Dismissed True Stories
Dismissed True Stories is a survivor-led podcast that dares to break the silence around domestic violence, emotional abuse, and toxic relationships. Each episode shares the raw, unfiltered realities of what abuse really looks like. From overlooked red flags to moments of escape, and everything in between.
Created by a survivor-turned-advocate with a broadcasting background, DTS is where stories once silenced are now spoken. Loudly, honestly, and without apology. We’re not here to sensationalize abuse; we’re here to humanize survivors.
You’ll hear from survivors finding their voices, families forever changed by loss, and organizations working to support healing and recovery. Sometimes, it’s one survivor passing the mic to another with a piece of advice that could change or.. save a life.
But DTS isn’t just about telling stories of survival. Each episode's commentary helps you decode your own story, make sense of your experiences, and see the patterns you might have missed while in survival mode.
The tone? Like talking with a trusted friend. No fluff. Just truth.
Whether you're navigating narcissistic abuse, gaslighting, or coercive control or you're in the process of rebuilding your self-worth and healing your trauma this space is for you.
Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is finally tell your own story.
Survivor-led. Heart-led. Truth-led.
#DismissedTrueStories | A podcast for survivors and victims, by survivors.
Dismissed True Stories
The Research Is Within: Stephanie's Story PT 2
Healing isn't just about surviving trauma—it's about reclaiming your voice, rediscovering joy, and finally coming home to yourself. That's the powerful message at the heart of this deeply moving conversation with Stephanie, a survivor who's transforming her experiences with narcissistic abuse into creative purpose.
"I don't need anyone to call me an author. I can call myself that," Stephanie declares in what becomes one of many breakthrough moments in this episode. We explore how economic abuse continues long after physical separation, the profound process of "unlearning" who we thought our abusers were, and the liberation that comes when we stop seeking external validation.
Stephanie's journey takes us through the writing of her children's book on self-worth, the heartbreak of loss that became a catalyst for her transformation, and the disturbing patterns of narcissistic parenting that created vulnerability to similar dynamics in adult relationships. Her candid revelations about childhood experiences—where inappropriate boundaries and gaslighting were normalized—illuminate how early trauma shapes our understanding of love and safety.
What makes this episode particularly special is Stephanie's perspective on creative expression as healing. For her, writing has become meditation, a flow state where she reconnects with her authentic self. This highlights an often-overlooked truth: healing isn't just therapy sessions and painful processing—it's also about rediscovering what brings you joy and purpose.
Whether you're currently in an abusive situation, processing childhood trauma, or supporting someone who is, Stephanie offers practical wisdom: "Find your people and keep them close," and "Listen to yourself." Her story reminds us that in speaking our truth—even when our voice shakes—we not only heal ourselves but potentially help others recognize and escape similar situations.
The research is within. Your story is your data, your wisdom, and ultimately, your power. Join us for this transformative conversation about finding freedom through authenticity, creativity, and self-trust.
Support Stephanie's work! Buy her book, I Am Me and That Is Worthy:
Link coming soon!
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Hey and welcome back to Dismissed True Stories. Thank you so much for being here. What a freaking week man for being here. What a freaking week man. I feel like I've been doing a lot of like healing and coming back into my body recently and I'm only sharing this with you in hopes that, like, maybe you'll understand what I'm talking about. But I had a panic attack yesterday because I was like, I feel so calm, I feel I feel back in my body and I didn't know what to do with that.
Speaker 1:I just think that healing is such a layered experience. Like once you start to feel safe, it just opens a whole bunch of doors, doesn't it? And we kind of talk about that today in this episode and actually sitting down with Stephanie again, this is part two of her story. She's a survivor. She's a writer, a mother and a woman who has fought like hell to reclaim her voice after abuse. Her story covers so much Emotional and economic abuse, the long shadow of narcissistic parenting, the grief of miscarriage and the awakening that comes when you finally say enough is enough. This episode isn't about just what she survived. It's about what she's building now. We talk about how healing is more than just therapy and journaling. It's rediscovering what lights you up, what brings you joy and what pulls you back home to yourself. It's vulnerable, it's validating, and if you've ever felt ashamed for shining too brightly, for wanting more, for being different or for finally walking away, this one is for you.
Speaker 2:I am like feeling this sense of fulfillment now that I didn't have previously. But you know, um, yeah, he was just banking on on on my insecurities, on my shame, and I just said, fuck that. Yeah, I'm so much better.
Speaker 1:So, aside from uh like mental and emotional, um, psychological and, um, probably some financial abuse, that's what it sounds like to me. Was there anything else that you experienced in that relationship?
Speaker 2:That pretty much sums it up, I think, the most important piece for me. These days, like the one that's the only thing that's still prevalent, because everything else has sort of stopped. Like he doesn't acknowledge my existence anymore we co-parent children and like I don't. He doesn't give me the time of day, he doesn't look me in the eyes, he barely responds to a text, like we don't have any communication whatsoever. But the economic abuse is still very prevalent.
Speaker 2:And at this point, like he owes me quite a bit of money and, yeah, I was coerced last year into giving him a large sum of money, um, thinking that we would, you know, get back together and and everything would magically fix itself. Um, but that was, that was an illusion and it was a manipulation and I I see it for it is now. But what's done is done. There's no going back, there's only going forward. And I've assembled a pretty decent team around myself of lawyers and of advocates and people who understand these notions that I had very little idea about until semi-recently. I didn't know what economic abuse was. I had really no idea and and I was pray for it, and I don't even think he really knew what it was. But like they just all naturally read from the exact same textbook. It's instinctive for them, it's sort of mind blowing. And I just this, like unlearning of who I thought this person was, and I just this, like unlearning of who I thought this person was has been monumental and like a huge shift for me personally.
Speaker 1:Liberating and it allows you to, like I've said before, like come back home to yourself, damn it. Yeah, rediscover who you are or maybe figure out who you were for the first time.
Speaker 2:It's really not just unlearning who he, who I thought he was, but it's learning who I am and that's. You know, there's this like in between in life when you've like shed your old life and your old ways and you're sort of launching into what's next, where the only person who can really see your potential is yourself. Like you have to see it in yourself before the rest of the world sees it. And that's how I stopped like looking for validation in other people and just giving myself that validation. Like I know I can be great, I know I can be the next Rupi Kaur and, like you know, I'm writing books.
Speaker 2:I wrote a children's book. I'm in the process of illustrating it now and it will eventually be published. It's written as a child of narcissistic abuse and it touches on themes like self-worth and self-awareness and self-regulation and overall like self-acceptance. I think those are like the four biggest themes out of this book. But those were not easy things to emulate, for young children to understand, and I was somehow able to do that and that's what really taught me that I am a writer, I'm an author. I don't need anyone to call me an author, I can call myself that.
Speaker 1:Okay, deep inhale with me. Let's just take a moment to breathe that in, shall we? I don't need anyone to call me an author. I can call myself that, steph. This is what healing sounds like. That is what healing sounds like, and there's a turning point in every survivor's journey where you stop looking for permission to exist, where you stop trying to earn the approval from people who were never going to see your worth in the first place they were never capable of it anyway and instead you become your own source. Oh, just talking about this feels I don't know. It just gives me the warm and fuzzies. It feels so good For me.
Speaker 1:That turning point came when I realized that I didn't need him to tell me that he was sorry. I knew it was never going to come and I started to give myself my own kind of closure. And then, once I did that, I was able to walk back into a studio, back behind her microphone, and I realized that I didn't need anyone to tell me that I'm good at what I do, like I already know, and it's because I feel so good while doing it, like I already know, and it's because I feel so good while doing it. That's the only thing that matters. Getting to that point, though, of giving yourself your own validation, that's not easy I think we know that, but then let's add another layer of like being groomed and gaslit and emotionally trained to believe that your value is something that is external, something that you have to perform for, and love being something that you have to earn. That's why I wanted to stop right here. That's why what Stephanie just said is so damn important, because she didn't just write a book. She wrote a children's book, rooted in the very healing that she's been fighting for. She is naming herself, she is claiming her space, and she is showing her kids what it looks like when you rise Whew, goosebumps.
Speaker 1:So if you're listening and still waiting on someone to say that you're enough especially if it's the person that hurt you you are already enough. You don't need the job title. You don't need like. I was looking for the apology. That never came. You just need to be you, and that is more than enough. First of all, two things Share your book with me, because I would love to drop a link to that at some point in the show notes of this episode, because this episode will live on forever. And then because you said you're still working on illustrations, right, yeah. And then number two was there anything in particular that you remember, like, was there a practice in something where you were like you know what no, I don't need outside validation Was there? You said, like maybe you laughed at yourself in the mirror, but was there anything else?
Speaker 2:I used to have an aversion to taking baths like that. I just felt like I was swimming in my own dirt, like I could not sit in a bath for more than three minutes. The only time I would ever go in was if I had like a spike in hot fever and I needed to like regulate my body temp. But it was never with like the intent of self care, and it now has become this like ritual for me. And the night that I lost Alice, when I came home from the hospital and I was begging my ex-husband to come, come to our home, my home, and, um, take care of me or look after me or hold my hand, until I fell asleep Like I was so miserable, and he flat out refused, like I. I don't know how I got myself there, but I somehow ended up in the bath and that was, that was the turning point for me. That was like the existential moment where I was like I have no one but myself, myself, while recording this particular break.
Speaker 1:And I think that I'm at the point where I'm just like Elissa, say the things that you want to say, and I think what I want to say is that I know that everyone grieves differently. I know that not everyone knows how to show up in the hard moments of life, but what I'm stuck on is that no one and I mean no one should have to grieve the loss of someone alone. To me, there's just something so cruel about being in that much pain and that much loss and having to carry it by yourself and and yet this is this is what so many women end up doing, and I hate that for us. But then she said something that made me stop and say okay, I think that it's worth taking a break and acknowledging this too, in those moments where she is having this earth shattering experience, where her grief and her pain feel invisible. She ended up in the bath, the same bath that she used to avoid, and I know that she sees it now, but I don't think that she probably saw it in that moment. But that's the moment that she shifted. She realized that no one was going to come sit with her, no one was going to make space for her pain, but somehow she still got through the night and that was her turning point. That's when she started to show up for herself.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying that as survivors, we need to choose to go this path alone. That's what sisterhood is for. We really do need each other, but sometimes maybe you're all you have in that moment. If you are alone, this doesn't mean that you're broken, that you're weak, that you're not worthy of comfort and love and acceptance and just to be the one who collapses. Everyone gets those moments in life and you are deserving of them.
Speaker 1:Moments in life and you are deserving of them.
Speaker 1:But also, on the other side of that coin, know that in that process, you are becoming someone so strong, someone so sacred, someone who's learning how to be there for themselves, even when no one else in their life knew how or was willing to. There's going to come a moment in your healing journey when you're going to look back on these moments, these moments that you felt so absolutely broken, and you're going to be like, wow, I don't even identify with that girl anymore, with that woman anymore, and you're going to hold so much space and so much love for that version of yourself, while knowing that you are this healed person, and that alone in it, in and of itself, is one of the most beautiful gifts that you can give yourself she's my daughter, but she was also she's like symbolically a mom for me, because I, through her, am able to see what I would want for my own daughter and I'm now able to fulfill that for her in her place and it's sort of like very yeah, that makes my nose tingle like I'm gonna start crying.
Speaker 1:I think I think that's beautiful, not only because, like I, I want. I want a daughter of my own someday, but just like allowing. You can't see me in this moment and I want to stop here because I don't think that the audio does this particular part any kind of justice. But I was tearing up as she spoke. I felt it in my chest, in my throat, in the nose burn or the tingles that you get right before you start to cry, and I just want you to know that this part it wasn't just a conversation.
Speaker 1:It was such a sacred moment the way that Stephanie spoke about Alice, how losing her gave her a new kind of clarity, in a way, and how her daughter became a mirror for what she needed to become for herself that I was just wrapped up in a moment, and I think for those of us who have lost someone, who have ever longed to mother a daughter, like myself, there's something really powerful in how she said what she said, like I'm able to fulfill what I've wanted for my daughter, for myself.
Speaker 1:Holy cow, stephanie, I am so proud of the ways that you are healing. It's not even about, like, replacing someone that you lost. It's about honoring them by finally choosing to love you. This part made my chest ache and I just thought that it was worth stopping for a moment. I think one of the most powerful things for us, especially as mothers, is to realize that if we don't first heal ourselves, how can we ever heal our children and show them what is healthy? And my child was a driving force for me. So when you talk about Alice and being that driving force for you, it deeply resonates and I just think that that's so beautiful and I also take baths.
Speaker 1:There's something about just like sitting in the water for me, where I just owning it.
Speaker 2:I'm like. You know what I I am. The title of my children's book is I am me, and that is worthy, and that's actually the first time I like share it out loud, so thanks for sharing it here yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:Um, that's amazing yeah and I'm also writing my own book, like it's it's a book about my life story and it starts with the piece of writing where it's I hope this finds you unwell and it goes into a lot more. There's it sort of reads like a personal journal, like it's like journal entries, and then like, mixed in between, there's a bunch of poetry. I love poetry that's like really, really resonates. I would love to send you a copy?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's not finished yet Because I think it'll take me.
Speaker 2:It'll take me like the full year to finish it. So I'm expecting to publish my own book next year, Okay, but I think it's like important to show the process of healing and it's it's very raw and it's like it's very much happening and sometimes I wake up at four in the morning and I'm like struck with like a trigger or a memory or like a dream, like you had yesterday, like very much like vivid thinking and that's what drives the writing, and so I'm just leaning into that process fully. But I shared my work with my therapist who did the EMDR on me and she I asked her if she would write the foreword to my book and she accepted and she finally sent me her piece of writing over the weekend and it is so poignant like it will be the hardest thing for me to keep this one under wraps until it's published, because I've never seen a more touching like piece of writing in my life that's incredible and it speaks to the person that you are now, the person that you fought so hard to become like.
Speaker 1:I hope that you're able to like you should frame that writing, I know, in your office somewhere.
Speaker 2:I think I will and put it in your office somewhere. I know.
Speaker 1:I think that's beautiful, I think you're a badass and your episode and your story is going to be such an inspiration to so many women out there. I know that there are many survivors who want to write their own story, write their own story. Um, I for one am not a writer but, um, the process of writing my own story, even for this season, has been exhausting. To to really reach in and to sit in that emotion and to find words for it. Um, and then not only that, but you have to feel, you have to feel through it at the same time. Um, and the fact that you've just, you've just gone for it, that's incredible. I never.
Speaker 2:I never know what the end of my articles will look like. Like I I have a rough idea. Like this the article I posted this morning was about this love, this new love that I've, that I've recently found, and it's called we can talk about that.
Speaker 2:It's called love after abuse doesn't feel like falling, it's rising and that's what that's. That was like the only real idea I had when I started writing, and then I just type away, like my brain just sort of goes into this autopilot mode where everything just pours out of me and then there's a product. So it's really about like leaning in. It's almost like hypnosis. It's the best feeling ever.
Speaker 1:I think that sometimes healing gets framed like it's all therapy sessions, journaling, crying, sitting in the emotion or in the pain and, yes, absolutely those things matter. The only way through it is through it. But healing isn't just about everything feeling hard or exhausting. It's also about finding what brings you back to life. For Stephanie that's writing she calls it hypnosis, I call it meditation, some people call it a flow state, but whatever you call it, it's that thing that pours out of you when you stop trying to prove yourself and you allow yourself to just freaking be. That's the thing that lets your soul take this full exhale, the thing that says you're safe now you're home.
Speaker 1:Healing doesn't always look like sobbing and therapy I mean, sometimes it does, but sometimes it looks like writing a children's book or dancing while you clean or editing audio at midnight, because it makes you feel like you again. It's the part of healing that we don't talk about enough. It's not just the surviving, it's the reclaiming process. There is another side to this and it might not look like joy at first, but it will always look like peace and then creativity and then eventually, freedom. It's meditation, yes.
Speaker 2:Meditation, 100% I agree.
Speaker 1:I agree, I get there too. I get there too, like when I'm in my little studio and I'm like, ooh, this sound in this fight is going to go so well together, and then I can like break it here and then I can come in with my sidebar commentary. I totally get it. It's a passion project and your passion, will and your passion, your strength and your healing are certainly. I can't wait to read it.
Speaker 1:That's exciting, yeah, so I know that we talked a little bit about the things that went on in your story and, while I do think that everything that you have experienced is extremely important, I feel like this has become kind of a different story and I want to maybe nudge you to write more about and this is just what I've learned from you and talking to you today but maybe nudge you to write more about your upbringing. It plays such a role in your romantic partner abuse, but also your healing, because I think that there's so much more there, because I think that there's so much more there and I feel like you and I we could probably do a whole episode on just what post abuse has looked like for you. Yeah, I think you're very inspiring and do you see that?
Speaker 2:in yourself. I do, I do see it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now I do, I do see it now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Now I do. I didn't for the longest time, but I have started listening to people when they tell me and I've gotten like such an intense response from people who I've hardly spoken to in my life, like either vocalizing their abuse for the first time ever, like letting me know like they're in an unsafe situation right now and they don't know how to get out of it. But watching my videos and seeing everything that I share has been like sort of their, their enlightenment. That that has really taught me to like believe that I am inspiring and and there is a greater purpose to everything that I'm doing, and to shut out that it sort of like dims out the noise of like my ex-husband and his flying monkeys just talking shit. Like yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't really care for it anymore. If you want to share my video, if you want to. If you want to talk shit about a girl that looks happy like, by all means, you know what?
Speaker 1:does that say about you? Really, you're miserable and we've known that from the beginning. It just became so much clearer after the fact, because 2020 baby yeah, hindsight is 2020.
Speaker 2:I have like never been happier, never been more fulfilled. Like I'm still struggling financially and there's good reason for that but, beyond financial struggle, like I am soaring to new heights. I didn't think that that was even possible, but the journey has really taken me far and it's. I've got a lot further to go, but, yeah, the connections that I've made along the way have been like super, super impactful along the way has been like super, super impactful.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it all comes from just like being brave enough to be like. This thing happened to me and it wasn't right yeah that's all it is.
Speaker 2:It really it looks simple. It looks very simple. You know it's. The bottom line is that I'm talking about my own life, Like I'm not having to do a ton of research to put to put my writing out there. There's no research to be done. It's really the research is within the research is within.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, what a mic drop moment I loved when she said this when it comes to you and your experiences and your story, you lived it. You felt every shift in the air. You memorized the silence before the storm. You learned to decode every mood, every manipulation, every moment of gaslight, every footstep that came down the hallway. It's not just survival, it's data, and when you speak it out loud, it becomes wisdom. That's why I've said telling your story. That's the bravest and most profound thing you can do. And you know what happens when you start speaking it shamelessly, not perfectly, not polished. Life opens up. People start saying me too. That's how I met one of my very best friends. I started posting. You realize that you're not alone. Healing isn't about getting it all together. It's about no longer carrying the shame that was never yours to carry in the first place.
Speaker 2:And I think for me that's the hardest part. It looks easy and you know, as you said, diving into my childhood a lot more there. That's that's the bulk of it. That is the bulk of it that needs to be put in writing and I'm slowly getting there, like I. Just a couple weeks ago, I was like scrolling on Instagram and I saw this like video go by of like five signs of a toxic, narcissistic parent or something like that, and I just watching it and he said something in the video and it like I had like a snap memory of like something my mom did when I was a child, like she would always call me a drama queen and she was a teacher she still is, um and she would have these like initiation parties at our house for hockey team, like the boys hockey team, because she was like an assistant coach or whatever.
Speaker 2:It was like highly inappropriate and like very kept under wraps, like yeah, they don't know they don't know boundaries very well, but anyways, there was like some really shady shit going on inside my own house, like you know.
Speaker 2:Guys would get like rookies would have to get naked and do pushups and like have their genitals like dip into this like cup of water and the first guy who would get hard from it would have to drink from all the cups.
Speaker 2:And then they would have to like suck on tampons that were dipped in Tabasco and like do all these like whack, wacky shits that like were happening inside my house, like I saw it happen.
Speaker 2:And then at one point I remember and this happened like over several years, like this was a recurring occurrence my mom let them like storm my room and go in my underwear drawer and like put my underwear on and they would like parade my underwear in the house and like I remember this like bright pink pair of like booty shorts I had and they would like put it on and walk around the house with it Like and I would be there, I would be there and I would be mocked. I would be called a drama queen if I said anything bad about it. And yeah, it was an awful experience and I hadn't thought of that Since, since it happened pretty much, I had blocked it out completely's the most random thing that triggers a flashback and then all of a sudden you're there and you're like holy cow symptom of gaslighting, though, like my mom, still to this day, would always say that's not how it happened, like this is you know.
Speaker 2:Bring into question my reality, bring into question what I remember from a specific event, like always, always having the final word and it's just like. No, I very much remember wanting to go to sleep one night, and then I did, and those boys came storming into my room and threw eggs in my bed to wake me up and I had to clean that mess. And you let them do that, like that actually happened. You want to say otherwise? I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Like okay, I didn't want to say anything in the moment while we were recording this conversation, because I wanted to give Stephanie the space to share that memory. But let me just stop right here and say what so many of us I am positive are thinking. What the actual fuck? That wasn't just inappropriate. That wasn't just inappropriate. That wasn't just the lack of boundaries. That was full-on betrayal from her mother. In her own home, stephanie was told that she was being dramatic, that it wasn't that bad. Stephanie was told that she was being dramatic, that it wasn't that bad, that she was the problem.
Speaker 1:Not the actions, not the people involved, not the complete breakdown of safety and protection Her A child. This is what narcissistic parents do. They don't think about the impact, they think about the optics. Will this make me look cool? Will people like me more If I allow this? Will I be accepted? It's all about their image. The approval of strangers becomes more important than the safety of their own child, and the child is left not just unsafe but silenced. Maybe, if you're listening to this right now, you don't have the same story, but you might have the same feeling of being unprotected or being erased. Stephanie's memory is valid. Her anger is valid, and so is yours. You were not making it up, you were not overreacting, and no matter how many times someone tries to rewrite your past, you know what happened, your memory and your truth. That is your power.
Speaker 2:Being removed from that, having finally cut her off, gives me that ability now to think for myself and to be free.
Speaker 1:Removing that outside noise is so important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. The focus is always on oh, oh, well, you only have one parent. Like why would you, why would you cut your parent off, like that. And it's like well, they only had one child and they decided to treat them as such. Like why don't we bring the focus on that instead?
Speaker 1:and.
Speaker 2:I think a lot more people resonate with that nowadays, Like there's there's this movement happening of like adult children like cutting off their parents, and so many people relate to it.
Speaker 1:Because people are waking up.
Speaker 2:They're waking up to the realization that, like holy cow, the things that I went through were not okay, I get a bigger response from things I share about my childhood online than I do from things that I share about my relationship. Like, people are sympathetic but not everyone experiences narcissism in their relationships, whereas a lot of people have experienced childhood trauma. Pretty much like everyone has experienced some form of childhood trauma and I don't know if it's like the shocking factor of it or what it is, but, yeah, people relate to the fact that you're a child and you just don't have the tools to comprehend, or yeah.
Speaker 1:Under I mean feel your way through it, navigate it, yeah my mom was a high school.
Speaker 2:Well, she is still a high school teacher. So everyone I grew up with knew my mom and had some form of interaction with her and for the most part, you know she was a decent teacher. So, but there are some people that have reached out to me. Being like your mom was awful to me growing up and I had no idea that she would treat you this way, but, like I, this one girl was like. I'm in my 30s and I still think of those things your mom said to me in class, like that's how impactful she was on some people. So, and there's a common theme and every single person that has told me that they've had a negative experience with my mom is that they're women and they're outspoken, and it's always the same the trigger for her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in part one, stephanie had shared something that I want to remind you of in this break. She said that her mom is deeply, deeply ashamed of herself and that shame obviously doesn't just sit quietly. That shame lashes out, and who does it attack? Flame lashes out, and who does it attack? It attacks the confidence, the authenticity. It attacks women who take up space and speak their truth, even teenage girls sitting in classrooms. So when she said that every woman who was mistreated by her mom in school was confident and outspoken, that tracks, because confident women are a mirror that narcissistic people can't stand to look into. They don't want to see who they could have been. They don't want to have to face what they've never healed, and that includes their own daughters.
Speaker 2:So I feel really sorry for those people and I like I think there's such such freedom and finally expressing my own experience about it and also hearing other people's like side of it. But there's this phenomenon of like cognitive dissonance right, that happens in narcissism, where they either show like this amazing side to them or there are the few select people who see this like monstrous side and it's being unable to then like reconcile both of those together as being the same person. So that's happening not only to me but to my audience.
Speaker 1:I think it's really important to note here that two things can be true at the same time, exactly, yeah, yeah, I have two questions for you before we wrap up. One is a question that I ask everyone who comes on here who has experienced an abusive romantic relationship, and that is, if anyone is listening to this episode, who is still in a relationship and they are looking to leave, what one piece of advice would you give them?
Speaker 2:Find your people and keep them close, cause I think isolation is a huge factor and I think it's also really hard for people who are your loved ones seeing you experiencing abuse and if they're, you know, pulling away a little bit. Keep them close. Maybe let someone know yeah, I, my best friend of 11 years. Like, yeah, I, my best friend of 11 years. Like the times in my life where we have kept least in touch were the times in my life where I was being most abused. Yes, because abusers are proficient at isolating you from your loved ones, and she has been my source of light and she has always been there to pick up the phone whenever I needed it. But I think it was also really hard for her at some point to see me experiencing that and, you know, signaling it to me and me not being ready to hear it fully or to see it for myself. But once you start to see it, that's when everything changes Exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly yeah. And my second question would be what piece of advice would you give to someone who maybe is just waking up and realizing that the things that they went through in their childhood was not okay?
Speaker 2:Listen to yourself, like don't. I think outside influence is the most harmful thing. Writing it down is incredibly helpful and, you know, this is something that I'm still working through. I write about a lot of stuff, but writing about my childhood is by far the hardest to do. Yeah, so I'm still I'm still coming around to that, but it's proven like massively helpful and it's given me, like, such a huge shift in realizing that there is a healthy path forward. There are people in this life that have grown up with secure attachments and, you know, help lead a better lifestyle for you, and and learning about attachment styles and and how those are built um is also hugely helpful.
Speaker 2:Reading books I know that, like, not everyone has time for reading audiobooks are super helpful too, and most of the books on these topics, like narcissism and abuse, are very like they're not subtle. You know. It says it on the title, like how to deal with the narcissist in your life. Like you obviously can't read that around someone right, causing you harm, like that's, you know so audible might be your best option.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or some podcast, or yeah, I get it exactly like find people who are sharing authentic accounts of what they've experienced, like people like you and I, like I think have have helped me tremendously in understanding my own path and and I just want to say before we finish up that, like what you're doing is amazing, thank you, and yeah, it's gonna change a lot of lives and I hope I can help you, like, bring this forward, you're giving me nose tingles.
Speaker 2:I know that, like I have somewhat of an audience that cares for for what I have to say, and I like I prefer writing, but people like to hear it coming from from like my mouth, so I'm hopeful that I will drive a bit of traffic onto your page and help you grow. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for chatting with me today. It was cool to learn more about you and just to see how inspiring you are, especially like in your healing journey. I will always root for a survivor who is just so authentically becoming who they were meant to be and to chase after the things that they deserve to, and you are definitely one of those. So thank you for being here. I fully support you. I can't wait to share this episode and I hope we keep in touch.
Speaker 2:Of course we will, absolutely. It was really nice to make the connection. Finally, I love your cartoon.
Speaker 1:I love everything that you do. Thank you so much. What a journey. If there's one thing that I hope that you are able to take with you from today's episode, it is that you are allowed to trust yourself, even if others have spent years trying to make you doubt your reality.
Speaker 1:Stephanie reminded us that healing starts with validation, not just from others, but from within. From saying this happened to me, from choosing joy without shame, from sharing your story even when you're scared to even when your voice shakes. And her advice Find your people and keep them close. And if you're just now waking up to the pain from your past, listen to yourself, write it down. There's a healthy path forward and you don't have to have all the answers, okay. You don't even have to be ready right now, but if you're here and you're listening, then you've already taken the first step and I'm really freaking proud of you. If this episode resonated with you, please do me, please do us a favor. Leave a five-star review, share it with someone who needs it and maybe follow along on social media, on TikTok, at thedvsurvivor. Every review, every share, every comment helps this podcast find the survivors who feel like no one sees them. Let's keep breaking the silence together and remember the world is a better place because you are in it.
