← Betrayal Trauma Recovery
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Anne. If you've listened to this podcast, you know I interview women who are dealing with their husband's lies, anger or infidelity. I've interviewed over 200 women and counting. If you relate to anything you hear in this episode, we can help you today. I created our daily live group sessions because when I was going through it, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find the help I needed. We know exactly how to help women in this situation. The entire BTR team has been through it, so we know how to anticipate the issues you're likely to face. And when you discover your husband's lies or infidelity, no matter where you are in the world, we can help you immediately. Check out our group session schedule@btr.org group I have penny Lane on today's episode. She's a writer, wife and mother with an insatiable passion for life and books. Originally from Queens, she loves being outdoors, cycling, hiking, traveling, and connecting to and inspiring people. She has a master's degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Golden State University, and in her spare time she helps underserved youth learn to read, apply to college, and find jobs. Her book, Redeemed A Memoir of a Stolen Childhood, recounts how she was pressured into marriage and endured years of forced confessions, Salem style accusations, secretive disciplinary actions, and excommunication. Penny 5, finally reached her breaking point and we're going to talk about her story today. Welcome Penny.
- [01:28]
B
Thank you for having me.
- [01:30]
A
Why do you feel it's important for you to speak out about your abuse and write this memoir?
- [01:35]
B
For one, I feel compelled to write it because I have since met a lot of people who have childhood trauma of different sorts and they tend to be ashamed of it. And the opposite is actually true when we talk about it is when we find relief and healing and solace and community. And so I thought it was important to write my stories, remove some of the stigma involved with abuse or trauma.
- [02:05]
A
You were coerced into marrying your husband. Can you talk about the abuse that led to that and then also the abuse that you experienced from him?
- [02:15]
B
I was a 16 year old runaway when I met my husband. He was my boss. I worked at an ihop, I was a waitress. And he quickly saw that I was a very hard worker and promoted me and then took me out on dates because I was a runaway, you know, was basically living with a family and paying rent. Pretty soon he said why don't you move in with me? And then I was working for him and living with him And I didn't have any friends, I didn't have any family because I was a runaway. He started asking me to work more hours and at first I said yes because he paid me a little bit extra. I made a lot of money waitressing and it was great. But then he wouldn't take no for an answer. Let's say I worked three double shifts in a row and even though I was 16, it's exhausting to be on your feet in a very fast moving restaurant for 12 hours, 14 hours a day. So I tried to say, no, I'm too tired, get someone else. And he'd say, this wasn't a question, you need to get to work. Be there in five minutes or I'm coming to pick you up in five minutes.
- [03:10]
A
How old was he?
- [03:12]
B
He was six years older than me. He was 23. He had left college and had been a restaurant manager for four or five years before I met him. And so he was managing a staff of 30 or 40 people in a very busy, high revenue restaurant in a busy location. And he was domineering. A little while after we started dating, he started disappearing and I didn't know where he was. And the girls I worked with said, oh, he's got another girlfriend, blah blah, blah, you know, I didn't think that was true. Half of you doesn't believe in, half of you does. And so one time I went along with him to where he was going because he said he was going to church. And I thought, what? This guy gambles and he drinks and he curses and I didn't think he was a very honest guy. And so I didn't think he would possibly be going to church. So I went along with him. And he had indeed gone to church. He went to a very fundamentalist, Bible believing, evangelical type church. And this was in the 70s and it was quite emotionally wrought. The services were long and drawn out and at the end of the service there was a call to walk the aisle to accept Jesus as your personal savior. I wanted nothing to do with that. I thought it was totally weird. And besides, I had just run away from home. I didn't want to like belong to something else. I wanted to be free.
- [04:31]
A
Were you raised religious at all?
- [04:33]
B
No, I was born Catholic, in communion at 12, under duress, and I didn't know anything. We didn't really do anything else. So long story short, once I went to the church, he would ask me each time he went and he went when? Wednesdays, Thursdays, and twice on Sundays. He would just wait for me at the restaurant and say, okay, we're going to church. I'd get in the car with him and we'd go. I wasn't really given a choice. You go two, three weeks of this, going three or four times a week. People started pressuring me to accept Jesus. And the story is very compelling. I'm sure you and your readers know this. It's don't you want to be loved forever? Yes, of course. Who doesn't? Don't you want to have a forever family? And don't you want to have God's love? Well, the answer to all of that is yes. I didn't feel loved. Don't you want to belong? Of course I didn't belong anywhere, didn't belong in my family. I didn't have a family at the moment. And so eventually I gave in to the emotional pressure of accepting Jesus and I walked the aisle.
- [05:31]
A
At the time, did you feel like you were doing it of your own free will or at the time were you like, I don't really want to do this, but in order to stay in his good graces, I have to do this? Can you talk about sort of your thought process at the time?
- [05:48]
B
At the time, I thought I was doing it for my own free will. But Look, I was 17 and I was a runaway and I worked for this man and I lived with this man and I thought that he loved me and I loved him. And I thought, this is what he's doing with his life. And in hindsight, I don't know if it was really free will or if it was emotional manipulation and pressure because I knew that if I didn't do this, I would have to walk away from the whole package, from him, from my job, from my living arrangement. And remember, I was 17 and I didn't know how to negotiate in the world. I didn't know how to find an apartment or find a new job.
- [06:29]
A
This is also your first experience with religion, right?
- [06:32]
B
Yes. And he is my second boyfriend. So I had a boyfriend while I was going through high school and I broke up with him because he wasn't ambitious enough. Then I started working at the IHOP and I met this man. And then soon after I walked the aisle though, here's the interesting thing that happened. It was a bait and switch. So at first it was all lovey dovey and Jesus loves you and you're part of this forever family. But pretty soon the pastor's wife and the other women in the church would pull me aside and say, you can't dress like that. Here and again, I was 17. It was the 70s. We wore blue jeans and platform sandals and high heels and lots of makeup and long shaggy hair and tight clothes. That's what we wore and that's all I had. And all of a sudden I couldn't dress that way anymore. I had to wear skirts and I had to not wear makeup or less.
- [07:21]
A
Makeup or only at church or all the time.
- [07:25]
B
Well, they talked to me about it at church. You know, I really kind of didn't have any other life. I worked in the restaurant and I had a uniform and then I went to church. We didn't really do anything else because previously his life was drinking and going out to eat and drinking. And we didn't do that anymore because he stopped drinking and he stopped smoking. He didn't pressure me outside of church, but at church I was required. And I kept arguing with the pastor and saying, you guys didn't tell me this, like, I don't want to change. I like this and I like that. It was a lot. And let's fast forward three or four months. The pastor said, I want to meet with you guys on Friday night at my house. And so of course I was told I was off work and went to the pastor's house. And the pastor made me wait in the living room and he took my boyfriend into his study. And they were gone about 10 minutes, maybe more. When he came out, my boyfriend looked very troubled. He looked preoccupied and he said, penny, will you marry me? We're living in sin and I can't live in sin anymore, so will you marry me? He had talked to me about that before. My boyfriend had said to me like three or four visits after I got saved, he said, you know we're living in sin, right? I really didn't know what he meant because I didn't really have a concept of sin or hell or heaven. Even though they talked about it at the church, I wasn't absorbing it. Like my little 17 year old brain was looking at people and looking at clothes and looking at the guitar player and looking at the piano. I wasn't able to comprehend that. So it meant nothing to me. And I didn't feel guilty. Like I hadn't been what I would call a terrible sinner, right? I know now because I've read the Bible, that like any sin, even jealousy is sin. But at the time, I didn't even think sleeping with your boyfriend. I kind of knew it was wrong, but I didn't equate it to sin. So I didn't feel any Guilt in my heart whatsoever. However, unbeknownst to me, because you didn't tell me yet that my boyfriend did. He had been stealing from his boss and he had gambled and he had drank and he had, you know, had lots of sex. And he felt very guilty. And so he really absorbed this Christian thing and became like, all in. From the minute he got saved, he immediately quit drinking and quit smoking cold turkey. And that wasn't the case for me. So then we have this meeting with the pastor. He comes out and he says, will you marry me? And nobody twisted my arm physically. But again, I knew in that moment that if I didn't say yes, I was out. I was out of a place to live, I was out of a job, I was out of the church. And, you know, I thought I loved him at the time. And I didn't see a lot of dangerous signals yet again, I'm 17. The big thing was he didn't beat me. So I assumed, you know, I was safe. And we got engaged and we started planning a wedding. And the church was very, very heavily involved, very heavily from the get go. And I did end up finding another apartment and moving out. So I didn't live with him anymore. After that. The church would talk to us about things like birth control. And again, I'm 17 and I'm thinking, are you kidding me? If we can't use birth control, I could have a baby a year for the next 20 years. I said, this is ridiculous. I was pushing back. And I was pushing back so much that the pastor said to me, you have a rebellious spirit. We need to send you to Bible school.
- [10:51]
A
Yeah, I've heard this before. You have a rebellious spirit thing.
- [10:55]
B
So they sent me away to Bible school, literally. And you know what? I didn't mind going because the pastor was overbearing. And my then fiance became overbearing because the way he looked at the world was different than the way I look at the world now. He looked at the world like the pastor said, therefore, you need to do it. No free will. Know your own relationship with God, even though that's what they preach. He became like my spiritual director and enforcer. So I had to do whatever the pastor said, whether I wanted to or not, whether I was ready to or not. And the pastor made me do some really strange things that I did not want to do, but again, under pressure from my boyfriend. Here's an example. The Bible says, children obey your parents. Well, that's great when you're living with your parents, maybe. But what happens if Your parents beat you. So the pastor made me go back to my stepmother and ask her forgiveness for running away.
- [11:56]
A
Even though you ran away because your stepmother was beating you?
- [11:59]
B
Beating me, mean to me, calling me names, withholding food. I was humiliated. And again, I knew if I don't do this, I have to walk away. So I did it. And he even said, if she wants, you need to move back home. And I thought, you've got to be kidding me. I have been gone a year and a half. I have my own apartment, I have my own job, I have a bank account. I'm engaged. Are you kidding? Nope, they weren't kidding. So luckily my stepmother said, no, I don't have to move back, that I would disrupt the family. And I had a little sister and yada yada, I've hurt my sister by running away. So luckily I didn't have to do it. But that's the kind of thing I mean about domineering and overbearing and making me do things. Now as a middle aged woman, I look back and I say, why didn't that tell me right then and there, who's going to be in charge of the relationship? That whatever my husband will say will be right, not whatever I feel in my heart is right. But I didn't see that. So I go to way to Bible college for a year and it's a wonderful, wonderful experience. And during this time, things change at the IHOP and my husband quits it and opens up a restaurant. The restaurant ends up failing. So now he's out of a job and he's out of money and he gets another job at another ihop, but it's in Maryland. And I'm thrilled to move away from this overbearing pastor. I finish Bible college, we get married after Bible college by that same pastor. We immediately move away really quickly.
- [13:28]
A
How did you like Bible college?
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B
I loved it. And the reason I loved it is because it was in a beautiful, beautiful setting in upstate New York and I lived in an all girls dorm. I've never had friendships with girls my age before because I wasn't allowed to.
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A
You have this good experience where you're safe, you're housed, you have food. Yeah, you're getting an education even though it's something that you didn't expect.
- [13:54]
B
And the college is a lot less focused on rules. I mean there are rules, for instance, at Bible colleges, Christian colleges, in that time, I don't know how it is today, you couldn't wear pants. So even though it was winter, we wore long wool skirts. Over our boots. It gets really cold in upstate. We had long coats. And so, like, there's rules like that. But you know, you can live with that, right? Because the rest of it, you're having a great time. You're studying, you're going on little field trips. In the summer, you're a camp counselor at a Christian camp. You know, so it's fun. It's fun to be around other girls my age. Something I've never had before. I graduate, we get married, we move away. I'm a New Yorker, so I dress up. I'm back to wearing jeans and high heels and makeup and pretty dresses. I'm myself. We live in Maryland for about three years. And it's rocky. It's not an easy marriage because he's domineering and everything is his way. And I feel lost. But I don't know what to do. Because the church teaches that divorce is sin. And further, they teach that if you deliberately do something that you know is sin, like divorce, then you may be not even a Christian at all. Which is scary, right? Because if you're a Christian, which I thought I was at the time, then you're afraid of hell, you're afraid of displeasing God. It's a mind game. They differentiate between accidental sin, like, oh, I fell into temptation, I committed adultery. That would be accidental sin, which is.
- [15:23]
A
Not accidental at all. That is 100% on purpose. Your penis just doesn't fly out of your pants, Right?
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B
But that's what they teach. And I'm sure you've heard that before.
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A
Oh, 100%. And then what, you just trip and then you accidentally have sex with. No, it's misogynistic because it's always benefits the man. The man, it's always accidental. But women, it's always on purpose, right?
- [15:44]
B
So at some point we meet up with this guy who runs a Bible study in his home. He's in Bible college in Maryland. My then husband is an accolade of this pastor. Right?
- [15:56]
A
What does accolade mean in that context?
- [15:58]
B
He loves this pastor. He's a follower of this pastor. He thinks he's the greatest. So this pastor finally graduates Bible college and he tries to get ordained. And he's having a very hard time getting ordained, which should have been a red flag, but it wasn't. Finally this pastor finds a sect that will ordain him and he gets assigned to some rural rural church in the middle of very rural Michigan, in a town of 200, a church that's been around like a hundred years. It's a handful of old ladies that are just like keeping this church alive. And the pastor moves away and my husband misses him so much, so he arranges a trip to visit this pastor. And I think, great. It's just a one week trip. We drive to Michigan from Maryland, we go to visit. And I'm just out of my element. I've never been in a place so rural before. And the church is weird and it's small and I'm uncomfortable. I grew up in a city and these people are people that have never left their hometown. They've maybe never left the state. They're just, just different. Nothing wrong with them, just different from me. So we go back to Maryland, I go back to work and I'm happy. I focus on being a good wife. I don't think about church. We're visiting different churches every weekend. And all of a sudden the pastor who lives in Michigan, his wife calls and says, hey Penny, I found you guys an apartment. And I said, what? He said, oh yeah, your husband told me to look for an apartment for you guys, that you guys are moving. And he hadn't asked me and he hadn't told me. So I'm very upset because I did not want to move. I knew that place would kill me. I knew it was too weird for me. I didn't want to move. But he's making plans. He said, listen, I'm moving, so you need to get your head around this. I've given my notice to my boss, we're moving in two months. I don't know what to do. And I remember talking to his brother's wife. So my sister in law, and she's also born again Christian, but she lives in New Jersey and she's an independent woman. I would have called myself back then a weak person. Like, because I had no freedom as a child, I hadn't healed from my childhood trauma. I was scared, I was timid. I had never lived on my own. My sister in law, on the other hand, was a very strong woman. She went into her marriage as a strong woman. She was already a Christian when she had met my brother in law. And she kind of called the shots for her life. When she got married, for example, she said, I don't want children in the evangelical church. That's like a, that's huge. That's a big no, no, because that's your job as a woman is to be a good mother and keep house. And so I trusted her. So I called her up and I said, what do I do? I don't remember exactly what she said, but she kind of somehow, in a way that I can't even remember, talked me into it, kind of by saying, look, he's your husband. This is part of God's plan. You think you won't like it, but God's plan is always wonderful, and you're probably going to like it once you get there. So I think you should go. Like that sort of thing. She didn't pressure me. She didn't threaten or ultimate him. There was no hell, nothing like that. But somehow she made it okay. And I don't remember how, probably because I was traumatized. So we moved and uprooted everything we knew. And it was very weird. I was very young. We got married when I was 18. Three years later, 21. And we moved to this place where everybody is at least 10 years older than me. And they had never been to college. The women never worked outside the home. They got married to their childhood sweethearts at 17 or 18 or 19. And now they had a bunch of kids. And the area was very depressed, so people didn't have a lot of money. They literally stretched a giant jar of peanut butter week to week. It was very dependent on the auto industry, so people were needy. People were very committed to the church because really, that's all they had. I think I'm judging here. I'm making a judgment. Whereas I always looked at things wide open, like, why aren't we going anywhere on weekends? We lived an hour and a half from Ann Arbor and two hours from Detroit, but nobody ever went, ever to see museums or art or theater. Nothing. I didn't fit in. And I started questioning things again. I didn't like what was being taught. They were teaching some really weird stuff, like, the church becomes your authority and you have to ask the church's permission before you do anything, like buy a house, go on vacation, have another baby. And I was trying to have a baby at the time. And instead of encouraging me to have a baby, they were like having me babysit people's children while they went away for a few days, kind of to teach me how hard it was to have a baby.
- [20:52]
A
But, like, didn't they ultimately want you to be a parent?
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B
It's hard to say now. Yes and no. But I had been trying for three years and I was not getting pregnant.
- [21:03]
A
Oh, maybe they're trying to, quote, unquote, make you feel better.
- [21:05]
B
Or. Here's the thing, like, in the church, everybody has a gift. And wouldn't it be convenient if I had the gift of Serving. And I don't have my own children to take care of because then I could serve the church a lot. I could serve other people in the.
- [21:19]
A
Church, be people's free babysitter.
- [21:22]
B
Right. Some people I get along with in the church and some people I don't. And we typically had somebody over for Sunday dinner or they had us over. We were supposed to fellowship and meet with people and have coffee with them. We weren't supposed to have relationships with anybody outside the church. So none of us had friends outside the church. Unless of course, you had family there, which we didn't. So it ended up that you only spent time with people in the church. I was not happy, but I was doing my thing. I was doing all the things. Reading the Bible and going to prayer and fellowshipping with the women and helping out in the church and that kind of stuff. And at some point a cousin of mine was getting married on the east coast and I had asked to go.
- [22:02]
A
And you asked the church to go?
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B
I asked my husband to go and my husband went and asked the church went and asked the pastor.
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A
That's intense. Okay.
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B
Yeah. The pastors came over and met with the pastor and the elder came over and met with me and they said, penny, why do you want to go to this church on the East Coast? You know, I didn't tell them the real reason, it's boring as heck here. But I just said, my cousins, it's fun. I haven't been away, haven't been back, haven't seen them, I want to go. And they said, well, why do you.
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A
Want to go to this church? You're just going for like one day, right? For the wedding. You're not like becoming a member of this other church, right?
- [22:34]
B
Right. Oh, it wasn' even at a church. It was just a wedding, a cousin's wedding somewhere on the East Coast. Right.
- [22:40]
A
Wow. Why do you want to go to this wed? Okay.
- [22:43]
B
What they said was, you pray about it and if the Lord tells you to go, that's fine with us. Well, of course I didn't hear voices and I didn't hear a yay or nay. And so I decided, well, I didn't hear no, so let's go. So we packed up the car, we drove, it's, you know, eight hour drive or something back to the east coast from Michigan. We get there, we're there for the whole weekend. We stay with cousins or grandmother, I can't remember. And we had a great time. But as soon as we start driving, getting close to Michigan again, I start feeling this uneasy feeling in my stomach, like, ooh, I wonder if I'm going to get in trouble for this. And sure enough, there's a knock on the door. The day after we get back, the pastor and the elder come, and they say, penny, tell us about your trip. And I look over at my husband, he's looking at the floor. I'm like, well, we went. We had a great time. We danced, we socialized. And they say, we don't believe you. Like, what do you mean you don't believe me? And he said, we don't believe you had a good time. I said, I had a really good time. And he said, are you sure you didn't just try to have a good time? I said, no. And they said, we think you're lying. We think God told you not to go. So we think you're lying about going and having fun. So we're gonna excommunicate you. We're gonna discipline you is the word they used.
- [24:01]
A
Did they think you went somewhere else?
- [24:04]
B
No.
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A
So this is just like a huge manipulation thing. They know you actually went.
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B
My husband went with me, and my husband's in the room. Yeah.
- [24:11]
A
And he doesn't stand up for you or defend you or anything.
- [24:15]
B
As a matter of fact, he must have called the elders behind my back to say, we're back.
- [24:19]
A
He was abusive. We know he was abusive. Even though you didn't know it at the time. Right. He's emotionally abusive, psychologically abusive. What do you think was his abusive reason for calling the elders on you and getting you excommunicated?
- [24:32]
B
I think he thought that it was his job to keep me holy and keep me righteous, and therefore anything that the pastor thought was wrong.
- [24:42]
A
But you hadn't done anything wrong.
- [24:44]
B
That's correct.
- [24:45]
A
So he was just trying to put you down? Just trying to think of his abusive reason. He goes to this wedding with you and he sees you happy. He sees you dancing. He sees like, oh, my word, she could notice that I'm abusing her and that she's so exploited and sad. I don't want her to recognize when she's happy. I'm going to try and shut this down. Maybe something like that. We don't know exactly possible.
- [25:09]
B
So the elder says, you're on discipline. We're disciplining you. And discipline means you don't talk to anybody in the church. You don't call them. You don't say hi to them on the street. You don't meet with them, you don't come to services. You're excommunicated. You stay home or you stay away from anybody in the church. And we'll get back to you when we think you're repentant. And so here I am. We have a tiny, tiny apartment. It's a studio apartment. And I'm an outgoing person. I'm an extrovert. And I'm left on my own. And my husband leaves for work in the morning, and you can clean the whole apartment in half an hour. And I wash the dishes, do the laundry and do the shopping and mow the lawn, and you do all the stuff. And luckily, I love to read, so I go to the library. But I'm heartbroken and I'm crestfallen and I'm depressed, and I stay in bed most of the day because I'm so depressed that this has happened to me. And I don't know how it happened. And because I didn't lie, I didn't know how to change it. So I'm powerless, I'm stuck. And again, I don't even think of leaving at this point, right? Because now I'm three years into a marriage. I'm into the church. I'm a good Christian. I believe what I'm taught. I believe the Bible, but yet God's not helping me.
- [26:22]
A
And you're exactly where they want you.
- [26:25]
B
And I'm depressed and I'm not eating and I'm not sleeping again. I call my sister in law, or my sister in law calls me. She must have heard about it, and she calls me and she says, oh, Penny, you know, we're all in sin. One way or the other, we're all in sin. So just confess to the elders that you lied and get it over with, and they'll take you back. It'll be fine. And so I say to myself, oh, my God, I don't know why I didn't think of that. That's what I'm gonna do. So I do it. I tell my husband I'm ready to confess. He goes and tells the elders. A couple of days later, the elders come back to me and they come to the house and they're all smiling with these fake smiles because there's a verse in the Bible that says that there's more joy in heaven over the one son who comes back to the faith than the hundred non believers that convert. I don't remember the exact verse, but it's something like that. And so they say, we forgive you, and we're so happy. This was midweek, so stay away from the church and we'll invite you back to the church at the Sunday service. And what I didn't know, which they didn't tell me at the time, was that when they invited me back to the Sunday service, I basically sat outside until the elders brought me in. And then they said, congregation, we have something to tell you. We have something to rejoice in. Our sister Penny has repented of her sins, and she's been in sin for a month. But thank God, praise God, she's repented and she's come back to us. And the Bible tells us to welcome her with open arms. Well, a couple of people in the church stood up, a husband and wife team that were kind of newish to the church. They'd been there maybe a couple months. They got up and they said, this is wrong. And they got up and they walked out.
- [28:04]
A
Were they like, we don't want her back? So that's why they left?
- [28:08]
B
No, I think that they were upset that this happened to me.
- [28:11]
A
Oh, okay. So they were on your side. Good for them.
- [28:14]
B
Everybody else in the church was dead silent. Nobody said a word. And everybody's staring at me. I had no idea this was gonna happen in those days. We sat in a circle, so a great big circle. Imagine we were in, like, a ballroom. We were renting an old, old, old hotel in this town. A big, giant ballroom. So we're all sitting in a circle, all facing each other, and everybody's staring at me aghast. He doesn't tell them what the sin is. So you can imagine people are thinking, was it adultery? Was it child abuse? Was. Is she a gambler? Is she a drinker? Does she take drugs? Nobody knew. Right.
- [28:48]
A
I just want to pause here for a second to just point out why this is happening. Not necessarily to you in particular, but just in general. It's psychological abuse to try and force someone to think that something happened when it didn't. And then they also want to ruin someone's reputation so they could be like, okay, the sin was you jaywalked, but we're not going to tell people that. And we're just going to leave it up to everybody's imagination in order to ruin your reputation and harm you. Wow, okay.
- [29:19]
B
It was really horrific. And then here's the other thing that happens to me as a person on the inside is that because I didn't do anything wrong to begin with, and they told me I did, then from that moment on, walked on eggshells every minute of every day and could never relax because I never knew if I was doing something wrong. And I didn't know if I was lying because if somebody said to me, how you doing today, Penny? But really I was nervous in my stomach, but I didn't want to say that, then I would run back to that person and say, I'm okay, but I'm nervous in my stomach and I didn't want to lie to you. So I was constantly going back to everybody and correcting myself. So I looked like a fool. So here now people don't know if they trust me.
- [30:02]
A
I want to point out this is what an abuser would do on purpose to undermine your confidence in order order to be able to exploit you more or control you more. It is a purposeful tactic that someone would do to a victim.
- [30:17]
B
I did not know that at the time.
- [30:18]
A
Right. I'm just pointing that out to my listeners so that if they're like, oh, this is happening to me right now. It is a purposeful thing to undermine someone's confidence.
- [30:31]
B
So this went on for another couple of years, living in fear and turmoil and insecurity. And something else happened again where I was accused and I was disciplined again for a very long time, like for a year. And I was really broken as a person, suicidal. Very, very broken. And when it came time, the elders decided, enough. They said, you either leave or you confess. And I decided to leave. And that meant leaving the church. I left my husband and I left the state. I was a complete broken person. I was 31 by that point. And I basically had to start life all over again. Meaning I didn't have a job, I didn't have money, I didn't have a degree, I didn't have a career and I was scared of everybody. I thought my life was over at 31. I thought no one would love me and I would just be a street beggar and maybe a waitress. But that's not what happened. Because once I was free, I became a full human being. And it's been a powerful, powerful thing. Overcame all those obstacles and became a highly successful and highly paid salesperson with a master's degree, undergrad degree, highly respected, retired early, adopted a son, have a wonderful husband and a marriage and a home. It took a lot of work, and it's still work.
- [31:57]
A
If you could go back to that 17 year old that you were and talk to yourself when you're working at this ihop, what would you say to yourself?
- [32:11]
B
I would say, don't do it. There are many people in the world. He's not the only one. This isn't your only job in the world. There's many jobs in the world. You don't need them. You're stronger, you're wiser, you're smarter. You can do it on your own.
- [32:30]
A
That's what I want to share with our listeners is I don't know where your journey to psychological and emotional safety will take you. So different for every single person. But the important thing is that you are brave and you are strong and you can do it. The abusers, they want you to think that you can't. They want you to think that you're dependent on them. They want you to think that you're not smart or that you're incapable. And that is not true. You are brave and you are strong. You are capable. So, Penny, thank you for your story of hope and thriving after abuse. I really appreciate you coming on today's episode.
- [33:12]
B
It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [33:14]
A
If you've already purchased a copy of my book Trauma Mama Husband Drama on Amazon, please circle back and give it a five star rating. A lot of women are searching for books to figure out what to do about their husband and rating. Trauma Mama will also help them find this podcast, which is free to everyone. And of course, your donations help keep this podcast going. Go to btr.org, scroll to the bottom and click on support the BTR podcast until next week. Stay safe out there.