Out Here Tryna Survive
This podcast is a trauma-informed, hope-oriented, safe space. It is a warm hug of solidarity for Black women 35+. It is a celebration of our resilience thus far & our determination to not only survive but THRIVE.
Join me, Grace Sandra, a Mama, author, advocate/activist, storyteller, for some good ole self-love shenanigans.
We are braver than we believe✨
Out Here Tryna Survive
Ep 26: Stop Victim Blaming Cassie
"Why didn't she just leave?" It's a question that reveals how profoundly we misunderstand the dynamics of abuse. Drawing from personal experience as both a childhood sexual abuse survivor and domestic violence survivor, I'm pulling back the curtain on why this question hurts victims and protects abusers.
The truth is that leaving an abusive relationship isn't simply a matter of walking out the door. Trauma bonding creates powerful psychological attachments that feel impossible to break. Statistics show the most dangerous time for any abuse victim is when they attempt to leave, with significantly increased risk of severe violence or homicide. When an abuser controls your finances, your career, and has isolated you from support systems, the question becomes not "Why didn't you leave?" but "Where would you go? How would you survive?"
Many victims develop learned helplessness after repeated failed attempts to change their circumstances. After experiencing the consequences of resistance – like we've seen in viral videos of abusers violently attacking partners who tried to leave – victims learn that compliance feels safer than escape. This isn't weakness; it's a survival strategy.
What's truly devastating is how victim-blaming perpetuates cycles of abuse by reinforcing the abuser's narrative. When we question victims rather than perpetrators, we validate the messaging they've heard from their abuser: that no one will believe them, that they provoked the abuse, that they somehow deserved what happened.
If someone trusts you enough to share their experience of abuse, please don't ask why they stayed. Ask what support they need now. Remember that your empathy could be the lifeline that helps them find their way to safety and healing.
Sorry, but anyway I'm kind of nervous. I haven't went live in a long time but I didn't get an episode yesterday, so I really want to get one out today. If you can hear me and it sounds mic'd, let me know, because I want this mic to be the one I'm using. I don't want it to just be picking up from my phone. I'm trying to get this mic working so that I can film, so that it's catching the audio for my podcast. But if that won't work, oh well, my little pod track for not working right now was not on my bingo card. So anyway, while I'm trying to get this working, let me just tell you what I want to talk about. I want to talk about this whole victim blaming thing with Cassie, because actually this is easier for me to get with my glasses off, because there is just so so many people women included, which is just so discouraging that are coming for Cassie and Holly. But this whole thing of why didn't she just leave, why didn't you just leave? Leaving is so much harder than you think if you've never been in that scenario and for those of you who've been through abuse situations. Sorry, I'm distracted. I'm still trying to get this set. For those of you who've been in abuse situations, leaving is not just a simple thing, and what I want to talk about today is I have notes here because I didn't want to forget what I was talking about is just the first of all, the complexities and nuance of abuse situations, but also particularly with Diddy and Cassie. Like Diddy's a billionaire, he's an actual, powerful billionaire. This doesn't take into account his power. I mean, there's, you know, I think there's some evidence to that. He, like, blew up somebody's car, kid cuties, car, whatever. Um, we all saw the video of what he did to her when she tried to leave. We can see it with our eyeballs. We saw that a year ago, but now, apparently in court today, there was even more, even more evidence that came out. So that too, we're just going to talk about that too. We saw that as a as an actual thing. That happened. If someone was to ask why didn't she just leave? We can see why she didn't leave. Okay, I'm just going to give up on that because it's driving me crazy. Um, so that's one. But also the dynamics of trauma bonding like for those, the average person who's never actually been trauma bonded, that's a real thing. That's the actual real thing. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of Stockholm syndrome, which is slightly different, but people do develop Stockholm syndrome as well. So, anyway, welcome to Out here Trying to Survive. I'm Grace.
Speaker 1:I talk about self-love, healing and all the things that we, as women of color, need to survive. And I talk very healing and all the things that we, as women of color, need to survive. And I talk very, very, very openly about how I was an abuse victim and how I took a long time to leave, in part like Cassie, because I was completely, fully, completely, fully dependent on my ex financially. And, don't forget y'all, cassie was signed to bad boy records. So she and she said in the case either yesterday or today, she literally said, um, he had my career in his hands, so she was fully under his control. A dynamic that's present always in any abuse situation is that the more dependent the person is on the abuser, the more the harder it is to leave, the more entangled it is psychologically. We see this a lot with child parent relationships. Right, because a child is fully, completely dependent on the parent and if the parent is abusive, obviously it's hard to leave. But that dynamic in a boyfriend, girlfriend situation and we're also, when we talk about Cassie and Diddy, we also need to be very aware of the age difference and just the age that she was.
Speaker 1:She said that she was 19 or 20 when they met 21, 22 when all this stuff was going on, and she signed a 10 record deal with bad boy records to start. And I just heard something, by the way, trigger warning content warning for those of you who are essay victims. I just want to be real cautious of that, because I'm also an essay victim and sometimes hearing these details about the case can be kind of a lot. So I just wanted to kind of put that out there. But I just heard today that she either testified earlier today or yesterday that the first time she met him or, I'm sorry, the first time that she signed for bad boy, that he did that he requested and did oral on her and that she had never had that done before and it was shocking and she went home and cried about it, basically, which exposes the power dynamics, like right away. So he set up a really, really toxic power dynamic right away.
Speaker 1:But when you're 19 or 20 years old, however she, however old she was when she signed the deal for bad boy records records. That's a very impressionable time. That's a very impressionable time for a young woman and he was what? 40 at the time. So there's already, you know, coercion present some levels of psychological menacing. I don't even say abuse at that time, but when you start off something like that and then for now people to say, especially women, to say why didn't she just leave, that's like really really maddening. So yes, I want to talk about that because I think that all of these things are very common misunderstandings of abuse and as a survivor of SA for those of you who don't know my stories I was SA'd by my dad from, you know, from a very from as early as I can remember until I was 10.
Speaker 1:And I at no point this is something specific I wanted to address that I at no point was ever held down. I was never at gunpoint. I was never. It was never a violent essay. It was an understood dynamic of a father-daughter relationship, which is really, really sad. But the reason why I wanted to bring that up specifically is because I think when sometimes people look at this situation with Cassie and Danny, just because it's so public but we all know women who've been here, and I was in a domestic violence marriage as well and what we can see is that, um, what we can see is that you don't have to be held down at pew, pew point, um, to be coerced into doing certain behaviors. And so when people are talking about Cassie, she willingly did this or willingly did that and that proves somehow that she wanted it or that she wasn't a victim of human trafficking or SEDGS trafficking. I'm not sure what I can say or not say, so I'm just going to use use the coded social media language. Y'all don't understand manipulation and control, and I think it's.
Speaker 1:I think what I went through as a kid is a great example of that, because, I quote unquote willingly participated. And what's really sad, what's so sad too, is that what people are doing to Cassie now. They did to me when I was on the stand, when I was like 10 years old, like I remember. I remember my dad's lawyer asking me well, you wanted it, didn't you? You asked for it, didn't you? And I'm? And I was like literally it was 10 years old being asked that question, y'all, which is insane. Like he should never have been allowed to ask me that as a kid still a kid, still only 10. And I at that point, you know I was confused and I was just like, yeah, I think I said I don't even actually remember what I said. To be honest with you, I don't remember what I said, but the point is is that what I understood, what I understood now, like if a lawyer were to ask me that now, what I understood now is that it was implied that I had to. I had to participate.
Speaker 1:I was also, like a lot of abuse victims, very trauma bonded to my dad in the sense that that was the only way that I was able to get love from him or compassion from him or kindness from him is I knew what I had to do. There was something that Cassie said earlier today that I heard just actually just heard from Jesse Wu's video about this, where she actually said that there's a few times she did fight back, but she didn't want to keep fighting back because when she kept fighting back early in the beginning, he would be surprised and he would get angrier and the abuse would be worse, the physical violence would be worse. And so she came to a point where she just where she literally said on the stand yesterday or today. She said I just realized like I just have to while he was physically assaulting her, just had to wait until it was over, because it was going to be easier for her if she just waited until it was over. I'm so frustrated by this. By the way, this is really, really making me mad. This isn't working. This is like a hundred dollars for it not to be working already is just insanity anyway. Um, so yeah, but I also feel like there's a lot of like misogynoir present. Um, just actually just basic ass misogyny present. Uh, both for men and women, when we look at, uh, especially high profile case, high profile cases where we're still only getting snippets, y'all. We don't know the whole story. We're getting snippets, but we also have saw video. That's what I don't understand about these women. There's a woman on my Facebook yesterday which this reminds me I'm going to go back and block her when this is over but she said basically the quote said basically Diddy is on trial for being a freak Sis, sis, he is not. We saw the video, we saw the abuse.
Speaker 1:Victim blaming is extremely pervasive and causes significant harm to individuals who have experienced abuse, and it perpetuates cycles of violence. It involves placing responsibility for the abuse on the person who was harmed rather than on the perpetrator. This can manifest in seemingly innocent questions or statements like why didn't they just leave? What were they wearing? Which you know, as we all know, is what a lot of people say to RAPE apologists or victims RAPE victims like, maybe what you were wearing?
Speaker 1:And actually, as a side note, I saw a really powerful museum display I mean not in person, but like it got posted on Instagram and the display showed, um, it was like a museum display and it had all these outfits of what people were wearing when they got REPED and one. And it evolved from like little clothes up to women clothes and it started off with like a little girl's dress Actually, that just gave me the chills, um, because I was a little girl when I got essayed but it was like a little girl's dress and then, like you know like, obviously like a little, it was the actual clothes too. It was really powerful a little, a little tennis skirt and like a little girl's t-shirt with like a unicorn on it and basically it was just regular clothes. It it was all regular clothes. None of it was like stripper clothes or hooker clothes or whatever. It was just oh anyway, it's just really sad that stuff like that, those kinds of lies, get perpetuated and the kind of damage that does y'all cannot be undone.
Speaker 1:It cannot be undone in society in a big culture way, but also like psychologically for the victims, the way that victims blame themselves. Already I've talked about this a lot before but, like in my situation when I was essayed by my dad, I blamed myself for so many years, in part this is really really important here in part because of what my dad's lawyer did when he was on, when I was on the stand. He did everything in his power to make me feel like you asked for this, you wanted it, you sought it out, you da, da, da, da da, without literally taking responsibility Like. This man was 44 when I was born. Okay, so when this abuse happened it was between, like, when he was between 45 years old and 55 years old, and I was age one or less, hopefully, I don't even know to age 10. And this lawyer acting like and a father, daughter acting like I wasn't groomed all the way to hell to participate in that stuff willingly. It's insane Anyway, but the amount of damage, if you look at that timeframe one to 10 is when it happened 10 until 43 or something, 30 years of me believing it's my fault.
Speaker 1:Because of this kind of language, because society perpetuates people, women must have done something to provoke it. You know, in this situation with Cassie like well, she willingly participated in these freak offs. So, anyway, multi victimling is incredibly multifaceted but also dangerous and also extremely violent. This is why a lot of victims the reason I say it's dangerous is because it's the reason why a lot of victims don't come forward, the reason why, even in my life, like there is a situation that I've alluded to in the past but I will probably never come forward about it, because this person is kind of well-known, not like super well-known, but enough that I would never want the backlash, enough that I would never want the backlash. I just I can't. I just can't deal with the backlash.
Speaker 1:People are far less likely to report, far less likely to report the view I'm sorry I already said that to seek help and also at least leaves victims being completely isolated. If they think number one, no one's going to believe them. Or if they do, ask them why they didn't seek help. Also, another thing that this does is re-emphasize the abuser's narrative it makes when we immediately call into question why didn't someone just leave? Or blame Cassie for this kind of stuff. It actually makes people believe that the abuser is right off jump and that they're they're the ones telling the truth. Off jump and I do understand. Guilty until until, I'm sorry, innocent until proven guilty. I get that. But at the same time in this case we have lots of we've had lots of evidence for over a year of guilt of abuse, of coercion, of physical violence and other accusers too. It's reasonable to want to protect the abused first. That feels more reasonable to me, but again, this might be just as a as a survivor myself.
Speaker 1:So I want to get into a couple of the reasons that it's very difficult to leave in general. One of them is trauma bonding. Trauma bonding is a very strong attachment. Actually, let me just read the definition so you know the actual definition. Trauma bonding is a psychological response to abuse where the victim develops a strong emotional attachment to their abuser. It often occurs in cycles where abuse of positive reinforcement, like kindness and affection, are interspersed with abuse. It creates a very powerful, often confusing bond that can be incredibly difficult to break as the victim clings to the hope of good times returning. I'm only smiling because I was so trauma-bonded to my ex. It was unreal. But I've seen other definitions of this where it actually says like you physically develop like a peptide addiction to an abuser when you are in a trauma bonded situation.
Speaker 1:There's been several studies done on this. When you are nice to someone and you give them a lot of good things and you almost like give them an overabundance of the things and they get addicted to it and then you take it away or you start treating the person badly, they will do anything to get back to that. What they felt like they were getting before, that they never had. So it's especially violent for assault victims. I'm going to since nobody's here right now, anyway, I'm going to see if I can fix this. I'm just so sad about it. Y'all Like, this has never not worked. I'm so sad about it. So, yeah, when I was with my ex-husband which I do have the full story of surviving very severe verbal and narcissistic abuse up on my YouTube channel Look under my folders and you can see one. But what I went through I've never experienced anything like trauma bonding before.
Speaker 1:The fact that Cassie was probably trauma bonded to Diddy is so likely is so likely trauma-bonded to Diddy is so likely. It's so likely. And she actually did mention it in, I think, in earlier, late yesterday's testimony, because I heard from Jessie Wu's live that she did late last night that Cassie was talking about just like, and her ex or no, her current husband too was talking about just the excitement of being around someone who's super popular and super rich and all of the good things. You do get good things. And the thing is, if Cassie was trauma-bonded to Diddy because she did say she really loved him in the beginning, he was very charismatic. The thing is, with abusers like Diddy, they're extremely charismatic, they're extremely fun to be around People like them.
Speaker 1:I mean y'all, look at the orange demon who leads America right now, not to me, but to his followers. He's extremely charismatic, people want to follow him. Like he's such a big personality. That's part of how he got to be where he is. That does not take away from the fact that he's an orange demon, okay. Does not take away from the fact that he's an orange demon, okay. But same thing with Diddy like that big personality that like make everybody feel loved and happy, like that kind of plus being a billionaire and being able to just spoil people like crazy, like that's. That in and of itself can be a very powerful drug.
Speaker 1:But she did say when she first got with him she really felt like she loved him. Um, and I was just laughing when I heard Jesse say that about like she was talking about. She was like when people say like, oh my God, she's all that for money, dah, dah, dah. And then she was like you do that for day, day, day, no money at all. And I was thinking when I was with my ex, he was supporting us. We weren't wealthy, you know, by any means, but he was supporting us and he was literally keeping me alive Because at that point I was just, I just had our baby, I had two kids with my first husband and I was completely, fully, emotionally sorry, financially dependent. That led to the trauma bonding, the idea that I need him and I can't piss him off too bad, I can't do anything. That would be too like outlandish or too crazy, and it leads to the trauma bonds. So, even though all that's in the back of your mind, when he would do something and he'd be really nice for a little while, or I would cry really hard and I would just tell him how hurt I was and then he'd be nice for a little while and then, once the abuse started, the pain is so much deeper it's hard to explain than just like a normal situation where you're not trauma bonded. I've had boyfriends before where they weren't nice or whatever, not not like abusive, like that, but like it just doesn't hurt as bad when you're not trauma bonded. But when you're trauma bonded the pain is so acute I really can't explain it. I feel like I will just keep saying the same thing over and over again. But anyway, so that's one thing.
Speaker 1:Stockholm syndrome is another thing. Y'all have probably heard of. These are like think of situations, like call situations, but it's often used interchangeably with trauma trauma. But it's not the same thing. Stockholm syndrome is more specific. Like it happens when, like hostages or abuse victims develop positive feelings or empathy towards their captors or abusers and so as a survival strategy, the victim actually aligns with the abuser to minimize the perceived threat. So I actually honestly really think that a lot of America is, has some especially the women has some level of Stockholm syndrome towards the orange gaming. But that's just, that's just my opinion. But we see it in those situations Like I forgot what it was like, where they, all you know, ate a bunch of applesauce and ended up killing themselves Because the, the, the, it was a hostage situation. Stockholm syndrome is wild, but all we know. Even though I don't understand that one as much, I know it's real.
Speaker 1:The third one is learned helplessness. So if you have prolonged exposure which I really think Cassie probably fits into this scenario a little bit, anyway if you have prolonged exposure to a situation outside of your control, where you have a sense of powerlessness that has been developed and reinforced by an abuser, you start to believe that you cannot escape, that you cannot change your circumstances, that you cannot get free, even when an opportunity arises. It's really, really demonic. And people who are very good at being abusive and narcissistic which I believe that Diddy is and was they're good at setting up this dynamic and making you feel like you are absolutely stuck and trapped. It's really, really, really I said really too many times See now, like toxic bond, and I just I really think, if you've never been there, please don't be judgmental. That's all I'm saying. Also, if you've never been in this scenario, maybe don't speak on it. You know part of the reason that I speak on it is because I've been in a long, because I was essayed for that many years and then because I got into a marriage later with an abuser, which is so unfortunate, because I actually experienced trauma, bonding, because I know what it's like to feel, learned helplessness, because I was starting to feel isolated. That's another thing abusers do is isolate you from your friends and family and support system and when you do that, when they do that, it makes it hard for you to get out. So for Cassie, she said in her testimony yesterday that one time her mom saw her busted lip and black eye and she acknowledged to her. She said Diddy did this to me the other week for the first time, when reality had been happening already for a full year and she'd never told her mom. Because what's going to happen? The fear that she might have, that he might do something to her mom. This is the next one Often fearing retaliation from abusers. People don't leave because they fear retaliation abusers. People don't leave because they fear retaliation. For those of you who don't know this, please listen A woman is, I think it's 100 times more likely to be deeply physically wounded or unalived when you're trying to leave.
Speaker 1:When you're trying to leave, that's the most dangerous time, when people say, just foolishly, why didn't they just leave, without considering if you live in the same house, if you're married, if you share money, if you share accounts, if you share children, sharing the car? There's a lot of things that I mean. Yes, financial dependence is part of it, but especially with the children thing, if you're afraid that someone is going to harm your children or harm you. We've all heard the stories. I mean just in this last week, accidentally, not even on purpose, just scrolling through People magazine or whatever have seen three stories of men unaliving their wives, girlfriends and kids when she was trying to leave. It's an extremely dangerous time. So before you ever, ever, ever utter the words, why didn't she just leave? Please, please, think about that. But also, when you're talking about Diddy and Cassie, please just go look at the video. Yesterday they released the full video In the last year I think it was a year ago when we saw the partial video of her trying to leave the hotel room and her dragging him, dragging her back by her hair, and I think we saw her kicking her too. I don't remember the whole video because I didn't want to look at it too much and I definitely don't want to look at what was just released, although if you have morbid curiosity, I believe it's on TMZ. So again, we see what happens when she tried to leave.
Speaker 1:Another thing is lack of resources. If you don't have access to safe housing or legal assistance, obviously it's hard to leave and for me, when I didn't leave my abusive ex, it was part of that, because where the hell was I going to go with a young baby, his baby, no money, two other kids and no job and severely, chronically underslept and being abused and literally a frigging basket case. So because there were people who said that to me and it was so, so painful, it was just really, really painful. Here's just a few things. I feel like we need to remember that it's really important to approach allegations with a sense of empathy for the victim Empathy and I really feel like if people had been through this, I really feel like that's what it comes down to. People who've been through it really always usually have a modicum of empathy for the victim that just other people don't seem to have. It's kind of wild to me, like it's wild to me, y'all, that there's anyone right now who supports Diddy, even after just the video came out, like why isn't that enough? Why isn't that enough? That was violent as hell. And also, if you look at that video again this is from a survivor perspective you can see that that wasn't the first time. That wasn't the first time he did all that stuff to her. You can see that this is an established pattern. So I'm I'm just incredulous.
Speaker 1:Another thing is, when we talk to abuse victims, this is not so much about Cassie, because none of us very likely are going to ever talk to or interact with Cassie, point going to talk to or interact with some woman in our family or ourselves who are currently or will be abused physically, emotionally, spiritually, verbally, psychologically, financially by some man in their life. Focus the conversation not on dissecting the person's past or present or what are you doing or what are you doing to provoke and all this stuff, and focus on the actions of the person they're claiming is abusing them. That is really, really, really a helpful place to start. What are the actions? How is it hitting you? What are the actions? How do you feel about it? What are the actions? What do you need from me and I say this as someone who suffered from verbal, and the abuse that I suffered from my dad was clearly sexual, but from my ex-husband it was more psychological and it was narcissistic in nature and it was verbal in nature.
Speaker 1:The verbal abuse was actually. They both were awful. I've never experienced anything like those things with anyone else in my life before or since, and I would never wish it on my worst enemy Never. But the reason why that was so challenging in part verbal abuse is because it's not provable. There's no marks. You know what I'm saying? There's no black eyes, there's no busted lips, there's no hotel footage. You know what I'm saying? There's no black eyes, there's no busted lips, there's no hotel footage. It's just someone trying to literally drive you crazy 30 to 50 times a day and it eats at your soul in a way. I really can't quite explain. But when I would talk to people about it without any prior knowledge of it which I understand because it's just not talked about a lot A lot of people still don't understand narcissistic abuse, even with all of the awareness that's been put out on the internet.
Speaker 1:It was really really hard when people would focus on what I was doing to provoke that kind of response in him. Oh, it was so sad, that's all I'll say. It's so sad. So I know probably we're not going to talk to Cassie, but you're probably going to talk to someone else who's going to say things like I don't know, I feel crazy.
Speaker 1:It's just that when he and I'm not talking about somebody calling somebody like a stupid B word, a stupid ugly effing B word every day, if my ex was calling me a stupid ugly effing B word every day, man, that would have been so much easier to deal with. It had been so clear Like okay. Name calling is one of the 15 forms of verbal abuse Like okay, done. The crazy thing is is that the first time my ex ever called me the B word was after he moved out and while we were in the middle of our divorce proceedings, because I suddenly lost all my folks and I just decided to like literally go ham because I wasn't as scared of him anymore as I was before. So the whole time I was being severely verbally abused, to the point verbally and narcissistically abused, to the point that it gave me complex PTSD PTSD that I still struggle with and I never got called the B word. That's the kind of nuanced abuse I'm talking about and that's what made it so painful which, by the way, if you're here, please leave me a. Leave me a like.
Speaker 1:Again, this is my first live podcast episode. I've never done this before, so I'm a little nervous not being able to edit anything and my freaking this microphone isn't working. But if you're here and you're not following, please follow me. I'm Gray Sandra. I have the Out here Trying to Survive podcast, and this channel, which is about self-love, healing, hope and surviving and thriving for black women, particularly 35 plus, who've been through some stuff and trying to heal. So please, please, please, give me a like, leave me a comment. Let me know where you're from.
Speaker 1:I'm not looking at comments right now. I have them, I have it, so I can't see it because it's always so distracting for me when I'm online to see comments and you know, sometimes people come in here and they just want to be mean and it really, really throws me off my game because I'm a sensitive soul. Okay, so you know, I might as well just forget this. This isn't working. I'm gonna just stop trying to fool with it. So anyway, um, so yeah, if you can imagine how difficult it was for me to not have even that to point back to and try to explain to people what it means for someone to take power over you with their language, with their body, with everything, with everything they say in subtle, covert ways, 30 to 50 times a day for ongoing years. It's incredibly painful to not have someone be like well, you must be doing something to to to incite that. And the truth is no, I was trying. I was actually doing everything I possibly could to avoid it and failing because there was literally nothing I could do to make him be nice to me and there was nothing I could do to get him to stop abusing me. I realized that at some point. But you know, when you're a victim and you're in this, you're just trying and trying, and I think that's what Cassie is literally trying to explain in her in what she's talking about. So I just want us all to actively challenge any victim laying attitudes or like mindsets that we might have that you're not even aware that you have I. I really hate this for her. I really hope she probably is, but I really hope that she's protecting herself from looking at internet trolls, um, from looking at people like Boosie who are in support of Diddy.
Speaker 1:Uh, although you know. Let me just say this real quick. I just saw on Jesse Wu's live that went up last night that he openly acknowledged to hiring an escort to RAPED his his 12-year-old son at the time. And just let me just put that out there. That's who Diddy has supporting him A man who hired an escort to RAPED his 12-year-old son. That's who Diddy has supporting him. So, as a woman, if you fix show lips to support Diddy, just know that you're joining Boosie, that you're joining that crowd. I mean you just I hope. I hope you're ashamed of yourself in the most loving, kind way. I hope you're ashamed of yourself If you support him. After you saw that video, cause that's enough. Some people might be like that's it, that's enough, that's enough, it's enough for me, it's enough for me. That did not look like it happened. That just was the first time. It did not look like it. Um, again, if you're here and you're new, please leave me a like, please comment um and subscribe to the channel.
Speaker 1:Um, I don't often do lives and don't do live podcasts, but we here today, so anyway, does anybody? Well, actually, I don't know if I have my questions turned on. I don't think I do. Anybody have any questions for me about just what I went through with my own situation, trying to escape an abusive intimate partner marriage, or what happened with my dad getting free from that. Oh, I guess I will say real quick another thing that is really sad is seeing these draw you know the artist mock-ups of the court and seeing Cassie crying, being on the stand, talking about this.
Speaker 1:It's so hard to do, y'all, it's so hard to do. It takes so much bravery and I'm so proud of myself because I did that at 10. I really, I just really look back and just think what a kick-ass little girl. I can't believe I did that at 10. I cannot believe that I sat up there and had a lawyer question me and detailed 10 years of abuse.
Speaker 1:Um, calmly, without shedding a tear, without did I cry? I don't think I did. Yeah, I don't. I don't think I cried on the stand and you know, maybe that was in some ways God's protection of me, because I had literally no idea the immensity of what was happening and I had no idea that my dad was going to go to prison afterwards. It just it takes a lot of bravery and a lot of courage and for those of you who weren't here at the beginning of the live, I literally said there is an essay thing that's happened to me. Well, it happened over 10 years now, so we're beyond the statute of limitations anyway, but that I would probably never, ever talk about publicly. Because right now I know the enormity of talking about these things publicly and what can happen to you and how people will dissect your life and tear you apart, and I will probably never do it. I don't know if I had known what was going to happen to my dad when I was 10 years old if I had done it.
Speaker 1:So I'm so proud of Cassie. I think it's such a beautiful, beautiful thing that she did. That she's doing to not only reclaim her voice because sometimes, as a victim, when you talk about these things, you're literally reclaiming your own, you're calling your own power back to you but also to protect other people from this happening too, because she's not the only victim in this story. Obviously, this case, this whole case, is about sexual trafficking. This story, obviously this case, this whole case, is about sexual trafficking, about human trafficking. Lots of other people, escorts included, not just her. So I'm really proud of her. I'm really, really proud of her. Again, give me a like. If you're new here, give me a subscribe, and I try to do new episodes every Wednesday at 3 pm EST. So thank you so much for joining. I really appreciate it, since I haven't been on live for a year A year. This was fun, though Maybe I'll do it again. Anyway, thank you so much for being here and I will see you guys later. Bye.
