Season 1, Episode 15: “Hidden Abuse at Home and Work: You Don’t Have to Be Black & Blue to Be Believed” with Misty Terrell

🎧 Abuse doesn’t always leave bruises—and it doesn’t only happen behind closed doors. In this powerful episode of the Dream Doers Podcast, I sit down with Misty Terrell, educator, mental-health coach, certified domestic-abuse advocate, and author of RISE: A Guide to Climbing Out of Betrayal Trauma.

🔥 Misty opens up about her own story of betrayal and recovery, the hidden patterns of abuse that often go unnoticed, and the 18 forms of abuse that can show up in our homes, workplaces, and even faith communities. Together, we talk about recognizing red flags, protecting your peace, and rebuilding your sense of self with wisdom, faith, and support.

💬 Have you ever missed the signs of manipulation or felt unheard when you spoke up? Share your thoughts in the comments—your story could be the light someone else needs to see their own situation more clearly.

✨ Follow Jana with the Dream Doers Podcast on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook @thedreamdoers.podcast, and visit www.thedreamdoers.com

🌐 Connect with Misty Terrell and explore her resources at https://www.risetoheal.com/ & www.theezeralliance.org

📝 Read the full Show Notes and transcript on our blog: https://www.janamarie.co/blog

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Resources:

Please call 911 if you feel like you are in immediate danger.

For Domestic Violence, Trauma Recovery, Healing and Other Resources

• The Hotline: https://www.thehotline.org/
• Wilderness to Wild – Systems of Abuse Chart: https://www.wildernesstowild.com/systems-of-abuse-chart
• Deceptive Sexuality & Trauma Resource Library: https://minwallamodel.com/resource-library/
• The Ezer Alliance: https://www.theezeralliance.org/

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✨ Episode Highlights:

00:00 Understanding Abuse: Definitions and Context
01:56 Recognizing Patterns of Abuse
04:44 The Role of Support Systems in Abuse
07:47 Navigating Legal and Religious Systems
10:48 Invisible Forms of Abuse
13:59 The Impact of Trauma on Perception
16:48 Safety First: Prioritizing Well-being
19:51 Exploring the 18 Forms of Abuse
23:51 The Dehumanization of Children in Abuse
24:36 Cultural and Cyber Abuse: New Frontiers
25:49 Emotional and Legal Abuse: The Hidden Struggles
27:31 Understanding Medical and Psychological Abuse
29:53 The Dynamics of Power and Control in Relationships
32:41 Sexual Abuse: The Overlooked Aspects
35:51 The Role of Faith and Community in Abuse
38:45 Empowerment and Support for Victims
41:39 Navigating Boundaries and Personal Growth
50:10 The Complexity of Commitment
51:47 Understanding Different Forms of Abuse
56:24 Recognizing Patterns of Abuse
59:21 The Cycle of Coercive Control
01:01:35 Navigating Gray Areas in Abuse
01:07:28 Empowerment and Support for Survivors
01:13:30 You Tube – Outro

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Show Notes: “Hidden Abuse at Home and Work: You Don’t Have to Be Black & Blue to Be Believed” with Misty Terrell

Jana Marler (00:18)

Welcome back to the Dream Doers podcast, a space where we talk honestly about the hard things of life and business, the struggles, the healing and the strength it takes to keep showing up for your dreams. Before we dive in, a quick listener discretion. Today’s episode touches on sensitive topics like abuse, betrayal and trauma recovery. So if you’ve got little ones nearby, this could be triggering.

Maybe pop in your earbuds or listen later when you can give yourself a little bit more space to take it in. Today we’re asking an important question. What is abuse really? It’s not always physical and it can happen in our workplaces, in our legal systems, in our churches, and even in our homes. Sometimes and a lot of times it’s even hidden and that’s why conversations like this matter.

To help unpack this, I’m honored to be joined by someone who brings both very professional insight And lived compassion, Misty Terrell. Misty is an educator, a mental health coach, a certified domestic abuse advocate for women on their journey to wholeness. She’s also the author of Rise, a Guide to Climbing Out of Betrayal Trauma, where she walks readers through the process of healing after betrayal.

Misty, welcome to the Dream Doers podcast. I am so glad you are here. I think this conversation is one that so many people need but don’t always know how to have. I also think it’s really important to have right here on my podcast. If you have missed the last few episodes, I would really encourage you to go back and listen.

about how to get over the imposter syndrome, how to build a business of your dreams, how to set up your business with sustainable systems so that when the storms in life or business that are inevitably coming, come, you can be well equipped and prepared. Another reason why I think this is an important topic to have is because you are the one that bounces between your home life and your business life. Your character, your integrity, the person you are.

is going to both and you are carrying so much between the two. So I think this is really important to have now that you’ve learned about all of the systems and how to set your business up. And we’ll talk about more of that stuff too. But at least pause here, go back and listen and then join back in. This is a must listen.

Jana Marler (02:46)

To start us off, hi Misty. Welcome.

Misty (02:50)

Hello.

Jana Marler (02:51)

I mentioned all the things that you do, but how did you get into or become so passionate about educating on this topic?

Misty (03:01)

Well, I wish I wasn’t so educated on this topic and I definitely wish I didn’t have lived experience on this topic today, but it is what it is. And I’ve come full circle to where I have no shame in my story and ⁓ I love my story. It’s a part of my history and who I am. but in 2017,

My husband disclosed to me ⁓ an extramarital affair and like a 25-ish year addiction to pornography and I had zero idea. No idea. Never saw him look at a woman a second time. And so as we began to enter the recovery process, he got into a sobriety and recovery. ⁓

therapist and stuff like that. And as we began to unpack all of it, one of the questions I had for me was how come

I lived with this human and never recognized the signs. like looking back now, I can kind of see a few here and there, but we’ll talk about ⁓ why I miss those signs and how we can do better just through education. So, but that led me on a path of getting into my own recovery. We went separately into our recovery. We were not doing marriage counseling ⁓ at all for quite a while. We would do it only just so I wouldn’t kill him.

Jana Marler (04:16)

Yeah.

Misty (04:29)

or to get through maybe a conflict that we had or a situation but not for like building emotional intimacy or connection that what came many many months if not even years later but

Jana Marler (04:41)

Amen.

Misty (04:43)

When I started to get to a place in my own healing where I’m like, I am feeling ready to now put purpose towards my pain. And, but I didn’t want to just do that willy-nilly. I really wanted to get more educated. I was a teacher for 15 years and we make the best students. Teachers.

our students for life. And so I was actually very excited to get back into school and take some classes. And that got me my, a couple certifications so that I can help other women and ⁓ have ministry in that capacity.

Jana Marler (05:01)

Yeah.

I love that. Well, I mean, there’s a lot to unpack here. And I know you have a very solid voice in a lot of this. And so I think my first question is, how would you define abuse? Because I think a lot of people hear that word and picture something extreme, when in reality it can show up in many subtle ways.

Misty (05:19)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (05:38)

So how do we then recognize abuse? And then when does it come into play that someone should be held accountable for what one considers abuse and another might not? So the main question is how would you define abuse?

Misty (05:50)

Okay.

Okay,

I’m just gonna keep it super simple. Intentional harm patterns. So patterns of intentional harm. Obviously, we all harm people on occasion, right? We lose our temper. But what we’re looking at is the cyclical patterns of intentional harm.

Jana Marler (06:16)

Yeah, yeah, and I think a lot of us are not paying attention from the receiving end or even the ones that maybe be doing that harm. So then how do we become aware of what might be happening to us or that we might be doing to others?

Misty (06:33)

Okay, so whenever we’re looking at abuse, there’s a few don’ts. Don’t do this, right? So first of all, we don’t want to isolate a single event or behavior. That’s not going to be considered as abuse. Instead, we want to zoom out and over time, we’re looking for those repeated cycles. Now, keep in mind, ⁓ here’s my caveat. If you have some neurodivergence,

in who you might be thinking is the perpetrator. That also is like another little gray area because you might see abusive patterns that seem like abuse, but it could just be severe rigidity because they’re on the spectrum, things like that. So I just want to at least make that a side note because that can be hard to differentiate if there’s some someone on the spectrum or some kind of neurodivergence ADHD.

You don’t want to make assumptions either way like this is abuse or this isn’t abuse. Instead, we want to question everything. So one of the things that I had to do as a 40 X whatever year old is develop stronger critical thinking skills because I was raised in a very high control religious environment, both school church home. I was just indoctrinated in that. So I did not develop critical thinking skills when you’re in a high control

environment, you’re not allowed to ask questions, you’re not, you’re told what to do, how to live, what to wear, how to act, you know, so, so you want to start learning how to question everything and ⁓ listen to resources. listening to your podcasts, listen to other podcasts, get on YouTube, start educating yourself and listening. I say listen and maybe not read. It depends on how your brain and trauma is processed.

So for me personally, reading, couldn’t focus. ⁓ You lose a lot of your executive functioning when you’re in trauma. So I just want to make sure women are aware that sometimes you might want to listen instead of reading, but it might be the other way around too. So ⁓ number three, so we said, don’t isolate a single event. We said, don’t make assumptions. And we don’t want to minimize nor catastrophize. So you’re working towards as your

Jana Marler (08:49)

Yeah.

Misty (09:01)

Observing I like to use the the coin phrase It’s by a guy named Jerry wise on YouTube and he’s a family systems guy, but he says learn how to observe not absorb and When you’re living with someone and they’re like calling you names and all you know It’s really hard not to absorb that right so I always say like hashtag life goals Observe not absorb and that will carry with you that will be continued to be an ongoing goal even if you are

Jana Marler (09:13)

Good.

Misty (09:31)

identify the abuse, even if you start to work towards divorce or separation, they’re constantly going to be, if they’re an abuser, they’re not going to let you go out the door easily. ⁓ So you have to learn how to work towards that as your goal, which you can do that through grounding exercises therapy, right? We just got to keep working on that. The last thing is don’t procrastinize getting help. And when I say help, I also mean appropriate help.

help that is abuse informed, abuse aware, trauma informed, trauma aware. So, and maybe even, you know, calling some domestic violence shelters. I know in our area in Kansas City, we have the Hope House, which we love, we partner with. ⁓ There’s the domestic violence hotline, of course. ⁓ One place I would say be careful of going to, sadly, is the church. They’re just, they’re not, I don’t mean that in an unkind way. They simply just

are not educated and how to look

Look at abuse how to recognize how to listen to a victim and listen between her words It takes a lot of nuance to be able to do that And they’re just they just aren’t trained and not only that but of course you have very strong perhaps strong belief systems on headship male headship in the home and that can just really muddle when you’re in an abusive situation So

Jana Marler (11:00)

Yeah, sadly

whenever we are leaning on the people we think should be our support, like a church or maybe even police or a legal system, you don’t find support there because there’s not a lot of training in psychology or abuse. So they will even turn you away and suggest someone else and then you feel just completely dumbfounded as to what to do next.

You know, you’re like, well, I thought this is the person I would go to. So.

Misty (11:28)

Sure, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah,

it’s that’s a real thing that everyone I’ve worked with has had to go up against and it can be really disheartening ⁓

really frustrating. mean, it’s the systems are against us. Okay. And I think there at some point needs to be some radical acceptance of that. Else you’re just be living in a state of anger and tense and stress. And I think, you know, learning how to work with the systems that we do have in place, whether that’s the church system or the legal system, whatever the system is, learning how to equip yourself so that as you go into a situation, you feel prepared.

and you’re not just going into these situations impulsively or desperately, you’ve done your due diligence. And so I know for me, like I am a mover and a shaker. when that trauma happened to me, I mean, I flew into first, third, second, fourth gear. I was like in my car driving to the affair partner’s home.

Jana Marler (12:32)

You

Misty (12:35)

to knock on, and I knocked on her door. went out into a bar and I was like, you tell me everything. You know, I mean, like I, that’s how I roll. Right? So knowledge that hyper, ⁓ crazy. don’t know what the right word is, but the hyper,

education that I was seeking was really coming from a place of trauma and not grounding. was just learning how to pull my reins in and say, okay, what will that benefit me if I drive to the affair partner’s house right now when I’m completely flooded, have no plan? What am I going to say when I get there? I mean, it was not a good decision, right? But an understandable one. When you’re in

Jana Marler (12:58)

Yeah.

Nah.

That would make sense.

Misty (13:19)

Yeah. So like, who do you go for help? mean, I think just finding like a, there’s so many online resources now, like ⁓ Sarah McDougall with Wilderness to Wild has some abuse coaches, btr.org if you’ve been experienced betrayal trauma, btr.org has a lot of coaches and ⁓ those are a great start. But remembering also that as you start

Jana Marler (13:35)

Yeah.

Misty (13:50)

to take your control back the abuse usually escalates so you have to be smart what’s that verse in the Bible that says like wise as a serpent discerning as a dove or

I’m missing the language on that, but you’re having to be discerning. It kind of reminds me of Abigail in the Bible when her husband was a drunk and David, King David was going to come to her house and slaughter all of them, murder all of them because he had offended King David. Right. But Abigail was discerning. She left her drunk husband at home. She gathered all of the servants together. She met King David and she pled for the blood of her family.

And that’s kind of what you have to do. You have to maybe in the dark do some things to keep you and your children safe. And it’s not manipulation, it’s safety. It’s all about your safety.

Jana Marler (14:48)

Yes,

and I want to pause right here and really emphasize to listeners, this is why this is so important to have conversations about. I am a huge product of the like, that’ll never happen to me. I don’t need to know those things. I don’t need this type of protection or and then something happens and then you feel really ill equipped. You don’t know where to go. When you do go, like you said, it’s emotionally driven instead of coming from that place of grounding.

⁓ And then what you’ll realize is that those spaces that you thought would be safe to share those things might even turn against you and now you’ve got a lot bigger issues not only emotionally but maybe even financially and it’s a whole world into things that are happening. I know a lot of people personally that once they start to become brave enough to speak about something that might be happening in the workplace or at home.

people don’t believe them. So when you’re going to that support and then people are downplaying it or worse yet making you feel crazy like something’s happened to you, then you’re just, you realize you’re so alone and you realize no one’s coming for me. You know, it’s me that’s my protector. It’s me that’s the protector of my kids. It’s me and God and me and God and that’s it. You know, so.

Misty (15:47)

you

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jana Marler (16:11)

We’re living in a society where systems are built and then you’re entering those totally clueless. So how have you seen abusive behavior, I guess, show up in places like the court systems or religious institutions or even education since you were an educator?

Misty (16:16)

Mm.

The list is far too long. mean,

it’s one thing after another. I would say, I and I experience in different systems as well. I have a daughter with disabilities. The amount of times that child has been chronically, medically gaslit.

is beyond comprehension. can’t even begin to tell you the amount of times she’s had a physiological something happening in her body and told it’s all in her head. ⁓ And unfortunately, the systems that we have set up today are just rooted in patriarchy. And so there’s a lot of misogyny. ⁓

And even I have it in me. I have misogyny in me because it’s pretty impossible not to when you grow up in a misogynistic culture. But like even you saying, you know, when you react emotionally, I would even step and say you’re reacting in trauma. Like that, that is very normal.

Jana Marler (17:15)

Yeah.

appropriately.

Misty (17:29)

response to a traumatic event and to when you find out you’ve been harmed by somebody that you trusted, right? So I wouldn’t expect, I wouldn’t expect anyone to be other than emotional, right? Because that’s human, that’s being a human, but learning how to, how to be more prepared as we go into the situation. like when I go into medical appointments, I have a binder, they see that I’m prepared. I’m organized before I’m loading this on. If you,

I understand wanting to go to clergy, right? We all want to go to our pastors and say, my husband cheated on me, you know? And so we want, we want to be able to have those spiritual advisors in our lives. And I think we should, but perhaps it might be wise to maybe meet with an abuse coach prior to going into a meeting with someone who you know, but ahead of time may cause more trauma on top of your trauma because they just aren’t educated.

So if you have some tools in your back pocket where you can Maybe have even a letter from your abuse coach saying she’s listened to my case She’s reviewed it or he and they have cause of concern to think that I may be in a dangerous situation or an unsafe situation a psychological psychologically abusive relationship and so I’m coming to you just to be a support system to me and To keep my husband accountable because what he’s doing isn’t okay. So

Jana Marler (18:58)

And

Misty (18:58)

Yeah, for sure.

Jana Marler (18:59)

not putting all of your eggs in that basket. So much of what I would do was put all my eggs in that basket for support. And little did I know the support I was leaning into about that topic, that supportive person was doing the exact type of harm while coaching us through the harm that was being done. So then your whole world is shattered. Like, wait, what? The person that I trusted outside of this person, now I’m betrayed again, but it wasn’t directly to me.

Misty (19:27)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (19:28)

It’s their own situation and so you kind of have to learn to have different support groups and and kind of take all of the advice and all of You know what you’re hearing and reading and listening to and then apply it to what works for you Because you know yourself best, you know your nervous system best, you know your family structure and your children best

Misty (19:35)

Yes.

Yes.

with him. ⁓

Yeah, absolutely, 100%. The thing I do want to emphasize though before we go too much further, just remember your safety is number one, not your marriage, not your kids. It’s actually your safety and the safety of your kids. But always put that as priority because ⁓

because we said abuse will escalate. If they know they’re losing control, it’s going to escalate, it gets worse. ⁓ And so we wanna make sure that you stay safe. Boundaries even, I would not set a lot of boundaries until you’ve had some coaching on how to do that with your particular partner or spouse or whatever, because ⁓ even setting boundaries can really backfire on some women and put them in a very unsafe situation because that just escalates

all of his insecurities, his lack, he’s not controlling what you’re trying to tell me what to do when they have been in patterns of entitlement and control. So you have to just be smart, be discerning, get a village of counselors, you know, counselors of many is wise, right? So start figuring out what you’re going to build around you to walk you through this process.

Jana Marler (21:08)

Yes, I used to lead a small group for foster and adoptive moms and I really harped on this every day. said, God told us, he tells us to put on our armor every day. That’s not just something to say. And when you start to visualize it and realize when you’ve gone through stuff how important it is to like put on all the different pieces that protect you, like that’s such a huge.

piece of being human, think, is because we wait until stuff happens before we then start to put on our armor and educate ourselves. And that’s why I think it’s so important to have you here and start this. There might be someone who’s like, I’m not interested in that at all because they haven’t been through it. Right. But if we can open up our minds, have the dialogue, create the safe spaces to hear stories and share experiences, then we can prepare those women, especially to put on the armor so that when it does happen, they’re equipped.

They know just what to do. They’re not scrambling amidst panicking with all their emotions because I tell people it’s inevitable. Storms are coming for all of us. It’s going to come different ways, but we’ve got to be ready. So the next question that I would have is what are some forms of invisible abuse?

Misty (22:02)

Yeah. Yes. ⁓

Yeah.

There’s quite a few ⁓ Before we get to that because I have a whole bunch of men to go through there’s actually 18 forms of abuse Physical would probably be the obviously the most obvious one, right? So we’re gonna go through all of that But before I do I want women to instead of asking am I being abused?

Jana Marler (22:31)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Misty (22:45)

to zoom out like we talked about and think more of am I in an abusive relationship or am I in an abusive church zooming out because what we’re looking for are patterns, cycles, and the effects on the victim.

So some of the effects on the victim can be, but this is not like an end all be all list, but you might feel guilt a lot of the time. You might be an avid chronic people pleaser like I was, which we can also call that fawning. You could have some high insecurity. You could be isolated. You, depending on the severity of your abuse, you could be in, you could go, you could be controlling and rigid in a response to

Jana Marler (23:03)

yet.

Misty (23:32)

the control over you. You can have a lot of panic attacks and in general there will be a lot of fear towards the perpetrator. So if you’re like, they won’t like it if I question that or if you have any fear then that’s probably a good sign that you could possibly be in a relational abusive system. ⁓ if you want to get right into

the 18 forms, let me grab that because if you want to hear about some invisible forms of videos. So we’re going to go through all 18. If you want to get a pen and paper for people listening and jot this down, I think it’s super helpful. the first one is. Great. OK.

Jana Marler (24:14)

have all of it recorded and I’ll make sure to put it in the show notes. I’ll put it on my blog and we’ll link to all

of these things.

Misty (24:20)

Yes, and I sent you the links just so everyone knows this is not my material. So I like to get a lot of my material from Sarah McDougall. She has a website called Wilderness to Wild and she has this awesome chart.

called Is This Abuse? And it has the 18 forms that are currently identified ⁓ on the little chart. And she’s got free resources, she’s got support groups and all kinds of stuff. So she’s great. Another person I like to study is Omar Minwala and he is an abuse.

experts ⁓ specific to sexual addiction too. He likes to call it the secret sexual basement. So he ⁓ is just this brilliant researcher and he’s really, really good. ⁓ And then some of the information that I’ve already given you is from a website called Psalm 82 Initiative and it’s a faith-based abuse advocacy ⁓ organization.

So the first is this abuse, recognizing all the red flags. The first one is beliefs. So here’s some examples. Now remember, keep in mind, don’t put yourself in the box of, I must not be getting belief abuse because I don’t hit all these points you just said. It can look a million different ways. So that’s why we zoom out, look for patterns and see how it’s affecting you personally before we determine if it’s abuse. But here we go. So uses your beliefs. ⁓

to their own advantage, leverages your convictions to shame you into compliance, exploits your conscience and loyalty for their own gain, flips blame if you fail to meet your own standards, and controls or dictates your liberty. So here’s just an example of belief abuse. ⁓ And this is, I know, hard to talk about, but ⁓ I have a friend of mine whose husband is and was a sex addict.

⁓ And he wanted her to do a sexual favor that went against her values. When she said no, he threw like a bunch of frames and pictures off their dresser so glass was all over the floor. So that would be an example of your beliefs don’t matter, you’re gonna give me what I want, right? That’s just one example. So abuse number two, could they use the kids?

Jana Marler (26:32)

you. ⁓

Misty (26:38)

This happens a lot in the legal system and the kids are dehumanized and objectified as just game pieces. ⁓ It’s so sad to watch that. ⁓ So anyway, but.

Jana Marler (26:46)

Yeah.

And it’s horribly

happening not only nationwide but worldwide too.

Misty (26:55)

Yeah,

exactly. So here’s some quick examples of children abuse using the kids. Threatens to harm the children, doesn’t pay child support or prioritize the kids needs. Belittles the partner in front of the kids, leverages children to keep partner silent, abuses other people’s children, scares or hurts partner in front of the kids. ⁓ You know, threatening, you know, that they’re going to take them away from you. I mean, I could keep going on.

Okay, the next one is culture. Culture abuse mistreats you and then blames it on their cultural expectations, demeans your own culture or ethnic heritage or expectations, forces you to embrace their cultural practices against your will, isolates you from access to or participation in mainstream culture.

leverages culture expectations or shame to keep you or others silent, isolates you through language barriers, lack of translation, or insults or mocks your culture or ethnicity as inferior or substandard. That’s cultural abuse. Yeah, we see this everywhere in America right now. So, okay, cyber abuse. I was glad they added this. This is a fairly recent ad.

Jana Marler (27:59)

breaks my heart because all these things are very

Yes.

Misty (28:10)

So using technology for surveillance, monitoring, harassing, knows too much, feels spooky like they’re stalking you on technology, maybe, films, shares explicit images without your consent or knowledge, hoaxes like calling police to your house, making false reports, impersonates your identity online, ⁓ sabotages you using social tech.

So a real life example is my husband would get on my Facebook page and then talk to women or pretending to be me or look at pictures of women. So that’s just in my experience. So there’s many, many, many ways I can look. So anything add to that?

Jana Marler (28:53)

Yeah.

Well, I mean, sadly, each of these bullet points, right, we could talk about so much just within themselves. I’m going let you keep going.

Misty (29:01)

So much. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s this is like an overview and then you know, we could always pack it down at another podcast. So here’s an hidden one emotional abuse ⁓ invalidates your perception of reality insults and says I’m joking denies affection and goes silent flips arguments back onto the victim manipulates with false guilt acts possessive and calls it protective.

Jana Marler (29:08)

Yeah.

Misty (29:31)

and it will vasculate so relational roller coaster just up and down all the time. ⁓

Jana Marler (29:37)

And it’s confusing, right? And I talk about

this so much and I know people don’t want to talk about these things. It’s hard to have online, but I’ll share how if someone’s bullying your kid at school, you know, I teach my children, it’s okay to say, that’s not okay to touch my friend or me like that. That’s not okay to say that, but then the bully will flip it back.

Misty (29:57)

you

Jana Marler (30:01)

and gaslight them and say, you’re making me feel like this, so you’re the bull, and then you have this vicious cycle that doesn’t stop, and it’s like, wait a second, but you, and then they’re like, no, you, and then you’re just like, is it me? And that’s what the abuser wants, they wanna confuse you, they want you to feel like it’s you.

Misty (30:18)

Yeah. Yep.

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Okay. So here’s the one you were really interested in the legal abuse. So here’s some examples. Leveraging the legal system to terrorize you. Filing bogus court motions puts the kids in the middle. Making false reports or fake allegations. Draining your resources. Failing to disclose accurately.

drags out negotiations and refuses to comply with motions or court orders. It covers quite a few. So yeah, there’s

Jana Marler (30:54)

And I know

a lot of people who experience all of that.

Misty (30:59)

I know and the legal systems is set up to allow it. That’s what’s so frustrating for so many of us.

Jana Marler (31:05)

Yeah.

And again, that’s why it’s like, but wait, yours, I’m, coming to you because you’re supposed to protect me or protect my kids. know, even children will request guarding a light on sometimes and, they have the same hope that they’re going to protect them. And when they use their voices, it’s flipped back. So that’s why I say no one’s coming to save us. You know, you, you’ve got to be real educated on these topics.

Misty (31:10)

Thank you.

Right.

Yeah. Absolutely. I know. Yeah. You really

do. And it’s hard to be educated when your brain, your executive functioning isn’t even on wire. It’s just like offline, you know? So that’s why I’m like, find a divorce coach, like someone who can talk you through the legal stuff. You know, just, there’s so many resources. It’s just a matter of you taking the time to find them, right?

Jana Marler (31:41)

Yeah.

Do you know what’s really comical about that? I had

so many different friends going through so many different things. And as I walked through my own personal journey or with them, we found these support systems that of people who had gone through things, who had set up the education, the resources, but it did come with an investment, right? Because what you’re getting is so much of what they understand is so valuable, but you don’t see that yet.

And I remember thinking like that is no one’s ever gonna spend that seeking support. No one’s ever gonna, why would you need to talk to an attorney 24 seven? What’s the point of that? You know, if you can just call. So anyway, my point is that you kind of push that aside and then you go about it what you think is the right way, the way the society taught us. Just do things traditionally, you don’t ask questions. So then you dive into it and you realize.

Misty (32:40)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (32:44)

I am depleted of everything just by a few questions and I wasn’t even advised. didn’t even get, and so then you look back and you’re like, if I only leaned into those support systems that were set up to benefit me, I would have been much further along in the progress or emotionally or financially. So again, the dialogue is so important. There’s different ways to go about things.

Misty (32:47)

Yeah.

them.

Yeah.

Yeah,

there is. there, you know, when I say go get help, go get a therapist, go get a coach, all of those costs money. And especially a lot of women in the faith community, there’s definitely less career minded women in the faith communities because of the indoctrination that, you know, stay at home. Those are wonderful things. But there is more so of that within the faith community. ⁓ And so sometimes they really

have no resources. If they take money out, their husbands can be very controlling of the finances. We’ll get to finance abuse here in a minute. ⁓ And so, but there are a lot of free videos on YouTube. did tons of free counseling on YouTube and mainly it was, I want to learn about controlling behavior and how to respond to it, like practical advice. And I want to learn about family systems.

So that was Jerry Wise that I listened to a lot of. He helped me understand family systems and you know, places like if you have in my situation, my husband abused me because he was an addict. When we removed the addiction and his dopamine calmed down, his abuse went away and it was replaced with the fruits of the spirit. So in the beginning though, you don’t know, am I dealing with an abusive human like an abuser?

Or am I just dealing with a, there’s an evil man, right? The evil man wants to do intentional harm in cyclical patterns. And then there’s the foolish man. He made bad choices. He was an addict, but he repented and turned from his wicked ways, right? So all of these, have to all keep that all in mind that, you know, that’s all going to look the same, but going towards resources online that deal with narcissism.

Jana Marler (34:48)

Mm-hmm.

Misty (34:58)

will apply across the board. I like Dr. Romany and I like Surviving Narcissism has a channel and they give practical, here’s what to say, like they give you language, it’s great. So I wanted to, that’s a little bunny trail, but okay.

Jana Marler (35:13)

A lot of

attorneys I have found too, because they were in this system and they realized so much of that was happening, they then stepped out of the system and now they train you on narcissism or types of abuse so that you don’t end up getting stuck in the same system that they watched.

Misty (35:15)

⁓ yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah,

yeah, that’s so true. you know, look, look online and hopefully there’s something for everybody. Okay. Medical abuse we’ve kind of touched on, but it is obstructing medical care, traumatic stress, causing health conditions, withholding or over-medicating, prevented access to therapy, neglecting nutritional needs, falsely reporting conditions, interfering with healthcare coverage plans.

violating body integrity by forcing surgeries or abortion. And we could go on. There’s just so, so many where your partner can medically, they can withhold money so that you can’t go to the doctor when you need to, or the kids can’t go to the doctor when they need to. ⁓ It is, yeah. And there is a survivor in my group where her husband, they’re suspect that he drugged her. So I mean,

Jana Marler (36:13)

It’s a little overwhelming to learn about all of it, right?

Misty (36:26)

happens. I mean it really does. Okay so abuse of power. This is the next one. So this is the person who’s creating chaos. So they gain control by turning people against each other. So maybe you’ve had a parent who was a narcissist and they get the kids to gang up against each other or they get the kids to gang up against you. You know they are a credit hog. So they take other people’s ideas. They don’t share the glory. They want to be

Jana Marler (36:49)

We’re friends.

Misty (36:55)

They want to be promoted in the community. ⁓ Delusions of grander believes they are smarter, wiser, stronger, more powerful than what’s really real. So this is your narcissistic type traits that we’re getting into. Very entitled, acts if others should give way to their preferences and desires. Usually supremacist, so they look down on others, thinks own identity is superior to everyone else. They’re obsessed with respect.

So they may get aggressive to peers or children or elderly who act with perceived disrespect and even their own spouses. ⁓ They’re fixated on appearances. And I don’t know if you’ve ever like looked into the red pill and all of all of the manosphere stuff, but yeah. So this is really big right now in the manosphere, but they expect others to keep secrets, maintain glossy public image, regardless of reality. So that’s the abuse of power.

Jana Marler (37:41)

A little bit, yeah.

Misty (37:54)

So now let’s go to psychological, another hidden abuse. So psychological abuse can look like they do things, but then deny it later. They terrorize, acts like nothing happened. They project responsibility. They display weapons to scare you. I have a survivor whose husband would clean the guns when he was mad at her. ⁓ Convinces you they know better than you do. Threatens to hurt or kill themselves or others.

Jana Marler (38:16)

my gosh.

Misty (38:23)

and just chronic dishonesty, chronic dishonesty, very psychological abuse. I think is everybody that I’ve worked with, whether it’s an addiction or they’re married to an actual abusive human. There’s all kinds of psychological abuse, reproductive pressuring her to conceive, have a survivor, her husband. So as long as she had babies, she stuck with them. Right.

Jana Marler (38:38)

Mm-hmm.

⁓ my.

Misty (38:51)

So he kept her in a constant state of pregnancy so that she wouldn’t leave him and be able to leave him.

Jana Marler (38:59)

And that can come into play with your finances too, you know? ⁓ now we have six kids, we can’t afford daycare. You’re stay-at-home mom and she’s like, I can’t get up because I can’t afford to. Where would I work and how would I afford to have six kids in daycare or how would I stay at home and watch them and pay the bills, you know? And they, abusers know, they trap them in like that on purpose.

Misty (39:02)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. They do.

It is intentional. I think sometimes it’s subconscious, but in hindsight, if they were to admit it, they’ll realize, yeah, I wanted to do that. ⁓ Shaming or celebrating loss, forcing abortion or childlessness, coercing sex during fertile days, ⁓ sabotaging like. ⁓

not using a condom on purpose or saying, don’t know where it’s at. ⁓ Using religious beliefs to forbid prevention or prenatal care, ⁓ prioritizing her recovery lower than his sexual fulfillment. So that can happen to even couples who they find out about the addiction, then they say they’re gonna enter recovery. her recovery, if she’s like, my body’s not ready to have sex again.

But he says, you need to fulfill my sexual needs and desires above your. Yeah. So that goes right into sexual abuse. So let’s talk about that. I mean, we know the the textbook ones, right? But I think there’s some that people don’t realize. So forces or withhold sex as punishment. Now, this is not the same as the betrayed partner saying, I’m not ready to have sex with you yet. It’s not the motivation is controlled by the abuser.

The motivation for the betrayed partner is safety. She doesn’t feel safe yet. So very different motivations here. Okay. Criticizes.

Jana Marler (40:45)

Yeah.

and people try

to make that gray and it’s not.

Misty (40:51)

Yeah, no, I agree. Criticizes your body or sexuality, compares you to others. And so this could be, or it could be highlighting sexual parts of your body and just objectifying your body. So it could go either way. Demand sex as payment for favors or kindness. So, hey, didn’t you see I cleaned the house for you? So you owe me sex or hey, don’t you know it’s my birthday? You owe me sex. I mean, we hear that all the time.

Jana Marler (41:19)

And it’s like I’m making these faces over here almost like I’m dumbfounded. But you know, again, it’s happening and it’s happening more often than we…

Misty (41:24)

It’s not funny.

Laughing is probably my trauma response. I’m like, I know. ⁓

Jana Marler (41:29)

It’s more

just like how and why? Why is this even a thing? And it’s just so much again. So I think it’s a little overwhelming to just as somebody who would be listening and for the first time maybe starting their education journey on this, it could just be like, wait, what? And that too, and that too. Well, scary.

Misty (41:32)

and then… yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it can be a lot.

So take, again, let’s re-emphasize you can press pause and take this in pieces and process just each category and sit on it for a day or two. ⁓ Consumes porn or makes you watch explicit material. I say if some people say, but if she consents to it and she’s like, that’s fine if you watch porn. But my thing is I just want to make sure that it’s truly consensual.

and that she’s not feeling afraid to say no. So that’s just something I want to highlight. Has physical or emotional affairs. Emotional affairs are also a form of sexual abuse and that gets minimized and it needs to not. They might just threaten to cheat on you. If you don’t do this and I’m going to go cheat on you and it’s going to be your fault is usually what happens.

Jana Marler (42:42)

Yep,

and you know what’s scary about that when we go back to the churches? So many people I know will lean on pastors or maybe even Christian therapists and I know someone specifically who their response was, you just need to have sex more, just get naked more and it’s like you didn’t even hear me, you know?

Misty (42:47)

Yes!

Yeah,

I would almost tell you probably at least 70 % of the women in my group have heard that from clergy. And we need to call it what it is. When clergy tells you to go home and have more sex, even if you don’t feel like having it with a man who is mistreating you, that is them sexually abusing you.

Jana Marler (43:18)

it’s like.

and they’re putting the blame on you. This man is doing this type of abuse to you because you deserve it because you did blank. In that further again, you’re just getting repeated harm to this poor victim.

Misty (43:33)

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And, and so many of the women in my group have had clergy tell them that. I remember I had a friend tell me that, like when I thought I’m going to finally open up and share with one of my good friends. And she’s like, that’s why I have lots of sex with my husband. So he doesn’t do that. And it just made me feel terrible, you know? And I’m like, first of all, you don’t know how often I had sex with my husband. So you’re making assumptions. So betrayed women, like the women who have been betrayed, I don’t like to label us women who’ve experienced betrayal.

Jana Marler (43:58)

Bye.

Misty (44:10)

⁓ we have stigmas all over us too. mean, it’s really frightening to come public, to go public because there is all kinds of stigmas. I felt, you know, I was wearing the Scarlet Letter for him. I mean, it was terrible. It was absolutely terrible. So that’s pretty…

Jana Marler (44:26)

Yeah, I can’t

speak in detail, but I can tell you I am a good note taker, organizer. I’ve tried to be efficient with communication and in some areas where I was documenting a lot of things, time stamping, writing out things, mostly from my memory again, because when you’re dealing with a lot of trauma, your brain can get foggy. And if you don’t write it down immediately, then you can…

Misty (44:48)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (44:50)

It can be confusing. So I documented a lot of things and when I presented that to the people who should have protected, heard and supported, they did flip that back as a, well, women should be able to not only like handle all these things. ⁓ How am I trying to say this? It’s almost like all of the things that said person was doing was completely dismissed. was the fact that I was presenting those things that it was used against me.

And I had a therapist for my child years ago that said, and this is totally off topic, what her response was about, but it makes sense. She said, it’s a duck or if it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, you know, it’s got feathers like a duck. It’s probably a duck. So it’s okay to call it a duck. And I feel I’ve approached many situations that way. Here’s what happened. It’s just, it’s kind of the truth. I’m not even being rude. It’s just, I’m putting it out there, but it was harmed back on me.

Misty (45:50)

Yeah, very.

Jana Marler (45:50)

And that’s confusing. And that’s a lot of those, again,

the male versus female positions and the roles and the systems that we’re in.

Misty (45:58)

Yeah, and since you’re on that topic, that’s why when we are helping people, you know, it’s really important, one, to always approach the suspected victim with gentleness. Lots and lots of gentleness. ⁓ Sometimes victims aren’t ready to fully share, and we have to be respectful of that. We never should or shouldn’t a victim. That’s not our role. Our role is to come alongside.

Jana Marler (46:11)

Yes.

Misty (46:25)

him or her, usually her in this scenario, and ⁓ support, figure out how to support, offer resources, but never tell her what decision she should make moving forward. ⁓ We should have resources ready and check in with the victim often because just because they’re not ready, we don’t want them to get to a place where they’re just completely devastated and in danger. Yeah.

Jana Marler (46:37)

Thank

and alone, you know, if people think like

do anything, they just leave them be and that can be a really dangerous place for that person to be in.

Misty (46:57)

Yeah,

yeah. And victims have all levels of tolerance too. So what I could tolerate and not tolerate and say, that’s the last straw, I’m out. Peace might be different for you. So I think we have to give women autonomy. what our goal is with victims is instead of projecting it back onto them, it’s learning how can we empower her to make good choices to keep her safe.

What does she need for safety? And if you don’t know, I don’t know, so I’m gonna give you some resources of people who are better equipped to help you through this process. But I feel like.

Jana Marler (47:37)

Yeah, the word that you

use that’s so important too is just compassion. know, ⁓ so many people haven’t been through it and whatever it is. And so when they say, well, it can’t be like that, or, you know, it’s, it’s just abuse or, know, whatever they’re, they’re downplaying it. It would be like someone who hasn’t gone through cancer telling someone who is a cancer survivor, it’s not that painful. Like you were fine, you know?

Misty (47:41)

Yes!

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jana Marler (48:04)

Just because you haven’t been in it doesn’t mean you can’t show compassion and doesn’t mean that what they’re saying is not true. I know the first time I became brave enough to talk about someone who betrayed me, I leaned on some of my closest friends. This might hit me. ⁓ You know, they, instead of taking the time to even hear me out, it became defensive and they interrogated me and I had to sit and endure it.

Misty (48:09)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (48:34)

as if I was the one giving them compassion. You and you go to people to receive that. And then again, you’re just, you’re kind of in shock. Like, did that just happen? And I remember a friend being near me and she just put her hand on me and she was just like, breathe. And we walked to the car in silence and I sat down and I was like, I can’t believe I finally got to the point that I could speak it. And I was just in a hurricane for an hour, you know?

Misty (48:44)

you

it and

So knowing where you’re at now, let’s just stay with that for a minute. Let me interview you. How could you have taken your power back? If that were to happen today, is there something that you would do different?

Jana Marler (49:09)

Hahaha

for sure.

You know, I grew up in the church too. And thankfully I did not grow up in an unhealthy church and I did not grow up in one that belittled or prioritized like men over women. A lot of the support I leaned on in my church family did not push me to feel or do actionable steps in any way. They were really there to support me and love on me. However, in the church you are taught to love everyone like Jesus.

Misty (49:49)

you

Jana Marler (49:49)

And everyone’s imperfect and it’s okay if people mess up. And I think that’s why I really love that you’re saying patterns because patterns become intentional. It becomes your character, becomes your integrity, becomes your soul. who you are, you know, intentionally or unintentionally. And so for me, I gave way too much grace to everyone. I allowed people to talk down to me, to not believe me, to turn on me, to side with other people and

Misty (50:08)

great to everyone.

Jana Marler (50:18)

financially support other people in some of those situations where it should have been coming to me, you know, there’s so much there that I allowed to happen because I was taught again to keep the peace and smile and be kind and put on that mask. And throughout that whole few years of the process for me, I learned everyone’s walking around with this mask. They’re presenting online who they want everyone to see them as. And what I’m realizing is that like we’re different people behind.

that mask. And so for me, I would have put in, I did a lot of work with therapists on boundaries because you’re not taught growing up in church how to have healthy boundaries. And she said, the more, the more boundaries you have in a relationship, the more healthy that relationship is. I started putting in those boundaries. started walking out of those conversations quicker. When I saw that type of behavior, I was like, no, I, you know,

Thank you, I can tell you’re really passionate about that, but I’m gonna go ahead and go. You know? And you don’t even have to get mean about it. You can just be like, I’m out, like you said. And while I didn’t handle that that way when I started, because for me, I’m a person that wants everyone to understand, let’s talk about it, let’s figure it out. That doesn’t work, especially whenever people are in heated moments, so you just have to get to the point. Nope, I’m not gonna do that today.

Misty (51:21)

Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Yeah, sometimes

it’s just as simple as giving yourself permission to use that voice and to say, wait, I don’t have to just sit here and get beat up emotionally for a full hour. However, yeah.

Jana Marler (51:49)

Yeah, and it’s the people-saving again. I respect

this person. I want to hear what they have to say. But no, you don’t need to take that.

Misty (51:56)

Yeah. And you know, it’s okay to also see that you’re at least for me, I came to a point where my chronic people pleasing. I’m like, you know what? That part of me, thank you. That served me for survival. So I needed that. Was it the healthiest? No, but it was safe. It kept me safe. So when I had to start determining

Do I need to continue to hold on to that? Or is that something that’s in my past that I can now let go of because it doesn’t serve me anymore? Served me in the time, doesn’t serve me now. And I kind of liked reframing that for me personally because then I wasn’t so judgmental of how I handle things or how I chronically people pleased all the time and bent myself, know, same thing, or subjected myself to all this harmful, you know, abuse from friends, family, whatever. So.

Jana Marler (52:29)

you are.

Misty (52:50)

I commend you for recognizing that, I could do things differently. And so that shows growth in and of itself.

Jana Marler (52:57)

Yeah. Yeah, and you

know, and even in the Christian idea of marriage, it’s like you said through thick or thin. And so for me, I was always a longevity person. I was a forever person with all of my friends, all of my mentors, all of my teachers. It’s like, still wanted to stay in contact with everybody. I had pen pals for years. I was always a forever person. And like, it was so hard for me to grasp reasons or seasonal people, you know.

Misty (53:06)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

Love that.

Jana Marler (53:26)

So I really had to do a lot of acceptance to say, like you said, that’s no longer serving me. ⁓ but that’s really hard to do when you’re a loyalist and you’re in a covenant in any capacity, a partnership in a business partnership, but a romantic relationship. When you commit to that, you commit to that, but I had to really step back and look at the big picture and say, took two of us though, to do that work and have that same mindset and the value.

Misty (53:35)

Yeah.

Thank

Yes.

Yes,

exactly. It takes two people to make a relationship work, but it only takes one person to destroy it.

Jana Marler (54:00)

Thank you. I’m so sorry. I’m very passionate about that because people say all the time like it takes two to destruct something. Again, it doesn’t matter what partnership it is.

Misty (54:02)

Mic drop.

One.

No,

when it comes to this. Takes two to make it strong, but one to tear it down. So, okay. Has physical emotional affairs. we said that. Lacks intimacy and connection that is safe and bonding and sexually abuses or molest your children or other people’s children, obviously. So that’s, there’s a lot more that could fall under sexual abuse. It doesn’t even have to be physical. It could, like I said, it could be talking about your body parts like,

especially sexual parts of your body that are demeaning or derogatory. So it can look a million different ways. I know marital rape is a real thing and we need to be talking about it more. It is now illegal in Missouri. So thank you for That’s fairly recent, which I just find so horrific that it’s fairly recent. But ⁓ places like Hope House, do a lot of

Jana Marler (54:50)

Why?

Misty (55:02)

advocating in the legal system and that’s one of the things that they’ve really advocated hard for. So, ⁓ okay, so social abuse monitors friendships and activities like they’re always on your phone, they’re snoopy, like they’d snoop around in all of your stuff, they track your social media, they monitor your mileage, they will discourage friendships or outside activities. So that’s the isolation piece we’ll talk about in a minute. They dictate access to education and employment.

And they really want to keep their victims at home a lot. So you’ll see that a lot within the faith based communities. Spiritual abuse. Oh my word, that’s a long list, but I’ll just do a few. Yeah, yeah, you might have to split this up. Uses religion to gain advantage, leverages spiritual leaders against the spouse, twist scripture to avoid accountability. It made me think of just recently,

Jana Marler (55:43)

We’ll do it part two for this.

Misty (56:00)

some mega pastor had like raped girls or something and they said pastor has an inappropriate relationship like are you kidding me they just did not use the right language you know they minimize it ⁓ silences you with sacred texts believes you need them in order to understand your religion soul-destroying behaviors so and we could go on and on with that spiritual abuse is using your position

Jana Marler (56:10)

crying.

Misty (56:26)

and telling the spouse to go home and have more sex with her sex addicted husband. So that’s another form of spiritual abuse. Verbal abuse tells victim how to do everything, cuts victim off in conversation, belittles or puts down the victim, forbids victim from talking to others about issues, shame, silences or insults, yells, screams, swears, calls names, publicly humiliates you. ⁓

see what else I have.

Financial abuse is.

Jana Marler (57:03)

Financial abuse.

Misty (57:08)

limits access and tracks every penny. So ultra controlling on your finances. ⁓ they criticize the way you spend your money, avoids paying or wrongly calculate child support, spends impulsively. So they can either, I usually just tell people they’re either super, super controlling or they’re super reckless. So, and anywhere between evading taxes, putting your name on

If they are MLM and they put your social security so they can build their, you know, their downline without your consent, that kind of stuff is pretty common. Buying big purchases without asking you first, that’s not okay.

Okay, intellectual abuse demands perfection, insists on proof of your opinions, insults, intellect, education level or ability to think, dumbs the victim down, intimidated by your mind, refuses to allow you to disagree, invalidates others if they point out abuse. Then we have pets and property, which I have a survivor whose husband would kick the dog and be really mean.

Jana Marler (58:13)

Mmm.

⁓

Misty (58:17)

abusive towards their dog and it was her baby so that was intentional harm to upset her. ⁓ But they’ll confiscate keys. This is a one people don’t realize is abuse so they’ll take your car keys or your ID or your driver’s license so that you can’t leave like you’re stuck in the house because they’ve taken your car keys away. They’ll damage a victim’s car refusing to keep it maintained. They’ll trash victims favorite things often may say it was an accident.

Jana Marler (58:23)

Mm.

Misty (58:47)

They may harm and neglect your pets or give them away. ⁓ They’ll punch walls. They’ll slam doors, threaten to do any of these. at the height of my husband’s addiction, he started throwing things, not at me, but maybe like he’d get mad and he’d go out and throw something across the yard. it was just intimidation is really what it was. ⁓ And then of course, yeah.

Jana Marler (59:02)

Mm-hmm.

And let me tell you,

I wrote a poem, and I won’t read it, of course, but it’ll come out one day when some things are through the process, but it’s entitled, If Only I Were Black and Blue. So like you said at the very beginning, physical abuse is the most obvious. If I were to walk into church with a black eye and teeth missing and limping and my kids had no arm and we were just bl-

Misty (59:16)

Thank

Jana Marler (59:39)

everybody would run to us and they would, how can we get you to safety? What can we do to help you? They would support you, they would check in on you. It’s the things that you can’t see. And it’s the things that don’t touch you that people label as not abuse. So when someone’s throwing things around you and breaking things against the wall or punching holes in the wall and then they’re saying, I never abused you.

Misty (59:49)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:00:03)

That is why this conversation again is so important because there’s so many of these things that actually are abuse. You don’t have to be black and blue and you shouldn’t have to be black and blue to be believed.

Misty (1:00:08)

Yeah.

Yeah,

yeah, agree 100%. So when it comes to physical abuse, this is the last one, as far as the forms of abuse, a lot of people know the textbook ones that you just mentioned. But there’s some on here that I want to highlight that a lot of women have experienced in my circle and did not realize that that was considered physical abuse. So drives recklessly or has road rage, ⁓ disturbs a victim’s sleep.

So they just want to argue with you all night long when you’re keep saying, I’m so tired. Can we just talk about this later? And they won’t let you sleep. Choking is now very popular in sexual encounters. That like increases your risk of homicide. I don’t want to put a percent on it, but it’s astronomical, like 600 % or sounds like a huge increase in your risk of homicide.

Jana Marler (1:01:07)

my.

Misty (1:01:10)

They will block exits. This is another big one. So you’re saying, if you don’t talk to me respectfully, I’m going to leave the room. And then they block the doorway so you can’t. So that’s physical abuse. Bringing up really big conflicts or fights while you’re in the car and you can’t, you’re driving and you can’t get out. Prevents you from getting medical care. That’s considered physical abuse. We already talked about throwing things. They slap, kick, punch,

pinch, spit, all of that is considered physical abuse. just to kind of wrap things up, because I know we’ve gone a long time, but when you’re thinking about abuse, there’s really four main elements that you would see cyclically happening in your relationship. Not a one-time event, because we can all be entitled sometimes and selfish, and we have to come back and say, I’m so sorry, right? But the four elements are number one, coercive control.

This is the psychological pattern of domination. Coercive control, the psychological pattern of domination. So this is intent to control, intimidate, dominate the victim. ⁓ Number two is entitlement. That is the mindset underneath the coercive control. So coercive control is the patterns, right? Entitlement is the mindset underneath that. So

Jana Marler (1:02:33)

Hmm.

Misty (1:02:36)

They their superiority, their dominant, they have the victim is not autonomous like they don’t have autonomy, but they’re really just an extension of their own selves. ⁓ Number three is control. Control is the action that they put into place because of the entitlement and the coercive control. So this is the set of behaviors used to make the entitlement belief real in their lives. Does that make sense? That’s three.

Jana Marler (1:03:04)

Mm-hmm.

Misty (1:03:05)

The last one is compliance. There’s always a required victim in an abusive dynamic. And for survival, this is not faulting the victim, blaming the victim. For her survival, victim complies with the coercion, entitlement and control because of fear of what could happen if she doesn’t. Or could be because of indoctrination. She’s been told.

Jana Marler (1:03:28)

Yeah.

Misty (1:03:32)

There’s another name that churches like to use for that. It’s called submit. They’ll twist that word and turn it into something that actually just increases the harm in your relationship. ⁓ sometimes women they’re, they’re complying because they’ve been lied to, right? So there’s a lot of different reasons why we comply when we’re in that dynamic. It could be like me where we married a semi healthy guy and then he got deeper and deeper into an addiction.

and the abuse escalated over time. it was like a slow drip of torture really, or like death by a thousand cuts. wasn’t like big massive events. It was a slow fade. So just keep that in mind as you’re evaluating your personal relationships. Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:04:07)

Yeah.

And I’ve got one key thing here. want to, if you can touch on this, a lot of what you said is noticing patterns, right? So we all make mistakes. If someone does something one time, we, can evaluate that specific situation. It’s the patterns that are going to show you a little more of what is abuse. However, say you’re in a work meeting and your boss slips his hand on your leg and goes up your skirt.

Misty (1:04:30)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:04:50)

and knows you won’t react because you’re in a meeting of 15 people. And this is out of nowhere. It’s never happened before. And then as you guys get up, he smiles and walks away. And then you see him later, and you’re traumatized, like what the actual just happened. And he looks at you and smiles and said, if you tell anyone, I will fire you immediately. And that’s a one time thing. Of course, I know the answer is like, that’s not okay.

But I think what I want you to touch on are the women who might be listening in. like, well, because I know a lot of people who are abused and I know clearly that it’s abuse, they use the, but it only happened a couple times and they try to give that person the benefit of the doubt. we kind of again, make it gray. So how can you make it ungray for someone? When is the time to speak up and say something even if it’s a one time thing?

Misty (1:05:46)

I honestly I live in a world of gray so I I I can see where from a justice and ⁓ just wanting to protect women like you can look at that from a black and white perspective but putting myself in her shoes or if that really were to happen to me one I think there’s a lot of fear of I mean what if she’s a single mom

This is why it’s great. What if she doesn’t have the resources? Like, what will she do if she lives? You know, I think it’s easy for me to say what a woman shouldn’t do when I’m a white woman of privilege in America. So I think that there is a lot of gray in that. And everyone has let’s go back to every woman has a different level of tolerance. So we have to be respectful of that. All we can do is say you are your

Jana Marler (1:06:27)

Yeah.

Misty (1:06:43)

body is valuable and worthy to be treated with respect. So if you feel like that was disrespectful and he’s ⁓ coercing you, then perhaps you should start looking for another job before you go vocal. Like there’s a way you could approach that so that she remains safe and provided for while still working her way out the door. So that’s where I’m like, get in with somebody, a coach of some kind, a professional legal counsel.

Jana Marler (1:07:05)

Yeah.

Misty (1:07:13)

to learn how can I do this the right way so that I’m not stranded without a job when I have three mouths to feed at home. So that would be…

Jana Marler (1:07:21)

Yeah. And I did, I had

a therapist one time say, it’s not up to us to determine whether something is a traumatic experience for someone else. It might not be. So I like that you brought that back into the, there’s so many different dynamics of your relationship, your personality, what you can and want to tolerate. And I think it gets real yuck when you then address it to the person and say, again, that’s not okay.

Misty (1:07:30)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:07:50)

but then they flip it back and start harming. And I think that’s where I really advocate a lot is like, okay, now you’re brave enough to speak up and then it’s flipped. I hate that.

Misty (1:07:50)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. I mean,

the black and white issue is what he did is wrong. And he should be punished for it. You know, he should have charges pressed against him. He should be fired. He should have all the, but I guess what I’m where I’m going to the gray is her, like what’s going on inside of her. And so that taps me into her humanity, her decision-making. I just want to empower her to do what’s best for her and

Jana Marler (1:08:04)

Yeah.

Misty (1:08:27)

There is something called strategic compliance. So strategic compliance is when you’re in an unsafe situation, but it’s not safe for you to leave yet. So there may be a season where she stays at that job because she needs the money, but maybe she’s starting to look at what other resources are out there. She may talk to someone in the HR and not give any names and say, this has happened to me. What is your process? You know, I just feel like

That’s taking your power back in a way where you’re making you get to do the timing of it because victims all have different timetables of when they’re ready to share. Like you mentioned earlier, if I have regret, I shared things with people way too soon because when it got turned on me, was a complete, was, couldn’t, I had no capacity to know how to handle that. So as I got healthier and now I’m much more strategic before I opened my mouth.

I kind of feelers out, know if sometimes I don’t know if they’re safe or not, but I’m at a place where if they’re an unsafe person and they say something back to me that’s harmful, I’m at a place where I can just let it like just slide off me, right?

Jana Marler (1:09:39)

Yeah, it

takes a lot of personal development. And I think you and I have some pretty similar personalities, so I feel like I can relate.

Misty (1:09:41)

Right.

But I love that you brought that up. think that’s a great discussion. So just putting ourselves back in her shoes and just realizing, okay, she’s a human and there’s probably women stay for a million reasons and women will leave for a million different reasons. And so our job is not to determine if it’s the right time for her to leave the job or leave the home. Our job is just to empower her, give her resources, guide her to the right people and support.

And that like, this is one of the main things we say in our support group is, are you wanting feedback or would you like for me to just listen? So not only is that good practice for us to not assume they want problem solving, but it’s also good for the receiver to say, what do I want? Because my whole life I’ve been with an abuser and I haven’t been able to have these critical thinking, this autonomy. So what do I need? What do I want? So it gives her an opportunity to decide. So

In that situation, I would, if she came to me and said, my boss did this, I’d say, are you open to feedback or are you just wanting me to listen? Because every woman has a hashtag me too. You know, we don’t even need to start there. Right. So yeah.

Jana Marler (1:10:52)

Yeah.

Mm, yep.

The older we get, we have more experiences and there’s more

things that happen and we hear about our friends going through more things and I think that’s kind of why it hit me so hard. The veil was pulled back and I saw everything all of sudden. I saw a world full of sunshine and rainbows and then all of a sudden it was revealed that everyone’s hurting and everyone’s going through things and for me I was like, we need to talk about this. We need spaces for people to feel comfortable and I had a friend come to me and they said, Jana, I think the reason it…

Misty (1:11:10)

Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:11:28)

seems like you’re repelling people is because people didn’t have an upbringing like you. Like that’s pretty rare. And I don’t take that for granted. I had a very wonderful childhood with wonderful support, a wonderful church, wonderful friends, but people grew up in so much turmoil that they don’t want to hear it anymore. They want to go to the highlight reel and wear the mask so that they can get away from it, you know?

Misty (1:11:35)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:11:53)

For me, it’s a balance and I’m thankful that you came on today to kind of share more of the educational side and kind of remove my emotions for it because it’s a balance of figuring out when do we speak up and when do we not. And like you, it’s a trauma response that we kind of verbal dump on everybody and we’re so passionate. We want to write a book and let’s do this and let’s do this and advocate. But really a lot of it is the personal development of being able to step back, zoom out.

Misty (1:11:59)

Yeah, shipment.

Jana Marler (1:12:22)

Process a little longer one of the best things my therapist said and we’ll kind of leave it here is she said you know what you need to take it to God first and write it down It’s gonna slow your brain down Take it to God and then pray what information if any goes to someone and then who? You know not everybody needs access to all of this so you find your support group and then you find your if Your friends aren’t supporting you or your family and you thought they would then find new friends

Misty (1:12:32)

Yeah.

Yeah, I love that. Right.

Yeah, easier said than done. my both of our we’ve talked about this, both of us have the experience that we thought, how will I ever find community after this? And somehow we did. So they’re there. It’s just putting yourself out there. It might be calling, you know, domestic violence and saying, do you have any support groups I could go to? I mean, it’s just calling the resources that are there already that we help you and there’s a lot of free ones. So

Jana Marler (1:12:52)

Find a new group.

you ⁓

Now, yeah.

Yeah.

Misty (1:13:20)

you know, but it just, it just takes time and it’s okay if you’re not ready to do that. Or if you just want to wallow a little bit longer in your grief, that’s okay too. Like it looks a million different ways. ⁓ But when it becomes isolating, like there’s a difference between ⁓ like solidarity versus isolation, know? solidarity, right word.

Jana Marler (1:13:21)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, when you’re in solitude? Solitude.

Misty (1:13:48)

Okay, solitude. Yeah, solitude versus

⁓ isolation. you know, just make sure that you’re self-assessing and if you’re starting to feel like, think I’m pretty isolated because it’s very isolating. All of this is can be very isolating. ⁓ So, yeah.

Jana Marler (1:14:03)

It is one

of the most amazing things that happened with me. And I actually got this tattooed on my 40th birthday. I wanted to have a cursive come to me because through this whole process, I kept taking it to all my people. And I was trying to open that dialogue and people were like, whoa, whoa, you flipped the script because you were over here trying to encourage and talking so good about everything. And then now all of a sudden it’s different. You look a little crazy and.

Misty (1:14:09)

Love it.

you

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:14:29)

And

God just kept whispering to me, said, come to me woman, like come to me. I just heard it everywhere I got in the car, come to me. Like I, know, and there’s a verse, come to me and I will make your burdens light. So if you even have that, that faith base, and I know throughout this whole process, I’m very thankful I didn’t lose my face and I kind of stayed with God and I was like, screw everything else and everyone else. Like.

Misty (1:14:33)

Yeah.

you

Jana Marler (1:14:55)

get me through this, where do I go, who do I speak to, what support, know, guide me. Because I can take a million different advice and I could, we only know what we know as humans. Like I need to tap into the source of creation. So for me, that’s what got me through. So I just kind of want to put that out there to anybody, like go to God or find the one trusted friend and lean on that friend and don’t give it to everybody.

Misty (1:15:00)

and

Good luck.

Yeah,

I agree. I love it. I know.

Jana Marler (1:15:22)

Well, thank you so much. I would do this for hours because you’re wonderful

and you’re a wealth of knowledge. But I’m going to go ahead and end it. But I’m going to put all of your resources, all of your links, and where we can buy your book and any other information you want to give. I’ll put it in there.

Misty (1:15:34)

Okay. Yeah,

if you go on therisetoheal.org, that’s our nonprofit, but there is a support group link on there. And if you’re seeking support, please reach out. A facilitator will get back with you and we can get you connected, even if it’s online or give you some options for that. But we want women to feel hopeful and empowered.

There’s definitely help out there. Yeah.

Jana Marler (1:16:06)

And I know firsthand it’s a wonderful group, so make sure you go to her link. Thank you so much. I’ve loved having you. Bye Misty.

Misty (1:16:08)

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having me. Mwah! Love you so much.

Alright, anytime.