Latest / Bent Not Broken: Starting Over After Divorce | Post Divorce Life / Broken to Boldness: Starting Over After Divorce & Domestic Abuse with Deborah Griffiths

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Broken to Boldness: Starting Over After Divorce & Domestic Abuse with Deborah Griffiths · Bent Not Broken: Starting Over After Divorce | Post Divorce Life

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to another episode of Bent Not Broken.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Heartbreak and trauma may feel like the end of your story, but here it's the beginning of a bold new chapter.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Coach Deborah Griffiths, and this is the space where women rise, rebuild, and rediscover their purpose.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Remember this truth.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: You are bent, not broken.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, I want to offer a gentle trigger warning.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: This episode contains conversations about domestic violence, emotional abuse, suicide, and trauma.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: These topics may be difficult or activating for some listeners.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: But please take care of yourself, pause, breathe, or step away if you need to.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: If you or someone you love is in immediate danger or need support, you can contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: That's 7233.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: Or text start to 88788.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: You are not alone, and help is available 24-7.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Hello, and welcome to a very special episode of Bent Not Broken.
1:27
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm stepping into the guest seat on Law Enforcement Talk Radio with retired police sergeant and host John J.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: Wiley.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: And I want to prepare you because what you're about to hear is raw, honest, and deeply personal.
1:44
SPEAKER_00: In this conversation, I share the truth about living in an abusive marriage for almost 18 years.
1:51
SPEAKER_00: The emotional control, the isolation, the fear, and the silent suffering that eventually led me to a suicide attempt and a stay in a psychiatric hospital.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: You'll hear the exact moment a doctor told me your environment is making you sick.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: And how those words became the turning point that saved my life.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: This episode isn't about blame.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: It's about awareness.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: It's about breaking generational cycles, and most of all, it's about hope.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: If you are in a toxic or abusive relationship, or someone you love is, I want you to listen closely.
2:35
SPEAKER_00: Healing is possible, starting over is possible, and you are not alone.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: This is my story from broken to bold.
2:45
SPEAKER_00: Let's get into the conversation.
2:47
SPEAKER_01: She endured domestic violence for years.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Her recovery began in one of the most unusual and unlikely places.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: She's here to talk about what happened, what inspired her to move on, and what she's doing about it today.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: Her powerful story coming up on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: We are joined by special guests talking about their experiences, the realities of investigating crimes, plus those who experienced renous trauma.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: Police, first responders, military, and victims of crime share their stories.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm John J.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Wiley.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: And if you're being a broadcaster, I'm also a retired police sergeant.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: Be sure to check out our website, LETRadio.com.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: And like us on Facebook, search for the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: If you want to be a guest, simply contact us.
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Send us a message on Facebook.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Look for and like the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show page.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Or email J at LETradio.com.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: That's J-A-Y at L E Tradio.com.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: It's the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show joining us from California.
4:00
SPEAKER_01: We have Deborah Griffiths on the phone.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: Deborah is the author of multiple books.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: Her website is broken to boldness.com.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: That's brokentoboldness.com.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: She survived, escaped domestic violence.
4:13
SPEAKER_01: And I happen to meet Deborah at an event called CreativeCon.
4:18
SPEAKER_01: And it was a pleasure to meet you.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: Deborah, thanks so much for agreeing to tell your story on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: Very much appreciated.
4:24
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, John, for having me.
4:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to this.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate the opportunity.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that struck me about this is this is not a police perspective.
4:35
SPEAKER_01: This is Deborah's perspective, what you went through.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: But as a police officer, we are called the domestic violence calls all the time, is one of the most frustrating things we had to deal with.
4:43
SPEAKER_01: And we dealt with it all the time.
4:44
SPEAKER_01: And people don't realize we deal with a lot of the ills in society and we take on a lot of them as our own.
4:51
SPEAKER_01: But one of the things that impressed me the most, Deborah, was your willingness to talk about this because so many people they they almost sweep it under the rug.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I don't, I don't want to stand out.
5:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to tell people.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: But you went through this and you went through it for an extended period of time, didn't you?
5:05
SPEAKER_00: I did.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: It lasted out 17 and a half years.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: I came to the realization that I was in an abusive marriage when I woke up one afternoon and I was in the psych ward, and I realized that my attempted suicide failed.
5:25
SPEAKER_01: What a lot of people wake up in a psych ward, in a mental hospital, for lack of better words, lockdown units.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times that's the bitter end.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't get better for them.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: But you tried it unsuccessfully, thankfully, to do suicide.
5:39
SPEAKER_01: You wound up in this mental institution, and I'm sure it wasn't like aha moment.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: It took a little bit of time, but you came to the realization that what drove you there was what you went through in this abusive marriage.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Actually, the doctor that I had been seeing just prior to the suicide attempt for depression, he came in to visit me, and he simply said, Your environment is making you sick.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: And those are pretty powerful words.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: And that really caused me to think, what did get me here?
6:16
SPEAKER_00: I started backtracking and putting together the pieces and realized that I was not happy in this marriage.
6:23
SPEAKER_00: Not only was there some physical abuse, but there was a lot of verbal abuse.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: Right.
6:29
SPEAKER_00: And it drove me to the point where there was nothing of me left.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: I did not know who I was.
6:38
SPEAKER_00: I did not think anybody loved me, cared about me, or even wanted me to be around.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: Why was I here in this world if this is the best that the world had to offer?
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Which was pretty poor.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't get any lower than I was when I woke up.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: It's understandable because it's not uncommon.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: It's a you it it's not a unique feeling that a lot of people have.
7:02
SPEAKER_01: And it's not a unique solution to feeling like that for a long period of time.
7:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about suicide.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: And thankfully, you survived it.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: Thankfully, yes.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: And by the grace of God, he has other plans for me, which I now it's taken me 25 years to open up and talk about it.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: But I know this is what he wants me to do is to talk about it so that people can see some of the red flags and the subtleties and provide hope that they can get out and they can rebuild their lives.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Because I I have, I and I'm totally thankful that I have.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: One of the things I'm glad you brought up was that there was some physical violence and in your words, not uh an extensive amount, but more emotional abuse, more of the language that can take an equal toll.
7:50
SPEAKER_01: And a lot of people don't see the difference.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: They think, uh, that's kind of normal to be berated like that all the time.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: How first of all, how bad was the physical violence?
8:01
SPEAKER_00: There was an incident that occurred shortly after I got married within three or four months.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: I was 19 when I got married.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Being in California, we occasionally get these things called earthquakes.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: And there was a decent sized one, and I was by myself.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: My husband at the time was at work.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: I called my family, because they lived in the area, as making sure they were okay.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: My husband comes home and motions like who are you talking to?
8:31
SPEAKER_00: So I tell him, and he then he motions, get off the phone.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: And then he it started in.
8:37
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Why did you call them?
8:39
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, we had an earthquake.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't like them.
8:42
SPEAKER_00: I got scared and wanted to make sure my parents were all right.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: He goes, Well, you never call them for anything.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: If you need anything, you need to get a hold of me.
8:50
SPEAKER_00: This was report cell phone.
8:52
SPEAKER_00: So the only way you could, you know, I can make a call is actually stop and go to the nearest payphone at the corner gas station or wherever.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: So I I said, Well, I don't understand.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: Next thing I know, he slaps me hard across the face and put his fist through the wall.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: I was stunned.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: I was absolutely stunned.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: And I realized from then on I did not want to see that behavior again.
9:20
SPEAKER_00: So I did whatever I could to not cause him to react like that.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: So for 17 and a half years, I basically was walking on eggshow.
9:32
SPEAKER_00: I could say the sky was blue and he could have a different opinion and shut me down.
9:38
SPEAKER_00: That was just one aspect of it.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: There's an old saying that I use quite often, like a punch in the mouth.
9:46
SPEAKER_01: It's kind of hard to focus on anything else when that happens.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Being hit of any type as an adult is shocking.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter if you're 19 or 90.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: I think that your reaction to that was, look, I don't want that to happen again.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna do my part to make sure it doesn't.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: There's a word of caution there.
10:06
SPEAKER_01: And this is as a police officer, you're not responsible for what someone else does.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: I know you know that now, but at the time you probably didn't feel that way.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: You're like, uh, what did I do to cause this?
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I realized that was the beginning of me eventually shutting down to the point 17 and a half years later, I attempted suicide.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: There was nothing left of me.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Return our conversation on the law enforcement talk rate of show with Deborah Griffiths.
10:35
SPEAKER_01: She is the author of numerous books.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean numerous books.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: Go to our website, broken to boldness.com.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: That's broken to boldness.com.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: And she's connecting with us from California.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: She survived and escaped domestic violence and built a new life, which I'm sure you're going to hear more about.
10:54
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I met Deborah at CreativeCon in Chicago.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: That's spelled C-R-E, the number eight, T-I-V-E-C-O-N.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: And go to the website, CreativeCon.com.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: I was really moved by your story, Deborah, when you started talking about this is what happened, this is where I wound up, and this is the journey that it took to get to where I'm at today.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: You got my attention tremendously.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: So we're talking about being in a domestic violence situation, being due a physical abuser, a mental abuser, emotional abuser in a marriage for 17 plus years.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: And just to rehash a little bit, you wound up in a mental hospital after a suicide attempt.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: You've been in therapy.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: You talked a little bit about the first incident of domestic violence, physical violence.
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Were there more?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: Not with me, but there was one with my oldest son.
11:51
SPEAKER_00: She was about eight or nine, and he had come home from school.
11:56
SPEAKER_00: You know how sometimes kids act up, and then the teacher started talking out.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: Deborah, trust me, I grew up as a class clown.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: I was a kid who looked out the window too much, talked too much, told jokes, played magic tricks.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: It was always a joke.
12:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so he came home with one of those little notes, and I didn't think much of it.
12:16
SPEAKER_00: And at the time I was about five, six months pregnant with my youngest child, my third child.
12:21
SPEAKER_00: The next thing I know, my husband got extremely upset, took into the bathroom, and started beating him.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: And when I started hearing the screams, I went in and I at that point he stopped, but I felt so helpless seeing the red marks, the welts that were already forming from being hit with a belt.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: And I remember that night going to bed and feeling extremely guilty that I couldn't protect my child.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: Which child do I protect?
12:58
SPEAKER_00: The one that I'm carrying or trying to interfere with stopping what was happening.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: I did think about leaving the marriage that night.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: I'll be honest with you.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: But I was scared.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't worked outside the home since my oldest one was born, so that had been eight, nine years.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: I didn't feel like I could talk to my parents because at this point I was already isolated quite a bit from family, friends, even neighbors.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't feel like I could talk to anybody about it.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't think I could really make it on my own with three kids if I left him.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: So I was scared.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And again, it adds to what I said earlier about further shutting me down.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: For years I carried a guilt about what happened that night.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: Until I went through the annulment process with the Catholic Church, realized that incident was, as the priest told me, a chain that was binding me that I needed to release that night after I wrote it and realized it, I cried so hard.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: I've never cried that hard before.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: And I realized I had never forgiven myself for what happened.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: I was in the know-win situation.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do that, but I couldn't fix it.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: I get that a hundred percent.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: It also sounds a lot like what we call survivor skill.
14:34
SPEAKER_01: It's for different circumstances.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: I had to accept the fact that these things happened in my life, Deborah.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: And I guess I'm gonna phrase this as a question for you.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: But I had to realize that that I, you know, I'm not God.
14:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm not Superman.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: I could only do what I could do, the best I could do at the time, and that had to be good enough.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it wasn't.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: And that sounds like the situation you were in is not a whole lot you could have done about it.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:57
SPEAKER_00: I I was in a catch-22, and it took me many years to realize it wasn't my fault.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: I had to forgive myself.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: I've long forgiven my ex for that.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: My son and I have disgusted and gone through some healing about that situation.
15:18
SPEAKER_00: But again, the hardest thing was really forgiving myself.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: No, I did it.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: That night when I bombed, I cried harder than I think I've ever cried in my whole life.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: I knew that I had to release that.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: And I did release it, and I have moved on.
15:37
SPEAKER_00: As I say, I've made pizza with my son, who that happened to, and I've long forgiven my ex for the whole thing.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: All those years.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: I've moved on.
15:49
SPEAKER_01: I want you.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Look, forgiveness is not so much for the other person as it is for me.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: It really, really is.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: For visit that, I've got to clarify something.
16:01
SPEAKER_01: It's easy to minimize saying, oh, the child's being spanked with the belt.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: Look, my dad, I think, hit us one time.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: He spanked us one time in our entire childhood.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: He was a navy guy.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: He was gone a lot, but it was just a rough thing in the newspaper.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: When I get out of this chair, you're in trouble.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: We knew that.
16:20
SPEAKER_01: But when and I'm trying to say this in a way that is proper.
16:26
SPEAKER_01: Many children are severely injured or killed by irate parents in what starts off as traditional, acceptable discipline.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: There came a point in your experience with this that it went from traditional discipline to out-of-control assault.
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I mean, because there were bruises and stuff that followed from what I saw in the red marks, to the point where I remember dressing my son for school in a way that could hide the bruises.
17:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I get it.
17:03
SPEAKER_01: One of the things is there are scary things.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: And then there are things where I'm like petrified.
17:12
SPEAKER_01: Did you cross a bridge where you went, this is out of control, and if I don't do something about this now, it's going to get really, really ugly.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: I was so scared to do anything about it.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: There you go because I did not remember I had seen it.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: That anger come out very soon after I got married, and now see it manifest itself 10, 12 years later again.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: I was petrified.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: It's her conversation with Deborah Griffiths on the law enforcement talk radio show.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: She's contacted us from California.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: She is a successful survivor of domestic violence.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: She left an abusive marriage and started rebuilding her life.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: And she came to these conclusions at the one of the most unlikely places in a mental hospital, which we'll talk about in a few moments.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: She's written multiple books about this and other things.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: You can find more information on her website, broken to boldness.com.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: That's brokentoboldness.com.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: For winter break, Deborah, we're talking about the incident where your ex was violently assaulting your young son and how that profoundly affected you.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And we had an incident where early in your marriage he physically assaulted you.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: I want to change gears a little bit and go more into I hate this term, the emotional abuse.
18:26
SPEAKER_01: Because I'd say I hate this because look, I'm a happily married guy, and I've been married.
18:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, I'm gonna test myself.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: My wife hears this, I'm in trouble.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: We've been married, I think, 23, 24 years.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: We've been together like 25 years.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: And I jokingly say things, hey, look, she's the boss, that's what I call her, and she gets mad at me, and I don't know why sometimes.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want her being upset, but it never ever crosses into the territory of emotional abuse.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: As much as I might joke about it, and I think a lot of men do, and a lot of people do, about their marriage, their relationships, and arguing all that.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: There's a difference.
19:04
SPEAKER_01: Can you explain something a difference between the regular arguing and what you went through?
19:08
SPEAKER_00: I think there's times when you have disagreements on various things.
19:13
SPEAKER_00: And I actually I look back now and I don't know that we really had a lot of arguments because I was put into a position where I saw she's excessive anger come out early on in the marriage.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: I was always trying, I felt like a chameleon trying to figure out what button not to push so I don't see that anger.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: So again, because of that, I kept losing myself and figuring out who I was and my value systems and the whole nine yards.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that was major for me, and I didn't realize it until after the fact, was the isolation.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: I was slowly isolated from family, even to the point of moving clear across the country, 3,000 miles away.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: There was physical isolation as well as, you know, basically emotional isolation.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: Was really only allowed to talk to my parents maybe once a week after 7 p.m.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: when the phone rates would be cheaper.
20:17
SPEAKER_01: To pay for long distance and it was a lot more expensive daytime than it was at night.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Those were the days.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Last my job when I became pregnant with my oldest one, there's six years difference between my first child and my second child.
20:35
SPEAKER_00: When the first child was about two or three, I thought about getting them into daycare two days a week for social activities, things of that nature, and thought about going back to work for a part-time job just to be with the doll and get that camaraderie.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: I was shut down and basically said, Well, I don't know how you're going to do this.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's a good idea because how are you gonna do that?
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Keep the house clean, keep the yard done, keep my shirts washed and ironed.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: Wait, wait a second.
21:10
SPEAKER_01: If I said to my wife, I don't know how you're gonna keep my shirts washed and ironed, do you know what the reaction would not be good?
21:19
SPEAKER_01: But this is the type of thing that some people do.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, when I get home, dinner better be on the table.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear that too?
21:27
SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: For many of us, it sounds like a totally foreign concept.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: We can't understand that.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the things that really would frustrate me as a police officer when we get these domestic violence calls all the time and be like, can't you see that this is not normal?
21:44
SPEAKER_01: Can't you see that you can build a great life for yourself?
21:48
SPEAKER_01: Can't you see there's life beyond this?
21:50
SPEAKER_01: And the truth is, I couldn't make them see.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm sure people are trying to tell you that point, hey, can't you see that there's life beyond this?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's the thing.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: I never really talked about it to anybody.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I just didn't feel there was anybody I could talk to until I got to a point.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: I realized I wasn't happy and didn't know why.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And I reached out to my mom.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: This was about 17 years later.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: I reached out to my mom one day.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: I broke the rules and called her in the daytime at the higher rate and said, Mom, I am not happy, but I don't know why.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: And she broke down and said, You don't know.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: I have been praying for this call all these years.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: I said, What are you talking about?
22:45
SPEAKER_00: We started talking, and she said, Your father and I have always felt he was way too controlling.
22:52
SPEAKER_00: And we just didn't know how to say anything.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: And it's a very frustrating thing as a parent.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: And you're a parent.
23:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: They're still your children, it doesn't matter how old they are.
23:03
SPEAKER_01: Mine are in their 30s, and they're both girls, and we talk about this sort of stuff all the time, about how you don't tolerate that, about how you build the life you want, and then you decide who you want to be part of your life instead of the other way around.
23:16
SPEAKER_01: But it's frustrating when you have suspicions as a parent, and your parents in particular, and there's nothing they can do about it.
23:24
SPEAKER_01: What could they possibly have done about it?
23:26
SPEAKER_00: No, and we had that talk, and they said we were afraid that if we said anything, it might make the situation either worse for you, or you might rebel and not really talk to us anymore.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: So they were at a quandary, and I get it.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: And I and I have to say that when my parents were notified that I had attempted suicide, my mom and sister flew right out.
23:52
SPEAKER_00: My dad couldn't come.
23:53
SPEAKER_00: He was already exhibiting a lot of health issues, so he was very limited on traveling, but his heart was there.
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Not long after the doctor came in and told me those words, did my mom and sister come in.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: And we had that conversation.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm a cradle Catholic, so the word divorce was never in our vocabulary.
24:14
SPEAKER_00: Here I am, the first in the family for generations thinking of divorce.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: We talked about it, and I got the full support of my family that you need to leave the marriage.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: We started putting that process in place.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't happy about it, but at the end of the day, there was nothing more that could be done.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: And I began the process of leaving the marriage, rebuilding my life.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: One of the things you said, Deborah, that really hit me hard was we didn't divorce back then.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: Religion was part of it.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: Part of my upbringing, it was religious reasons, but also a generational thing.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: It's just not something that people my age group did.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure we're a similar age group.
24:56
SPEAKER_01: Nowadays, it's like people are married for three weeks and they get divorced.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: They do it multiple times.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, dude, you ever think that maybe the problem you've been married seven times isn't them?
25:05
SPEAKER_01: It might be you.
25:07
SPEAKER_01: Right.
25:07
unknown: Right.
25:09
SPEAKER_00: That pendulum has switched.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: I still value marriage.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: I still feel the same way.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: You make a commitment.
25:15
SPEAKER_00: Life is not perfect.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: Life is very messy.
25:18
SPEAKER_00: You really look for someone that really not only say they have the same values, but they demonstrate in their actions.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: They actually live a better sermon with their life than their life.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: Like through the law enforcement talk radio show.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: My name is John J.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: Wiley, joined by Deborah Grethis.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: Contact is from California.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: She's the author of multiple books.
25:37
SPEAKER_01: Go to her website, broken to boldness.com.
25:40
SPEAKER_01: That's brokentoboldness.com.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about the abuse of marriage she went through, the physical violence, the emotional violence, all that stuff, and then rebuilding a life.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: And she came to the conclusion that she needed to do something different in a mental hospital after an unsuccessful suicide attempt.
25:57
SPEAKER_01: And I'm so glad you're here telling your story.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: There were after everything you talked about, and again, as a retired police sergeant, one of the most frustrating things is we couldn't make people see that they could have a good life afterwards.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: You talked at length about what your fears were, what your concerns were, why you didn't do this.
26:15
SPEAKER_01: But there came a point where you became unhappy, you started exhibiting signs of depression, symptoms of depression, and you started reaching out.
26:23
SPEAKER_01: Am I correct?
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
26:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
26:26
SPEAKER_00: And at the point where I was reaching out to a psychiatrist for help to figure out why I am not happy.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: I became further depressed.
26:35
SPEAKER_00: He prescribed antidepressants.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, I was spiraling downhill faster than the antidepressants to take in.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, I got to the point of attempting suicide.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: How long were you in help with uh psychiatrists for the suicide attempt?
26:53
SPEAKER_00: Oh, three, four months.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
26:56
SPEAKER_01: Is it safe to say you were already in really dangerous territory before we even started?
27:01
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: But I didn't realize it at the time.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, looking back, yes.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: Because I was already spiraling.
27:08
SPEAKER_00: I remember my first visit with the doctor, and I had written pages of things that bothered me.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: At the end of the session, I said, I really don't know what's wrong with me.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: And his words were, There's nothing wrong with you.
27:22
SPEAKER_01: And then you had the suicide attempt.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: That was before.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, the visit, those were, you know, there's nothing wrong with you was a few months before the suicide attempt.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: So it was spiraling.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: I was really trying to think things through.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: And I was literally, like a roll-top desk with a pigeonhole.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
27:40
SPEAKER_00: I had stuffed so many feelings into the pigeonholes, there was no more room to cut anything.
27:51
SPEAKER_00: And so it had to come out somewhere.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Hence the depression and the suicide attempts.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: The doctor told me at the time, and I didn't understand this until I wrote my first book, that depression is actually anger turned inwards.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: I get that.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: And to many sense of the word or the phrase, I agree 100%.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: When you find yourself in a mental hospital after an unsuccessful suicide attempt, there's three places to go.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: There's three directions you can travel in.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: One is you can do things to get better, have a better life, you can get more the same, or you can get busy dying.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: That was the choices you're confronted with.
28:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
28:32
SPEAKER_01: When did you come to the realization that there's things you had to do?
28:36
SPEAKER_01: You had to reach out on faith for lack of better words and build a new life.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: When did you come to that conclusion?
28:42
SPEAKER_00: In the hospital.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: My mom had come, we had some good conversations, and I said, you know, at the end of the day, this is not what I want my kids to see.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: Aha.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Say that again, please, Deborah.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: So the people in the peanut gallery can hear that.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: I came to the realization that I did not want my kids to see me like this.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: They deserved better.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: They deserved a mother that was happy and healthy.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: I wanted the cycle of abuse to stop with me.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: I did not want my kids to learn these traits, to either be victims themselves or to victimize others.
29:27
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: So as a parent, I don't want that.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: I never wanted that for my children on either to be the abuser or the abused.
29:34
SPEAKER_01: I never wanted that, and I still don't want it.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: I feel the same way about my kids to this day.
29:40
SPEAKER_01: You had to make the conscious decision, okay, it's time to make a change.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of a daunting task.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: You're married, you're gonna get divorced, you got three kids, you haven't worked in years.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: What do I do?
29:50
SPEAKER_01: Where do I start?
29:52
SPEAKER_00: That is exactly how I felt.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: So I'm in the hospital making a list of things that I need to do.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: Number one, I needed to find a place to live, I needed to get a job.
30:04
SPEAKER_00: I was able to do that fairly quickly.
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Moved some things into the apartment.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: I left the house that the kids and I had been in.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: He stayed with the house with my oldest son, who was 14 at the time, and had the choice to decide which parent to live with.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: He chose his father.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't surprised by that because he was the favorite child.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: So I took the other two, got them into different schools, and slowly rebuilt my life.
30:35
SPEAKER_00: It came to a point where I was able to to finally move back to California where I had family support.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: That was a few years later.
30:43
SPEAKER_00: I entered a career that has lasted 20 plus years and I've done very well.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: I put myself back through college, going to school at night to get my college degree.
30:57
SPEAKER_00: I moved up the proverbial corporate ladder and was successful, you know, career-wide.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: The younger two children did exhibit some behaviors and from negative behaviors, I would say, from the divorce.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: So we did a lot of family counseling that was very important for me.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: But to get them on the right path, you know, I started going back to church.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: All that stuff was so promising and enlightening for a lot of people.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: People who are going through this need to understand, and I'm not diminishing your accomplishments, Deborah.
31:34
SPEAKER_01: If she can do this, you can do this.
31:37
SPEAKER_01: I want to repeat that.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Everybody can do this.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be comfortable, it's not going to be easy.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: I gotta ask, how are the kids doing today?
31:43
SPEAKER_01: How are your children?
31:44
SPEAKER_00: My children are really doing pretty well.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: My youngest is married, she's been married for about two years, and she's expecting her first child.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'll have my first grandchild at like the end of June.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: And my son, sons, they live in different parts of the country, doing their thing.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: They're happy, good, please.
32:02
SPEAKER_01: Living life to the full.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: I uh I want them to understand their mission is to have a happy, productive, purposeful life, just like you have done.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Now thank you.
32:12
SPEAKER_01: You're doing really good, Deborah.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: You've got a new life, you've worked your way up the corporate ladder, so to speak.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: You've gone back to school.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: Then you made the decision to write books, become an author.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: What possessed you to do that's a great question.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And that was never on my bucket list to do.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: I met a gentleman friend, and he had told me about a book that he had written.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: He started telling a little bit of its story, and there were some very similar aspects to his story in mine.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I I it it so it started my wheels turning, and I'm thinking, well, if she has a story, maybe I have a story.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: I got in touch with his publisher, Motivation Champs.
32:53
SPEAKER_00: They said, send me some samples.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple chapters.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: So I did, the publisher came back and said, You have to tell your story.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: I said, Really?
33:03
SPEAKER_00: Because you have to tell your story.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: Keep writing.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: So I did, and it literally took me five weeks to write the book.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: It's fictionalized based on true events, but it's really meant to show the subtleties and the red flags.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: Because so often it's easy to say, oh, well, maybe they're having a bad day.
33:24
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to write it off, especially if you're a somewhat positive person.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: So it's really easy to minimize and justify and rationalize unacceptable behavior when you are the victim of it and you're a perpetrator as well.
33:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, your website, when people get more information about you and contact you and get more information about your books, is broken to boldness.com.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: It's broken to boldness.com.
33:45
SPEAKER_01: Deborah, thanks so much for being a guest on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: Very much appreciated.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: It's been my pleasure.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to today's episode of Bent Not Broken.
33:58
SPEAKER_00: I hope that this episode reminded you that even through life's toughest moments, you are bent, not broken.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: If this message inspired you, please share, rate, review, and subscribe, as it helps us reach more women who are ready to rise and rebuild.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: And until next time, keep living bold and walking in your purpose.