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

FWTW S3E10 | Captivity, Abuse and Strength: Dr. Luissa Kiprono’s Path to Purpose with Barbie Moreno

• Barbie Moreno • Season 3 • Episode 10

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On Barbie Moreno’s From Wounds to Wisdom podcast, Dr. Luissa Kiprono—physician, author, and survivor of abuse—shares her extraordinary journey from captivity and trauma to becoming a specialist in high-risk pregnancy. This episode highlights resilience, courage, and healing, showing how Dr. Kiprono transformed her darkest moments into a mission to heal others. Join Barbie Moreno as she explores powerful stories of transformation and hope.

Chapters:

  • Introduction with Barbie Moreno & Dr. Luissa Kiprono
  • Life Under Captivity and Abuse
  • Escaping Trauma and Rebuilding Life
  • The Road to Becoming a Physician
  • Serving Women with High-Risk Pregnancies
  • Healing Beyond Physical Health
  • Words of Hope From Barbie Moreno & Dr. Kiprono
  • How to Connect with Dr. Luissa Kiprono


Keywords:
Barbie Moreno, From Wounds to Wisdom, survivor story, trauma healing, abuse recovery, Dr. Luissa Kiprono, resilience, empowerment, personal transformation, high-risk pregnancy, healing journey, women’s health

Know more about our guest!
https://www.instagram.com/drluissak/
https://www.facebook.com/luissa.kip/
https://drluissak.com/
https://telemedmfm.com/

About the host
Barbie Moreno is an Intuitive Mind Body Coach for Mid Life Women. She helps clients understand trauma, the science behind their responses, and the pathways that support emotional healing. She hosts the podcast From Wounds to Wisdom, speaks at events, leads workshops, and guides clients through life changing inner work. To learn more, visit the link in bio.

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

SPEAKER_00:

She was lured across an ocean by her own father only to be trapped, abused, and silenced. But she didn't just survive. She became the doctor her abuser said she'd never be. This is the story of Dr. Luisa Capruno, a true embodiment of resilience. And it's one you won't forget. Let's dive in.

SPEAKER_02:

Cheap made. You abuse me when you want, you rape me when you want. Miserable, but pretty lucrative. And my father said, um, you know, Risa will never become a physician.

SPEAKER_01:

Today on From Wounds to Wisdom, we're joined by Dr. Luisa Coprano, physician, best-selling author, and survivor of unthinkable abuse. Born in Romania and later trapped in a cycle of violence in the U.S., Louisa's journey from captivity to becoming a specialist in high-risk pregnancy is nothing short of heroic. Her story is a powerful testament to hope, resilience, and the belief that no dream is out of reach. Welcome, Louisa.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi, Barbie. Thank you so much for having me with you today.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. So I know you have quite the journey, and I know that uh your history of being born in Romania and then coming to the US. Can you kind of just give us your story on how all of this started in your life and then we'll go into what you're doing now?

SPEAKER_02:

I was born and raised, um, as you said, in uh communist Romania. Had a pretty uneventful kind of childhood when it comes to the love of my mother and my grandparents. I did uh my my school there, I finished my high school in Romania. My goal always, since I was a fifth grader, was to become a physician. So um I finished high school, I was getting ready to pass the medical school admission exams, uh, which in Romania or in Europe is a little bit different than here uh in the United States. Here we have the medical college admission test, which is the MCAT, which is part of uh the admission process. But in um in Romania, for instance, the number one way to get into medical school. You don't get good grades uh into that particular exam, you will not pass, you will not get into medical school. Very, very competitive. I took a year off between high school and uh going to medical school just so I can prepare myself better. And during that bridge year, my father, who was a former political dissident, he actually was here in the United States. Um, he escaped about 10 years prior to that uh year, crossed the Danube River, you know, got caught uh and uh bought really by the German government. The Germans took him, he spent a year in Germany, and then he decided to relocate to the United States. So, really, through my childhood, uh I did not get to know my father. I only met him twice. It's just funny because my my my mother's um and my father's relationship really they dated for three years and they stayed married for six months. And I think it's kind of hilarious, right? You shouldn't have gotten married, right? But no, he had very, very thinking, like he decided that you know family is not for him. And um, yeah, I got an invitation when I was 18 to come and visit America for two months, but also to come to visit him and not get to know him. And you know, just like every child or young adult or even adult in their prime, we kind of have this very uh primal desire to know parents that all you know, I had 50% of his DNA, so I wanted to meet him. So um I came here for two months, that was my plan, and I I thought was my father's plan as well. Uh well, it wasn't. So um he really had the plan and the desire to keep me here, Two United States. Um, but that was not shared with me. So about uh two weeks into the trip, the question popped, like you know, so now that you're here, let's just see what we can do to keep you here. I was a month shy of the age of 19. I was like, what are you talking about? It's like we're not we're on the same page. So that really prompted a series of outbursts, let's call it. Um, on his end. You know, I was coerced into changing my name. He took my passport away, tried everything under the sun to keep me here, promised uh things that never came to happen once. The main reason why actually I was forced to stay is because now I was an enemy of the state. Um, since I could not speak any language, she drafted a letter, and um, that's what we presented at the immigration. That pretty much my doors to go back home were closed.

SPEAKER_01:

Before you continue, why did he want you to stay so bad? I mean, obviously there's a difference between a parent like being excited to see their child and a parent basically saying you can't leave.

SPEAKER_02:

You know, if I tell you what uh he told me when I said that, you'd you're not gonna die. I mean, it's the most childish uh thing.

SPEAKER_01:

I I don't want to be alone. So he wanted basically to stop you from going back to home, to going to medic medical school, to living your life simply because he did not want to be alone. And did he not want to be alone um in a way that was um inappropriate for you to be his daughter, and like he's looking at you as more of like a partner or mate versus your daughter being a daughter?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, that was not disclosed to me. He remarried, um, he actually came to the United States with his second wife. Um, he had uh another child with his wife, and then um about a year before I arrived here in the United States, he went got divorced, but he also lost lost custody. So I believe that is what prompted his invitation, which to me is a very, very unhealthy and untrue way to lure in okay, an 18-year-old child, your child, you are her parent. You cannot consider someone your child when you have not seen that child for ever in your life, right? Because it's really not who birthed or who donated the sperm, right? It's whoever raises you. I mean, it took me a while to realize that he never looked at me as his child, as his daughter. He looked at me, like you said, like a partner, like a maid. I used to say, Well, I'm such a I'm such a cheap maid. I'm you know, except for a bowl of food and you know, one dollar a week, you know, can get in that. You know, you abuse me when you want, you rape me when you want, um, you put me to work and take the money when you want. So, I mean, that's a pretty miserable but pretty lucrative uh you know arrangement on his side, you know, like any abuser.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and the sad thing is that you just wanted to get to know your father.

SPEAKER_02:

Seven years has passed. Um, and um in the meantime, after of course I learned the language, uh, worked a lot of jobs, got my real estate license, um, all the money would go to him. Uh, I started taking classes because that was one of the things that um we really we had an understanding to bring my mother here to the United States. So as he put it to reunionite our family, second, to allow me to go to medical school. Neither one could have come to par the day of when I put my paperwork into immigration that very evening, I said, Okay, well, now that you had it your way, and I signed this and now I'm stuck here. Uh, let's work on my mother's paperwork. And he said that your mother will never come here as long as I live.

SPEAKER_01:

What a betrayal.

SPEAKER_02:

And the second part, um, you know, he kept saying that, oh yeah, you you'll become a doctor, you'll you know. The only thing, Barbie, is again, remember the system? We don't know the system. Of course, you can be a doctor, of course you can do that. Well, you know, the evil is in the details. So um, yes, he painted a very good picture that yes, that is possible, yes, but it's not achievable in the Romania, for instance, or Europe, after you finish high school, you do medical school for six years. There is no undergrad. See, I did not know that. Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And you wouldn't know how to research it because I'm sure back then there wasn't the internet.

SPEAKER_02:

And I can't I can't speak the language.

SPEAKER_01:

You can't speak the language, exactly. And your only source of information is your father who continues to lie to you.

SPEAKER_02:

About um a year before I got my citizenship, October 1990, he allowed me to go home to see my mom. Um, or maybe it was September. It was right there in the fall, five days, um, very short because um, you know, that's all I got, but also because he would schedule right before we would start taking a course. Because I was not taking a program, I was just taking courses here and there. The big long lie uh that I kept myself because that's all I knew. I went home to see my mom, and my mom pulled me away and says, you know, I really want to talk to you. She gave me thousand lei. In Romania is a lot of money, especially uh, you know, the salary she was making. So I said, No, I can't take your money. I'm supposed to take care of you. Now remember, now I am like 26 years old. I should be taking care of my poor mother. I she shouldn't have given me money, right? I I live in America, Barbie. Right. It doesn't right. So uh she says, Well, just I want you to have them because you never know when you need them. And I said, Well, mom, don't you know, I don't want you to worry, I'm fine. My mom never knew the the horrible secret I'm carrying. Uh, when I become a doctor, um, you know, you come there and live with me. And then she proceeds to tell me that she talked to my father um a couple of days before that. Nothing is panning out of what you you promised her. And my father said, Um, you know, Teresa will never become a physician. She will do a very good secretary in my real estate business.

SPEAKER_01:

Your mom tells you that, right? And you go back. What what is the reason why you don't stay in Romania?

SPEAKER_02:

I consider that my fault.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is very victim, like most victims do, right? We think that it's our fault. We did something.

SPEAKER_02:

For believing in this matter, right? For coming here, for believing in all those promises. You wanna you wanna believe the dream, right? To have a family, the dream to become a doctor, to have your mother and your father together that they never had. So when you do that and you realize that nothing is panning out, what I have decided, you know, it's my fuck up, I gotta fix it now. So all those years it was my self-punishment that I will have to become a doctor on my own in America. I am not going back home with my head down and admitting or accepting the fact that I failed. So I took the money, I came home back to America. He left in December of that year to come visit Romania for two weeks. And during that month, um, just miracles kept coming. I got my citizenship uh on December 3rd, 1993, with the help of my best friend, uh, because I had no car. I had a driver's license, but I had no car. I was blessed to actually put some of that money down that I had from my mom, succeeded to get a loan for a secondhand car. I was working at a supermarket in uh New Hampshire. They uh promised me a week. I applied for a second job in banking, got a one-bedroom apartment. It just happened.

SPEAKER_01:

And he's in Romania, so he has no idea what's going on right now.

SPEAKER_02:

If I'm not escaping now, I'm not gonna escape. I mean, like this nothing happened because you know, he he will take the car away from me because I learned a lot during this time. I didn't have internet, I was still typing on a typewriter. I didn't have a phone except for the house phone and so forth. So when he came back, I picked him up from the airport and I handed him the letter telling him that I will be moving out and the only relationship we'll have from there on would be, you know, meeting out for coffee or for lunch and discuss this very, very platonic as thought. What did he say? He tried to hit me and I called the police. When they came, uh, they asked me what's going on. So I said, Well, you know, my father tried to hit me, uh, belt me, and uh said that I'm moving out. He says, Well, you can't stop her. She's an adult. And the audience, me and one asked, is like, okay, so why didn't you tell the police then? I get this question again all the time. What exactly would I have had accomplished? Become another statistic, become the talk that the newspaper article of the day, and then what?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. You just wanted to move forward in your life. Your goal was to become a doctor, you just wanted to move forward in your life, and you achieved that goal through all of this adversity.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Um, I went back to school in '95. From when I moved to '95, I I worked three jobs. Uh that is something very interesting that we as humans, you know, when we get out of this very adverse situation, you know, we just got home, right? Like, okay, I'm gonna take the bulls by the horns. It's not my life, it's mine now, I will make it happen. But truth be told, the reality is life hits you hard because you still have to pay bills. I was living life, but that is not the life I wanted to live. And you start being complacent and never happy. Um, 1994. I finally succeeded to bring my mom here for a visit. One day, I believe you'll appreciate this particular part from the book. It was a holiday. We just got out of mass. Uh, we went to Mass in Manchester, New Hampshire. It was cold, but it was snowing. And I walk in the path with my mom, and all of a sudden she stopped. I was still walking. So I turned around and said, Hey, what's up? Looked at me, square, you know, fair square and asked me, What about you, Louisa? What about your dream? And I was like, Mom, don't you see how much I work? I don't know. I don't think it's gonna happen. The funny part was, she said nothing. But that moment, it dawned on me the fact that I I was losing this dream of mine, girl. So, in a way, he was winning again. And at that moment, I said, no, I will do everything in my power to go back to school. So she left in uh January 1995. In February, I put my application for undergrad. I did have some classes that through seven years I accumulated, but not the degree. I and I got accepted to do my undergrad um in Lower Massachusetts and finished my undergraduate. I took a year off to do research in Boston, accepted the HPSP program, which is the Health Professional Scholarship Program through the Air Force, which pretty much is offered me a free ride to go to medical school, but based on my academic achievements at the age of 35, I graduated medical school. Congratulations. What did it feel like? If I could cry today, it just um well, but let me say this turn it from crying into actually you know how much how many more slaps kid life gives us? Plenty, right? Um, my first son and um my bag of water ruptured at 25 and a half weeks. The only thing was it was the day of my graduation. Oh wow, at two in the morning. So I never made my graduation. I never walked to my graduation, I never received my diploma in my hands. Although it's behind me, and of course I eventually got it. They actually I called the dean and I said, You must send me the diploma. I'll send you a career, I'll send you my husband, you're gonna give it to my husband. Because it was, and I hung it in the in the hospital room above my bed. But it was like, okay, how how much how should I fight for this diploma for the love of God? But it was amazing. Every time a nurse would come into my my room that day, like, hello, Dr. Kibranum, and I was like balling.

SPEAKER_01:

If we could fast forward uh um what you're doing your purpose now, you work with high-risk pregnancies. Where did that come from? Why? Why that why that specialty?

SPEAKER_02:

I think it's something subconscious, really, because I really become a surgeon. And then I did my surgery rotation, I hated it. So I did OB, I do W G Y N, and I just fell in love with it. Um, but I think it's more than that. It is something there that is linked to my desire to heal people, to take, you know, to give them back their health, specifically women. When a woman is pregnant, is high risk, to me, it makes it so much more given that healthy baby, to have a healthy pregnancy. And I think it's just my desire to help people then morphed into to help women, but not only that, physically, but mentally. A lot of our high-risk uh patients are you know, have a lot of mental health. Try very hard to explain to them this is not a stigma, this is the diagnosis they treat pregnancy, that you know you can overcome it with the right kind of therapy. The listeners, especially women listeners, to to hear me out here. This is not a shame, it's a diagnosis, just like you would have diabetes, just like you would have high blood pressure. So, yes, it's okay to have to be medicated during pregnancy.

SPEAKER_01:

Because you're specifically talking about like depression, anxiety, anxiety, depression, PSD.

SPEAKER_02:

Um, we have a lot of patients uh with abuse, with history of trauma. Um, and really that's how it manifests. Um, it gives them triggers, scare for their lives. Their lives don't really, for the most part, I tell you, the vast majority of my moms or pregnant patients out there don't really care anymore about themselves and their health once they get pregnant. Not too long ago, I had a patient had to choose termination by the end of her first trimester where the babies all formed. I could have said, hey, you know, it's your fault, or I could have said, Well, you know, it's because you did all this, right? No, well, what's good is gonna do? That's not the point. The point is not to assign blame, the point is as a patient's best advocate, right? A support system, a support system. She had no support system, Barbie. She had no place to sleep, she had no money, she had no job. What am I gonna do? Just beat her down when she's down. I mean, really, we are all humans and we all make mistakes. Right and she did it without knowing. So instead, one could say, which I said, just take this as a sign of a wake up and say, I have to do this for myself without judgment or shame, and I will straighten out whatever wrong I've done in the past, then the next time I'm pregnant, I will do it right.

SPEAKER_01:

As we wrap up, we heard your story about, I mean, a terrible experience with your father, um, and your desire to be a doctor, at which you had 35 years old because you never gave up. So, what would you tell our listeners? What would be a last um thought or tool or wisdom that you would give to them about just life in general, maybe, or whatever it is that you feel like you want to give them?

SPEAKER_02:

We are all afraid of failure. We all have wounds. Instead of dwelling in those wounds, let them become scars and let them heal and let it go. If you don't, you're gonna live in the past. I have three questions that I always pose to my audience, and it is what did I learn? What drives me, and what's in my rainbow? What did I learn from my past that it cannot be undone? Right. It is what it is, but what I can do is I can let it go. Nothing to forget, but you must forgive and let it go. It heals you as a person. The second is what drives me to me, is it my accomplishments? You know, you can say, God, I am all this good, I have all these qualities, I can make it life bearing all the hardships and all the hard work. Okay. Or you can say, you know, I have all these handicaps and I can't do anything, and I'm just gonna rot there and feel better for myself and be a victim. And I chose the former because I refuse to become a statistic, I refuse to feel sorry for myself. I will overcome what's in my rainbow. Your dream, your goals are your rainbow. You just walk from a lot of storms after every storm, there is a rainbow. So just look ahead and you say, you know what? I had a terrible day. It's okay. Tomorrow's gonna be a better day.

SPEAKER_01:

People who connected with your story, I don't want to say enjoyed because I mean there was a lot of hardships in it, but connected with your story. How do they find you? Because I know you have a book, so you have uh you have um things, tools that they can learn from. How do they find you? This is my book.

SPEAKER_02:

I just wanted to show it to the audience. Push then breathe. And then do you have a website? I do. So the website is dreluisa with doublesk.com. And also I have my own practice, uh telemedicine practice, and that is telemed, t-e-l-e-m-ed-d m-fm, mic, foxtrot mic dot com.

SPEAKER_01:

And we will put all of that in the description, and we really appreciate you sharing your journey with us. I have no doubt that there are people who will see themselves in your story and take what you have done for yourself and remind themselves that they can do they can do anything.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think anything.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate you. I appreciate your time. Uh, anything that uh later, you know, your audience wants to connect with me or even ask questions, they can always reach me through my websites uh and through my newsletter. But it's been such a pleasure, Barbie.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you. Likewise, and again, I will make sure that they have that information. So we appreciate you. If this story spoke to you, let's keep the healing going. Visit BarbieMoreno.com for my online course, Awakening Your Worth in Healing Energy Sessions, one on one coaching, and your free healing guide. Your next step is waiting.

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Barbie Moreno

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