From Wounds to Wisdom (Previously the Mental-Hell Podcast)

FWTW S3E02 | How Trauma Became Her Power: Amanda Lee’s Untold Story

• Barbie Moreno

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Description:
Amanda Lee’s story is one of survival, resilience, and transformation. After enduring years of domestic abuse and a terrifying night that forced her to flee her home with her children, Amanda found the courage to rebuild her life. In this powerful conversation, she shares what it takes to break free, protect your kids, and find healing on the other side of trauma.

If you or someone you love has ever felt trapped, this episode is proof that freedom and healing are possible.

💬 Watch for the raw truth of surviving abuse — and the hope of life beyond it.

📍 Chapters
00:00 – Introduction & Amanda’s story
05:20 – The breaking point: escaping with her children
12:45 – Life after leaving: fear, stalking & survival
20:30 – Healing, writing & reclaiming her voice
28:15 – Co-parenting, growth & hope for the future
35:00 – Wisdom for survivors & resources

🔗 Resources & Links
🎙 Subscribe to the podcast: From Wounds to Wisdom
📚 Check my course: barbiemoreno.com/
📚 Amanda’s Book One of the Lucky Ones:
authoraelee.com/books/one-of-the-lucky-ones/
🌐 Learn more: authoraelee.com/books/


Keywords
domestic abuse survival story, Amanda Lee podcast, how to escape abuse, survivor story, breaking free from trauma, resilience after abuse, domestic violence awareness


Season 2
Unraveling the Mind: From Mental Struggles to Inner Strength.

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to From Wounds to Wisdom. I'm your host, barbie Moreno, and today's guest is Amanda Lee, a fierce survivor advocate and voice for those navigating life after domestic abuse. Amanda's story is one of terror, resilience and transformation From the night she was forced to flee her home with her children to rebuilding her life from the ashes. She's here to share what it really takes to survive, heal and rise stronger than ever. This episode is raw, it's powerful and it's a reminder that, no matter how dark it gets, there's always a way forward and how I kind of got started with my writing career is I am a survivor of domestic violence.

Speaker 2:

I was in an abusive marriage, for we were together for about 10 years and you know what I found after getting out of the out of my marriage, I found that so many people around me, both men and women, had experienced some form of abuse, but nobody talks about it. There's so much embarrassment and shame. He threatened to burn our house down with myself and our two small children, and I focused more on well, you remember how I kept you safe? Well, I'm going to do that that. There is the pot of gold at the rainbow at the end of the story.

Speaker 1:

This is from Wounds to Wisdom, with Barbie Moreno Real talk, deep healing and stories that turn pain into power. Let's dive in. Welcome to From Wounds to Wisdom. This is your host, barbie Moreno, and today I have the honor of having Amanda Lee in my studio and on the podcast.

Speaker 1:

A little summary about Amanda is that she is a courageous survivor, advocate and voice for those navigating the aftermath of domestic abuse. After enduring years of psychological torment and threats to her life, including her husband's terrifying threat to burn down their home with her children inside, amanda found the strength to escape and rebuild her life from ashes. In this powerful episode, amanda shares the raw truth of what it means to survive domestic violence, protect your children in the face of unimaginable fear and reclaim your voice after being silenced. Her story is one of pain, fierce resilience and unwavering determination to heal, not just for herself, but for her family and others who feel trapped in the shadows. Today, amanda is using her story to raise awareness, break cycles of silence and empower others to recognize the signs of abuse and believe in the possibility of life beyond survival. This conversation is a testament to the human spirit's ability to rise even from the deepest wounds.

Speaker 1:

Welcome, amanda. Thank you for having me Loved talking with you before our podcast and just learning a little bit about you. But can you? I mean I summarized right, but we can't summarize, thank you, but we can't summarize that experience. I mean, that is something I can't even imagine going through. So just give us like, give us your story, tell us what happened, and then we'll go, we'll go from there.

Speaker 2:

Okay, sounds great. Thank you again for having me. So my story and how I kind of got started with my writing career is I am a survivor of domestic violence. I was in an abusive marriage for we were together for about 10 years and you know what I found after getting out of the out of my marriage, which I'll get to in a minute. I found that so many people around me, both men and women, had experienced some form of abuse, but nobody talks about it. There's so much embarrassment and shame and I found, through using my voice, that there are people that have heard my story or picked up my book and it's given them courage to see themselves in my story and to leave and to know that at the end of the day, they're going to be okay.

Speaker 2:

My story I my hand was forced one night on August 3rd 2019 at 8 59 PM. My then husband and I were fighting and he Cliff Notes version. It was a long fight, but he threatened to burn our house down with myself and our two small children we had a five and a three-year-old at the time and went as far as got a gas can and a lighter, and I had to peel my children out of their beds with, you know, their little lovey stuffies that they had at the time, and we fled to my neighbor's house, who happened to be a police officer. Police got involved. I spent half my life for six months at the courthouse because there was criminal hearings and I thought that that would be like the worst night of my life. That would, that would be it. That would, and what no one talks about, along with just the subject, is that the scariest time for a domestic violence survivor is immediately after you leave, because then your abuser doesn't have that control over you.

Speaker 2:

So I just experienced this huge traumatic event and now I have somebody stalking me. He convinced our neighbors at the time to give him access to our camera so he could watch me coming and going. Yeah, and you know through it all, as anyone who is a parent will understand, your child, your children, just went through a traumatic event. Your focus is on them. You want to make sure they're okay. I threw my kids in therapy. I got them. I knew I couldn't handle a dog, so we got two cats, which I instantly regretted, and but you?

Speaker 2:

know, I'm stuck with them for the next like 20 years and you know you do everything and you kind of neglect yourselves and in neglecting myself I eventually hit a breaking point and realized I needed to get myself help and I did all the things and one of the things that really helped me that I thought I would just be awful at was writing. It was my creative output and you know that kind of gives me full circle to my little intro is that, you know, through, my writing is where I use my voice to try and help others who are in similar situations. So what type of writing do you do? So I wrote a memoir of my story. It's called One of the Lucky Ones. It describes how I found myself in an abusive relationship and trying to get out and what happens afterwards and the power of you know that there is the pot of gold at the rainbow at the end of the story.

Speaker 2:

I've written a children's book and that stemmed from the same event. You know my kids, like I said, they were five and three, so they heard it. They they have the trauma still of me running into their rooms and having to flee our house and I just wanted something that was comforting to them for a child that had been through trauma. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I couldn't find it, and so I wrote a children's story, and it just is about a saying that I said over and over again to my son while we were going through it. And then I started a fiction series that's loosely based on a domestic violence detective that I worked with, and she was female and had experienced domestic violence herself.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I think that that's amazing, because so many times people and I know you wrote a book for adults as well- but, they don't focus on explaining it to the children and it's very, very hard. How do you explain that to your children?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I didn't ever address, like you know well, why did he do this? Why did he say these things? I mean, I was very I don't know and I don't know what what made him snap or what. What that conscious of was that it was okay to do the things he was doing. And I focused more on well, you remember how I kept you safe. Well, I'm going to do the things he was doing. And I focused more on, well, you remember how I kept you safe. Well, I'm going to do that.

Speaker 2:

And I tried to, especially with my son, because my daughter is very vocal. She told everybody that her dad had gone to jail and drank warm milk and had to go to her neighbor's house and they ate goldfish. But my son like really internalized it. So I tried to be like okay, what do you think, what do you think you need? And as a five-year-old you, sometimes it was like I just need a hug or can I stay up a little later. I'm like no, you're like you can't milk it can I sleep in your room tonight?

Speaker 2:

okay, um, but one of the most poignant ones was he asked for a fire extinguisher. He was like can I have one in my room? Wow, and I'm like, okay, and I'm like you want to tell me why? He's like, just in case. So I found a little toy fire extinguisher. You know, at the time he had no idea if it was real or not and we kept it in his room. I am fortunate that one of my very dear friends, her husband, is a firefighter at one of the local fire stations and he offered to give my kids a tour. And they did a tour. They went on the fire truck and he talked to them. He was like this is the route I would take if I had to come to your house. Look, I would be at your house within five minutes, so don't you worry, do you?

Speaker 1:

know the history behind your ex's, like childhood or life, that might have, you know, triggered some of these very explosive episodes.

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, he, after everything happened, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, so that definitely contributed to the mood elevations that I experienced through our marriage. But it's a well known fact in the family that his father has anger issues. How abusive he's been to his mother I don't know, but I did witness a lot of like him putting her down or him trying to tell her what to do. I'm sorry go ahead.

Speaker 1:

I was going to say do you know if any of that anger was taken out on your ex?

Speaker 2:

It was as a child, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Because I know this is controversial, but bipolar, you know, they often will say there's two different opinions on it. One opinion is that it's a medical thing, that you know that the brain has it's different ways of dealing with things and that you know you need medication so that it can balance all of that serotonin, dopamine, all of those different things, right. And then the other view on it is that it's also environmental. So people create their mind, creates that whole manic and then depressive, manic and depressant so that they can survive, right. And so you'll find most bipolar people have lived in some sort of an abusive past because that's how their brain survived.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I I would agree with that, because I think some of the things that happened to him as his in his childhood created a version of him that had very, very low self-esteem, and a lot of the abuse stemmed from trying to destroy my self-esteem as a form of control, so that I wouldn't leave.

Speaker 1:

yeah, what have you done that in turn? And people always say don't blame the victim. I never believe in blaming the victim, but I believe that we all choose people for a reason, and so have you done that internal work to like why? Why would I pick this person?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I have. And I think I think there's a couple of reasons and the main one and it's hard to admit that I was desperate to get married and have children. I had been a bridesmaid nine times by the time I met my ex-husband and I was done. I was like, okay, like I'm ready, I want to get married. And you know, I think the next serious boyfriend that I had, no matter who it was, I was going to be like, all right, this is it, I'm marrying this person. And you know, to admit that I had that, that that desperate feeling is, is very hard. I pride myself on, you know, being independent and intelligent and I'm from Philadelphia, like I don't take anybody's crap. And then I found myself in this abusive situation that I don't know that I fully understood what was happening immediately.

Speaker 1:

I think also like that's very normal for women. It's like men don't like have this, like, oh, if I don't like get married and have children by a certain period of time, like you know, eggs aren't going to be good and that like there's last until they die, right, there's kids at 80. Yeah, whereas women like one. There's like a stigma if you're not married by a certain age, right, and then it's internalized as, like you know, I'm. What's wrong with me, yeah, yeah, why am I a bridesmaid nine times whenever the bride.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean I had a series of serious boyfriends like years, like dated them for years and you know, and I did feel like the stigma of okay, well, amanda's amazing, like why aren't you married?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Don't okay.

Speaker 2:

Well, amanda's amazing like why aren't you married? Yeah, don't you want to have kids? It's like, yeah, I desperately want to have children. Right, and sometimes we just pick whoever it is, we settle, yeah, I did. I, I 100% was settling. I mean, don't get me wrong, I did love him, yeah. But it also was the moment in my life where I decided like I'm done, I want to get married yeah, definitely, and so is he currently in prison.

Speaker 2:

No, he's not. Yeah, no, he didn't get anything. He pled no contest. And they told me that because the threats were not like there was no concrete evidence, it was he said, she said and he was denying it, and because I had never called before, that they really didn't have a lot to go on. He, he did throw a glass of water on me, which was considered assault. So he did. I think there was something on his record for seven years and then he can get it removed. But that was it.

Speaker 2:

And I remember I just I remember sitting in the courtroom before and meeting with the district attorney and the detective that responded that night and my attorney and they told me this and the guy, the district attorney, said it so fast. He's like all right, so any questions, but we'll give you a protective order. I'm like, let me get this straight, because I was scared because I never called before. You're going to give me a piece of paper Like that's, that's it to protect myself. And he was like well, this really is the best scenario because that way you can get child support.

Speaker 2:

I'm like, I don't care about the money right now, I care about my safety. I'm scared and you know I I don't ever like to disparage the police because what they did for me that that night in August, like I, I will be eternally grateful. But I called them multiple times after the fact about the stalking, about the cameras, and I got nowhere. I even got a police officer on the phone one time. He refused to come to the house. I guess it was a waste of his time and he was like well, if you ever feel scared like, you need to have a safe person to call. That way you can have a safe word so that they know if something's wrong they can call us.

Speaker 2:

I'm like let me get this straight you you're concerned enough to tell me to have a safe word with someone that is close to me, but not concerned enough to come out and check.

Speaker 1:

That doesn't make sense and through your talking to people and telling your story, have you found that it's common, that the reason why women don't report domestic violence is because it's almost always that he said, she said, even when there's physical wounds, right, he can say oh, she tripped, she fell, she blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, sometimes it's very hard to prove unless you have video footage of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and you know. Then there's the fear. Okay, so it's, he said. She said he's gonna get off. What's he gonna do to me because I just called the cops? The retaliation, yeah yeah and the protective order sounds great, but unless he's willing to follow it like what's it gonna do?

Speaker 1:

well, and when you have somebody who already violates those boundaries, they don't care about a protective order, like they're like again, they've already learned. It's a. He said. She said thing right. So even if there's a protective order, it's like okay, well, like she said I came, but you didn't prove right. She said I threatened her, but do you have proof? Yeah, exactly. And then I think, even when you do have proof, it's, it's very hard.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, yeah, I, I was amazed that they didn't. Like it never occurred to me that someone wouldn't believe me. Like it never. It just never occurred to me Like why would I make this up? Why would I pull my small children out of bed and run Like why? But?

Speaker 1:

basically they're saying you're crazy.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and there were people in our lives not many that he, that my ex convinced that it was all me and I'm like I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I don't understand this Well, and sometimes it'll even. You know, we talked about the gaslighting when I first talked to you, like yeah, sometimes they will convince you that it's you oh yeah, yeah, I'm a pathological liar, so pardon him.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm a pathological liar and I've been gaslighting him, you know, since the day we met. That was in when we were going through our custody for the divorce, through our custody for the divorce that was in his psychological report. I asked to get him tested to see how mentally sound he was, and we both had to talk to the psychiatrist and and that was that was his response. Is that it was you, it was me, this was all me. I did more damage to our children than he did it's funny, like, not funny, but ironic.

Speaker 1:

Like if you ever talk to like a serial killer, they always blame, like the victim. Right, well, she looked and talked like my mom, like it's totally her fault, like she looked and talked like my mom and so I have a killer. You know, like they're just their brains.

Speaker 2:

You know when they're in this space they just don't work right no, no, he can't, and I'm sure it's some sort of defense mechanism, like he's got to blame me because he can't live with his actual choices in life.

Speaker 1:

Or doesn't even see them. Yeah, yeah, I mean I almost guarantee you he believes everything he's saying. He has combined all of that. So what is it like now? I mean, he's not in prison.

Speaker 2:

No, it's actually unbelievable and you're going to be shocked, but we're actually really great co-parents now, really great co -parents now we. When he was diagnosed with bipolar and the and the threat of jail time, he went and did everything he needed to do. He went and got therapy, he saw anger management, he got on medication. If someone suggested it, he did it to his credit, and I did. I did a lot of work too. I think we had talked before. I did everything Anyone suggested. Once I realized that I needed to get myself help and I really wasn't okay. I mean, I did therapy, I did. Someone suggested energy healing. I was like, okay, sign me up and honestly, the energy healing was one of the best things I ever did. It really, really helped. And, honestly, the energy healing was one of the best things I ever did. It really, really helped.

Speaker 2:

I got into meditation and yoga and anyone who knows anyone from Philadelphia that those aren't our people, that's not how we operate. And you know. We saw it was court mandated. We saw I forget what her exact title was, but it was basically someone to help us co-parent and through that we both realized that we probably could do this if we just kept it about the kids. So it's taken years but we are in a place where we can effectively co-parent with our children.

Speaker 2:

That's not to say that there aren't moments, you know, and when we first did our custody it was a gradual workup. He had supervised visits, then it was just a couple hours on a Saturday, then it's worked up to now. He has them overnight a few days a week, but it it's taken. It's taken all five and a half years to get us to this healthy point for our children. But so rare, it's incredibly rare. And you know, I'm remarried now and the joke is always like who would have thought he'd be the most unproblematic ex? Like who would have thought that this would be the healthier co-parent relationship.

Speaker 1:

Like who would have thought that this would be the healthier co-parent relationship? Well, it's interesting because, like one, it shows one thing I teach in like my course and what I do is that neuroplasticity right, so we can heal. We can change these things through repetitive action. You have to put the work in right, but we can. We can heal them, which is amazing because children, their brains are so like you know, they have so much plasticity in their brains that those events, while they still happened, if he's doing the work and you're doing the work, it's probably not going to carry over into their life, like you know, like it may have if you guys didn't do all of that work it was not easy and I mean there are times it's still not easy and I can see like the hesitation with my kids, like if something happens, and I'm like, all right, well, I got, I'm, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to talk to your dad, please don't call him.

Speaker 2:

Please don't call him. He's going to be mad, okay, well, and then I just always go back to all right, well, he can be mad, but I will be the one who deals with him. You do not need to deal with him. How do you?

Speaker 1:

how did your parents respond to hearing what happened to you? Oh, I thought they were going to kill him.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would imagine. I mean my, my siblings too, and I. I knew that once I told my family and my close friends that there, there would be no going back, like even if I I said no, I wanted to work it out, I'm pretty sure they would have locked me in the basement and been like, no, this is no. So they were. I mean, my parents were devastated that this had been happening, that I hadn't told them, and I had to work through a couple, through it with my mom, because she took it very personally. She took it as I didn't trust her enough to tell her this was going on. And I'm like that's not what this was. This was, if I speak it out loud, that makes it true that this is actually happening.

Speaker 2:

And I mean I kind of was in like almost like a coma for years, just surviving. I had two very small children very close in age they're 17 months apart and I was being abused. So I was just in that that mentality of I just got to get through this, I just one day at a time. And when I realized, when I woke up and realized, holy, holy F, this is like I am in an abusive marriage, I didn't know how to safely get out. My fear had always been that if I wasn't there, how could I protect my kids? My kids are so little at the moment. How am I going to protect?

Speaker 1:

them, and I think that that's a big thing, because the court system generally doesn't work and the you know you. Then I think this is why a lot of women don't leave. You then have to turn your children over for visitation, because oftentimes they don't even get, like the, the, you know the tiered visitation like you got. Yeah, you know. They just literally have to turn their children over to this person that they know is capable of all of these things and they can't control the environment anymore. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's why a lot of women stay, because at least when they're there they can can, they can control something. And then when you separate and you don't have a control of that, what happens? That's frightening, I can't even imagine.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, I very clearly remember the first time he had them overnight. I don't think I slept at all and I tried really hard not to grill the kids when they came back, but I 100% did I like sat them on the couch and like, tony, everything Right yeah.

Speaker 1:

Is there anything that we need to talk about? Do we need to go to therapy?

Speaker 2:

Well, what did you do at seven o'clock, and then what happened at eight?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, and I would imagine over time that that that kind of settled down.

Speaker 2:

It has, and I have a very close relationship with my two kids and if something happens, I'm confident, if anything happened that made them uncomfortable, that they would tell me.

Speaker 1:

You would think that, but then you didn't tell your mom.

Speaker 2:

This is true, but I do. I do think that they would dream differently. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

And I, I mean I would imagine as well. It's just that one thing where, like it comes from a mother that could you imagine your child keeping something like that from you? It'd be heartbreaking.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, child keeping something like that from you would be heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and I get it and I understand why my mom had that reaction and honestly, it like broke my heart that that she thought that it was about our relationship and me not being able to tell her and I was like it has nothing to do with with you and everything to do with. I couldn't say it out loud.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you just couldn't acknowledge it. Yeah, how have you turned that wound into wisdom today?

Speaker 2:

Well, I've learned a lot about myself in the past five years through this, this healing journey, and you know, the wisdom that I bring, I hope is, is my story and sharing my story, or through my writing, through podcasts, interviews like this, to help other domestic violence victims out there, if not just wake up and realize what's happening, but understand that you know, no one ever regrets leaving. No, no one ever does. And it is better when you do leave, and I'm I mean my co-parent relationship with my ex is extraordinary. That doesn't always happen, rarely happens, but my life, regardless of that, is amazing now, and I wouldn't have the beautiful life I have now if I didn't make the choice to leave in that moment.

Speaker 1:

One last question. You are a teacher, correct? I am. Is it sixth grade? Sixth grade, yeah. Because of your experiences, do you think you're now more aware to look for the children who could possibly be in abusive situations?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I do, and I think I'm much more empathetic to the children who have experienced domestic violence in their lives. I mean, after COVID, there was one year I had like five kids who had protective orders with with parents, and I think I've helped my coworkers as well. When they're like, oh, this person's acting up and they're doing this, okay, well, like do you know what's happening at home, like this is how trauma is going to present in in children, that's a gift, thank you, I think so. I think I think I've probably helped a few. What's the?

Speaker 1:

name of your book. It's called One of the Lucky Ones. One of the Lucky Ones, and is it on Amazon? If somebody wanted to read it? Yes, and then your children's books.

Speaker 2:

My children's book is called Always, and that's also on Amazon, and then my fiction book series. There's two books in the series.

Speaker 1:

The first one is called Blue Coat, a Brookhill novel and the second one that just came out in June is called Concealment. I love that. Well, I hope that people you know take the message that you've given them and if there's anybody in that situation or they know somebody in that situation or maybe their parents were in that situation, you know they can take the information that you've given and know that there is a way out and that you know life is better on the other side usually. Yeah, definitely, and I love the fact that you guys actually became good co-parents, because that's often not the story that we hear, and I mean you both did the work and that's also rare.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we did, and I would say part of it was the fact that I am a teacher and I have seen hotly contested parents who are divorced going through a divorce and the effects they have it on their children and I I couldn't put my kids through more trauma than they already had been through.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a testament to your strength. Thank you Well, thank you for coming on the show. I look forward to people hearing your story and and I'm sure you will make a difference with this podcast, the ones that you go on and the books that you've written. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Grateful for you. Thank you, okay, perfect, okay. Thanks, if this story spoke to you, let's keep the healing going. Visit barbie morenocom for my online course awakening your worth and healing energy sessions, one-on-one coaching and your free healing guide. Your next step is waiting.

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