Dec. 15, 2024
Deborah's Courageous Journey: From Emotional Abuse to Empowerment and Advocacy
What if awakening in a psychiatric ward could be the catalyst for a transformative life change? Join us as Deborah Griffiths courageously shares her journey from a toxic marriage to becoming an empowered single mother and advocate. Her story is a testament to the strength and resilience required to break free from an abusive environment and rebuild a life filled with purpose and hope. Alongside Deborah, we explore the deeply complex layers of emotional abuse, highlighting the critical importance of recognizing the subtler signs of control and manipulation.
As we navigate the intricacies of Deborah's past relationship, stunning reflections emerge on the challenges of overcoming parental alienation and the resilience needed to reconnect with estranged children. Deborah’s narrative, intertwined with powerful personal stories, reveals the painful yet necessary steps taken to address substance abuse within the family. Through her journey, we celebrate transformation—her son’s triumph over addiction and the newfound strength and independence of her youngest child. This exploration underscores the necessity of setting boundaries and the power of unwavering support in overcoming familial adversities.
This season finale is not just a closing chapter but a celebration of survival and growth. Reflecting on 28 impactful episodes, including the tragic yet inspiring story of Nicole, we honor the countless survivors of domestic violence who have bravely shared their stories. With heartfelt gratitude, we appreciate our guests and listeners, promising more engaging content and enlightening stories in the coming year. As we prepare to return, we remind survivors that hope and support are always within reach, encouraging you to continue this journey of empowerment with us.
Chapters
00:04 - Overcoming Toxic Marriage
12:12 - Recognizing and Recovering From Emotional Abuse
19:34 - Navigating Divorce and Toxic Behavior
27:02 - Healing From Parental Alienation and Abuse
38:44 - Empowering Survivors of Domestic Violence
53:09 - Finale of Season One Celebrations
Transcript
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Hi everyone and welcome to today's episode of On the Spectrum with Sonia, a podcast where we discuss autism spectrum, mental health challenges and anybody who has had an adverse story that can share how they've overcome that adversity and leave people feeling empowered, connected, full of love and hope, with courage and determination, especially in a world where we are made to feel disconnected from one another.
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Our goal here on this podcast is to help people feel connected and feel like we are more alike than different.
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On this podcast episode today, we have a very special guest, deborah Griffiths.
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I met her.
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I had the privilege of meeting her at CreativeCon back in February of this year and I will be seeing her in Chicago again in 2025.
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And I will be seeing her in Chicago again in 2025.
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And Debra is an amazing person.
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I remember when she did her podcast pitch in front of the stage for everyone, and the reason I was drawn to her story is all the reasons we're going to talk about on today's podcast.
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Debra is a survivor of a toxic marriage.
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She's undergone a lot of abuse in her marriage and she now uses what she has gone through and has a company called From Broken to Boldness and it helps people, especially women, who've gone through abusive relationships and she helps them with building their self-esteem, reclaiming their life.
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Because everyone knows and as a therapist here I can also say one of the first things that gets taken from people in any kind of toxic relationship whether it be an intimate relationship, whether it be toxic friendships, whether it be a toxic employment relationship or family relationship dynamic the first thing that gets taken is, in fact, your sense of self-worth, your sense of self-esteem and your feeling that, like who am I?
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I don't you know.
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If everyone hates me, I'm going to hate me too.
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Like what's wrong with me?
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It's not uncommon for people to ask these questions when they've gone through things, especially when they are belittled by someone who makes them feel like the world is against them.
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And without further ado, let's just please welcome Debra to the platform.
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Debra, welcome on here.
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Good morning Welcome.
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Thank you, Sonia, for having me.
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Thank you for the opportunity.
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I look forward to having the chat.
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Well, thank you so much for being here, debra.
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Why don't you tell people a little bit about you, in the sense of like sharing a little bit of your story?
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Talking about you know just who you are.
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Sure, I am actually divorced.
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I'm a mother of three children, two boys and a girl, who have long flown the coop.
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But I found myself about 25 years ago waking up in the psych ward, learning that I had attempted suicide.
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And when my doctor who I had been seeing because I had been battling some depression and didn't know quite why I was battling depression he came into my room and said your environment is making you sick and that hit me like a 10-ton truck, you know.
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And I realized that the marriage that I had been in was toxic and that I needed to get out of it was toxic and that I needed to get out of it.
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I wanted to show my kids that they had a strong mother.
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I also wanted to show my kids that the abuse, what was going on, this type of relationship is not normal.
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I did not want them to get into these kind of situations, nor did I want them to learn to treat other people, especially intimate partners going forward like this.
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So I felt like the abuse needed to end with me.
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So I left the marriage.
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And so I left the marriage and slowly but surely took two of the three kids, because at the time the oldest one was 14 and could decide which parent he could live with, and he chose his father.
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So I took the other two kids and I had been a stay-at-home mom.
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So I had to find a place to live.
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I had to find a job that could support two kids and myself and slowly rebuild my life, including getting my kids some some help, because there was a lot of.
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It was a bitter divorce.
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I'll just say that it was very bitter and the kids, you know, got caught up into it.
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You know they exhibit some of the typical behavior, you see, based on their ages.
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At the time A lot of it was acting out or, you know, anger, but it just took a long time to rebuild.
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I eventually worked my way up the corporate ladder and put myself back to through school and finished college and got a college degree and worked with you know been working with my kids.
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I have a great relationship with the three kids today.
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You know, and you know it's a very courageous uh story.
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You shared in the what you've overcome and I know it takes a lot of bravery to actually say that this is what had happened to me.
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This is where I ended up, because I was in such a toxic environment, waking up in a unit, because I tried to end my life.
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Um, tom, so if we were to dissect this marriage, when you look back at it, what were some of the things you started to notice first, like what were some of the red flags you that were getting presented to you that you missed at the time, and how did it progress into a place where you got so broken down that you felt like the only way out is just not being on earth anymore?
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That's a great question.
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And it wasn't any one thing.
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It was a combination of years of little things that kind of kept adding up.
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I was 19 when I married him.
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When I met him, I thought he was the one being brought up.
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Catholic Divorce was not in the vocabulary and so, you know, I took my vows very, very seriously.
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Probably the first red flag and I talk about a little bit in my book is when my dad went to walk me down the aisle.
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My stomach did a huge flip.
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To walk me down the aisle, my stomach did a huge flip and I remember grabbing onto my dad and he said you know, you don't have to go through this.
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Well, by that time there's 200 people in the church and they're all looking at me because I'm literally in the entrance and stuff.
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And I thought, no, I thought I chalked it up to wedding day dinners and I didn't think you know anything more about it.
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And then it was just little things throughout the years, like being told not to wear nail polish or very controlling like no, I don't think you should go see.
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You know, your friends, let's go do this instead.
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Over the course of the years there was more and more isolation from my family.
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He'd find ways of taking, maybe, things that I had said in the past and twisting them and turning them.
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Turning them, you know, to make it think like, oh, yeah, yeah, well, maybe you know, maybe, maybe maybe you're right.
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You know, I realize now he's probably really paranoid, you know, because not letting me talk to you know too much to other people I wanted at one point in time there's an age difference about six years between my oldest and the second one, and I wanted to go back to work, you know, just to kind of get out of the house a little bit, because by that time the oldest one was in, in like preschool type of thing, and I was basically told well, if you take a job, you still have to clean the house and keep the car up and keep the yard up, and I want my shirts pressed and ironed.
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So I was made to feel like, well, why bother?
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You know, it wouldn't even allow the dry cleaners to, you know, to press the shirts Right, and so it just eventually got to the point where I didn't realize it at the time, but I was walking on eggshells, you know, if the sky was blue, no, there's a few clouds on it.
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So, whatever I said, I was made to feel like I was wrong.
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And going back to that stomach flip, I'm about 17 years into the marriage, right, and picked up a magazine National Woman's Magazine in the grocery stores doing the weekly shopping and there was a recipe on the cover and I thought, well, let me try that something.
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And there was an article in there about verbal abuse and I remember seeing it and I just put the magazine down, didn't think about it.
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And a couple of days later I picked up the magazine and I read the article and this woman talks about how her stomach was flipping every time her husband would come home and she knew that there was something wrong.
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Stomach was flipping every time her husband would come home and she knew that there was something wrong.
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Now, by this time in the marriage, my, my ex was, um, doing a lot of traveling, so he'd be gone for almost a week at a time, which was kind of like a breathing room now that I look back at it.
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And when he opened up the garage door coming home, it was like Friday afternoon.
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My stomach flipped and I thought, oh no, this couldn't be.
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So the next week, um, it happened again and by about that time.
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Um, I decided to to seek some some professional help because I didn't know, I wasn't happy.
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And I picked up the phone one day and talked to my mom.
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Now, granted, this was back in the day when the rates were cheaper to dial after 7 o'clock or to call after 7 o'clock than now, but this was during the middle of the day and, again, even calling my parents, it was very controlled, like how often I could call them, when I could call them, etc.
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So I call my mom and I said is everything OK?
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And I said you know, I don't know.
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I said all I know is I'm not happy and I don't know why.
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And she said I have been praying for this call for years, oh my.
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And I said what?
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And she said we talked a little bit about some stuff, maybe why I wasn't happy.
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And she said you know, because we always thought he was controlling but we couldn't put our fingers on it, thought he was controlling but we couldn't put our fingers on it.
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So that's when I knew I needed to probably get some help and kind of figure this out, what was going on.
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And I remember the first visit.
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I'd written a bunch of stuff down and I'm reading it to the doctor.
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And at the end of the session, I mean, he didn't say a word, I just kept talking.
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And at the end of the session, I mean he didn't say a word, I just kept talking.
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And at the end of the session I just said you know, I don't know what's wrong with me.
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And he looked at me and he said there's nothing wrong with you.
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And that just started my wheels turning.
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It's like, okay, if there's nothing wrong with me, then what is going on?
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Am I not happy?
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And that's when we slowly started unraveling some of this stuff.
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I learned about codependency and boundaries and, um, you know, was trying to talk to my ex at the time and and I had to be very careful about it because I didn't know when he was gonna fly off the coop and and so it it just didn't.
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It just kept spiraling downhill and he tried to make an effort, you know to to make some changes, but it was you know how your your pendulum it was.
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It's stuck in one way.
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Then all of a sudden it goes the other way.
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It's like wait a minute, a minute, I can't handle that.
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I need, I need something more in the middle and it just kept spiraling and I started to get very, very depressed.
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As I say that, that to the point where you know I attempted suicide.
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And so, and that's a really really that's really tough.
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And you know, I do see a lot of, you know, understanding and I have a lot of understanding, rather, about how you felt in that sense because you know, based off alone what you're saying about how everything was controlled.
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Even if you had a job, there were certain tasks that needed to be done, things done in a certain way.
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It seemed like you know also even your own parents.
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The amount of contact you could have with your parents, even with your friends, that was also very controlled as well.
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So it seems like you were practically living in a prison in your own home.
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You know, you know it's like you were a prisoner in your own home and the prison guard really was your ex.
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Yeah, you know, when you now look at it it does paint that picture and as, again, this took 17 years to get to, to get to this point.
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So you know we did have some good memories.
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I mean, there's always.
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I have great memories of you know, my kids and doing things with them and stuff like that.
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I don't want to paint it all as the the, the bleak, a bleak picture, but when it but, it was enough.
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What do they call it?
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It's like love.
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You know, things are all of a sudden good and then you think everything's good and then all of a sudden there's a bomb drops and it's like what in the world just happened?
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And you're you're thinking, well, what did I do, what did I say?
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And it hadn't been nothing, you know, and I could have sneezed the wrong way.
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It couldn't have been nothing, you know, and I could have sneezed the wrong way, and the bomb just drops.
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And then you know, then things start getting good again and then the bomb drops again.
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So it was that constant, what they now call love bombing that I was involved in.
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So that's why it took.
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It took a long time for me to kind of realize it and again, 25 years ago.
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They didn't really talk about it, they didn't even call what I was going through gaslighting.
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They barely called it verbal abuse and really didn't even liken that to domestic abuse, which we now know is part of gaslighting is part of domestic abuse, abuse, which we now know is part of gaslighting is part of domestic abuse.
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So there's, you know, I'm kind of like living in a time where there's not a lot talked about or and again, control.
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You know, it was more like my parents thought he was controlling Not so much.
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You know, narcissism wasn't even really talked about, you know then, and him just exhibiting narcissistic tendencies which led to this.
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So I'm grateful now there's a lot more information, you know, for people to be aware.
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It's just sad that still so many people are caught in these type of situations and why.
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I really kind of want to talk about it and raise these red flags, and it's not just the red flags, it's the subtleties of, of the abuse.
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Because you can, you, you know, I'm the kind of type, I'm the type of person that I try to look for the good in somebody before I ever see the bad.
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And you know, it's so easy to chalk off something like OK, well, he got bad.
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Maybe he's just having a bad day, and then it gets to the point of how many times are you going to chalk it up to he's having a bad day?
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Is writing it as an excuse?
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That's something that I didn't correlate to, and one thing is I will say is I wish I had listened to my gut at the very beginning, but then again I don't regret anything because number one, I learned a a lot and I wouldn't have the three kids that I have today.
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So I and I'm the type of person that thinks that things happen, and things happen to us or for us to get to a certain point, you know, as part of our purpose, our overall purpose I feel like now, you know, it's my turn to help somebody else.
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Somebody else gets that flip in their stomach from what I just said today and made a change to save their life, then this is worth it.
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You know and when you look back at you know the that flip in your stomach that you had when you were walking down the aisle.
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Was there something that you may have noticed when you were dating that we can look back and reflect on and think you know what this is, this was not okay, I should have or not?
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I don't want to, and I teach my clients this all the time.
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We never want to be like should have, you know, like I tell them stop shooting yourself all the time.
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Right, because we never want to say should have.
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But what is something maybe I learned from this?
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As another way, let me rephrase that Look, what is something I could have learned from this when I look back, you know in the dating stages let alone the marriage, but the dating stages that when I was all dolled up walking down the aisle with all these people at the church, I could have avoided maybe.
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Perhaps I could have maybe changed direction or try to work things out or whatever you had to do beforehand or said something beforehand.
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Knowing what you know now, what is something in dating that you may have seen?
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That's a great question, because there was an incident.
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We met in college.
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It was both our first year in college and about it was like the first week of college.
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Basically we met and we both had early morning classes and so we would meet in the parking lot and for the most part for I don't know half a dozen, maybe a dozen times, he he'd come to my car, we'd sit in the car, we'd talk, um, listen to music.
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You know, before we had to actually get out to, you know, get go to class.
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One morning I'm in the parking lot and he doesn't come over, he just sits there, won't look at me, won't, won't do anything, you know nothing.
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And I just sat in the car and did my thing and and then um, go to leave for class and I said good morning and nothing.
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I got like the dead silent treatment and uh, it took almost all day, you know, for for him to kind of finally say you know, do I have to be the one to do all the work, you know?
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And blah, blah, blah, blah, and I'm like I'm sorry, I didn't know that this bothered you, you know you never said anything to me and I look back now is like, well, that was, he should not have treated me that way, you know, he, I did deserve a conversation and if it's bothered, and then then say, hey, you know, hey, how about?
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Maybe on Tuesdays you come into, you know, you come to my car, and Thursdays I go to your car, something to that effect, and it was through.
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Uh, and there were a couple of other incidents.
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I can't quite recall them off off the top of my head, but I know that that was a pretty pivotal one early on.
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And and again, I didn't say anything to my parents or anything, because didn't didn't really think to, because I think if I had said something to my mom she probably would have said, well, that seems weird and um, but going back after I left, I've always kept, I've always kept, like, all the cards and think, you know, my kids artwork, all that kind of stuff throughout the years and I'm looking at all these cards and a bunch of them must have started off saying I'm sorry, I made you angry, I'm sorry'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and I'm like, oh my gosh, and you know, I'm apologizing for things that I shouldn't have apologized for so your ex made you feel like you were the problem each and every time, yes.
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Was there ever a time you remembered him taking accountability for anything?
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No, no.
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And was there ever a time when you decided then, like was there ever a time then your kids, like, did they ever get treated also by your ex in the same kind of way, or was it different?
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That's another interesting question my oldest I always joke that I have his and her boys and a combination girl.
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By that I mean my oldest one looks like his dad.
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My second son looks like me and then my daughter has both of her brother's features and looks and stuff.
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My oldest one was always the favorite and I think maybe a lot of it was because he looked like his dad.
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When my second one came along he looked at him and said, oh, he looks different.
00:23:45.414 --> 00:24:02.667
And and that was before I could you know the nurse the nurse came and put him in my arms and when I took a look at him and I went, oh no, I thought he looks like me, you know, and I said it's okay, it's amazing what DNA and genes do.
00:24:02.667 --> 00:24:10.555
And always throughout the years there was a difference between how the two boys were treated.
00:24:11.096 --> 00:24:24.770
the years there was a difference between how the two boys were treated and a lot of times, people with a toxic kind of personality um will do that right.
00:24:24.770 --> 00:24:25.695
They will love to.
00:24:25.695 --> 00:24:38.657
You know, divide people divide because in doing so right they're able to control, keep their control, have their power, exert their power.
00:24:38.657 --> 00:24:52.284
And you know, one of the keys of people who are toxic is they want you to feel like you cannot live without them, that you would not have, you would not have anything.
00:24:52.284 --> 00:24:54.099
You would not have anything If it wasn't for them.
00:24:54.099 --> 00:25:00.240
It's, you know that it's just one of those things they want you to feel like.
00:25:00.240 --> 00:25:02.259
Okay, like you're.
00:25:02.259 --> 00:25:07.940
You know that You're suffocating In there the air you need.
00:25:09.175 --> 00:25:13.691
Well, and his parting words to me Were you will never make it and no one will ever love you, and they're the air you need.
00:25:13.691 --> 00:25:23.169
Well, and his parting words to me were you will never make it and no one will ever love you, which, by that time, that was the wrong thing to say to me.
00:25:23.169 --> 00:25:33.681
So it just propelled me to prove him wrong, and I, you know I have.
00:25:35.682 --> 00:25:38.806
Absolutely you have, I have, so you.
00:25:38.806 --> 00:25:45.412
So tell me a little bit now about, like what it was like to go through this divorce.
00:25:45.412 --> 00:26:04.390
Now I know his parting words were very harmful and untrue and, once again, all driven most likely because of his fear he was losing control at that point of view, and he was losing control of a family unit.
00:26:04.390 --> 00:26:07.857
So what, um?
00:26:07.857 --> 00:26:12.307
So what was the divorce process like for you?
00:26:12.307 --> 00:26:15.162
You know what was it like with the kids.
00:26:21.955 --> 00:26:27.953
Well, once he I finally had the courage to say this isn't working, I can't do this anymore.
00:26:27.953 --> 00:26:36.585
He took it better than I thought he would and we each got attorneys started doing the process.
00:26:36.585 --> 00:26:40.608
But when it came time for me to move out I couldn't even get all my stuff.
00:26:40.608 --> 00:26:59.784
He had changed the locks thankful that I had the child support garnished, because there was other aspects that that he was supposed to reimburse me for and it didn't happen until like 18 years later.
00:26:59.784 --> 00:27:23.305
So it was pretty, pretty messy and he started alienating with the kids that the oldest one particularly, got to the point where he wouldn't even talk to me if I were to call, say hi at the weekly visits we were still living in the same city at the time oh, he wouldn't, he wouldn't come.
00:27:23.305 --> 00:27:24.528
This is my oldest child now.
00:27:24.528 --> 00:27:25.596
He wouldn't come.
00:27:25.596 --> 00:27:29.281
You know, spend time with me for dinner, things, things of that nature.
00:27:29.281 --> 00:27:33.750
The other two would go to go see their dad.
00:27:33.750 --> 00:27:43.121
They would come back from visitation Kind of hyped up.
00:27:43.121 --> 00:27:50.065
They would act out for a little bit until you know they got back into the routine because they would hear a lot of you know dad said this about you or that.
00:27:50.065 --> 00:27:55.044
You know they got back into the routine because they would hear a lot of you know well, dad said this about you or that you know this and that.
00:27:55.044 --> 00:28:06.746
And the kids I mean my youngest one was about five or six at the time, so this was still a pretty impactful formative years.
00:28:06.746 --> 00:28:19.237
You know for them, you know for them for them.
00:28:19.277 --> 00:28:21.103
Uh, then about a couple years and into this, he met someone, remarried, moved out of state.
00:28:21.103 --> 00:28:24.795
We were both living in Georgia at the time and my family was in California.
00:28:24.795 --> 00:28:34.789
So once he moved, then I was able I moved back to California to have more family support for the two kids that I had.
00:28:34.789 --> 00:28:43.540
And also by that time my oldest one had left the house, he had started college, so he was in a dorm.
00:28:43.540 --> 00:28:49.508
So I felt like that was probably the best timing for me to make my move with the other two.
00:28:49.508 --> 00:28:54.915
And again, not much of a relationship with the oldest one.
00:28:54.915 --> 00:29:05.250
That took many, many years before we could kind of reestablish that relationship.
00:29:05.250 --> 00:29:08.419
I remained.
00:29:08.419 --> 00:29:12.914
You know it's painful as a mother not to have a relationship with your child.
00:29:12.914 --> 00:29:14.095
It's pretty painful.
00:29:14.095 --> 00:29:16.974
I just was consistent.
00:29:16.974 --> 00:29:25.923
I would call weekly, leave a message, and you know that was it.
00:29:25.923 --> 00:29:30.980
Every now and then he would call because there would be something going on that he needed help with.
00:29:31.996 --> 00:29:44.579
He wouldn't call his dad he was calling me and and then eventually, um it, it just all kind of changed and now we have we have a great relationship.
00:29:44.579 --> 00:29:46.904
It took a long time.
00:29:46.904 --> 00:29:51.942
Uh, the basic thing anybody, I would say, going through parental alienation.
00:29:51.942 --> 00:29:53.174
My heart goes out to you.
00:29:53.174 --> 00:29:56.301
Number one and number two be consistent.
00:29:56.301 --> 00:30:06.308
Even if they don't pick up the phone and talk to you, just leave a message, send the birthday card, send the Christmas card, but be consistent.
00:30:06.308 --> 00:30:10.376
It's that consistency that kids rely on.
00:30:10.376 --> 00:30:39.990
And then the other two my son had a lot of anger issues and especially would act up after he would have a visit with his dad, and he actually went down the illegal drug route for a while and this was he ended up dropping out of high school, which pained me.
00:30:39.990 --> 00:30:51.277
And when he turned 18, and I had taken him to rehab a couple of times and not try to get him cleaned up and stuff Well, he relapsed.
00:30:51.277 --> 00:30:54.782
He had turned 18 and I kicked him out.
00:30:54.782 --> 00:30:58.409
He was doing drugs in front of his sister.
00:31:03.579 --> 00:31:05.888
And I said I'm not allowing this.
00:31:05.888 --> 00:31:16.596
He said you, you, you got to go Hardest thing I ever had to do, but the best thing I ever did, and probably within six months, probably even less than that.
00:31:16.596 --> 00:31:18.904
There was an incident where he was.
00:31:18.904 --> 00:31:23.220
He called me, he was down at the sheriff's department and this was like two in the morning.
00:31:23.220 --> 00:31:25.307
I thought he had gotten arrested.
00:31:25.307 --> 00:31:39.587
But there was another incident that he was there at the time and and I happened to talk to the sheriff and I said is there any way you can put him in a holding cell for 24 hours?
00:31:39.587 --> 00:31:45.803
For him, I just need him to get to rock bottom, because he was high at the time.
00:31:45.803 --> 00:31:47.561
And the sheriff said he's high right now.
00:31:47.561 --> 00:31:48.737
He goes.
00:31:48.737 --> 00:31:55.082
I would love to be able to help you to do that, but the laws have changed and we can no longer do do that kind of stuff.
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