropractor on file.
 
Marissa: Duly noted.
 
Rob: I love it. So as Marissa always says, you are definitely a champion in more ways than one. For sure. I do want to thank you for a few minutes of your time and opening up. We really do appreciate it and I'm sure a lot of other people appreciate it as well. But I did want to ask you this or last question for me. Advice you would have for some of these young up and comers. You know, we talk about these terrible things that happen behind the scenes or in training and specific places. We talk about those airport pickups for some of the you know, big talent, we talked about maybe having separate locker rooms, like any advice to some of this up-and-coming next generation talent.
 
Chelsea: I would tell them you know, first of all, find a reputable wrestling school. Google is your friend, and you know. Don't just go to their website or their Facebook page, you know. Vet it as thoroughly as you can. If you have a friend that's in indie wrestling, certainly ask them for their recommendations and, you know, figure out whether you're going to have a good group of people there or not. But also, if something feels off to you, or it feels wrong, it probably is. And don't let anyone convince you that that's just the wrestling business or that's just indie wrestling, because chances are if it's not okay in other professions or other sports — you know, the way somebody's being treated, or the way maybe your trainer treats women, or maybe they take advantage of younger students being naive — It's probably not right. And I would encourage them not to not to stay quiet about it.
 
Rob: Absolutely, anything else from Marissa before we get out of here?
 
Marissa: I don't have any other questions. But I really want to commend you on speaking out and breaking your silence, and supporting so many other women and champions in wrestling, who have been affected by sexual assault, sexual harassment, Rape, emotional Abuse, narcissism, abuse. I just think that what you're doing is more powerful than I can describe in words, you know, you are truly making a difference. And I am so grateful. And I'm sure hundreds of women and men who have been affected by abuse and assault are also extremely, extremely grateful for your openness and your honesty and for putting the people who deserve to be put in their place, in their place. And Don't let anyone stop you from doing the things that you love to do. So, thank you so much for being here today. We totally appreciate you.
 
Chelsea: Absolutely. Thank you for having me and giving me the space to ramble.
 
Rob: Alright, I'm clapping for you over here. Before we get out of here though, the most important part. No, no, not in this case the most important part. But we are about that shameless promo and I did love those T-shirts. Tell us a little bit where people can follow you on social media and get some of those great T shirts AT Pro Wrestling tees all that good stuff.
 
Chelsea: Oh, well. I have a pro wrestling tees store. ProWrestlingTees.com/ChelseaDurden. I got a couple of shirts up there. You know, I like to say ever I have a wrestling podcast myself called Demon Road Diaries. Yeah, we always plug our socials at the end of it. And I always like to say, head to prowrestlingtees.com/ChelseaDurden. If you're interested in helping me put my cats through college. It's not cheap. Sorry. I'm just kidding. No, I really am. There's a kitten in my lap right now. Oh, and I'm on Twitter and littered and says I'm on Instagram at Darden says and pretty soon, I have a T shirt coming out. That's going to be direct sales that I'm going to be taking pre orders for that 100% of the proceeds are going to be donated to a local domestic violence shelter here where I live. So the art is getting finalized on that. And I'll be posting that up soon probably in the next week or so.
 
Marissa: Can you make sure to send me the link to that when you're done? Thank you.
 
Rob: Awesome. Hey, Chelsea, thank you so much again for opening up for a few minutes your time. You know, stay safe in this crazy 2020. And continued success moving forward.
 
Chelsea: Absolutely. Thank you, guys.
 
Rob: All right, guys, as always say here on the BCP. Stay safe, stay positive, take care of each other. We're out peace.
 
 
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: How To Develop Confidence

Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen. 
 
 
Overcoming narcissism and healing from emotional abuse are so important to your mental health and to living a life of freedom, confidence and peace.  Today, I want to talk about how to develop confidence, and why building confidence helps overcome narcissism. But before we start, I want to brainstorm ways that I can help ease your healing journey.  Imagine you’re standing on a cliff.  And on the other side of a deep canyon is the life that you dream of.  A partner who connects with you, supports and empowers you, and makes you laugh and smile. A life filled with freedom, confidence and peace.  I have been where you are now.  Standing on the edge, dreaming of that life.  And I’ve built the bridge between where you are now, and that dream that seems so far away.  Let me walk you across the bridge, and literally hand you the life of your dreams.  It’s possible. I’ve walked this path with thousands of survivors, who live free, confident and peaceful lives. Let’s walk this path together.  Don’t waste anymore time feeling lonely, worthless or exhausted. Schedule a call with me today at scheduleacallwithmarissa.com.
 
In my Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, building resilience is the second key component of overcoming narcissism. You build resilience by building confidence and boosting confidence, learning how to love yourself more, overcoming low self esteem, and regaining self respect. Resilience is that strength that allows you to overlook and ignore negative energy and toxic people.  It lets the words that would normally hurt you bounce right off.  And having that strength and that power is refreshing, after emotional abuse.  Being able to stand up tall and the words fall right off you, its empowering. 
 
Building confidence is different from putting up a wall, because putting a wall between you and other people is distancing and isolating.  You’re not addressing your trauma, simply putting a very temporary bandaid on it.  Our goal isn’t to feel isolated or push others away.  It is to let the words of narcissists and abusers bounce off you without affecting you.  
 
So, there are a few ways you can develop confidence, but this is one of my favorite confidence building exercises, and it’s super simple.
 
On your phone, open up your alarm app.  Create a new alarm for 10 minutes after you wake up.  As the alarm title, write an empowering phrase or something you love about yourself.  Like, I’m a badass.  Or “Kick butt today.” Or, I have a beautiful heart.  And set it for everyday at the same time.  
 
Next, set an alarm for when you normally have lunch, or sometime in the middle of the day.  Do the same thing, but pick a different phrase or feature, to remind yourself how smart, intelligent and powerful you are. “I can accomplish anything.” “Today is your day.” “I am smart, funny and kind.”  Set it for everyday at the same time. 
 
And finally, set an alarm for 10 minutes before you go to sleep.  Before you do any nighttime routine that you have. Title this one with a quality you love about yourself, or an empowering phrase — something that makes you go to sleep feeling inspired.  You can write a long-term goal that you’re working on, but phrase it as if you’ve already accomplished it. “I am excited to be living my best life with my dream partner in Colorado by the mountains.” Or something that you want in life. Set this alarm for everyday.
 
Now, on a scale from 1-10, I want you to rank how you’re feeling right now, 1 is bad, 10 is amazing. And every night before you go to sleep and every morning when you wake up, I want you to rank, using the same scale, how you’re feeling.  It’ll surprise you how one small change in your routine can have such a grand impact on your overall confidence.  
 
In my newest upcoming book, The Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, I identify 10 easy techniques and confidence building exercises that will help you develop confidence and maintain it, with little to no additional daily effort.  The release date is still to be determined, but to Pre-Order your copy, visit: 
 
https://marissafayecohen.com/product/the-healing-from-emotional-abuse-philosophy-the-3-keys-to-overcoming-narcissism/
 
In addition to that book, which is an incredibly exciting work, I have a resource available right now.  Healing From Emotional Abuse: 365 Ways to Start Your Healing Journey.  You can find that, as a special offer right now, for only $7 on my website at: www.marissafayecohen.com/special-bonus-offers, or $11.97 on amazon.
 
Learning how to develop confidence is just one step in my 3 step process to Healing From Emotional Abuse. In order to fully heal, you must have all three steps working together.  I want all survivors of abuse and narcissism to live free, confidence and peaceful lives because we deserve it.  You have overcome and survived so much.  It’s time to take your life back!
 
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
narcissist, narcissism, overcoming narcissism, toxic relationship, toxic people, ways to heal, how to heal from emotional abuse, living with a narcissist, good friends, healthy relationship, intimate partner violence, intimate partner relationship, healthy relationships, self love, confidence, self esteem, low self esteem, self esteem activities, confidence exercises, breaking through the silence, what does emotional abuse do to you, what does it mean to be narcissistic, what being with a narcissist does to you, what emotional abuse does to you, learning how to trust myself again, i trust myself, i only trust myself, in myself i trust, toxic relationship, toxic partner, toxic person, toxic people, trust myself, Can you heal from abuse, narcissistic relationships, What do I do after leaving my narcissist, What does a healthy relationship look like, narcissistic women in relationships, narcissistic personality disorder in relationships, covert narcissism in relationships, being in a relationship with a narcissist, empath narcissist relationship, narcissist in love relationships, vulnerable narcissist relationship, narcissist mind games, narcissistic mind games example, mind games narcissists play, mind games of a narcissist, covert narcissist mind games, mind games played by narcissists, mind games of narcissist, narcissist and mind games, sexual harassment, narcissist playing mind games, mind games narcissist, narcissists and relationships, toxic relationship, toxic partner, toxic person, toxic people, Reclaim Your Life, Healing Steps, You’re not alone, I’m a survivor, physical abuse, emotional abuse, verbal abuse, mental abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse, sexual assault, spiritual abuse, consent, what is consent, how to develop confidence, build confidence, boost confidence, how to boost confidence, how to build confidence, unconditional self love, self love, love myself, i want to love myself again, 
 
Don’t waste anymore time feeling lonely, worthless or exhausted. Schedule a call with me today at scheduleacallwithmarissa.com.

Healing From Emotional Abuse: What Does The Bible Say About Narcissism: with Pastor David Gilleland

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to take years either. The lives of millions of other survivors around the worlds have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Marissa: Welcome back to Breaking Through Our Silence. I know I say this every time but I am so honored to bring in my amazing, amazing friend, Dave Gilliland to talk to us today. Dave is an asylum officer with the Citizens and Immigration Offices, a veteran, a survivor of child sexual abuse, and a Southern Baptist pastor for the First Baptist Church of Coal City, Illinois. But before all of that, he is my former co-worker, amazing business partner, and long-time friend and travel buddy. We worked together at the 416th Tech Army Installation working in suicide prevention. Thank you so much for being here, Dave. Oh, my gosh, I miss you.
 
Dave: It's awesome. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share my little slice of the world on such an important topic. I'm really excited to be here. Thank you.
 
Marissa: Well, thank you so much for being so open to talk to us. So today, I really want to focus on how religion plays a role in abuse. I have been confronted with several people reaching out asking about what they can do, because they are very devout in their religion, and feel very stuck in their abusive situation. So, as a pastor, if somebody were to approach you and say, “I'm in an abusive relationship, but I don't know what to do,” what advice would you give them? What would you say to them?
 
Dave: Well, you know, every person is different, and every situation is different. So, I don't know that there's a boilerplate answer. I'm actually dealing with a couple of different couples that are going through divorce right now. One from my church, one from my extended family. And there's been a culture for a really long time. In a church culture of you don't divorce unless there's some kind of sexual infidelity or things like that. And there's definitely biblical precedent for that. At the same time, I don't think that people should take such a legalistic view of the Bible that they stay in an abusive relationship. I can't imagine that Jesus would want you to stay and be abused. I just don't get that from the Scripture. So typically what I would do is I recommend counseling . I don't counsel myself, because I'm not a counsellor, you know. I'm just a guy who happens to be a pastor on the side. I don't have a counseling  degree. So I outsource counseling , but I recommend counseling . I do recommend reconciliation, as the main goal. You know? Restoration, reconciliation. Let's not walk away from something that's broken if it can be fixed and restored. You know? That's even better. Sometimes people just don't want to put in the work because it takes work. So, you know, definitely counseling . I don't want people hiding and just suffering abuse for no reason. I don't think that's a good way to live. And I don't think that honors God to live that way either.
 
Marissa: That makes sense. First, I like that you said that you don't think that Jesus would want somebody to suffer through abuse. And I agree with that. I'm Jewish, by tradition and by blood. So, Jesus has never been a part of my life, but, from what I understand from Catholicism and Christianity and the sects of Christianity, I also can't imagine that a person that preached tolerance and non judgment would want you to suffer. Right?
 
Dave: Right. There's, a whole school of thought, it comes, like I said, from a very legalistic perspective. Kind of an old school cultural perspective that, you know, the man is in charge. And, you know, the scripture saying that your body is not your own, it belongs to your spouse. And that has really been misused and abused. Some people may say, some pastors may say, “Yes, you should suffer just like Jesus suffered.” And, you know, I think that's a real misinterpretation of Scripture. Jesus always confronted people in their sin. I mean, he never just ignored sin. But, he did it in a loving way. And he would say things like, “I'm the judge, not you.” Basically, who has no sin cast the first stone, right? All of us have our sins; all of us have our shortcomings. And I think God, if you look from the whole creation story at the beginning, if you look from the Torah, all right, all the way through the new testament to Revelation. God, continually, constantly over and over again, is about redeeming and restoring. And I think that when people are in an abusive situation, you should try to fix it. Sometimes it can't be fixed. And I think there is a point where you just got to walk away. And I don't think it's the Church's responsibility to make people feel guilty about that, to harm them. You can be guilt tripped in staying, or there's a lot of different ways that we can manipulate people into doing things that they don't want to do. And I don't think that's the Church's job. I think the Church's job is to redeem all of those types of things. To love. And that's ultimately, I mean, you can get through these things. I've seen marriages come back from the brink. Most of the broken marriages I see, there have been a little bit of direct abuse. Like emotional abuse, or some verbal abuse. But most of the time, it's years and years of neglect, right? It's about not dealing with things as they happen. It's not, it's about trying to cover them up or to cover them over, instead of addressing it right then and there. And what happens is when people hold on to their stuff, and those hurt feelings build up; those wounds add up. And then there's a point where everything just explodes. Right? And then it's just a big, giant mess. Like I said, I'm dealing with two divorces right now and that's exactly what happened in both of them. One is a 13-year marriage. The other one’s over 20 years. And it's simply because they have neglected their marriage over the years and they've abused each other in that way. They've not taken care of each other. And now, there's, you know, very little hope for reconciliation.
 
Marissa: But what about people who are, not to, you know, downplay anything with the couples that you're working with, but the people who are in verbally or emotionally abusive relationships that are persistent? Abuse is classified as a pattern of behaviour that cycles through honeymoon, to tension, to explosion. And so those are the people that I'm concerned about, truly, that feel guilt ridden to stay.
 
Dave: Well, again, I guess I would recommend counseling first, for any of those situations where there's sexual, physical, verbal, emotional, try to get some help. There's a point when you are enabling somebody else's mental illness, right? Their stuff’s being projected on you, and they're taking it out on you. If I ever struck my wife out of anger, she should walk out the door. Right? She absolutely should. That said, we've been married for 20 years, we should get counseling, if that's possible. I grew up in a very abusive home, with an alcoholic father. And I can't tell you how many times I heard, “Oh, I'll never drink again, I'll never hit you, again. I'll never do this, again.” And there comes a point when you know, right, that those words mean nothing at all. Right? Words go so far, but then there's got to be some action. So, in the church language, we would call that repentance, right? And what repentance means is, it doesn't mean saying, “I'm sorry for something.” It means basically doing a 180. I was going this direction, now I turn around and I’m going in that direction. So, if I'm being abusive, I'm going to quit being abusive. And I'm going to start being loving and supportive and encouraging and all those things. So, when I'm dealing with people from a pastoral perspective, one of the first things I look for is, how do I see these people behaving towards each other? Are they behaving towards each other with criticism and sarcasm and a lack of integrity? Or are they trying to love and care and compassion? Do you see those things in their actions? Because what you ultimately want is you want that person to say, “You know what? Yes, I am wrong.” So, we would call that, you know, confession. “I'm wrong. This is wrong, and things I've been doing is wrong.” So, they're displaying some humility, right? And then they say, “I'm going to change my ways.” Then we create some action steps. What is that going to look like? Number one, you're not going to hit or you're not going to say these things. You're going to go to counseling. You can go to counseling together, but you also should go separately. And then we create some action steps. And then we really just want to check in with that other person, the victim, the person is being abused. And see, is this actually happening in day-to-day life? Because usually, when I see somebody, it's once a week, once a month, at the most, if they're going through something like that. So, you want to keep checking in with that other person. “How's it going? How's it going?” You can tell if somebody’s really turned it around. If they really want to restore. If they really want to repent. I'm using a lot of our words, but it's just the way it kind of plays out. You know, if they repent and they start taking those actionable steps, you really want to try to support keeping those people together. If they're not, then, and I can't make that call, you know. At some point the victim has to, I hate even using the word victim, but the person being abused, has to make that call. And I think, as a pastor, not every pastor is like this. Not every denomination is like this. But for me, I'm not going to dump a guilt trip on you for doing that. You know, I don't have to live with the abuser. You do. And there is definitely a point now. You know, the flip side of that is somebody says, “Oh, my husband came home and had a bad day and, you know, threw his car keys at me. I'm leaving.” Well, okay. I have bad days, too. Is this habitual? Like you said, is it a pattern? Or is it a bad day. You know, some people will look for anything to get out of a marriage. And some people stay too long. And that's got to be a personal call.
 
Marissa: That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for saying all that. So, I wanted to bring this up: in vows, in marriage vows, it says “I vow to love, honor and cherish.” And those three words are powerful words, but they're also really vague. So, a lot of times, people will use that as a way to guilt somebody into staying, right? Like, “Well, you vowed to love, honor and cherish me.” But then on the flip side, that person isn't feeling loved, honored or cherished back. So, can you just give what your opinion of that is?
 
Dave: Sure. I mean, in an ideal world, that's what we would all do to each other, right? I've been happily married for over 20 years now. Do I love, honor and cherish my wife every day? No, not as much as I should. I take her for granted. And she would say the same thing to you, you know? Because we're human beings. And that's just the way we do. A lot of people don't even put those things in their vows anymore. What I more specifically point to, and you know, if I was a really good pastor, and I had been really prepared, I would have looked up the exact scripture reference for this. But in Ephesians, Paul tells husbands and wives, and this is the one that probably you hear most often, is wives submit to your husbands, right? Yeah, I mean, it does. It's wives submit to your husbands as your husband submits to Christ. And so, a lot of men will use that and say she's supposed to submit to me. Well, it says, as you, the man, are submitting to Christ. Most men aren’t submitting to Christ the way they want their wife to submit to them. So, it's not it's not a license to abuse, it's not a license to oppress. It says, husbands, love your wives. Wives, respect your husbands. And I think it's interesting that those two words are used with those two genders. Because it seems like sometimes the most difficult thing for a man to do is to show love. And sometimes the most difficult thing for a woman to do is show respect to a man. And, you know, there's a lot to unpack there that you could unpack. But the thing that I tell married couples, when I'm getting ready to marry somebody, is the wedding is a day. A marriage is a lifetime. And it takes work; it takes intentionality. And what it really takes is selflessness. If you are putting that other person above yourself, each and every day as much as you can, and they are doing the same, you have a much higher chance of being successful. You are putting in 110% every day, and they're putting in 30%. At some point, you got to say this is dumb, right? This just is dumb. And that's, I think, when you ask for help, and you address it, right? Because if you don't, then what happens, again, is you go 3, 5, 10, whatever years. However you decide to cope with it until you just blow up, and you're like “I'm done.” And it doesn't matter what happens now. So, should we love, honor and cherish? Yeah, I mean, I should love, honour and cherish you as a human being. Do we do it? We're not great at it, a lot of times. Just look at social media, right?
 
Marissa: That's true. I think that we're at a point in society. And this is a total 180. But, we're at a point in society where social graces have kind of gone out the window. And we're kind of so disconnected because we are so overly connected, that the need for human contact is satisfied by turning on my phone and going on Facebook. So, I don't feel the need to shoot you a text message every week and say, “Hey, Dave. How are you doing?” And I just think that's so sad. And I think that plays a big role in the way that people relate to each other and why abuse is so rampant.
 
Dave: I think, too, that you see, you've probably heard this before, but there's a degree of anonymity even if you're friends with a person on Facebook or Instagram. There are things that I see people say on social media to each other that they would never, ever say to their face. And I think, in a way, and I'm not going to say that all social media is from the devil. I think it's just the way we use social media in such a poor manner. But, I think it has really decreased our communication skills. I think it has really taken away from the way we communicate with each other. And I certainly think there's probably a correlation to the way we communicate in the marriage relationship in that sense, as well. It's a lot easier to get in my friends group and chat with my buddies about how horrible my wife is, instead of just actually saying, “Hey, babe, what you said to me was, the way you said it was disrespectful. And what you said hurt me.” How hard is that to do? And if I said that to my wife, she would be crushed. You'd be like, “Oh, no, I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean it that way,” or “This is what's going on,” you know. And we can have an actual conversation about it. People don't seem to want to do that anymore. I don't know why. And I think maybe one of the reasons is because social media makes it so easy to not have to do those things, right?
 
Marissa: I guess it sounds so silly. But there's a thrill in picking a fight with somebody or saying something that you would never say to somebody’s face on social media. Because there's really no, there's no consequence. I can go on and use really mean words and attack people. And the consequence I get is a couple more people will call me a bitch. That doesn't really mean anything to me, right? So, there's like a thrill in that. And then the more you do that, you just get used to that kind of aggressive negativity. And it becomes much easier to speak in that way than like you said, than it is to confront the person that's actually bothering you. And my mentor, Jack Canfield, has said to me, on several occasions, that we complain about things to the wrong people. So, his biggest example, his main example, is we don't go around and complain about gravity, because we can't control gravity, right? It just, it is. It exists. But people, like you said, will go to their friends and bad mouth their partner, or, you know, will attack somebody on social media, and complain in that way. Call everybody from different political sides ignorant, and stupid, and dumb, and whatever. Because it's so much easier to do that and be validated than it is to confront a person and be honest. 
 
Dave: Right. And sometimes, my wife, like I said, we've been married over 20 years. And there have been times when she'll say something that has been hurtful to me, you know. I'll say something back to let her know. But at the same time, that's also an opportunity for me to do a little bit of self examination. Why did that particular thing, that touched a nerve. And why did it touch a nerve? Right, and I think that's another thing that we lack. Because what you mentioned about being validated, right? It's much easier for us to go out and find people who agree with us than to do some hard self-examination on why we say the things that we do, or why we behave the way we behave.
 
Marissa: Right. And that's a really hard pill to swallow for a lot of people. 
 
Dave: I'm not the most overtly religious, you know. I'm not a traditional. So, just so your folks know, I don't have a seminary degree. For me to be a Southern Baptist pastor is nearly unheard of. I've got a lot of tattoos; I have a divorce in my past. You know, it was definitely ordained by God that I ended up with the Church. There's no other way to explain it. I don't have the most traditional approach. But I have to feel from my faith; what I see in the Bible, or what I read from my faith, is that it is always, like I said, about, there's hope. There's hope for change. That people can change. Abusers can change. People that have been abused can heal, right? I think that's the most awesome thing about the Christian faith, is that it offers that opportunity. And in our tradition, God, the Holy Spirit enters into you, into your life. You surrender your life for His. And what that means is you surrender your will, your hopes, your desires, your dreams, your goals; you surrender everything for His. And when that happens, when you make that choice, when you do that surrender, you know, we feel then that God starts to work through you. And when He does, He can radically, radically change your life. And I'm telling you, you know, if you talk to guys that I was in the army with, I didn't get all these scars and tattoos because I was in Sunday school my whole life, right? I rode motorcycles, I ran with a rough crowd. I did some, you know, some very hard things. My parents owned taverns when I was growing up. So, I was raised in a very toxic, you know, chemical, alcoholic, abusive infidelity. I mean, it was just rampant. Everybody did it. You know, as a child growing up, I thought everybody lived that way. And I'm a pastor. I mean, there's no, it makes no sense. I'm more compassionate. I used to be so mean and just use and abuse people. And now I feel like I'm so much more compassionate for my fellow man. I have no other way to explain it other than God. And I think that's the greatest thing about faith and about spirituality, is that it gives an opportunity for change, it gives an opportunity. Paul says in Second Corinthians 5:17, the old is gone, you are a new creation, right? You get to, that doesn't mean that you get off scot free, right? Things that you do have consequences. There are still consequences that I pay for, for things that I did 30 years ago. It doesn't give you a blank check. But it gives you a new start. And that can happen for so many people. Sometimes it's really hard for them to accept that these patterns of behavior are so ingrained. And sometimes it's just easier to be abused, or to abuse, than it is to think of a new way of being, or a new way of doing.
 
Marissa: People can change when they want to. And I truly believe that I've seen people change. And so, I completely agree with that. I think your congregation, because of everything that you've gone through, and how you got to where you are now; I think your congregation is so lucky, because you're relatable. I think one of the things that I, for a lack of a better term, distrust about organized religion, is that the person that you are praying with, so like the rabbi, or the priest, or the pastor, they are these nearly perfect beings. And that makes them really intimidating and difficult to confide in, in my very, very humble, non-religious opinion. So, when I was doing grad school, I had to write a paper about domestic violence in the ultra orthodox communities. And I learned that these people who were going to the rabbi for help, were basically turned away and told that they need to fix their household because they are the ones that are imperfect. And I think that that's so dangerous. So I, first and foremost, want to thank you for being who you are, and being the leader that you are. Because I think that you're helping a ton of people, just by having an imperfect background and an imperfect view, that people don't need to be perfect. They just need to be willing to change.
 
Dave: Again, this is all cultural stuff. And I'm talking about church culture, specifically American church culture. Where there is this kind of American Dream gospel, this American Dream philosophy. Where if you're the man, you wear the suit; you go to work. And the wife wears a dress and raises the babies. And everybody goes to church smiling on Sunday morning. And that's the perfect life. And that's just not realistic. And it never has been. I mean, let's be honest. It's never been that way, right? And what you get, then, in that kind of philosophy, is you get these religious leaders, from all different faith traditions, that end up being put on a pedestal, because they are spiritual leaders. Some of them, let's be honest, like the pedestal. They like the attention. They like the power. And it's always just a big recipe for disaster. And then you do start to get that kind of “holier than thou” attitude from people. And “Go fix your own self.” So that’s not the way God operates. I mean, you read the Bible, and that's not the way He operates. Religious leaders are the ones that are supposed to be, the Bible tells us that we will be judged more harshly than other people. So, we really got to keep a check on the positions of power that have been given to us. I would never tell anybody, you know, “Go fix yourself.” I would say, you know, “Let God fix you. The counsellor can help.” You know, God can use the counsellor. Some people need medication, I'm not opposed to stuff like that. But you get this sometimes, and Christians deserve it. I think, most of the Christians I know, I would say, don't go to church because they're so holy; they go to church because they're so broken. And sometimes they get a bad rap that they're holier than thou and they're perfect, and they think they look down on everybody else. Most of the Christians I know are not like that. But there has been a culture like that for probably 30, 40, 50 years, maybe even, where people did feel like they had to act a certain way or behave a certain way to be, you know, quote-unquote, “acceptable.” And that even translated into the way they dress. The way you cut your hair. The way you vote, right? And if you didn't do all of those things the exact way, then you were a failure, and then there was shame and guilt. That's just not true. That’s just not the gospel. That's not, that's not real. That's not what real biblical faith means at all. And the American Dream gospels kind of taken and twisted it, the idea of what success means in faith, and has really done way more damage than good.
 
Marissa: What would be your one take home point, for anybody listening, for the people listening? What would be like the one piece of advice that you'd give them?
 
Dave: So, I've got a bachelor's degree. I got a master's degree. I'm not the dumbest person in the world, but I know I'm not the smartest, right? So, I try to keep things pretty simple. And so, I would say, this really profound thing. s a pastor, I would tell people to love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself. And if that sounds familiar, it's because I did not come up with that, Jesus did. If people could do those two things. If they could just focus on loving God and loving each other, man, that would make a huge change. Sometimes, we want to be right, more than we want to be compassionate. You know, why do we feel we have to be right all the time, right? Why do we have to feel like we have to be better than other people all the time? Why can't we just lay down our stuff and lift other people up? There's this whole system. The political system, the corporate system. The American dream, kind-of-ideal is about getting power, as much power as you can, right? Do whatever you can. If that's building wealth, if that's getting stuff, it's all about building power, so that you can use that to spend. That's capital that you can use to get what you want. And in many ways, it's very oppressive; it's putting people down. And I would say that the real gospel, the biblical gospel of Jesus Christ, from a Christian perspective, is that you are releasing power. You're releasing your power. And you're using the power of God, that He gives you, a supernatural power, to lift people up, right? It's not about putting people down. It's about lifting people up. And I think specifically in marriages, if we spend more time communicating with each other, and lifting each other up, we would have a lot less problems. You know, who am I? But if you're listening to this, and you are in an abusive marriage, and you are a Christian, go talk to your pastor. And if they don't listen to you, go talk to somebody else that's a godly person that you trust. There are people that will help you. There are Christian counsellors. You know, there is help available, you do not have to live this way. God never intended you to live like property or chattel, right? That's not His design for marriage. The marriage relationship is supposed to be a reflection of the relationship that God has in the Godhead, in the Trinity. In the father, son and the Holy Spirit. The marriage relationship is supposed to reflect that. And God, the Father, and Jesus, the Son, and the Holy Spirit don't abuse each other; they don't talk down each other. They don't slap each other around. They don't take advantage of each other. And so, from a Christian perspective, if you're in a Christian marriage, it's supposed to be better than a layperson or just a non-Christian marriage. And if it's not, you get some help. Just get some help. Get a counsellor. Go to your pastor. Whatever it takes, get some help.
 
Marissa: And if you do all that, and it's still not healthy, or it's still abusive, I have available a free safety planning guide on my website. It's http://www.marissafayecohen.com/free-resources and it should be the first one that pops up. Reach out to pastors and spiritual guides and priests to whoever you look up to. Thank you so much for saying all that, Dave. You're amazing.
 
Dave: Thank you for the opportunity. Like I said, I wish I was more profound and sounded a lot more holy than I do. But we know each other. I'm just Dave and we're friends. And thanks for the opportunity to hopefully speak into somebody's life.
 
If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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Healing From Emotional Abuse: Relationship Goals

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Can you heal from abuse?  What do I do after leaving my narcissist? What does a healthy relationship look like? These concerns cross the minds of over 20 people every minute; over 28,800 people every day.  And the sad fact is, we still don’t talk about it enough.  Healing from Emotional Abuse isn’t a bandaid situation.  But it doesn’t have to be a five year process either. Millions of other survivors around the worlds entire lives have been impacted by their narcissist.  Yours doesn’t have to.  To show you how to live a free, confident and peaceful life, your host and Founder of the Healing From Emotional Abuse Philosophy, Marissa F. Cohen.
 
Overcoming narcissism and healing from emotional abuse are so important to your mental health and to living a life of freedom, confidence and peace.  Today, I want to talk about relationship goals. We all have a picture of our perfect relationship and our perfect partner.  What we want out of a healthy relationship varies based on our specific wants and needs. Figuring out what you want, and the type of partner you want is a good way to help yourself find that person.
 
The qualities and characteristics of your dream partner that you focus on are the ones that come to you.  We as survivors get wrapped up in the negatives that we’ve experienced and focus on those.  We concentrate on the red flags we’ve experienced, the toxic traits they exhibited, and how horrible it was on their bad days.  And as we continue to focus on those, we are revictimizing ourselves and attracting people that were just like them. 
 
What were some toxic people traits that your abuser exhibited? Were they aggressive? Manipulative? Unkind to animals? Loud? Think about and identify as many as you can, because this is the last time you’re going to focus on these.
 
That cycle needs to stop.  You deserve a healthy relationship with a partner that respects your boundaries, shows you kindness all the time, and makes you feel happy and confident.  Someone who doesn’t try and break you down and control you.  Love isn’t control.  Love isn’t disrespect. Love isn’t explosive bursts and fighting. Love is respect.  Love is kindness.  Love is understanding. Love is healthy communication.
What is your definition of love?  What characteristics do you want in your partner? Don’t focus on what you don’t want.  Focus on what you do want.
 
I want to do an activity with you.  I want you to take out a piece of paper or the notepad on your phone.  And I want you to sit and really think about the qualities of a partner that you’re looking for.  Are they funny?  Do they make you smile?  Do they bring home flowers or your favorite candy for you?  Are they open to respectfully talking with you or debating?
 
Think 10 years into the future.  What do you have in your healthy relationship?  Do you have open communication?  Do you have silly dance parties?  Do you have movie nights?
 
For me, I need someone with opinions, someone with a sense of humor who can match my enthusiasm for comedy movies. Someone who is outgoing and kind.  Someone who is low-maintenance, because a hyper person is too much for me romantically.  Who loves animals, because my dogs are my babies.  Someone who is communicative and understanding.  Someone who is aspirational. And someone who is grounded, to help me keep my feet on the ground.
 
What are yours?  Make your list.  And really think about these qualities.  After you’ve made your list, focus on those qualities.  Focus on finding someone who fits your description.  Where focus goes, energy flows.  And if you stay positive and focus on the positive attributes of a healthy partner and a healthy relationship, the toxic people will stop being attractive to you, and you’ll stop picking toxic partners and unhealthy relationships. You’ll find your relationship goals and live happily, free and confident.
 
Happy Searching!
 
Hey! If you enjoyed this podcast, you have to check out www.MarissaFayeCohen.com/Private-Coaching. Marissa would love to develop a made-for-you healing plan to heal from emotional abuse. She does all the work, and you just show up. Stop feeling stuck, alone, and hurt, and live a free, confident, and peaceful life.  Don’t forget to subscribe to the Healing From Emotional Abuse podcast, and follow us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/marissafcohen, and instagram @Marissa.Faye.Cohen. We’d love to see you there!
 
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