Cat Climaco: The Quiet Signs of Control: Recognizing Narcissistic Abuse and Finding Your Way Out

In episode three of the Pros Who Pivot Series, we get into something very real,  how personal trauma can crack a career wide open and point you somewhere you never expected to go.

Cat Climaco is a high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting coach who built a successful marketing career, worked alongside her husband in a thriving company, and from the outside appeared to have it all. But behind the image, she was quietly losing access to her family, her autonomy, and her sense of reality.

Cat shares the patterns she lived through, how the pandemic became the turning point that blew the lid off the control she had been experiencing, and after filing for divorce how she found herself navigating one of the most complex legal systems imaginable, family court, while still deep in survival mode.

Her story doesn't end with leaving. It continues into a two-and-a-half-year battle to protect her son, earn sole decision-making rights, and eventually transform everything she went through into purpose-driven work that is now helping other protective parents find their footing, their voice, and their way forward.

In this episode, I discuss:

• The early warning signs of narcissistic abuse that are easy to miss or rationalize.
• How leaving the work she loved led her to find her purpose in a powerful new career. 
• How Cat's helps clients combine nervous system regulation and legal strategy to build a winning case.
• Why the abuse often intensifies after separation, not before.

This episode is a reminder that the hardest chapters of our lives don't have to be the end of the story. Sometimes they become the very thing we were meant to share.

If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to follow, rate, and review the podcast and tell me what resonated with you.

Connect with Cat:

Website: www.peacefulpresencedivorcecoaching.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/peacefulpresencedivorcecoaching

Instagram: www.instagram.com/peacefulpresencedivorcecoach

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/catclimaco

STAY CONNECTED WITH NOELLE:

IG: Noelle Van

IG: daybyday

Facebook: Day by Day 

Transcript

[00:00] Cat Climaco: Going through a divorce with a malignant narcissist especially is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can undergo. Like it's up there with cancer and soldiers at war, I would say. And he was causing so much chaos on a day to day basis that it was basically a full time job to manage him. For victims of non physical intimate partner violence. That's basically all forms of abuse besides physical violence. The abuse does not end when you escape the relationship. It intensifies. It was chaos on a daily basis. He was hacking my accounts, he was refusing to drop my son off for my parenting time. He it was just crazy. It was crazy.

[00:44] Noelle Van: Welcome to the Change Effect, the podcast that helps you turn life transitions into powerful new beginnings. One story, one shift, one breakthrough at a time. I'm your host, Noelle Van, an author, leadership coach and change strategist who spent years in corporate America helping innovate. Innovators and leaders break through barriers to create success on their own terms. I now work with women to step into change to create a life they love. Whether you're putting yourself at the center of your own story, redefining success, or making a power pivot in your life, career or business, you're in the right place. Each week we dive into conversations with trailblazers, change makers, and everyday women, experiencing the ripple effects that come from overcoming the fear and doing it anyway, providing actionable steps, practical strategies, and a whole lot of fun along the way. So if you're ready to step up and become unstoppable, buckle up and let's get started. What if the hardest part of change isn't making the decision, but learning how to hold your ground when everything around you feels like it's designed to make you question it. Today's conversation is about a kind of strength we don't talk about enough. The quiet, steady resolve it takes when the stakes are high and the path forward is anything but clear. Kat Klamako built a career in marketing and business, working closely alongside her husband and operating within what from the outside looked like a successful and established life and career. But behind that image, she was navigating something far more complex, a relationship with patterns of control and confusion that could no longer be ignored, leaving her with the difficult realization that staying in her marriage was no longer an option. But ending the marriage wasn't the end of the story. It was the beginning of a deeply challenging chapter. One that pulled her into a high conflict family court system where she had to learn in real time how to advocate for herself and her son, document what was happening and fight for protection in a system that doesn't always recognize the more subtle forms of harm. That lived experience is what shaped the work she does today. As a high conflict, divorce, custody and co parenting coach, she now supports protective parents navigating these highly complex situations with a blend of practical strategy, court awareness and grounded emotional support so they can show up steady, clear and credible when it Matters Most Today we talk about what it takes to transform a life altering experience into purpose driven work, why traditional paths can feel misaligned after deep change, and how to create a career that honors both your experience and your evolution. This is a conversation about protection, power and what it means to stand firm in your truth when it matters most. Kat, it is wonderful to have you here with us. Welcome to the podcast.

[03:20] Cat Climaco: Thanks for having me, Noel. Thank you Kat.

[03:23] Noelle Van: I feel like I always have people kind of start in the beginning in terms of sort of whatever you want to share about your background to kind of ground us and then we can start talking about your journey.

[03:34] Cat Climaco: Sure. So I'm from Cleveland, Ohio originally, grew up in an Italian family, very hardworking. My dad was an attorney and my mom was a stay at home mom homemaker. And I grew up in a family that had a lot of love and from the outside looked really, really perfect. And then from the inside there was definitely some dysfunction, you know, as there are in many families. But you know, I experienced in my formative years what I would call narcissistic abuse from my dad, which definitely shaped my life growing up. My view of love and what kind of behavior was acceptable and not acceptable, what love looked like. And you know, I also had this really amazing role model in both of my parents. So just like with most people growing up there was some confusing dynamics, right. But I started my career as an art teacher out of college. I was a K through 12 art teacher and then I got back, I went back to school and got my master's degree in interactive media. Fell in love with that sort of agency world, right? Digital strategy, social media agency Life. Ran the brand social media account for Starz Entertainment for a long time and then moved into digital marketing for TD Ameritrade. And from there my ex husband poached me to work at his software company, which is sort of what you just mentioned. I am mama to an amazing seven year old boy. He's just my joy and I just love what I do. I live in Denver, Colorado. We're big outdoor enthusiasts, ski enthusiasts.

[05:18] Noelle Van: And so you're in the, you're in a great part of the country.

[05:21] Cat Climaco: Yeah.

[05:22] Noelle Van: Yeah, I love it. I love it. So, okay, so you. I love your background, by the way. The fact that you got to work with kiddos in creative. That's just really fun.

[05:31] Cat Climaco: Yeah, I loved it.

[05:32] Noelle Van: You get poached to work at. What was the company that you worked with your husband in? What was that? What was in. Or do we.

[05:38] Cat Climaco: Basically, it was just a boutique software company. It was him and a few overseas designers and developers. And when we started dating, he showed me the products he was working on. And there was one in particular that I. Based on the work that I was doing, I thought, oh, my gosh, I can use this in my work. This is so valuable. And so, you know, when I told him all the potential of it, he said, I think you should work for me. I think you should quit what you're doing, and I think that you should work for me. So, yeah, that came along with the promise of, hey, let's travel the world for a year and be digital nomads, which was another one of my dreams. And so, you know, it was sort of an offer I couldn't refuse, which is. Yeah.

[06:19] Noelle Van: Yes. Sounds compelling. Sounds very compelling.

[06:22] Cat Climaco: Yes.

[06:22] Noelle Van: Okay, so when this is about how

[06:24] Cat Climaco: many years ago this was in 2015.

[06:27] Noelle Van: Okay. Okay. So you move over and what's the role that you play? Did you wear many hats in that job? I think you said you did everything.

[06:34] Cat Climaco: Yeah. He had two software products, one that he worked on in different, and the other one was mine. He basically said, you know, get this product ready to launch, launch it, do the whole thing. So I took the entire product, the design of it, I did the ux, the marketing, everything. Right. I'd had a master's in interactive media, so it was right up my alley, and I loved it. It was so much fun. It took me about a year to get it really, really compelling. We had a big base of users, and, you know, this was a really different product. People were paying for a web browser. Our biggest competitor was Google Chrome. And so what was the name of it?

[07:13] Noelle Van: What was the name of the product?

[07:14] Cat Climaco: It's called Ghost Browser.

[07:15] Noelle Van: Ghost Browser. Okay. I remember looking it up, but I can't remember what the name of it was.

[07:19] Cat Climaco: Opera is what I use now, and it's basically a clone of Ghost Browser. I don't know which one came first, but, you know, I wasn't doing that.

[07:29] Noelle Van: Was this the kind of browser, too, that, like, you can't trace back what you're searching? Kind of.

[07:33] Cat Climaco: That's it. You know, it had some privacy stuff. Involved, which, you know, was a big part of it, but yeah.

[07:40] Noelle Van: Okay. Okay. So you are working in the mix. Is this like a startup situation too? Was it okay?

[07:46] Cat Climaco: This is less than a startup. This is me and my husband working out of a home office. We have designers and developers overseas who are on different time zones and we are just like super scrappy. He's funding the whole thing. Personally, I mean, it was really happy

[08:04] Noelle Van: you were doing it.

[08:04] Cat Climaco: All of it. Yeah.

[08:06] Noelle Van: Oh, my God. Okay, so how. I mean, I know that there was sort of a. There. There became a bit of a shift at certain points, but just kind of walk us through that. Your eventual exit from that situation.

[08:16] Cat Climaco: Yeah, so it was. It was a very quick romance. We met in August of 2016. We got married in July of. Or, sorry, August of 2015. And we got married in July of 2016. So it was quick, you know, but I was 35, he was 41. Sorry, I was 32, he was 41. And so it was, you know, we were older, we knew we wanted to have kids and so we kind of got started right away and I worked. We worked together for about almost five years through the whole journey of, you know, getting pregnant and having a baby. I was still working as literally a brand new mom. When you own your own software company and it's literally like a five person team, there's no maternity leave, you know, that doesn't exist. And so I was still working through all of it. And when my son was. Had just turned one, it was like the height of the pandemic. You know, March of 2020, I realized I was in an abusive marriage. Yeah. And you know, they say with all narcissists, they're wearing a mask really tightly, they hold it really tightly onto their face. And typically with all narcissists, once you have a baby and you're fully integrated, tied to them, you know, trapped, as some people would call it, that's when the mask falls off. And it wasn't until I had my son I started to see glimpses when I was pregnant. But it wasn't until I had my son that I realized who my husband truly was. And so, you know, we went through the whole pandemic. And in May of 2020, I told him I wanted a divorce. And I worked with him all the way through. I think it was June of 2021 when I finally quit. So about a year after I filed. And it was when he asked me to do something illegal that I was like, okay, this is untenable, I gotta go now.

[10:17] Noelle Van: Kat, let me. Let me ask you this, because this is just also for listeners. It might. I mean, what you saw, you know, how you said you started to get glimpses of things, Were there particular signs? I mean, just to kind of give an idea of what that looks like, what kind of triggered for you, like, this is not healthy.

[10:36] Cat Climaco: Yeah. Gosh. You know, again, it happens.

[10:40] Noelle Van: Maybe it's more cumulative too, right?

[10:41] Cat Climaco: Yeah. You know, it happens gradually over time. You know, if the abuser in the beginning of the relationship treated you like they do, when you're finally ready to leave, you would never stay. So in the beginning, everybody tells the story like I did. It's a quick romance. It's a whirlwind romance. I got swept off my feet. He was so charming. Let me take you on a trip around the world for a year. Come work with me. All this stuff. What I realized is he was slowly, over time, making sure that he had control over every aspect of my life, where I worked, who I saw, what I was doing. And I think, again, the pandemic is really what just blew the lid off. The pandemic was a really good excuse for him to really tighten the control. My family was being super careful in the pandemic. You know, they. My sister had young children, and she lives here too. My parents were being really careful. My parents never got Covid at all. You know, he said that they weren't being careful enough. And we had a young son, and so I was forbidden from seeing. Seeing my family. And then it got to a point where I'm almost forbidden from talking to them, even though they were being so careful. He told me, your family isn't being safe. You're not allowed to see them. Neither is our son. You can go on Facebook and meet people that are being as careful as we are. Find who you like, and I will screen them and tell you whether or not you can bring our child around them. And I just remember thinking how even if this person told me that they would be this careful, this is a total stranger. How can I trust this total stranger over my own family? And, you know, this is really classic narcissistic abuse. So some of the biggest signs of narcissistic abuse, you know, that charming stage, that whirlwind romance at the beginning, and then slowly, over time, controlling every aspect of your life and then eventually cutting you off from the people that you love when you feel isolated, and when you are isolated, you're the easiest to control. This also includes lack of empathy. This includes the narcissist Wants to make you do everything. So I was doing 100% of the childcare. I was still running the business. I was grocery shopping online, I was cooking, cleaning, working, doing everything when he was literally just binge drinking and chain smoking. And it was, you know, I asked for once a week, two hours in the afternoon to myself so I could go for a walk. And he made such a big deal out of it and told me that I was so sick, selfish. And, you know, and then the day finally came where he was supposed to watch our son for two hours so that I could get a break. And he came up with some excuse. I can't do it. I just remember being so confused. And one of the, the key components of abuse is if you're confused, you're probably being abused. You know, the confusion, that's powerful.

[13:37] Noelle Van: Yes. Because you don't really think about that in the moment at all.

[13:41] Cat Climaco: No, no. And, and somebody explaining the dynamics of what was happening on the outside wouldn't have clicked. But the confusion, I don't understand what just happened. I thought this, you know, this person is supposed to love me. Did I ask it wrong? How come there's always so. It's the million questions and the abuser is usually projecting onto you. You're so selfish. You're this, you're, you know, it's the verbal abuse, the emotional abuse, the control, the isolation. These are pretty key patterns.

[14:10] Noelle Van: Here's something that comes to mind. Yeah, so you were with him for, you know, the five years that you were working together. Do narcissists, do they translate that approach to other people? So like, in other words, did you see that in with clients? Did he like, was or is it literally just within the relationship you're in with him? So it's this myopic sort of thing

[14:31] Cat Climaco: happening, you know, so some people say that, you know, narcissists can't help it. So it's not their fault. I think it's exactly the opposite. They know when they can be abusive and get away with it, and they know when they need to have the mask on. It's all theater, really. So, like, I have a good friend who was a longtime user of my ex husband's software product before we even met. And he used to ask my sister, hey, is Kat okay? And she was like, why? And what I came to realize is that his customers hated him and he had a reputation for being really abusive. I did not really see this until, again, I was already pregnant. But he was terrible to his clients. But he had such a. Such Like a niche product, which was totally separate from what I was doing. And I don't want to talk about the product at all, because he's very retaliatory. But he had a niche product, and he could charge a lot of money for it. And, you know, the users in that space knew that it was the best product, and so they just put up with it. But, like, we built a home, and he was so abusive to the people who built our home. Refused to pay them large sums of money at the end. But then again, in front of our friends, he was Mr. Wonderful. He was super dad. We would go out in public, and he was like, super dad in public. He was so kind and loving in front of family and friends in public. Eventually, he just stopped pretending with my family. But, you know, I loved going out in public because that's the version of him that I fell in love with. That's the person that I wanted. And so I was always wanting to go out. Right, yeah, let's go out and hang out with friends, because then I get the version of you that I fell in love with. And it was behind closed doors that he was really abusive, which is typically the dynamic. And abuse victims don't want to badmouth their. Their partner because there's so much hope that, oh, if I just say the right thing or they'll get help or they'll change. And so you don't want to badmouth the person that, you know you love in the hopes that they're gonna change. And so, yes, I saw glimpses of it, but only until I. After I got pregnant, and then it was like, all bets are off.

[16:39] Noelle Van: Yeah. Well, and I know, and we know this from the pandemic, that a lot of people. A lot of things amplified during the pandemic, let's just put it that way. Right? I mean, if you're in a not so great relationship, I'm sure that that would amplify because you're now around the person 24 7. Although it sounds like you guys, we're in pretty close proximity in your work and home, too. But. So this is May of 2020, and you decide, okay, I'm. I'm getting into filing for a divorce. So you decide now you leave the company a year after that, which, by the way, that is. That's, like, tough, because now you're in the mess. But are you still living together or are you not living together?

[17:13] Cat Climaco: Okay. Okay. Well, I moved out eventually. I filed for divorce once in May of 2020, and he convinced me to try again. And so then I filed again at the end of August. And he would not. I mean, we were multi, multimillionaires. He would not give me any money to leave until I fired that lawyer and got a new lawyer who got me out of the house. And so November of 2020, I moved into the house that I'm in now. I've been here since. This is my, you know, this is my safe haven. This is my sanctuary. And. Yeah, so from November of 2020 through May or June of 2021. Nice.

[17:56] Noelle Van: Okay, so you decide to leave then, do you? Then you leave the organization? Right, and how did that go? Like, what was that? Did you move to something different? Did you. Like, where, where did you. Cause I know what you do now. But what was sort of that bridge?

[18:10] Cat Climaco: Well, he put me under a performance review, which was really interesting. You know, my sister's in. Used to be in the corporate world and she was like, tell me. You know, it was basically just an excuse to be highly. Right. Yeah, it was. It's so fascinating. If it wasn't so painful, it would be even more fascinating. Yeah, yeah. I didn't work for a long time. You know, going through a divorce with a malignant narcissist especially is one of the most traumatic experiences a person can undergo. Like it's up there with cancer and soldiers at war, I would say. And so I just knew, like, I'm gonna go back to work, but I need to take a break. And he was causing so much chaos on a day to day basis that it was basically a full time job to manage him. You know, my son was going through the wringer. It was just mass mayhem. And it sounds like, what chaos could he possibly inflict? You guys are divorced. You're living in separate homes for victims of non physical intimate partner violence. That's basically all forms of abuse besides physical violence. The abuse does not end when you escape the relationship. It intensifies. It was chaos on a daily basis. He was hacking my accounts. He was refusing to drop my son off for my parenting time. He. It was just crazy. It was crazy. So I knew that I wanted to take a break and I thought, you know, I'm gonna take. I'm gonna take like a six month break. I have enough financial resources for that Runway. I'm going to take a break. And it was about two and a half years that I ended up taking a break just because of the chaos. I had to go back to court. You know, we settled for equal custody. I said, if you take breathalyzers during your parenting time so that I know that our little boy who can't even talk yet, is safe. I will agree to 50, 50. I will waive alimony. I don't want money. I just want to know that my child is safe. But I had to go back to court and request sole decision making majority custody. And the court did award that in June of 2024 based on the very, very high legal bar of child endangerment and domestic violence.

[20:23] Noelle Van: Whoa.

[20:24] Cat Climaco: Yeah. So it was as I was getting ready for that hearing, which was in January of 2023, that I took the high conflict divorce coach certification program offered through One Mom's Battle. And I graduated in October of 2023. And that program really informed how I approached my custody case to protect my son and myself.

[20:51] Noelle Van: Nice.

[20:52] Cat Climaco: Yeah.

[20:52] Noelle Van: And was it, was it like all the things that you. Because I can imagine the court system is just a maze. I mean, it's a maze, I'm sure. Plus there's so many broken pieces. I mean, there's. We know, we know the stories that you hear about all of this. I mean, that you've lived through and that other people have lived through. So you felt like it really helped to inform you and bring you there in like a. With. With a greater capacity to really understand what it is that you could, that you could do.

[21:19] Cat Climaco: I would say primarily the biggest thing that most survivors tell me that I hear, and that was my personal experience as well. I, when I filed for divorce, naively believed that the family court system would protect my son and me and that they would just see it right. It was so obvious. The abuse was overt and insane. The family court judges who sit on the benches are wildly under trained or not trained at all in dynamics of domestic violence. They see domestic violence is the, you know, what we traditionally view it as the violent incident model of. There's physical abuse, there's proof, there's bruises, there's broken bones. They don't understand the like vast array of what we call post separation abuse. They don't get it. They don't understand it. They don't understand how it affects children. You know, you can't be a good parent and abuse your child's other parent. It's just not. You want your child living. If you're a good parent, you want your child living in a stable home with a very resourced parent who's able to focus their time and attention on raising your child and providing for your child. If you're actively abusing your co parent, that parent does not have the Capacity, which is why I didn't work right. I was like, nope. Plus, my son has high needs. And so, yeah, yeah, they just didn't understand it. And also, my attorney was fantastic. She's my savior. She helped get us so much protection, but she had never lived the experience of divorcing a malignant narcissist, to be honest. And so she just. There were just aspects she didn't understand. So this program gave me the language to describe what I was experiencing and how my son was being affected in a way that the court could act on it and how to demonstrate those patterns and how to do it concisely. These judges are so busy, they're overwhelmed. They don't understand, you know, their dockets are full from morning until evening, and then the amount of evidence they have to review outside of court time, especially in a case like mine, is just huge. So, you know, it really did give me the tools to protect my son and myself and, you know, learn how to function in an abusive co parenting dynamic, which is really challenging.

[23:39] Noelle Van: I can imagine. And it's. I mean, you live through it and you get through the hardest times of it and you're. But you are still connected. I mean, there is, that's the thing. There is a connection there that, like, is very underestimated because that's something that you're gonna be, you know, but so are you. So you're at a place now, so you move into this, you start learning more about it. You started coaching others couple years ago, right? Several years ago, yeah.

[24:06] Cat Climaco: You know, I graduated from that program in October of 2023. And I wasn't sure that I wanted to be a divorce coach. You know, I took, I took the program for myself for my own case, which a lot of graduates of the program do. And I knew that I wanted to go back to work. I mean, I had had some really interesting, very high responsibility, high con, high consequence jobs with some, you know, Fortune 500 companies. And, and I loved that work. But the idea, after going through what I had been through, of going back to work In a normal 9 to 5 setting, like, I sort of describe it as shell shock. You know, there are people, and this is of no disrespect to our, you know, military service members, because I have not lived through that. But I, I sort of describe it that way. They come back from work and they're shell shocked. They're looking around at people just going about their everyday lives like everything is fine and they just cannot imagine ever getting back to that place. And that's sort of how I felt. I had lived through something so traumatic, and I was like, I don't see how I could possibly go back to work in an office, have water cooler, chat, talk to clients, like, everything is fine. It's not fine. There are so many people still going through the nightmare that I just escaped. Yes. I can't leave them behind.

[25:28] Noelle Van: And I was just gonna say it's like, I mean, when we talk about finding our purpose, and I know that's a very cliche thing that people say, and it's. I wish there was a different way to put it, but, like, you stepped into something that you realized. Like, I can't unsee this exactly. Like, I've seen it and I can't unsee this. So now what do I wanna do? And I can only imagine, like, was there. Was there a point where you kind of were like, oh, my God, this is my. This is what I wanna do.

[25:53] Cat Climaco: Yeah.

[25:53] Noelle Van: Or was it eventual. Like, did you kind of just gradually start helping people and then you. I mean, how did it kind of transform into what you're doing now?

[26:01] Cat Climaco: You know, I was really grappling with what I want to do. What do I want to do? And I will say that there's more and more protective parents. Right. Which are an abused parent trying to protect a child from an abuser. There are more and more protective parents having positive outcomes in family courts. But sadly, the majority of parents do not have the level of protection that they should and don't have the level of protection that my son and I do. I had a really successful outcome. And I am clear that the coaching that I. The coaching program that I went through really gave me the tools. And, you know, I was raised by an attorney, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[26:43] Noelle Van: You.

[26:44] Cat Climaco: My mind just sort of works like that based on, you know, growing up my father's daughter and I just had this aha. Moment of. I had a lot of success. There are other parents that deserve this level of protection. All kids are my kids. All survivors are my people. This is my tribe. I can't leave them behind. I have to go back and I have to help other people. I can't say there was, like, this one transformative experience or moment, but it was sort of like a million little realizations over time that I was like, this is what I have to do. Yes, this is what I have to do. And so I've been coaching ever since.

[27:23] Noelle Van: Oh, my gosh, Kat, I. And the thing that I think is, so what's wonderful about what you do now Because I feel like, you know, when we leave the, whatever you want to call it, corporate world, the agency world, you know, you were, you were working on very like complex projects, overseeing lots of people. Like you have a foundation that you've built.

[27:44] Cat Climaco: Yeah.

[27:45] Noelle Van: I mean when you take something that you do now, which is something you've stepped into, I mean it's fairly recent, it's within two years. Right. You stepped into something like this, how much more you can expand on what you do as the year. Like you just don't know. When you think about like legislature and all this stuff. Not that you're up there. I mean, I'm not saying like you're going to be up on the hill and you're, I mean that may be something you want to do.

[28:06] Cat Climaco: I actually am involved in the legislative process a little bit.

[28:08] Noelle Van: Okay. I was going to say I didn't want to make that assumption because that's, that is a big ball of yarn.

[28:14] Cat Climaco: Sure is that, you know, it sure is.

[28:17] Noelle Van: But it's a testament to like you've done really big things.

[28:21] Cat Climaco: Yeah.

[28:21] Noelle Van: And so I always feel like when people walk into something like this that starts with that kernel, that seed, all of the things that have brought you to where you are now, it's like, you know, look out because you've got, you know what I mean? You're going to be making something even bigger and bigger out of this, which we don't know what that is. But bless you for the people that get to work with you because that's, that's, it's an area of need. It's obviously a really big area of need. And not only do you know that, but you've lived it. And that's, that's the part that's really amazing. So what do you do now? So you work with, you've got clients that come, that come to you that are men and women, I would imagine.

[29:01] Cat Climaco: I do work with both men and women. A lot of female bodied coaches do not work with male bodied clients. You know, just like we talk about, Breast cancer is primarily a female disease. There are men that get breast cancer too. It's very rare compared to the number of women. It's sort of like that with domestic violence as well. Domestic violence is primarily a gender based violence. It's typically men abusing women. But there are men who are on the receiving end of this abuse. A recent ex boyfriend who was a dear friend, I worked with him for a long time, was a male victim of neglectful narcissistic abuse. And I watched what it did to him and his daughter. And I think if I hadn't seen that firsthand, I don't know that I would've worked with men. Yeah, that experience changed me. And what I've come to realize, too, is the more insidious the abuse, the more traumatic it is to the brain, because people don't recognize it, and it's hard to explain. And so the experience of being abused is so traumatic. But the experience of a male domestic violence survivor. Victim, survivor, that much more traumatic. People don't believe them. Or there's like this masculine shame, you know, machismo shame of, oh, she abused you. So there's just so much more that comes with it that's so complex, which is why I do work with male clients. You know, I have a bit of a screening process. Just become a. I'm a woman, and I know what the abuse from a man feels like. I'm able to pretty quickly screen women and understand, is this somebody I want to work with? Is, is this the abuser? Based on her language and how she's describing the situation. But I have a bit of a different screening process for men that I use. And so I do work with both men and women. Again, there's a lot of coaches that don't, but I do.

[30:44] Noelle Van: This is one thing that comes to mind when you have people that come to you and they're looking for help. A lot of them, do you feel like you are needing to help them identify and understand it, or do they pretty much know what's going on? They just now need help navigating through the system. Cause that's. Like you said, it can be really insidious where people are like, wait, what is going on? Is this just a bad. Is this just a bad divorce? Or is this somebody that is really manipulating me in a really unhealthy way?

[31:12] Cat Climaco: I would say a majority of the people who come to me are aware of how bad it is, but they don't necessarily have the language to describe it. You know, a big part of my coaching, what I do is very holistic. So I'm not an attorney and I'm not a therapist. I'm sort of somewhere in between. Therapy is great for unpacking things that have happened in the past. Coaching is really great for, you know, I leave people. I give people specific tools on how to regulate their nervous systems, because this really is like activating the trauma response, the fight or flight. And when you're in fight or flight, you're operating from your reptilian brain. Which is the oldest part of the brain near the brain stem. And it's like, literally like, do I fight? Do I run? Do I fawn? Which is typical, you know, with abusers, right? Like, acting sweet and getting them to, oh, I'm so sorry, it's my fault. It's not your fault. Right? That's fawning, which a lot of kids do in the face of abuse. And so what I do is I give them the tools to re regulate their nervous system, to shift them out of that sympathetic nervous system, which is fight or flight, into the parasympathetic nervous system. Because when you're in fight or flight, the prefrontal cortex, which is the thinking, rational part of your brain, is completely offline. And that's the part of your brain you need to be using when you are navigating a highly complex court system.

[32:31] Noelle Van: Right.

[32:32] Cat Climaco: When you're trying to, like, take all the pieces of abuse and all these little patterns of horrible abuse and weave it into a really compelling narrative to explain to these professionals what is happening to you and what kind of protection you need for your child and yourself. That takes a significant amount of strategic planning. And the clients that come to me are just not in that space. They're just not.

[32:59] Noelle Van: Well, and I was gonna say. Cause they're. I mean, and you know this, right? When you're in the midst of it, you're in the midst of it and you cannot see to the outside.

[33:06] Cat Climaco: It's.

[33:07] Noelle Van: It's a very. So that's a really. That would be a really interesting interplay that you have to navigate with them to kind of get them to a place of not. Not that you're trying to have them, like, be outside of the experience, but there's a. There's a disconnection there that needs to happen to some degree if you're that. That emotionally involved.

[33:25] Cat Climaco: Yeah, it's.

[33:26] Noelle Van: Logic doesn't always win when that happens, right?

[33:29] Cat Climaco: Oh, not at all. And our brains don't understand the difference between there's a bear in the room or there's a bear on the other side of the computer who's constantly typing me nasty grams. And it just doesn't get it. And so, I mean, what I do is really holistic. Right. So it's like nervous system regulation, giving them tools for. This is how we communicate with an abuser, or this is how we document the abuse. These are the three things I need you to do between now and the next time we meet to make sure that things are moving along. And we're putting Safety in place, and then literally like helping them build their case for their attorney. Like, I have clients color code their documentation by the list of best interest factors that family court judges view all cases through. It's sort of like the lens of what do I need to know to protect these people? And so it's very strategy based, it's very legally based. You know, aptitude test when I was a teenager said that I should either be a lawyer, be in marketing, or I can't remember what the other one was. But I've basically done both of those

[34:29] Noelle Van: things, you know, and so see, that's good. You're living them. You're living them out. Exactly. You're living out what you're supposed to be doing. I, this is, this is fascinating to me though, because when you talk about it almost like a templated version of things, I think that's the part that I just think there's so much more to what you're doing now that is gonna, I feel like it's gonna expand. So what do you do? So what's up next for every. I mean, I know you do lunch and learns. Right? You had mentioned that. So tell us about your lunch and learns.

[34:54] Cat Climaco: Yeah, I see clients individually. I also do a twice monthly lunch and learn series. Sometimes it's once a month. It sort of depends what I've got going on in my personal life with my little kiddo. But it's an hour with experts from all different kinds of fields to help us sort of navigate the journey ground our bodies heal, strategy wise. And so I've had attorneys, I've had therapists, nutritional coaches just to give us the tools that we need to navigate this complex journey. Because it really does take a village to survive and navigate a high conflict divorce. And so this is meant to be the village. And it's lovely, it's free. You can sign up on my website and it's, it's lovely. I'm also going to be launching a workshop series. So once a week for four weeks. It's a lower price point, you know, for. Because I, you know, I really do want to help everybody. Right. As much as I can, which is why I do these free lunch and learns. It's at a lower cost than private coaching on specific topics. Like my first workshop is going to be on documentation, you know, which is basically how you document the incidents of your case to present it to family court judges. And so I'm going to be launching that soon. So, yeah, that's, you know, that's some stuff going on I just participated by providing testimony for a bill that we are trying to push through the Colorado court system to provide more safety and protection for family court domestic violence victims. There's a bill that I would like to bring from California here to Colorado about preventing litigation abuse, which is where abusers weaponize the family court system to just take us back to court over and over and over and over again. So, yeah, lots on the horizon. A lot to be excited about.

[36:40] Noelle Van: You're doing some amazing and really important work. I mean, and I hope that you do you. And when we look at the arc. Let's talk about your arc. So, like, you think of the arc of your career right now. Do you feel like when you look back on what you've learned, and I know it's a different, you know, it's a different focus. Right. But I feel like, are there things that you're bringing forth with you? Like you said, you've got the lawyer in you because of your dad. I speak the same. I have an attorney as a father, too. I kind of get it. It's like you sort of. There's a little gene that, like, totally. That we carry with us. But. But is there something that. That you feel you have pulled forward kind of into this new space?

[37:18] Cat Climaco: Oh, yeah. I mean, you know, my marketing background, right? I'm a small business owner. I'm a solopreneur, right? So my marketing and my tech background, I built my whole website. I do the marketing, social media, the strategy, right. All of it. Launching these products, right. Cause I launched TD Ameritrade advertising campaigns nationally. So all of it, my art teaching background, my teaching background of. I taught in Commerce City, Colorado, where people would always say, why middle school and why Commerce City? Because this is where I feel like I can do the most good. You know, there's real opportunities. Yes. It's challenging, but it's sort of the same. And so, yes, everything that I've done in my past careers, I bring to my present. And then, you know, I like to say that my ex husband gave me two things, My son and an education on running a small startup, you know, solopreneur business. I had no idea how to do it. I didn't have the confidence. You know, when he poached me, I was like, really? Do you want me to do that? And what I learned is it's actually not as hard as you think it is.

[38:30] Noelle Van: And it sounds terrifying.

[38:32] Cat Climaco: I mean, yeah. Yes. But courage is, you know, continuing to act in the face of fear. Right? That's what courage Is I had no idea what I was doing. I was totally terrified. And I was like, well, let's just see how it goes. One mistake at a time. And I think that's what people don't realize, is that my son and I were in the car today, and something came up about making mistakes. And we looked up the number, and I think that the adage is that Thomas Edison figured out 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb before he made a light bulb. Right. And he just learned from every mistake. That's sort of what it is to be a solopreneur entrepreneur. You figure it out as you go along, and even when you make mistakes, you can't really muck it up that badly.

[39:12] Noelle Van: But I love your take on this, Kat, because I feel like, you know, there are a lot of challenges that people have in life, and you have kind of come out the other end of this, not only with a perspective on it, because you still, you know, after all that you've been through and that's. It's trauma. I mean, let's be honest. Let's call it what it is. You still have it in you to say, you know what, though, there's certain things that I was given through this, too. Like, there was some. There was some takeaways from this that could. I have, you know, learned them in different ways and maybe not gone through all of it.

[39:47] Cat Climaco: Sure.

[39:48] Noelle Van: But it's. I think that perspective is what makes you even more powerful with the people that you're working with, because that's how you view life. Right. You view life through that angle. And when you're looking at that. It through that lens, people start to realize, okay, yeah, there is. There's silver lining in everything that we do, and there's also a lot of lessons that we can bring forth and then do even more Good.

[40:09] Cat Climaco: Yeah.

[40:09] Noelle Van: Which is just, you know.

[40:10] Cat Climaco: Yeah.

[40:11] Noelle Van: It's pretty amazing.

[40:12] Cat Climaco: Well, I think that's really helpful, too, you know, especially for people leaving the toxic environment of the corporate world. Right. Yes, it was toxic, but the lessons that you learned in that environment shape your entire perspective about who you are and what you do. So I'm highly spiritual. I'm not religious, but I'm very, very spiritual. And I do believe in the journey of souls, and I believe that my soul consciously chose this journey for a reason, and my son did as well, you know, And I believe that we are here for I was meant to live this path, to help other people, to bring other people into safety, and it was highly traumatizing. And My abuser is what I call him. You know, I don't dance around it. My abuser and my son's abuser is one of my greatest teachers. Unfortunately, I never knew I was this strong. I never knew I could be this strong and this much of a fighter and this resilient, you know? Do I want to have to be all the time? Absolutely not. I'm really looking forward to a break. You know, my spiritual guides are telling me that there's resolution coming soon.

[41:21] Noelle Van: You're due. You're due big time.

[41:23] Cat Climaco: And so is my son. You know, we both are.

[41:25] Noelle Van: Absolutely.

[41:26] Cat Climaco: Yeah. This has been such an education. A lot of us say we're forged in fire, and it really is true. I never imagined that I would be doing something this purposeful. This work is so challenging, but it's so rewarding. And that's exactly what I was looking for when I was thinking, like, I wanna go back to work, but I can't just sit in a cubicle and do something like I was doing before. It's not that it's not important work. There's a lot of people doing really important work. But I just. This is what I was looking for. This is the feeling and the work that I knew that I wanted. I wanted to know that children and abused parents would be safer because of the work that I was doing. And it's so unbelievably rewarding.

[42:16] Noelle Van: And that's enough said. Right. When you think about how it's finding the depth in what you do and you needed this, I mean, this is deeper work for you because this is what you're meant to be doing.

[42:27] Cat Climaco: Yeah. Yeah.

[42:28] Noelle Van: Kat, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you talking with us about all this, because not only I think that there's a lot to be learned just in how to identify what you've been through, but also the fact that you're bringing this forward and that you're really. You're making significant impact every time you sit down and talk to somebody. And not only that, but it's almost like you're made for this work. I don't know. I just. That's just how I feel. Talking to you and knowing what your background is, it's like, oh, my God. This is. It's like a fits like a glove. Which is what it's supposed to be about, right?

[42:57] Cat Climaco: Absolutely. I like to say all roads led to Quinn, and, you know, this is the path to my purpose. Yes. Yeah.

[43:04] Noelle Van: Oh, Kat. Well, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it. And I'm gonna have all of Kat's links in the show notes, so if anybody's interested in connecting you, guys can reach out to her. And just thank you. Thank you, Noelle, for being with us.

[43:17] Cat Climaco: It was a pleasure.

[43:18] Noelle Van: That's it for now. Until next time.