Supporting Someone in an Abusive Relationship: A Conversation with Tiffiny Newton

Content Warning: This episode includes discussion of emotional abuse, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Please choose how you listen in a way that protects yourself.

Think someone you love might be in an abusive relationship? Tiffiny Newton breaks down red flags, coercive control, trauma bonding, and what actually helps when someone is ready to leave.

Show Notes

Tiffiny Newton’s Website: https://tiffinynewton.com/ 

Self Defense Resources

• Diamond Defense: https://diamonddefense.com/resources
• Domestic Violence Hotline (in the United States): 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233)    thehotline.org
• Relationships Australia Victoria RAV — What is Coercive Control? Article: https://www.relationshipsvictoria.org.au/news/what-is-coercive-control/ 

Sexual Assault Resources

• National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-4673 https://rainn.org/help-and-healing/hotline/

Other Resources

• Power and Control Wheels: https://www.theduluthmodel.org/wheels/ Copyright by the Domestic Abuse Intervention Project
• Sacramento Family Justice Center: https://www.sacramentofjc.org/ 

Engage with Us!

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💎Have a story you want to share on the podcast? Email us at DiamondDefensePodcast@gmail.com 

💎If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review it — help everyone shine stronger!

💎Diamond Defense YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@diamonddefense321 

Production Team

Co-Host and Co-Producer: Lisa 

Co-Host and Co-Producer: Kellie 

Special Thanks

Ann Cobb, Tiffiny Newton, Kelley Ogden, Karin

Music

• Music courtesy of Melodie Music.
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Transcript

Kellie: Before we begin, we want to let you know that this episode includes discussion of emotional abuse, coercive control, sexual assault, and violence. Some of the stories may be difficult to hear. Please choose how you listen in a way that protects yourself. Resources are available in our show notes.

Theme Music: I am a fighter. Checking my armor. I'm marching onward. Hey Hey. I am a fighter, storming the desert…

Tiffiny: What if? What if in their moment of escaping, they have doubts? How can I survive without this person telling me what to do? Right. You’ve lost your autonomy in that relationship because they want you to ask them for every decision. 

Kellie: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Diamond Defense Podcast. I am Kellie. 

Lisa: And I’m Lisa.

Lisa: Thank you so much, everybody, for tuning back into the Diamond Defense Podcast. We are so glad to have you here. And we are so glad to be able to bring you this episode today, um, which is kind of a follow-up episode to, uh, our episode on coercive Control Relationships, where we spoke with Karin, a woman who was in a nine-year-long coercive control relationship.

Lisa: We went through the 12 signs of what that entails. We talked about what that looked like and felt like inside the relationship for her, as well as a bit about, you know, how it affected her relationships with her friends and family. And we thought that it was important to try and follow that up a bit by talking about what that might’ve looked like, actually, outside the relationship to her loved ones, to her friends and family that were watching her go through that.

Kellie: Yeah. We’re talking to the author of Behind the Smile, the Unseen Signs of Emotional Abuse, Tiffiny Newton. And Lisa, when I was reading the book, I was, I don’t wanna say excited because nobody’s ever excited about reading things like this, but I felt validated in some of the things that she was talking about and recognizing them in myself and loved ones. 

Kellie: And you’re gonna hear that I think, in the conversation that follows, when we share information and how we can validate ourselves, our experiences, or learn something new, so we can be prepared for it. 

Lisa: Right? It’s that sort of penultimate of… of letting other people learn from the experiences, the, the lessons we learned the hard way, right? I think it’s sort of an extreme form of that where, um, Tiffiny was in a very abusive relationship, and she had to navigate, you know, how to keep herself safe in that relationship, how to get out of the relationship, which, as we talk about, can be one of the most dangerous times. Um, and, and to her, you know, what she did was she turned that experience into this book.

Lisa: Right? Called Behind the Smile, where she sort of goes through, um, tips, advice, insights for people who have a loved one who is in an abusive relationship. And, you know, I think it’s just so important because it’s awful, but I think most of us know somebody who has been or is in a relationship that is abusive.

Lisa: And it’s, you know, so often that we just go like, what can I do? We feel powerless, right? To… to help them, um, navigate that, to help them get out. We don’t know what the right thing to say is. We don’t know what the right thing to do is. Um, it’s really hard to… to know that. Unless you’ve been inside of it. So, Tiffiny uses her experience inside of that relationship and how the people around her helped her get through that and get out of that to… to sort of give all of us some advice in terms of how, how to deal with that.

Lisa: What to do if someone, you know is in an abusive relationship. 

Kellie: So, the conversation that’s gonna follow is really interesting because this is two experts, you and Tiffiny, but sharing real-life stories and information that can keep all of us safe, especially teens. Because this is, I wanna get this right, it is February, uh uh… uh, February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month.

Kellie: So, there’s a lot of information I am thinking that’s gonna be in the conversation that follows. It’s not just appropriate for, you know, adult women, but also young girls. 

Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. Especially girls in that sort of, you know, newly dating arena. Um, and you’re sort of mid-teens where those relationships start to form.

Lisa: Um, and we talk about what some of the red flags are. You know how to set your boundaries, um, some language around that, if somebody’s violating your boundaries. Um, because we’ve, we’ve gotta set that stuff early. We’ve gotta teach those young women early, um, to be able to navigate those situations. 

Kellie: So, we are in store for a good conversation. And listeners, stay tuned. 

Lisa: All right. Let’s talk to Tiffiny. We are so grateful to be joined today by Tiffiny Newton. Tiffiny is an author, a survivor, and an advocate who speaks so clearly about the things that many people struggle to put into words, um, especially the unseen signs of emotional abuse, the complicated ways that people stay in harmful relationships longer than they ever planned to, and what that looks like on the outside, um, to the people they love.

Lisa: She’s the author of a book called “Behind the Smile, the Unseen Signs of Emotional Abuse.” And through her work, she helps people reconnect with their instincts, their boundaries, and their sense of self without shame and without judgment. And today she is gonna help us answer the question, what do we do if we realize that someone we love is in an abusive relationship?

Lisa: What are some of the signs we can watch for? What are some of the most beneficial things we can do or not do, uh, to help them get out of that relationship and to stay safe in the meantime or safer? Um, Tiffiny’s here to help us unpack all of this. Tiffiny, we are so glad that you are here with us today. Thank you so much for sharing your time and your expertise with us. Welcome. 

Tiffiny: Thank you. I wish I was not an expert in this situation, um, because it just came from my own experience of, of my own abusive relationship. But I think that all of us on this call are. I have a passion to help women, um, understand what’s happening so it can get, it can get stopped earlier on, right?

Tiffiny: We don’t want people ending up in a hospital with broken bones and stab wounds and blood and, and all of the things that we were taught were abuse. Cause it happens far sooner than that. Um, and… and by us talking about it and sharing these stories and having these conversations, that is how we alert these women and… and uncover when, when people are in abusive situations.

Tiffiny: So, I appreciate you ladies for having me here and having this conversation ’cause we do need to talk about it more. And there’s been a huge shift all over social media recently, probably in the last year at least, of more people talking about it. And I think that is a win for all of us. 

Lisa: Absolutely. And, and thank you for being a part of that. We’re happy to be a part of that. You know, we are all about women helping other women stay safer out there. Um, and we firmly believe that storytelling, uh, is a form of self-defense. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: And that, you know, uh, telling our own stories and helping each other learn from those experiences, um, that we’ve sometimes learned the hard way from, um, can help others, uh, from, from having to go through that.

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: So, uh, I think we’d just love to start by sort of asking you to share a bit about your own personal story. Um, at some point, you found yourself in an abusive relationship. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Um, can you just share a little bit about that and tell us how that relationship affected your relationship with your loved ones?

Tiffiny: I was at the dog park, taking my dog, just walking around the outside of it. I would have a little, I have little wiener dogs, so they don’t like in the big fenced-in area, so we just walk around the outside, and I had one at that time, and there was this guy sitting there with two dogs, and I’m like, oh, cute dogs, whatever, sparking up a conversation.

Tiffiny: And we sat there and chatted for probably 40 minutes or so. And I remember walking back into, we never swapped names, we never swapped phone numbers, like it was just a chance encounter there. And we were just talking, but we had a lot in common, as we all know in looking back, the mirroring and the, you know, the, he was studying me already, and we just sat there talking about working out and dogs and traveling and all of these things.

Tiffiny: I go back into my apartment, I’m like, where has this guy been? Like, how awesome that we have so much in common, and I’ve never run into him before. Like, was this meant to happen? 

Lisa: Can I, can I pause there just real quick? Because you said it, you, you just said a term that I think, um, you know, some of us understand, maybe some of us don’t, um, which is mirroring. So, can you, can you describe what that, what that term means a little bit in… in context here? 

Tiffiny: Sure. It’s, oh my goodness, I have dogs too. Oh, my goodness. I love working out too. I go to the gym in the morning, probably not as early as you, but I go in the morning. Oh, I love sushi too. Let, let’s… let’s go grab sushi for dinner. Like anything you say, they’re either studying you and they’ll be slightly off. So, it doesn’t look like they’re copying you, but they’re close enough to where they are taking notes of what to use against you later on. 

Lisa: Gotcha. And that is sort of a form of. Um, kind of the beginnings of coercive control, right? It’s that engendering that familiarity, um, to get your guard down and to make you feel 

Tiffiny: Yeah. And narcissism. 

Lisa: And narcissism. 

Tiffiny: Right. 

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And, and that becomes very, it’s a manipulation tactic where if you are not aware of it, like I was not aware of it, you then become very comfortable with that person very quickly, faster than normal, because they share so much of the same interest and likes and dislikes and values, or you think they do.

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: So, you get sucked in much faster. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And the common thing that most people say in this situation is, where has this person been? I’ve been looking for someone like this my whole life. 

Lisa: And that’s where, and that’s where you were when you left that dog park? 

Tiffiny: I was, so after that conversation, I was like, oh my goodness, I’ll never run into him again. Like that’s just life’s luck. Right. I went on a vacation, so that was in December. Of 2016, I went on my dream trip, um, by myself. I went to Australia for New Year’s and 

Lisa: Nice. 

Tiffiny: Had an amazing time and came back and randomly ran to him at the dog park again. He was probably using that as like time. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Right. Like PREY, not PRAY. 

Lisa: Exactly. 

Kellie: Well. 

Lisa: The… the bad kind. Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Um, because, you know, it, it, it was like very nonchalant for him, right. It was just like, oh, hey, what’s up? Um, because when I ran, when I ran into him again in January, when I got back from my trip. It was, you know, what’s your name again? Like, what is, you know, what’s your number?

Tiffiny: Would you like to go out for dinner? You know that kind of thing. Like, he progressed that further, and we had a great time. Like we, it was a great date. We went and had sushi, you know, um, we didn’t see each other at the gym right away. ‘Cause we didn’t get ensnared within that first few days. But that following week, it was like, you’re going to the gym at 6:00 AM, why don’t you wait for me to go at seven, and I’ll go with you.

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: You’re going to the, you know what I mean? Like, kind of pushing those boundaries, right? 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: That’s another thing. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Testing those boundaries of what they can get you to change or do, or any of those kind of things. And again, real… realizing all these little, tiny micro cuts that he was doing in my life. I didn’t realize those at the time. I realized them after I left, while I was in therapy, going back and analyzing all the activities and actions and all of those things. So, it’s made hindsight very 2020. 

Lisa: Right. 

Kellie: Well, in the moment you’re like, oh, this person’s really interested in me and they’re connecting to me, and they wanna make time with me. So, it’s. 

Tiffiny: Yeah, exactly. You feel amazing. You feel seen, you feel heard, you feel attractive, you feel all these things. Right. Um, but yeah, so we went on a date and, you know, fast-forward to. Valentine’s Day. So, all the way into February, he gets me this sapphire-and-diamond bracelet. He says, let’s go to Miami. You know, again, I’m making dinner for him for Valentine’s Day and making these little ducks and chocolates and like all of the, you know, cutesy things. And he’s like stepping up his game with jewelry and a trip and, and all of these things. But then, while we’re on the trip, he goes to be very nice. So, he’s already gotten me a diamond. Diamond chip. Sapphire chip it. It’s not, not anything nuts, right? Um, I should have just gone for nuts. 

Lisa: Right? 

Tiffiny: But you know, like if I was gonna get love bombed, I needed to increase that price tag. 

Lisa: And, and this is a month in? 

Tiffiny: A month in. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: So, does, you know sapphire-and-diamond-chip bracelet where enough, where you could see the color, but it’s not like individual set stones if— 

Lisa: But a big trip? 

Tiffiny: Right? Um, and then the trip, well, while we’re down in the trip, it’s in Miami, um, he’s like, oh, let’s get a fun pair of shoes or whatever. And I’m thinking, okay, whatever. We go down in Miami, there’s this, um, shopping area, Lincoln Road, and it has shops like little boutique shops and restaurants that have like the uh, tables and music and out, out on this like walkway, right? It’s very entertaining, very chill. Especially in Florida in February, it can be very beautiful in weather. That’s why we live in Florida. Um, and after he buys these shoes for me, we’re at dinner, and I’m smiling. It’s beautiful out. We’re in Miami. There’s no reason for me to frown or be sad or any of the, of these things. And he looks at me, and he’s like, "Are you not happy to be here with me?" 

Kellie: Mm. 

Tiffiny: And you know, again, hindsight 20/20, there were things that stuck in my brain of, wait, is my inside not matching my outside? Like, what? 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: What is my face saying, right?

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Is it— 

Lisa: Starting to doubt your own reality? 

Tiffiny: Yeah. Like, is it resting bitch face? Am I like, upset? Am I showing him that I am not happy? Like what Dar is? You know, figure what is my reality here? 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Like he’s thinking that I’m not happy, so I need to like over exaggerate that. 

Lisa: Mm. 

Tiffiny: Right. Um, and that was the beginning of that stuff.

Lisa: Wow. 

Tiffiny: Because that never stopped. 

Lisa: Wow. Okay. 

Tiffiny: If we had a nice evening, I would end in tears ‘cause I was such a terrible person that I couldn’t be grateful for what he was giving me or doing for me or supporting me. All of these things. Right. It… it’s the death of a thousand cuts in a coercive control, narcissistic, all, all the terms. Right. Because they’re kind of interwoven together. Um, narcissistic traits are very, and I’m not a therapist, so I can’t diagnose him, but definitely have the traits of all of that stuff. Right. Coercive control. Um, that has become very, especially in Australia, that is now a crime. Coercive control is a crime.

Lisa: Wow. That’s fantastic. 

Tiffiny: Because there is a pattern that you can document. 

Lisa: Yeah. Yes. 

Tiffiny: Even though it isn’t physical damage to a person. You can’t; it’s not a bruise on their face. It’s not a bruise on their body. It’s not blood, it’s not a broken bone, but there is a pattern you can document. 

Lisa: Nice. 

Tiffiny: Um, so hopefully that, you know, comes to the United States. So, it would be amazing, um, because then a lot of things would come out. 

Lisa: Yes. Yeah. I… I don’t know the state of the country, I don’t know if I have a lot of hope for that here, but maybe, maybe at some point. 

Tiffiny: Right. Tennessee passed the, uh, domestic violence offenders’ law. So, I think, I think certain things are… are happening in certain states. California’s on the forefront of a lot of things. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Um, there’s an organization that I do a lot of their, I attend a lot of their trainings. It’s the, um, Institute of Strangulation Prevention, and they’re the two people that started that are prosecutors in California. 

Lisa: I went through one of those trainings as well. They’re incredible. Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. They’re amazing. They’re amazing. Casey Gwinn and Gael Strack are amazing individuals. 

Lisa: Yes. 

Tiffiny: And going through all of that, they have brought up hidden homicides 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Where people are hiding strangulation. Um, they’re, they’re doing a lot of work, and they’re making progress. So, I absolutely have… believe that those things are happening and at a faster rate than we think.

Lisa: Wow. There’s hope. That’s awesome. 

Tiffiny: I think there is. That’s amazing. I think there is big hope and especially since like, there is a, there was a young girl on TikTok, she’s in her early twenties, um, and I’m drawing a blanket her name right now. Long blonde hair. Oh, my Kayla Malecc is her name. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: Um, she documented her boyfriend physically beating her. It went all over TikTok, I’m talking million… tens of millions of views documented all the things, um, would hop on right after an abuse… abusive situation, videotaping herself. And this girl already was all over social media. She already has a clothing line in Spencer’s Gifts. She already is extremely successful in life, and so she’s documenting, and kids are listening.

Tiffiny: Again, she’s in her younger twenties. And then she documents her escape, she documents, um, she goes back and documents stories and tells like the bigger story behind what happened and then taking him to court, and she won her court case. 

Lisa: That’s amazing. Can you say her name again, please? 

Tiffiny: Kayla Malecc. 

Lisa: Great. Okay. I’ll be looking her up. 

Tiffiny: She’s so young, and so she has a whole different, like I’m never gonna reach her audience, like my age group is never gonna reach her audience. 

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: But her audience, listening to that and understanding what she went through, I think, is a huge change for our country that people are speaking up about that stuff.

Kellie: And that’s the power of social media, right? Because she’s got a younger crowd, which are a lot of teens. And speaking of, you had mentioned before we press record that February is Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. 

Tiffiny: Yes. 

Kellie: So that’s so important that there are creators out there who are being vulnerable and sharing that for younger audiences.

Tiffiny: Yes, absolutely. 

Lisa: Yeah. It’s so brave. Of her to do, to, to document all of that, um, while she was within that relationship. That’s incredible. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And a lot of people won’t post that while they’re in it, but they take pictures of it. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Anyone who has, whether you’re, you’ve been in a situation, or you know, someone who’s been in a situation, one of the things that you have to understand is trauma brain is a real thing. 

Lisa: Yes. 

Tiffiny: You cannot remember things in a linear fashion. So going back through your phone of taking pictures of bruises, of instances of stories, documenting things like journaling, things that happened, or even, you know, putting an emoji plus a, a reminder of an outline, a bullet point in a calendar, and then pulling that up as a timeline of what you went through is so important to document a pattern. Even if you are being told that what you’re going through isn’t what you’re going through, gaslighting, right? 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Uh, you can look back and just put that emoji in the search thing in your calendar and pull up that whole timeline of everything that happened. 

Lisa: Nice. Now, would you say, um, especially in terms of the conversation that we’re having today about how to help someone that you love, uh, who is in an abusive relationship, is that an important thing for loved ones to do in terms of documenting, um, what they see?

Lisa: Maybe not necessarily, you know, uh, with the victim or, um, or knowledge of the victim, but for themselves to be able to make those notes, document when they’re seeing bruises, document when they’re seeing different types of abuse happening so that maybe they have something they can show to the victim. To help sort… help them sort of illuminate that.

Tiffiny: I love that you brought that up ‘cause that’s one of the biggest things that I talk to people about, especially if they’re not in the situation, that they know someone that’s in that situation, and here’s why that’s important. If they’re telling you something, you wanna be the safe space. You can’t just say you have to leave. ’Cause you know what they’re gonna do. They’re gonna go back and tell their abuser, my mom thinks my friend thinks, my coworker thinks that I need to leave. And you know, who’s gonna get isolated like that? Them. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: So. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: As you’re listening. I’m sorry you’re going through that. I’m here if you need me. How can I help you? The open feeling, feel-good questions. You tell them that and just let them talk without judgment. It’s hard. It’s very hard. It's because you love that person. You care for that person. You hate to see them go through this pain, but as they’re telling you stories and you are their safe space to tell the stories, document it. Have a separate notepad, have a… if they’re sending you pictures, make sure to keep track of all of that, and here’s why. It’s not just for the victim of, let’s say, they leave one time, they leave, two times they go back, they leave three times. Right? It’s an average of seven times. So, it could be more, it could be less, whatever.

Tiffiny: But it’s also an average of like 30 times of someone getting hit before they decide to leave. So, the physical side, but that may not leave bruises. But they… he hit me when I said this, or he pushed me to the floor when I said this, or he took the phone outta my hand and broke it. That’s assault and battery.

Tiffiny: So, you know, think, and I didn’t know that, right? I… I squashed things down. I like suppressed things. And I was like, no, that’s no big deal. That’s, you know, he didn’t mean it that way. Yes, he did. But you documenting those things, this is why it’s so important, because an abuser is gonna continue this cycle.

Lisa: Mm. 

Tiffiny: The end of this cycle is you not being alive. That’s the ultimate end of the cycle. Whether you unalive yourself because you can’t deal with it anymore, or they did the final snap and unalive you. So, how do you show cops who did it? Well, here’s the pattern. They did this, it the… here’s the times that he hit her. Here’s the times that he punched her. Here’s the times that he, um, tortured her and locked her in a closet here. You know, all of these things, sexual assault, you know, can you be raped if it’s your boyfriend? Yes. Can you be raped if it’s your husband? Absolutely. So, documenting all of these things, because if you snap the victim, if the victim snaps and kills their abuser, you have a record of what made you snap.

Tiffiny: I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, but if they’re coming at you and you need to defend yourself. You have a pattern that of what you’ve gone through. If they make the final snap and unalive your family or your friends have been documenting all of the things, that’s a real easy thing to slide over.

Lisa: Even if you, even if you just suspect, maybe you don’t know that there’s abuse, right? Maybe you suspect, um, that there is abuse. 

Tiffiny: You get that feeling. And women are especially good with intuition. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: In general. 

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: But sometimes we think of it as anxiety. Sometimes we think of it as butterflies in the stomach. We’re excited. Your body’s tell telling you something. So, whether it’s that feeling or all of a sudden you’re losing more hair, or you’re constantly sick. 

Lisa: Mm. 

Tiffiny: That trauma will manifest itself physically. 

Lisa: Your body knows. 

Tiffiny: Paying attention, your body knows it’s trying to tell you to get out.  

Lisa: Yeah. Can you talk about maybe what some of the most common red flags would be that we kind of maybe dismiss as quirks or, you know, that’s just who he, and that’s just sort of how he does things or that’s just who he is? Um, that if we see, if we know, if we have a loved one sort of going through that, um, those things before they become dangerous. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. Well, number one, it’s really recognizing, you know, if you’re, if you’re the outsider, it’s recognizing what your loved one is going through. If you see them, they’re on a huge high, then they’re in the doldrums, then they’re on a high again. Like, what… what pattern are you seeing? Or are they being an expert at hiding that? 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Right. That’s why, like in the book I did “Behind the Smile,” because a lot of times that you, you are smiling through it all and you are not showing what those are, you’re… you’re kind of hiding behind the mask and, you don’t, this is where shame and guilt come in. Right. And embarrassment not, I mean, you could not care what anybody thinks of you. I really stopped caring what a lot of people thought of me back in my thirties, um, because. If someone likes you or doesn’t like you, they’re gonna say something anyway, right? They’re either gonna support you or go against you, and whether you do something or not, right?

Tiffiny: So just do the dang thing and get it done right, no matter what. Um, but some of the things that people are hiding is that shame of themselves, as, how did I get myself in this situation? 

Lisa: Mm. 

Tiffiny: Not that anyone else is gonna care. I mean, there are gonna be people that care, right? Family and friends and loved ones, but for themselves. Like, how did I allow myself to get here? I don’t know how to get out. I’m afraid to ask for help because how did I get in this situation? Right? You end up in this spiral, and that is, that’s one of the biggest things is… is you’re hiding that shame and guilt and embarrassment. Right. Some of the, the big red flag signs, they’re the big ones of isolation, right? They don’t show up at family functions as much. Um, you actually might not, like I didn’t get isolated from my family. 

Lisa: Mm, okay. 

Tiffiny: Um, parents didn’t live close. Um, they lived like two hours away. My brother lives in Alabama. Um, so when I did see my, my brother, we were at Universal Studios, and my abuser, I’m not, I’m not gonna say his name ‘cause I don’t wanna give his name power because we went to Universal Studios, he didn’t wanna walk around with my brother and his family. So, we kind of went another direction and then would meet up with them. Right. So, kind of isolation, like where he couldn’t complain or have attention on him because I was with my brother and wife and my niece and nephew. 

Lisa: And then your brother could not see how he was interacting with you.

Tiffiny: Exactly. Um, but my friends absolutely got, I was isolated from my friends. He had to have access into all of my things like email, social media. And for me, it was like, oh, well, you’re… you’re ogling over all these people on social media. Right. I did bodybuilding for a couple years. Um, and when you’re friends with bodybuilders, male and female, that part doesn’t matter. I was majority friends with female bodybuilders, ‘cause I was in that, like, I did the bikini division, not the, you know, big. Mu muscular, muscular one. But in Facebook, as we all know, they do things to get you to engage. That is part of how the system works. There’s a documentary on how that system works in social media.

Tiffiny: It is an addiction, right? The dopamine hit. So, in Facebook, if you’re friends with someone, and I’ll just use this as an example of a female that is in a bikini showing off all her muscles at a bodybuilding show, it’s gonna show you all her friends in the section labeled people you may know. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: Right. So even though I’m not friends with them, they, all of her half-naked friends in the bodybuilding world, are showing up on my page as people you may know. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: Only I can see that from my page. You wouldn’t, if you came to my Facebook page, you wouldn’t see that. 

Lisa: Right? 

Tiffiny: But if you were in my social media page, you would see that.

Lisa: So, he kept seeing that. 

Tiffiny: He kept seeing it. I kept getting blamed for my online bullshit. And so that used over and over and over. I can’t trust you ‘cause your online bullshit. I can’t trust this. I can’t trust this. You know what? In fact, I need your passwords to everything because I don’t trust all the stuff that you’re doing with these men behind the scenes.

Tiffiny: Well, I’m an open book. I didn’t have anything to hide. I didn’t cheat on him. I was like, look at it. I don’t care. Like I’ve got nothing to hide. I’m not doing anything behind your back. He took that and ran with it. That became the rule. He had to have access to everything at all times. If a password changed, he needed to be notified immediately, and if he wasn’t notified immediately, I was up to something.

Kellie: Were you given the same access to his stuff? Was it reciprocal? 

Tiffiny: No. 

Kellie: There you go. 

Lisa: Isn’t that funny how that works? 

Tiffiny: I was supposed to take his word for it. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Right. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: So, he went into my Facebook and unfriended over 2000 people. 

Kellie: What? 

Tiffiny: I’ve been a member of Facebook since 2008, so people I went to high school with, that I went to college with, that I knew through work, that I, you know what I mean? I’m 51 years old since 2008 to 2017. That’s 11 years of friending people. 

Lisa: Just erased all those connections for you. 

Tiffiny: Over 2000. I’m still discovering people he erased and blocked. 

Kellie: So, he’s not trying just erasing them, he’s trying to erase you and your identity and your individuality. 

Tiffiny: Yes, absolutely. So that is a red flag, right?

Lisa: So, if we… so if there is someone that we love that we notice, all of a sudden they are not at family functions as often as they were. They’re not coming around as often as they used to. 

Tiffiny: You don’t see ‘em on social media. They’ve unfriended you. 

Lisa: Or maybe you come to understand that their social media accounts, their email accounts, their activities are being monitored or are being shared or tracked.

Tiffiny: Yep. 

Lisa: These are red flags to look for. 

Tiffiny: Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: Any of the manipulation, the love bombing. If you see someone showing up with, and I’ve seen some like outlandish stuff, like a new car, a new, like, $10,000 handbag. Like all of these things, right? There’s like, depends on who the manipulator is. It can be someone that doesn’t have much money. It can be someone that has. Makes six figures, seven figures a year. Like you don’t know who the love bomber is. Um, and so the gifts go appropriate with their income. 

Lisa: And love bombing can look like gifts. It can also, for those that may not have six figures, look like emotional manipulation, right?

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Like sort of telling you all of these incredible, amazing things about yourself. Words like you.

Tiffiny: Future faking of this is what our life will look like, that I wanna marry you someday. Um, in my case, he bought a condo. I want you to come help me decorate it. Like pick out tile and, and you know, for renovations, because you’re gonna be spending a lot of time there. You know, this is where our future place is gonna be. 

Lisa: Which is great if it’s somebody you’ve been dating for a year or more, or— 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: And you do know that you wanna spend your life with this person, and that’s been established. But when it’s somebody you’ve known for a month or two. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Um. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: That’s a problem.

Tiffiny: Other red flags their behavioral shifts, right? Do they get nervous if they’re not with their loved one or with their abuser, right? Um, they get nervous. They can’t make decisions without them because they’re afraid of making the wrong decision or they’ll get in… in trouble. Um, they’re, again, we touched on it, this, the controlling of social media.

Tiffiny: A lot of that comes with the decision type stuff. Can I post this or you see them posting? ‘cause that was one of the rules I had to follow. I could only use Facebook if I was posting about us and how great he was and how lucky I was to have him in my life. 

Kellie: Oh, my goodness. 

Tiffiny: That is it. That’s all I could post about.

Lisa: Wow. And so, we talked, so we talked… talking a little bit about love bombing, which tends to lead to trauma bonding. Um, can you describe trauma bonding a little bit for us and how that can, uh, sometimes prevent, um, a victim from either being able to recognize that abuse or being receptive to understanding that it is abuse?

Tiffiny: Absolutely. So, my… the easiest way that I can get people to understand what trauma bonding is, and now this is different of two people who have had trauma, and they’re bonding over it, that is different. That is not what we’re talking about here, right? 

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: Um, trauma bonding is the easiest way for people to understand what that is… is just say, it’s an addiction. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Just like you crave caffeine from your coffee in the morning, just like you crave a sugary snack at three o’clock in the afternoon to have that pick me up. Just like you have to play whatever game on Xbox or PS2, just like you have to, um, get your dopamine kicked by, you know, doom scrolling on TikTok. Um, those feelings, that addiction, that pull is the same feeling as trauma bonding. The person you met in the very beginning is amazing. You would’ve never gotten in a relationship with them if they told you…you were a piece of shit and they punched you in the chest and spit on you on the first date.

Lisa: Right. Abuse never starts on the first date. 

Tiffiny: It never starts there. Right. So, they’re amazing. They’re wonderful. And then, how could you ever do that to me? Why would you use that tone with me? Why are you insulting me that way when you never insulted them? Right? So, they’re questioning you, criticizing you, and then you wake up the next morning, and good morning, honey, I love you so much. I packed you a lunch. Like nothing ever happened. And you’re like, wait, hold up. Did that just happen? And then you compartmentalize a little bit, right? Like you’re in this weird cycle. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: And you’re just waiting for them to be nice again. 

Kellie: That reminds me of the section of your book that I highlighted for myself. ‘Cause I never thought about the different cycles of abuse, and you start with tension-building phase, the incident phase, the reconciliation phase, and the calm phase. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Kellie: So, what you just kind of described, I’ve got goosebumps right now because I highlighted that section and I never thought about how there’s different cycles and how they’re kind of little compartments that kind of feed off of each other.

Tiffiny: Yeah. It’s we don’t…. we… ‘cause we don’t think about it as a pattern, right? When you’re in it, you don’t think about it as a pattern. All you want is the calm phase back again, the honeymoon phase, right? Them to be wonderful and the person you fell in love with and why you got in a relationship with them. But the tension could be good or bad tension. 

Kellie: And it’s almost like a, like the dopamine thing. Oh, we got to the calm phase. So, it’s… my brain is like, I’ve got a reward for getting through all of this. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Kellie: And so, you’re conditioned to go, okay, as long as I get through this tension or this abuse phase, I know there’s a reward on the end because he’s gonna be calm again.

Lisa: Right.  

Tiffiny: Pavlov’s dog. Right. Like you’re just waiting for the bell to ring to get dinner. Yeah. Like, it’s, it’s wild. How in the heck did I get in that cycle? Like, why did I let myself get there Again, you don’t enter that cycle. They don’t start that cycle until much later. 

Lisa: And like you, you described on your, um, your very early trip to Miami, right? It’s that, it’s that very insipid, very subtle gaslighting. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: That begins at the beginning. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Which is, aren’t you having a good time? You were having a great time, and now all of a sudden you’re questioning your own reality. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Your own experience of things, and you begin to doubt yourself. Right. And then the doubts get more and more and more until, until, like you said, you’re just in a cycle and you’re just trying to get through to that, that calm phase again. 

Tiffiny: Yeah, absolutely. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: It’s, it’s wild. And then you’re on, you’re in that rollercoaster and you don’t know how to get off. Like you just don’t, like, you’re stuck, you’re strapped in, you’re hooked down. Like it doesn’t stop. It may slow down and then it keeps going again and you’re like, what just happened? I don’t know what just happened. 

Lisa: And you don’t know what seatbelt to unbuckle first or what side to get off or what’s safe and what’s not safe, and. 

Tiffiny: Everything is super glued. Once you pull it down, you’re stuck. And it’s like you feel like. I don’t know where to, how to get off safely. Part of what some of the conversations I have with women and men is what is that line in the sand that you are going to draw? That if that person you’re in a relationship with does this again or does this for the first time, what is that line in the sand that you can hands down and say, I am done.

Tiffiny: You have to, you have to verbalize that. You have to write that down. Um, mine, you know, touch my dog like threaten my dog, um, was one of them. Another one was threaten any type because, you know, I was already in, I had already left three times, four times before I, I wrote what that line in the sand was. 

Lisa: And did those goalposts keep moving back and back and back?

Tiffiny: Well, he moved the goalpost. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Of what was acceptable as a girlfriend. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: But my, once I wrote my, once I wrote that line in the sand down. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: It was down. 

Lisa: Nice. 

Tiffiny: And I think that is what is so important because you’re telling Right. Whatever you tell your subconscious, it’s gonna believe, it doesn’t know right from wrong. It doesn’t know if it’s a dream or if it’s something that you are, you know, writing down that’s real. If you tell it, it takes it as it is real. So you have to, you have to write things down that, especially for a safety plan, if so and so does this thing, it is time for me to leave. It is time to start the chain of events, make the phone call, call the best friend with a code word, you know, whatever the next steps in that is. That one thing breaks that chain to start the process. 

Kellie: Would you recommend that we do that before we get into any relationship? As much as we don’t wanna, you know, muddy the waters of true love or what magic could happen, just have that down for ourselves. Like, okay, I am gonna get into this relationship maybe with this person, but here are my lines.

Tiffiny: I would say you, I mean you, you can absolutely do that, but I would just say setting strong boundaries, right? Um, I was at an event. I was talking with a lady and she, she brought up this book that I had read before, but again, I compartmentalized it because when you don’t feel you need it, you don’t pay attention.

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Right. It’s kind of like the screwdriver when you need a hammer, like, you know, you have it, but you don’t pay attention to it. But the book Boundaries is very good. It’s been around forever. One of the things is what is gonna be healthy for me, and how do you know what a safe person is? 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: If they start to cross or push your boundary and you say, that’s not acceptable, and they back up, they’re safe. A person who is going to push your boundary and get… try to talk you in to keep moving the boundary, that’s a dangerous individual. And we hear this for the first time, and this is why I like talking to teenagers in schools and through teen, you know, this teen domestic, teen abuse awareness month. The first time we hear this is in school, if you love me, you’ll have sex with me.

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: That’s the first time most of us hear manipulation. 

Lisa: Whether it makes you uncomfortable, whether it’s something you don’t want to do, this is what I want you to do. 

Tiffiny: Yes. They’re trying to convince you and guilt-trip you into having sex. Manipulate. 

Lisa: So, what’s the best way to react to that for a young woman?

Tiffiny: I love myself more than I love you. 

Lisa: Mm. I love that.

Tiffiny: I set this boundary, and the fact that you’re trying to cross it means that you’re not a safe person for me. 

Lisa: Mm. That’s perfect. 

Tiffiny: And don’t be afraid to use your voice. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Because if you get talked into a situation and there are master manipulators out there, I mean, and they are teenage level. I spoke to a 14-year-old girl who was dating this guy right around her age, and the parents told him, do not shut your door. If you have a girl in your room, do not shut the door. Clear line in the sand. Right. The parents drew the boundary. If you’re gonna have a girl in your room, these are the rules. You do not shut the door. Um, so he took her up there, he shut the door, he raped her. 

Lisa: Oh my God. 

Tiffiny: This 14-year-old girl. Ugh. And then it was, he said, she said, and you know, all she did, she was, she was scared. So, she complied. She just let him do it. And so he said, no, you the… you wanted it. You told me it was okay. 

Lisa: When she was complying because she felt like her safety was at risk. So. 

Tiffiny: You, well, you can’t comply at 14. You can’t comply if there’s fear in the room. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: That is not complying, that’s manipulation. 

Lisa: If there’s a power dynamic, an unbalanced power dynamic, any of that stuff. Yes. Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And we see that all over Hollywood. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: We see that in the case of P Diddy and Cassie. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Tiffiny: Where no one believed her, that, you know, everyone said she has a power trip until the videos miraculously appeared of her getting beat down in the hallway. Him kicking the living daylights out of her and dragging her back into the room in manipulation, like straight up, set a boundary. Stick to that. If someone is uncomfortable with your boundary, that means that they are not a safe person.

Lisa: That’s great. So, if we find ourselves in the position where we come to realize that someone we love is in abusive, in an abusive relationship. What are some of the most immediate, most beneficial sort of actionable ways that we can either try to help them to get out or at least to just keep themselves as safe as possible in the meantime?

Tiffiny: First and foremost, if you’re not in a financial position to help, if they’re asking you for help, they’re ready to leave, right? Because they have to make the decision ready to leave. You can’t convince ‘em of that, like you are never gonna convince them of that. That’s how and why we end up back in the situations numerous times. But if they are ready to leave and you were in a financial position to help. Please help them. You know, either put them in a hotel, uh, give them a room in your house. Um, I mean, that could be a dangerous situation. So, all the safety reasons, right? Um. 

Lisa: Of course. 

Tiffiny: Make phone calls for them. If they can’t pick up a phone call, if call a shelter, call a therapist, call the police. Help them do that. If you don’t have money or financial means to do… to help them financially, help them make phone calls. Those are things. If their phone is being monitored, they will never be able to call for help. If you are on their isolated list, you’re… they’re not allowed to call you or you’ve been deleted from their phone, they will never be able to call you.

Tiffiny: But you can do research in the background. This here is a pla– especially if children are involved, right? Part of the, uh, the obstruction of leaving is children or animals. Right. So, um, they don’t wanna disrupt their school system. So, does the place that you’re calling have a… a place for children? How do they get to school? How do they continue their learning? Like you wanna make, a mom wants to make sure that that pattern isn’t disrupted for the children. Right. If there is an animal involved, is there an on-site shelter for the dog or cat? Um, or is it offsite? Like more of the details again, the more information, the more comforting of… okay, I know I’ll be taking care of, I know my child or my animal will be taking care of. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: Um, there are family justice centers popping up all over the country where they are a… and I’m… I’m tired of hearing this term, but it is what it is. Wraparound services. Um, it’s basically a single place where if you go in, you sit and meet with an advocate, you tell your story, and then you can decide whether you wanna take it further. Right. A lot of people just wanna talk to an advocate to know they’re not crazy. 

Lisa: Right. Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Right. And that’s the biggest thing is… is knowing that you aren’t crazy. That you’re not imagining, that you are not overreacting to the situation. ‘Cause you are being told in the abusive situation that you are overreacting. 

Lisa: That, uh, in the episode, uh, about coercive control relationships, where we spoke with Karin.

Tiffiny: Mm-hmm. 

Lisa: Um, that was one of the things that she talked about because her… her… everything was being monitored. Right. Her phone and, and all that. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: When she would be, have the opportunity to be with her family, um, because she was completely cut off from all her friends, but she was able to be with her family, um, she would ask to use one of their phones so that she could just look up information.

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: To just see if what she was dealing with was abuse. Right. Because she was so gaslit at that point, she was so trauma-bonded, and she knew that she felt her instincts, her body was telling her that this is abuse. But she needed to be able to look that up. And she needed somebody else. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: To tell her, yes, what you’re dealing with is abuse. And so she had used one of the… her family member’s phones to be able to call a hotline and she told the woman what was going on. And that woman said to her, you are absolutely being abused. And that was the first time that she clued in that it was actual abuse. So, in terms of that, you know, letting… letting them just use, you know, asking them, right, do you need to use my phone? Do you need to look anything up? 

Tiffiny: Yep. Even having like the power, excuse me, the power and control wheel printed out for them. 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: And if you’re going around that power-and-control wheel, I did this on, um, I think it was for October, I went through the power-and-control wheel on social media and like brought it out and kind of explained it. Um, I also have it in my book. I have the, um, the power-and-control wheel there. There’s a teen power-and-control wheel. There’s L-G-B-T-Q-I-A like power-and-control wheel. ‘Cause they vary slightly depending on the age of the person or what’s happening in their life.

Tiffiny: Um, if… if you are even experiencing one of those, you’re in an abusive situation. And understanding that, whether that is a checklist, which I also have a checklist in the back of my book, ‘cause that’s what I resonated with. Not just the power and control wheel, but like the checklist of all of the behaviors and patterns of my abuser. Um. Sometimes you just need to see it with your own two eyes because you are being told that what you’re going through is normal. That no, you’re… you are overreacting when you’re not overreacting. 

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: You know, I… I told my abuser that I needed to see a therapist ‘cause I thought I was going crazy. And his response was, they’re just there to take your money. They’re gonna just tell you that you need to sexually please me the way I wanna be pleased, and you’ll be fine. 

Kellie: Are you serious? 

Lisa: Mm. 

Tiffiny: He wanted a sexual maid is all he wanted. 

Lisa: Mm. So insidious. 

Tiffiny: Yeah.

Lisa: Um, so doing things like, so we talk about, you know, victims being able to sort of, um, prepare those, um, resources for themselves in terms of shelters, in terms of, uh, or us helping if we, if we have a loved one right, who we think is in an abusive relationship and trying to help them get out by, um, giving them information on places they can go, different resources. Um. Is it helpful for us? Because, you know, there are definitely, there’s, there’s a time period right, where you recognize that your loved one is being abused. There’s a time span between that and… and them actually getting out. Um, and… and it can be a small time—

Tiffiny: Yes. 

Lisa: Span, and it can be a large time span. And in that span, we feel pretty powerless, right? So, thinking about things like maybe even looking all that stuff up, printing some stuff out, having phone numbers, having all that stuff prepared so that the moment you get an inkling that they are ready to leave, you’ve got it all there for them. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: And, and maybe that makes us feel a little, like we have a little more that we can contribute or we have a little more control that, that we don’t think we have. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Would that be something that we could do? And then is there anything else that we can do during that time span to, I don’t know, to help support them, to help them stay safer? Um. 

Tiffiny: I think the biggest thing is to continue the open language, not the judge. As much as we want to say, you need to leave, you have to get out, I’ll come get you to get out. That is actually putting them in a little more danger. Um, that escalates the situation. Even them deciding they wanna leave actually puts them in escalating danger. Um.

Lisa: That is the most dangerous time. Am I right in that? 

Tiffiny: It is absolutely the most dangerous time. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And, and I’ll tell you one of the reasons why is because when you make the decision that it’s time to leave. The victim when, when I, as a victim say, I’m ready to leave, F this, I am out. Right. And I’m saying it in my head. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Well, what happens if I’m saying it in my head? 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: I stand a little taller. My shoulders are back a little more. My confidence is a little lifted. They can see it. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And so, they get more aggressive. They put you down more like the battle starts there because they see the shift. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: And they wanna put you back where you were. They don’t want someone standing up to them, so they’re gonna put you back where you were. 

Lisa: Because they’re predators and they can sniff that out. 

Tiffiny: They absolutely can sniff out the change of confidence.

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: And knowing that. So that’s why a loved one gathering the information is so important because if. If the victim has it, and that abuser is going through things. ‘Cause they do, they go through your phone, they go through your email, they go through your computer files, they go through everything. Mine was a… expert hunter through all my things pulling, he made me cancel an email account that I had had since college because ex’s had my email address.

Lisa: Wow. 

Tiffiny: He wanted me cut off from everybody. Right. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Um, so they will absolutely go through everything. So, everything has to separate. So, when I started to decide to leave. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: I started a separate email address that I don’t even use now. Right. But I used it for evidence, my own, for my own sanity. 

Lisa: Nice.

Tiffiny: Because when I found screenshots, and I’ll give you an example of why I did this. Um, he was, uh, in a dentist’s office getting work done. He was under anesthesia. I was doing work from the car while he was under anesthesia. His phone had a hotspot. Mine did not. And so, I had his phone. 

Lisa: Mm. 

Tiffiny: So, because he hunted through mine, I’m like, you know, when people accuse you of things, they’re typically doing them. Ding, ding, ding. Right. So I pulled up his email and I, um, typed in the word F-U-C-K. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Tiffiny: And I typed the word S-E-X, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t find that he hired a male prostitute to come have sex with him in a hotel in Utah on our one-year anniversary while he was degrading me for not posting enough about how much in love I was with him on social media.

Lisa: Wow.

Tiffiny: So. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Tiffiny: They hunt through things and do things for crazy reasons. Right? And so, I had proof. So, my point in all of that is I took screenshots and sent them to the new email. ‘Cause if he knew I had it, he would delete it. 

Lisa: Right? 

Tiffiny: But if I sent it to something where he couldn’t touch it, it was never gonna be a he said, she said. 

Lisa: Nice. That’s, that’s in, that’s incredible.  

Tiffiny: I have the emails of him soliciting the guy you’ve had me before, send me dick pics. I have the picture of male genitalia that the guy sent back. I even hired a private investigator to find out who this guy was. He’s a male prostitute in Utah, in Lehi, Utah. 

Lisa: Who knew? 

Tiffiny: I have a picture of the guy.

Kellie: Dick pics are forever, guys. 

Tiffiny: Cock rings and all. I saw it all. 

Lisa: Well. Wow. 

Tiffiny: So, yes. Um, I have not spread that anywhere. It literally went to my email address, and I don’t even access that email. Um, there, I mean, I’ve got stories upon stories of DA for days of, you know, I sent things there because I always wanted to know I wasn’t crazy because they are changing your reality. They’re telling you, you’re overreacting. They’re telling you even if you have proof that that wasn’t them. Right. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. Right. Don’t, don’t believe you’re lying eyes. 

Tiffiny: Exactly. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Just because it’s in black and white doesn’t mean it’s true. Right. That kind of mentality. Well, sometimes that gut instinct isn’t enough.

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: For a victim to leave. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Because you’ve been trained that you’re overreacting. That what you’re…. re what you think is true… is not actually true. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: So, you… you almost need to prove to yourself that you’re not going crazy. And that’s why I did what I did with starting that separate email, so that separate email. The reason I say that is, um, bank account information. So, if you need bank account information, statements, personal, like important papers, everything’s so digital now. But if you are financially intertwined with that person, if you need to start a separate bank account and start siphoning money, open it up with that email address.

Tiffiny: Don’t use the email address that they search. Do not access that new email address from your current phone. Have some type of a… air gap in between where… where you set it up, and you know what they can find by going through your current phone, and just start sending things there. All your important things there. So, when you are ready to leave, you’re not shuffling for papers, kids, birth certificates. So, you know, all of these things like, make sure you, you get that ahead of time. 

Kellie: You know, Tiffiny, that’s interesting. It makes me think that any such, like you said, such a digital life that we live in right now, it really is important that we all know how to tech-savvy ourselves into protection, knowing how to navigate social media, how to change accounts, how to set up different things. Just being really media-literate and digital-savvy. 

Tiffiny: Yes. 

Kellie: Can create those safe spaces for us when we need them. 

Tiffiny: Oh yeah. Because let me tell you the… my abuser was a vice president of an IT company. You know what? He was very good at? Finding shit out. And he knew how to hunt through settings on Facebook that I never knew existed. So, he actually created fake people and friended them so he could see if I was posting things and not like kind of excluding him in the post. ‘cause you can see who sees it. Everyone. Friends, people except for, right. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Tiffiny: So, he would secretly do that, and then he would go in and into my, he would search for people that he cheated on me with. He would find their name and block them. So even if I went to search for them, I couldn’t find them. ‘Cause he had already gone into my account to block them. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Kellie: So, we need to be as tech-savvy, if not more than our potential abusers. So. 

Tiffiny: Yes. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Kellie: Learn the newest tech, whatever. 

Tiffiny: Yes. Ask ChatGPT to give you a school on, like, give me a user guide on all the tech new updates and Facebook and Instagram, all the things.

Lisa: And if we know somebody who we think is in an abusive relationship, allowing them to maybe have that alternate profile, alternate email address accessible from your phone. 

Tiffiny: Yes. 

Lisa: So that when they’re with you, they can access that. 

Tiffiny: Yes. 

Lisa: Um, as opposed to having any of that on their own devices. 

Tiffiny: When, when the abuser feels that they’re losing control, they will go straight feral cat, they will go crazy. The violence escalates. They will act out in ways that you’ve never seen. You will see their eyes go black, I promise you that. I did on several occasions, I saw the true demon inside of him. That is a dangerous place to be. That is when people get unalived. That is when serious injury happens. That is all the things you will find out how much they actually hate you, that they never loved you, that they actually hate you, and that’s why they put you through all of this. You will absolutely find that level of hate right then and there. 

Lisa: As soon as they feel like they’re losing control. 

Tiffiny: Absolutely. 

Lisa: An ounce of control. Yeah. Um, one thing that you, when you were talking about, uh, you know, trying to, to create for… for people are in a relationship like this, creating a, a different bank account, you know, getting your documents in order, stuff like that. You know, I’m trying to sort of think about again, how we help, um, during that time when someone we love is being abused, and we don’t know how to help them, and maybe they don’t… aren’t ready or in a place to accept our help. The idea of maybe that’s something we could do, is to start a savings account and, you know, put whatever we’re comfortable, you know, whether it’s a dollar a month, $20 a month, a hundred dollars a month, whatever it is to start socking away just little bits of money for them, for when they are ready to get out of that relationship. And then you have some sort of financial help that you can offer to them. Um, you know, which in the meantime, you know, while… while they’re in the relationship, it’s not doing them any good, but it’s a way that you can feel like you are contributing something to help them out of that relationship, whether that takes a month or nine years.

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Um, like we saw from Karin. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. Even if it’s… even if you don’t give them access, but you use that as your emergency fund to help your friend or loved one. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Um, that is probably a, a better setup, um, because. What if they go back? 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: What if, what if in their moment of escaping, they have doubts?

Lisa: Mm-hmm.  

Tiffiny: How can I survive without this person telling me what to do? Right. You’ve lost your autonomy in that relationship because they want you to ask them for every decision. So, you don’t have your normal confidence in anything that you’re doing, whether it’s deciding what to eat for breakfast or what to wear ‘cause they’ve told you what to wear. Um, whether it is, um, what, how long the drive is to work, you know, do you, out of habit, are you calling or texting them, telling them that you got to work on time because they have timed you back and forth to and from work. Um, you really… you fall into these habits, and what if they accidentally do that and all of a sudden they feel the love bombing comes back in. Right. The person that said, you know, um, I hate your online BS and why are you friends with all these people and you can only do X, Y, and Z on Facebook, then tells you, well, none of that matters anymore. I just miss you so much, and I want you back in my life. And all of that will change and, you know. 

Lisa: Yeah.

Tiffiny: How do you know that if that’s true or not? 

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: Preparation and I think finding information, um, books about dangerous behaviors. There is a, um, there is a book that’s written. He was an FBI agent here in Tampa. Um, it’s, the name of the book is called Dangerous Personalities. 

Kellie: Okay. 

Tiffiny: And he is an FBI profiler, um, phenomenal book. But I literally sat there and cried because my ex, I was like, highlighting all of the things, and I’m like, oh, there’s more yellow on this page than I care to admit. So, you know, giving them that stuff where they can validate the fear that they’re having into what they’re seeing on the page. It gets, it… it like gut checks them a little bit.

Lisa: Okay. So, what would you say to someone who realizes that someone they love is in an abusive relationship? Uh, what is the safest way to help support that person in terms of, you know, walking the line between noticing the abuse, letting them know you care about them, um, without pushing them away? 

Tiffiny: Just let them know that you’re a, a safe space for them. 

Lisa: Okay.

Tiffiny: Let them know that if they ever need you, you’re there for them. Whether it’s two o’clock in the morning, whether it is in the middle of a hurricane, whether it, you know, whatever it is that you are there to help. Um, if you can help financially, you can, but I mean, I, they don’t necessarily, they’re not necessarily looking for that. Um, if the abuser knows that you’re super close, um, you don’t necessarily. Like, if the abuser thinks that the victim will come to your house, be very careful. Again, danger, danger, danger. Um, if you have family, I mean, if you have a spouse that has a gun and a gun sticker, NRA sticker on their front door, the abuser’s probably not gonna knock or try to bust in, but they may show up, may cause trouble. You may have to call the cops. Right? Um, so where can she go that may not endanger may not be the first place that the abuser’s gonna look for her. 

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: Because again, feral cat, you don’t know what they’re gonna do. I mean, there was just the Ohio case, um, of the ex-husband who was a surgeon. 

Lisa: Oh my God.

Tiffiny: They divorced in 2017, and he just murdered his ex-wife and her dentist husband. At right, after Christmas with two kids in the house. So, he has been resentful for many, many year… eight years. 

Lisa: Horrifying. 

Tiffiny: And never called the cops. She never reported, she never talked to an advocate, but family members say she was in fear. He threatened her life, like it’s well documented from family commentary, and he was a state away, you know? So that’s where some safety precautions have to come into play of if… if they know that… that the victim will come to you, to your house, you have to protect yourself too. If you’re heavy, and… and this is for someone who a loved one, right? If you’re heavy in the conversations, um, one of my safe places was at work, where one of my coworkers listened to my stuff, um, because she was also going through it as well. So, we were each other’s safe space. But you have to give yourself some mental care as someone who’s listening to your friend or family member going through hell and torture and you love them, and it hurts your heart that you’re hearing these stories. You have to give yourself mental care to then be able to be the support for them. So, take care of yourself too. Um, and that’s very important to then be a safe space for them to have a conversation. 

Lisa: That’s great. You just brought up something. Um. That sort of struck me talking about having a coworker, uh, because work was your safe space. And it strikes me that maybe that’s the case for a lot of women who are in relationships like this where, you know, the abuser can isolate them from their friends, their family, their… their support system, their go-to support system. But you know, they still have to go to work. Right. And… and— 

Tiffiny: Well, if they haven’t gotten you fired. 

Lisa: Yeah. If they haven’t gotten you fired. And… and for some of these folks, um, for some of these abusers, um, you are their paycheck. Um, there are many instances where they, part of the control is that they don’t want to, or can’t, or won’t work. And so, they’re controlling you because you are their income. So you have, so you have to go to work.

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: And they can’t control that environment at work. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: Um, so maybe that’s something to, to note too in terms of like folks, uh, ladies, if, if in your work environment, you maybe notice someone who is potentially going through some of these things, or you notice some of these behaviors, or you think possibly this person, this woman you work with, might be in an abusive relationship. What would you recommend? I mean, is just saying to them, I’m… I’m a safe person for you, or I’m a safe place for you. If you ever need to talk, um, you can come to me? 

Tiffiny: I notice that, um, that you seem like you’re down. Is everything okay? 

Lisa: Okay. 

Tiffiny: I notice you seem a little on edge or stressed out. Is everything okay? Right. Because so part of the, the abuser, you may not be getting a, a good night’s sleep. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Right? They’re… they’re wearing you down with lack of sleep. Um, they may be trying to get you fired so you… mo… may show up late to work. Um, I would probably have… have that discussion of, you know, how, how do you feel when you’re with him versus without him, you know, are you a… able to make decisions about your lunch? You know what I mean? Like. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: Harmless conversations to just test the waters and they may lie to you for a while. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Um, but you just showing up and hey, can, you know, wanna grab lunch? Can we sit together? Um, if you need to talk about anything, if anything, stress out, like. 

Lisa: I’m gonna take a walk. Do you wanna walk with me for five minutes? Or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

Tiffiny: And the victim, one of the things that I like to tell victims is if their abuse is impacting your work environment. You showing up late for work. They’re stalking you in the parking lot, they’re sending 10 million text messages, threatening text messages while you’re at work. Abuse does not stop when you go to work for nine to five. There are messages that happen and calls that happen while you’re at work. So, letting HR know that there is a situation, my boyfriend, my husband, my partner is causing major problems. I don’t want it to impact my work, my job, how can you help me? Don’t. And, and this is kind of where some of the HR also needs to be trained about, not just. 

Lisa: Mm-hmm. 

Tiffiny: Sexual assault and sexual harassment in the work environment ‘cause that does happen too, right? 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: But. What happens when abuse follows you into work from outside the work environment? They are not schooled the same way that they are for sexual harassment. Right. They do need to learn the dangers that follow that victim to work. 

Lisa: Gosh, that would be great training for HR departments. Brilliant. 

Tiffiny: I already have something all set up. I just, I… I need someone to help me get into work environments to have those conversations. But I have a whole presentation set up about people in work environments and, and how important that is because abuse we think is just when you’re in the home, but it follows you to work. It impacts your job. 

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: Um, my abuser made me go to sleep with the lights on one night. Um, sleep deprivation. Right? It impacts your day. You’re falling asleep at work like. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: It impacts you, and it impacts the bottom line of the company if they aren’t recognizing and addressing it. 

Lisa: Yeah. Well, maybe we can talk offline about that. Might have a lead for you there. Um, great. Well, I… this has been such an incredible conversation. Um. 

Tiffiny: Yeah. 

Lisa: I… there’s so much here. There’s, and we could, and I think we could probably talk for three or four more hours about all this, um, but we wanna of course, respect your time. Um, so I, I guess I would say, what would you say in terms of fi takeaways, um, to the woman who is listening to this podcast and comes to realize that either she or someone she loves is in an abusive relationship?

Tiffiny: I will, abso…. I’m gonna leave with a very impactful quote that left me sitting in my own feelings. After I heard this on a podcast, the lady’s name is Mariah. I can’t think of her last name off the top of my head, but she was getting interviewed, so she said, "When you feel like you’re getting saved," right? The feeling that we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, oh my goodness, where has he been my whole life? Right? "When you feel you’re getting saved, you’re actually being prepared to be cooked." 

Kellie: I was not ready for that. 

Lisa: Mm, wow. 

Tiffiny: Right, and I, when I heard that on a podcast, when I heard Mariah say that on a podcast, I sat there and cried because it is so true.

Lisa: "When you feel like you’re being saved, it’s because you’re getting ready to be cooked."

Tiffiny: And think about Thanksgiving turkey, they’re getting fed, fattened, having a good life. Then they’re getting plucked, stuffed, and in the oven. 

Lisa: Hmm. Wow. That is incredibly, uh, visceral and impactful. Yeah. And I, and I get why that. 

Tiffiny: Yeah.

Lisa: Was so resonating with you emotionally. Yeah. 

Kellie: Tiffiny, what lights you up the most right now? What are you most excited about in your days? 

Tiffiny: I love helping women rediscover themselves, gaining the confidence, telling men to F off that have had any part of tearing them down and learning that you, yourself, as a woman, are made in the likeness of God. And God doesn’t want his being ever damaged. 

Lisa: I love that. 

Tiffiny: And I think that we all should know how special we are. 

Lisa: Yeah. 

Tiffiny: It doesn’t matter our hair color, our skin color, our eye color; none of that matters that we are all made as special human beings to bring something amazing to this planet. We just have to discover what that is and tap into that to help other people.

Kellie: Well, you’ve definitely tapped into what you are helping people, so I appreciate what you’re doing and coming here and sharing your story with us. 

Lisa: And don’t let anybody dim your light. 

Tiffiny: Nope. Thank you. 

Lisa: Yeah. This is incredible work that you’re doing and, um, all to the end of helping women stay safer, survive, thrive, um, beyond. 

Tiffiny: Teach our teens–

Lisa: Yes.

Tiffiny: Boundaries so we can–

Lisa: Yes. 

Tiffiny: Have the next generation not go through what we’ve gone through. 

Lisa: That’s right. So, so girls, if somebody is, um, taking touchier conversational liberties beyond your comfort level. If somebody is pushing you beyond boundaries that you have set, if somebody is saying things to demean or degrade or compromise your self-esteem, you need to ask yourself if they’re a safe person for you, because most likely they are not. And they’re fixing to dim your light. And don’t anybody, don’t let anybody. 

Tiffiny: And go learn some self-defense! 

Lisa: Yes. 

Tiffiny: Learn how to stay outta bad situations. ‘Cause there’s, there’s space, right? Space creates safety. 

Lisa: That’s right. 

Tiffiny: And if they’re coming at you, use your voice. Don’t be timid. 

Lisa: Yes. 

Tiffiny: And if you get close enough.

Lisa: Right. 

Tiffiny: Learn how to break a finger, break an arm, break an ankle to get away safely. 

Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. You know, learning how to use your voice as your first weapon is super important. 

Tiffiny: Yep. 

Lisa: And, uh, learning how to use the rest of your bodily weapons. Is equally as important as a self-defense instructor. I highly advocate for that. Um, Tiffiny, thank you so much, uh, for joining us today. Um, this has just been a great conversation. Um, again, we could talk for three or four more hours, um, but we will, we will let you get on with your time and with the great work that you are doing, um, and we so appreciate you. 

Tiffiny: Thank you.

Lisa: Wow. What an incredible conversation that was. It was so great to speak with Tiffiny. Um, man, she is such an incredible advocate. Doing just the best work to help women stay safe and to navigate these abusive relationships, um, was just, uh, so enlightening to speak with her. And there were so many great actionable takeaways and tips from that. And, you know, even just talking about the boundaries. Um, and boundary setting. And Kellie, I know maybe you might have recognized some of, some of those issues from, from some of your dating journeys, adventures, what have you. 

Kellie: You know, uh, definitely from the conversation. I’ve been reading her book Behind the Smile, and I learned a lot about things that I already knew, if that makes sense. You know, the love bombing and the gaslighting and the conditioning and all this stuff. So, she’s got some really good information in her book that, as I was reading it, I’m like, yeah, I experienced that. And when you have that epiphany that you’re not alone in your experience, sometimes it’s edifying, and it really does reinforce that, yeah, this is what I experienced and I know how to recognize this now going forward. So, yeah, I really valued Tiffiny’s expertise and the conversation we had with her today. 

Lisa: Yeah. And it was very validating, I think, right? For some of those instinctual things that we… we can feel sometimes we’re thinking, oh, you know, gosh, that didn’t feel right. Maybe that wasn’t right. Um, and I think she is here to tell us if it doesn’t feel right, that’s probably ‘cause it’s not, right.

Kellie: Yeah. It was a real privilege just being in, in the, in the room, so to speak, with her and you two self-defense experts and trainers and, uh, storytellers. So I really appreciate that opportunity. 

Lisa: Yeah. And I love the language that she helped give us, you know, um, for things to be able to, to say, uh, to either if we’re trying to set a boundary with somebody, um, or if we know somebody that’s in an abusive relationship and we’re, we’re trying to let them know that we’re of safe place for them. Um, I really loved, um, sort of those, those options that she gives us. You know, another thing she talked about was, um, family justice centers that are popping up, um, around the country that are doing just the most amazing work. And for those who are here in Sacramento, um, I just wanna give a shout out to the Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center. They’re the best. I have taken their, um, domestic violence counselor, peer advocate support training, which they provide once a year, um, which is just, it’s so informative, and it’s so helpful. And, um, so I would just love to, if anybody needs their services here in Sacramento, it’s a Sacramento Regional Family Justice Center. And I’m gonna bet if you’re not in Sacramento, there is a family justice center in or near your city that you can find. And there are wonderful people doing the most amazing work. 

Kellie: We’ll list that in our show notes along with any other resources that we can find that we may have mentioned in the show. We do that for every episode, so check the show notes for sure for resources. There are also resources on DiamondDefense.com that are just general in safety-related resources. Um, so you can check out that too, right, Lisa? 

Lisa: Yeah, there’s a resources page of the website that just lists, um, kind of all of the top level, you know, hotlines, national hotlines, local services here for us. Um, and yeah, please use that if you need it. And please, please feel free to reach out to us if there’s a resource you’re looking for or that you know of that we don’t have listed ‘cause we’re, we’re happy to list it. 

Kellie: Yeah. And another thing we hope you reach out to us with is if you have a story that you wanna tell, or you know, someone who has a story and you’ve encouraged them to reach out to us. So definitely reach out at DiamondDefense.com. You can email us at DiamondDefensePodcast@gmail.com. You know, or find us on social media. DM us there. We really do believe, we’ve talked about it before, that sharing our stories is a first line in defense in keeping ourselves safe. So, if you have a story or a story idea, you can be anonymous, too. We can share your story. You don’t even have to be the voice to it. And we create a safe space, and we want to protect you and everyone else we can through the power of story. 

Lisa: That’s right. We wanna empower you to use your experiences or the lessons. Maybe you have learned the hard way to help empower other women, to help other women learn from, from your experiences. So please reach out to us if you, if you have anything you think you’d like to share. We’d love to hear it. Uh, and thank you so much for listening to this episode. Thank you so much for having your ears on this podcast and for sharing the good news. So if there’s anything in here that you think anybody that you know or love could benefit from, please share it with them. We would love to get more ears on this podcast. 

Kellie: While you’re out there living your days doing your thing and just being the magnificent person that you are. Also watch out for motherfuckers. 

Lisa: And shine on, Diamonds. 

Theme Music: I am a fighter. Checking my armor. I'm marching onward. Hey Hey. I am a fighter, storming the desert…