Ashana's Truth Part 2

SDK Sister Ashana returns to continue telling her story about escaping the abuse and the legal battle she had to go through with her kids. Join in for this conversation.

Ashana's Contact information:

Ashana Kaiulani 

Founder of Way Home Wellness 

(wayhomewellness.com)

Trauma support specialist for Break the Silence Alabama

(Breakthesilenceal.org)

Podcasts:

Voices of strength 

(https://www.breakthesilenceal.org/podcast)

The Reclamation Room

(Ashanakaiulani.substack.com)

~ Also available on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube 

Instagram @wayhomewellness 

Thank you for listening: If you want to be a guest or have me tell your story, questions or comments please email me at Shedidntknowpodcast@gmail.com

For those who are now SDK supporters, thank you so much❤️ if you want to support the show, please click the support link, I greatly appreciate it🫶🏽

My Tiktok page: Katching up with Ash @katchingupwithash

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

She didn't know, but she laughed.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

She didn't know Welcome back to SDK Wednesdays with your girl Ash. And we have our guest again, Miss Ashana. Um, we were finishing up a conversation, but there were still a couple of questions that I did have. Um Welcome back, Ashana. Thank you. Long time to see. So I did have a question of I know you said he used to punch the walls. Did the abuse start uh close to that? Or when did the abuse start?

SPEAKER_02 0:51

Similarly to that, yes, so a similar time frame. Looking back, so of course we know that certain things are abuse, right? Like if you're being grabbed by the neck or your arm is being grabbed and wrenched really hard to the side, like obviously that's abuse. Um but I had to look back further and think to myself, like, what really started all of that? Like it had to have escalated. You know, typically a person who acts that way has spent time feeling you out and testing you and pushing your boundaries to get to that point, typically speaking. Um, and so I did kind of go back in time in my mind, and I realized that very, very, very early on, very early, like within the first few months, the isolation had already started happening. So it was this like, I don't know, consumption of my time and of my energy where I I genuinely wanted all of my time to be spent with him. I mean, it was it was so it was too good to be true. But in that moment, it was so good that I just wanted more and more of that. And so the isolation was the first part of it, and I just stopped hanging out with other people as much. And then I think there were actions, whether subconsciously or not, I think there were actions on his part that continued that trend because when I would go out with friends, I was being texted the whole time, constantly, so that I couldn't even. I mean, my friends made it obvious that I wasn't even present, you know. I was just texting him the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, I was gonna ask you, did he get jealous when you hung out with other people?

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yes, very, very badly, especially if there were males involved. Um, it became very obvious I would I would be questioned after he would show up randomly and watch me, and I wouldn't know until after when he would mention things. Um, I didn't know that he was going through my devices until after when he would mention conversations I had had and would question me about them. So the the little things were starting, but I let them go because again, this person loves me so much. He wants to be so involved in my life. Like this is so romantic. Um, especially after like the books and the movies that I had grown up with. I had no healthy concept.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah. Those are really fairy tales.

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Yeah, right. And so then the next step would have been physical contact without violence. So, for instance, we would go to our mutual friend's house that I told you about. We would go there pretty much every weekend to drink with his friends. So I was integrated very quickly into his friend group. Um, it it I felt special. I felt really special that I was the only girl that was cold enough to go hang out with all the guys. They all liked me. Um, I even like took on like a like a secretarial role. Secret, I don't know how to say that word, secretorial, secretarial, um, because I would like remember details for the guys, like of our scheduling and things like that. And they would be like, oh, just you know, run it by her because it and it made me feel special. And so when I didn't want to go one time, um, he told me that I was pitching a fit and he fought with me about it, and I put my foot down and I was like, no, I'm not in the mood. I don't want to go. We had been fighting. I was like, I don't want to go anywhere with you. I don't even remember what the fight was about. Um, but he picked me up and put me over his shoulder and carried me and put me in his car and drove me there. And I feel like that would have been a turning point for some people. I feel like that would have been the moment of like, put me down or this is gonna be a brawl. Like, this is not okay, you know. Um, that again was one of those actions that effectively put me in my place. And due to the conditioning of certain genres of books and movies, I was like, Oh, okay, this is a man. This is, you know, this is normal.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

And so what happened when you got there? Did he physically take you out or um no?

SPEAKER_02 5:07

By that time, I mean, I loved his friends. I I really like to this day, I still think of a lot of them fondly. And so I just got out and went and hung out with them and was colder towards him, which I've you know, I paid for later with the silent treatment and arguments and things like that. But the the the dynamic just continued on with me slowly being more and more conditioned to know that if I disagreed with him and didn't do what he wanted, then he would just do something like that. So it was better for me to disagree with him.

unknown 5:39

Right.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

So things really escalated after his dad died. And at that point, um, I remember we were driving when we got a call about his dad being in the hospital, and I think it was his sister who called him and told him, and in the car driving down the road, he punched his steering wheel so hard that it like bent the metal emblem on the steering wheel. And he jerked the car over and pulled over really hard. And he asked me, he sat there for a long time, like kind of deeply breathing. It was kind of scary um seeing someone in that. Yeah. And so I'm just sitting there silently, like waiting to see what he was going to do next. Um, and he looked over at me and he very like abruptly was like, Will you drive me to the hospital? And so, of course, I like jumped into being the good little soldier, right? And I this was a stick shift, and I had not driven a stick shift since I was like 13 learning how to drive. So it's, you know, I say that to say, like, when you're in those moments that it's it's not quite violent yet, but it's still very deeply dehumanizing and scary and abrupt, it will override even like your common sense. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna drive this sick shift and I'm gonna drive it 30 minutes to the hospital. And I did, and it was kind of a shaky ride, but we made it there. Um, we ended up going further to another hospital where his dad actually did die at that point, and that was when things really escalated. Um, the drinking got way out of hand, the smoking got way out of hand, and then he was, I guess, getting pills from people at work. Um, and so it was just erratic behavior, but constant anger, constant violence, constant snapping at me. And I would see this rage in his eyes, and I would plead and and just try to like reach him. And inevitably he would end up grabbing me and talking to me like this, and holding me up against the wall, and like I said, punching holes in the wall. And I still didn't really do anything at that point. I kind of froze. Um, and those would always end in him going out to his car, for example, and just sitting in the car and blasting music and crying for a long time, long enough to make it very clear that I noticed his absence and missed him, which we see the beginnings of the trauma bond here, right? And then he would text me and he would say, Will you come here to me? Will you come out here to me? So that was when the little boy kicked in. And he would be crying and he would pull me into his lap and he would say, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I don't, I don't want to be this way, I don't know why I do these things. And it would be in a in a small child voice. And he would cry and he would wipe his face and he would look me dead in my eyes and just please don't leave me. Please don't leave me. I love you so much. And so I convinced myself that this was just a little boy who who still needed to grow up and and needed someone to love him and didn't mean to do these things. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

I was gonna say, eventually those sorries are just not enough.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

Yes, yes, and that, you know, it was enough for a long time. It was, but when I lost everything that I told you I had lost and moved in with him at his mom's, you know, he couldn't really punch through walls at his mom's, so his behavior was kind of kept in check there. And so with him not being able to have those violent outbursts, um, he would lay out of work a lot. I remember he he was on review. People actually donated a lot of their leave to him because he was threatened to be fired. And he had to start going to therapy at work, and he would come home and he would talk to me about this female therapist and about how he kind of liked her. And so I noticed again these patterns of him making comments about other women to constantly keep me jealous, but then I couldn't act out of the jealousy, and so you could still see the emotional simmering and building up under the surface. And like I said, he couldn't have the violent outbursts, and so there would be the goading, the provoking, the testing my waters, right, seeing how far he could push it. Um and eventually, I don't remember where I went, but I came back home and he had gone through my computer and he had deleted every photo in my computer of my life before him, especially the ones with that long-term relationship that I had been in before him. Anything of that person was gone. My travels to the other side of the country, my travels out of the country deleted. And I I was so shocked. Like that was such a clear violation for me. I was so confused. I was like, how on earth would a person ever think that that's okay?

SPEAKER_00 10:49

That is not okay. That is kind of very scary.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Very scary. And so I started putting these pieces together, and you know, time went on, and like I said, that again, the violent outbursts couldn't happen, and so it would happen in other ways, like these social faux pas, you know, the violations of my privacy. And there was one day when we were fighting, and this was after my stepdad had helped me get that cheap Jeep that I loved so much, and I grabbed my keys because I was gonna drive about, I don't know, 10 minutes down the road to my dad's house because the fight was bad. And I really I just needed to get away from him. I needed to go. I wanted my dad to kind of like rescue me in that situation, and he took my keys out of my hands and would not let me have them. So, of course, I'm feeling frantic. I'm like this, like a feral cat. Like I've got to get out of this situation. I'm terrified. So I grabbed my cell phone and I go to call my dad. Please come get me. Please come get me. This is bad. So he grabs my cell phone and he keeps that away from me too. Now, this is a big dude. He's like six, three, you know, 250 pounds. And I was this small little bean pole. I mean, I'm six feet tall, but I was like maybe 120, 130 pounds. So I couldn't, I couldn't get them back. And so I ran into the living room of his mother's house to go get her house phone. And he chased after me. And she was there, and our mutual friend was there who later became our best man. And I grabbed her phone and I was trying to dial my dad's number and he took that out of my hands too. But as he was taking it, I wouldn't let go. And I was like grabbing it and trying to like yank it back to me. And so he's yanking it to him. And at that point, he grabs my wrists and is trying to like hold me and squeeze me to like get me to stop. So I jerk back and I fall back onto her couch, and he comes down on top of me. And so at that point, now I'm on this couch. I I can't get the phone, I don't even know where the phone went at that point. I I guess we had let go of it. Um, but he's got my wrists on my chest and is like like pushing them. And somehow I jerked a hand away because I had been kicking my legs and it wasn't doing any good. So I jerked my hand away and I start punching him in the temple as hard as I can repeatedly. That's all I know to do. And that was the moment when his mom stepped in and started screaming, hey, hey, hey, y'all stop that. You need to quit that. And even our mutual friend was like, guys, stop, like, hey, that's enough. And they started yelling. But I I noticed after the fact, like, they didn't start yelling until I started hitting him. Why was it okay?

SPEAKER_00 13:40

He was like, What were they doing? I was really wondering.

SPEAKER_02 13:44

Yeah, yeah, they were watching this whole thing happen, and it was all okay until it escalated to me hitting him because then it was violence. So everything up to that point, I guess to them was not violence, and it was okay. So, you know, whatever happened in that situation, like he got off of me and things were okay, but I did not get to go to leave. I didn't get to go to my dad, my dad didn't come get me. Um, and that was a bit of a wake-up call for me. And so soon after that, we had another one of those nights where he and I would just be taking shots and drinking, and that was when he confessed to me that he had cheated on me that time that I was at the beach. And that was it for me. I think that was what I was waiting for because I couldn't convince myself that the violence was enough. I couldn't convince myself that you know, the the violating my computer wasn't enough. When he had finally admitted that he cheated on me, that was enough for me to say, okay, I'm leaving. And that next day was when I was driving to my mom's house and found out that I was pregnant.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

The timing.

unknown 14:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

And that was your second child. That was our first. And that was why I stayed. And I also uh wanted to know what did your dad think about um all this after he found out because isn't he the one who got you guys together?

SPEAKER_02 15:09

Uh he was, but he was also the one who got me out of um an adoption place when I was around age nine after having abandoned me for many years. Um, and he got me and my baby brother at the same time, and that was actually the first time in my life I ever witnessed physical violence because he would beat my baby brother mercilessly and he would beat our animals. And he was a very violent person and a very angry person. And so, of course, that's one reason why that dynamic was so familiar for my nervous system. But, you know, for years after I would call my dad when when he this guy would have these violent situations, and there were a couple times or a few times when my dad would come, or I would drive us to my dad's house, and my dad would talk to him. And me being, you know, naive, I thought, okay, this is gonna fix everything. But it would just make this guy angrier, and he would say, You need to stop telling your dad what's going on with us because he's not my effing father, and I don't need another effing father, and he has no right to be talking to me this way, and nothing more was ever done. You know, I never called the police, my dad never called the police. I talked to my baby brother about it years later, and he said, Yeah, I do remember driving out there, but no one ever really believed it was as bad as you were saying because you stayed with him. Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

I definitely understand that. When I was in an abusive relationship, it kind of was like once everybody find out, which some are still just finding out now, it's still kind of like a bit of I'll say for me, like embarrassment that I stayed that long, but then I'm like, I actually survived as well. So it's not really um and then I also it's like a double-edged sword. Yeah, it is. And how did he get the kids again?

SPEAKER_02 17:03

So this was years, years, years later. I mean, we had that the seven years of marriage, and we had separated, we had been separated for a few years. Um, and when I told him that we were moving out of state, that was the first time he took me to court. At which point my attorney had a very good point. She's like, listen, you she's taken care of these kids. You've gone off and lived your life, you know, you've gotten them every other weekend. Kudos to you, but you haven't called them, you haven't gotten them for summer breaks, you haven't gotten them for the whole winter break, no spring break, no fall break, like never called them. What are you doing? Um, and so he he kind of focused on the fact that I was homeschooling and my lifestyle was a bit different than the typical lifestyle that people want children in. And so the court um maintained joint custody. Um, but at that point, I, you know, I still kept placement, and he would still was awarded the same visitation as before, but that was the point where he started using more of that visitation. And so it was a big change for the kids. You know, all of a sudden they're going to this other place for weeks in the summer, and they had never been away from me before in their lives. And so this was when a lot of big changes were introduced for everyone. And, you know, he started calling them every single day. They were they were kind of asking questions about that, like, why is this suddenly happening, you know?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

You know it's kind of like crazy when kids are wondering why their dad is calling.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Yeah, and they it would be to the point where they would like sign, they'd be like, Oh, I don't want to talk, like we're playing, we're having fun, and and he would get angry that we were at the park at the time that he would call, which I think was 3 p.m. or something like that. And I'm like, this is the afternoon, like this is what we do. It's sunny out, and you know, there was always the it it kind of annoyed me that attorneys would be like, Well, then you need to make sure that you're not at the park when he calls, because that's his time to talk to his children. And I'm like, Well, why doesn't he call at like 6 or 7 p.m. and say goodnight? And he's like, Well, I work nights, and I'm like, Okay, so it was it was a whole thing. So we court ended, things kind of went back to normal. He was more in their life, kind of all of a sudden out of nowhere, which was a big shock for everyone. Um, and noticeably I could tell that it was a big shock for the kids because their behaviors changed, their body composition changed. I mean, obviously, he ate differently at his house than I did, and so there was a lot of weight gain, a lot of lack of energy, lack of motivation, you know, just wanting to be on screens a lot more, whereas we were a very like hiking, active family. So it was rough for everyone. And I know it had to have been rough for him too, like suddenly having children, you know, a week at a time in the summer multiple times. Like it's stressful having kids. I know that it is. There's a lot you have to juggle. And so things went on as as they did. And then I got um a report from my children, all three of them shared with me when they got back in the car. I picked them back up that something violent had happened. And this one was big. This one was shocking to me. I was like, wait, hang on. Like I recorded the whole conversation, like I have to be clear on what you guys are saying to me right now. Like, this is a big deal. They all they all agreed. And so I got the law involved because this is this is something that needs to go to court. This is a a charge. This is big. And unfortunately, due to the nature of the charges here in Alabama, when you file for domestic violence, you have to be able to prove that the person's intention was to threaten or scare the individual. And even though the attorneys were speaking, and my attorney that was afforded to awarded to me by the court said he agreed that he did the thing. However, he's saying that it was out of discipline and that he wasn't trying to scare the child. So when we went back on the stand, the judge said to me, Listen, if you would have come in here on charges of child abuse, this might have gone differently. But because you came on charges of domestic violence, I cannot say that this man is guilty. And so he is found not guilty, which was it was crushing. Like, are you kidding me? And the attorney, the defense attorney, questioned my kiddos. And they even asked my daughter, like, so you know, did your mom talk to you before you came into court today? And she's like, Well, yeah, I talked to my mom about everything. And he's like, Well, what kind of things did you talk about? And she's like, Well, she just let us know that we're gonna come talk to people and to always tell the truth. And he's like, Oh, okay, so you kind of like worked on how you should talk. And and she was like, Well, yeah. And he said, Your honor, that's proof that the mother coached them. All of this is made up, it's a lie. The mother told them what to say. And I just I could not believe my ears. Like, how could a human defend something like that and and do that to a child? That is.

SPEAKER_00 22:09

And all you said was tell the truth. And they said that's co that's coaching.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Yep. Because the way that he got her to agree to his question and say yes to his question, it was worded in a way that a child would not understand that that was a manipulative question. You know, they're sweet babies, they're innocent, they would never lie like that. And so that was found not guilty. And so because I got the law involved, that was reason for him to take me back to court again for full custody. And the argument this time was that I was interfering with his relationship with his children because I was coaching the children to make all these claims that he was doing all these things. And his evidence was that he was found not guilty in a criminal trial. And unfortunately, there was no court reporter there that day. And I did not know that I should have had my own court reporter there that day. I had no idea. I said, can we not get the transcript, Your Honor? Like, can we not? Seriously, the other judge told me like this would be potential child abuse. And my attorney was like, no, honey, like there was no reporter there. There is no transcript in that kind of case unless you pay for it yourself that day, and you had no idea. And so that case, nobody can see anything that happened in that courtroom except that he was found not guilty, which looks bad on you. It looks like you are coaching your children. So I thought, okay, you know, but we have all this evidence, all of these since you know, five years ago, social workers talking to my kids, social workers documenting, you know, pictures of bruises, police coming out. Like surely all of this counts for something. And that was when my attorney showed me another document where there was, I guess, a new supervisor at the Department of Human Resources here. And this woman looked back over our case file. And I guess what happened was he went to Montgomery, he went to the Capitol here and fought the charges, the allegations that were in the file. And he said, This is he said, this is wrongful accusing. I have not done these things. She's just trying to prevent me from having a relationship with my children. And this is me inferring here from what my attorney told me. Because this woman, this new supervisor, wrote in the file, my children's file, that all of those incidents that were reported for all of those years to her seemed to be not indicated. And it seemed to her that the mother had made all of this up and coached these children for all of these years. And I have this, I have this document. I have it because I know that one day my kids will be 18 and they'll want to know and they'll want to be like, what happened in my life? And I've never met this woman in my life. I've never had an interview with this woman. She has never met my children. She did not interview any of my children. That is the God's honest truth. And because of that document, and because of him being found not guilty, and because of me posting on social media anonymously, I never used his name, but I did share everything that he had done to me, all the abuse, in detail, stories, what I learned from it, speaking out about abuse. This is abuse too. Don't do this, don't fall for this. They use those as evidence that I was just brainwashing my children against their father because I was still angry at him. And they gave placement to him, full placement. And it went from me having my kids full time to now they only get to see me every other weekend and alternating holidays overnight. Flip the switch.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

I know they had to be so scared. I can't even imagine. So is that the current situation, or is it are they back with you now?

SPEAKER_02 25:57

No, that's current. It's been this way for two years now, two years in January. And and the way family court works is you can't go back to court unless there's a material change in circumstance that would warrant the judge, the court, issuing an order that would it would benefit the children more to uproot their life again than to stay in this situation. And here's my thing: all the evidence that I had before was clearly not enough to warrant, you know, keeping it the same and it was safer to uproot their life. What on earth could I possibly bring to this court to show them that they would finally say, okay, yes, this is enough to uproot them again? Like they've already made a mockery of domestic violence, of of pornography, of all these things that I brought. None of it was enough. And so I'm trying to raise awareness now that there is a an epidemic of the family court system making decisions that are harmful for children simply because they're turning a blind eye to things like abuse, because that's more comfortable to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

Yeah, this is definitely unbelievable. I'm like, how did I mean with all the stories? I just can't believe they gave him custody. And it's scary at the same time. So do they tell you like stories when they do get to visit? Or I'm still like in disbelief.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Yeah, it's it's it's honestly shocking. Um, that's why I kept every single document. I bought the transcripts of our cases because I knew it would be unbelievable. And, you know, I'm not the worst case, there's cases worse than mine, and people should definitely look this up. But yes, they they do come home and they do tell me about things that are happening. But unfortunately, if it it they have shared with me that they they're not really supposed to tell me certain things, and so if they screenshot conversations and send them to me, they kind of get reprimanded for that. And um they there's just certain things happening that they're starting to notice discrepancies, they're starting to ask questions, they're starting to ask mama why this, but not that. And I don't have answers for them. I don't know, honey, but I know that I'm here for you no matter what. Like you always have a safe place and you're gonna be okay. Like it's all gonna be okay. I went through the foster system, I went into an adoption home and I'm okay. So I know this. I know that I can tell you, yes, this hurts, but you're gonna be okay. And you know, I do the best I can to try to co-parent and try to be there for them. And I I don't hold any ill will. I did for a long time. For a long time. I was so bitter, but now it's like I just want everyone involved to see that the kids are the ones who's who are suffering, not me. Yes, I of course I'm suffering, of course I am, but that that doesn't matter because the kids are.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

Do you have any um social platforms?

SPEAKER_02 29:02

So here's the thing about that, Ashley. I was told via court order that if if I continue doing things that are arbitrary, quote, arbitrary, um, that this would be revisited. And so my attorney said to me, it does not behoove you to keep documenting any of this where people can see it, because that it is possible that you can have your rights terminated. So I document privately, I don't post, I'm, you know, I I don't want it to be made out like, look, this is just the bitter ex, this is the bitter baby mama. So I just I'd quietly document and hope and pray that nothing worse has to happen one day, that that has to be a thing. Um, but what I do is I I host a podcast called Voices of Strength, where I help other women share their stories. Because even if there's an unofficial gag order for my story, there isn't for other people's, and and I help where I can.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Um thank you for that podcast. Um, I will link that in the description and thank you for your time. It has been like an amazing story. It has so many twists and turns, and hopefully, I hope one day you do get your kids back because they deserve to be with you.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Thank you. I I hope so too. And I you know, I hope that they are made stronger by this, you know. I hope that they see how strong they really are, and and they're not jaded in their view of the world, but ultimately absolutely and I'll end it here.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

So, SDK family, we want to thank Ashana for coming on again, and I will catch you guys next Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

She didn't know, but she's right.