My Voice of Influence colleague, Rosanne Moore, is back on the show for part two of our series on breaking down destructive myths surrounding coercive control and abuse of power.

In part one, we went over the first seven myths and, in this episode, we’ll be going over the next seven.

Take a listen to the episode!

Mentioned in this episode:

• Free Resource Download and Lifeline Course Information (You can also text VOILIFELINE to 44222)

 

Find our Lifeline resources and information about the course here.

 

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea, and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Today, I have with me again, Rosanne Moore who is on the Voice of Influence team.  This is episode 2, part two of a two-part series around abuse of power and how coercive control, people who are trying to take coercive control, what the kind of myths are that people believe about that.

And so, we’re debunking some myths today and last week about this abuse of power and understanding situations like this is so important.  I’m so glad that we are doing it, Rosanne.  It is such an important thing for people to understand, not just people that are going through it, but even leaders, people who want to have a voice of influence.  Why does it matter to that person?  Why should they understand these myths?

Rosanne Moore:  Because you really can’t leave an abusive situation without help.  You need help on some level, something outside of yourself.  One of the dynamics of coercive control is to eliminate outside support systems.  And so, if we can get society to understand the myths and we challenge those so that people respond differently, we have a better chance of providing an outside support system for people who are trying to leave abusive situations.  Truth matters and wrong belief systems have terrible consequences.

Andrea:  Not only for that one person, but for the people that are around them for their work environment, for their church environment, or for their family. 

Rosanne Moore:  Yes, absolutely. 

Andrea:  All right.  And we want you to know on the outset, first of all, you need to go back.  If you haven’t listened to the last episode, please go back and listen to it.  You can listen to this one first.  That’s fine, but you do want to hear both episodes if you’re interested on this topic and if you really do want to be as somebody who is informed about this as a voice of influence, somebody who is informed about abusive relationships, coercive control, and how to really empower and bolden others that need it.

And we want you to know that there is a list of resources, a free download available for those who are seeking to get out of in particular an abusive marriage or intimate relationship.  And you can find that list of resources by texting to the number 44222 and text the letters VOI for Voice of Influence, VOILifeline all one word.  So, VOILifeline, text it to the number 44222.  You can also find information about that and a course that we are going to be offering and perhaps are already out depending on when you listen to this episode.  And you can find all that information at voiceofinfluence.net/lifeline.

OK, Rosanne, we’re going to tackle some more myths.  We’re going to debunk some more myths.  So number eight, this is something that the people say.  They hold it deeply.  They hold it deeply inside their heart, I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve heard it or even like I remember thinking it and it’s almost embarrassing to say that but you think to yourself, “That can’t be true of so and so. They are such a good person.”

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  Why is this a myth?

Rosanne Moore:  OK.  Abusive people work very hard to present a persona that is trustworthy so that they can gain access and so they can be very generous.  They usually put on a very convincing, very charming, or very generous.  They are nice.  Niceness is not a character trait.  I think it was Boz Tchividjian who said it, “It’s not a character trait, it’s a personality presentation that you can choose.”  Niceness is a choice.  It’s not a character quality.

A person can choose nice behavior.  They can choose to do something that looks generous, all for the goal of gaining trust in order to betray.  People who work as spies in other countries do it all the time, you know.  We talk a lot about sleeper cells or whatever.  The whole idea of many horror movies is that the person that seems the most trustworthy is the one that turns out to be a serial killer or whatever, right?

And so the idea that we know, we just absolutely know that this person couldn’t be capable of what’s being accused, that that is a reason in and of itself not to investigate, not to seek further information, not to look at something as a possibility.  That’s what abusers count on.  That is what people count on.  I don’t know how many times that I have heard people say, “Well, you know, a person is innocent until proven guilty.”  No, that’s not true.  Legally, they are presumed innocent until proven guilty.  But if they did it, they did it whether they ever get proved or not.

People frequently say that “Well, a person is innocent until proven guilty.”  And the actual legal term is a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.  In other words, you’re not supposed to face, like legal charges unless there’s evidence that you are guilty.  But the reality is if a person is guilty, they are guilty whether anybody else recognizes it or not.

And so the unintended effect of that, I will say this too, one of the hardest things for people who are in an abusive relationship is, although I’m not negating the need for there to be a presumption of innocence, the same presumption of innocence needs to be offered to the person who is coming forward with an allegation of abuse.

Andrea:  Wow.

Rosanne Moore:  Because what happens to them typically is they are treated as if they were a liar and a manipulator, and that they have ulterior motives.  The same presumption of good motives needs to be given to the person who’s coming forth with an allegation because statistically, it’s far more likely that they’re telling the truth and they’re paying a heavy price to do it.  And so that’s just something, I’m not saying that there’s not the need for investigation.  What I’m saying is there needs to be a willingness to be open-minded and to not assume we already know the facts because this person looks good on the surface.  Because we haven’t personally run into any treachery with this person does not automatically mean that somebody else hasn’t.

Andrea:  You know, Rosanne, as I’m thinking about this, I’m thinking in an abroad kind of way, people who have done really amazing things.  You look at the Harvey Weinstein’s case.  You look at a number of people.  We’ll just leave it at that, you know Bill Cosby. 

Rosanne Moore:  Bill Cosby.

Andrea:  Yes, exactly.  You look at these gentlemen and you think to yourself, “gentlemen,” you think to yourself “funny.”  You’re thinking to yourself “brilliant,” you know, because of the amazing work that they’ve done in the world, whatever they’ve produced or whatever.  And so it’s a great loss to actually say that they could actually be wrong.  Maybe they’re not such a good person.  Maybe they’ve done some amazing things, but people are complicated.  They’re not just evil or good.  They’re very often have done good things in the world but have done very bad things.  And unfortunately, those bad things have consequences that have to be dealt with; otherwise, they’re going to just keep going and going.

Rosanne Moore:  One of the most chilling things I’ve ever read is the account of a young German woman who talked about, she worked as a waitress at a hotel that Hitler frequented during the war.  And she talked about how kind he was and how he would ask after her mother and sisters and the things that he did that went out of his way to, you know, do nice things for her family.  It was just unbelievable the account that she gave of him and of his top generals said that the same people who are systematically torturing and murdering thousands of people, if you hear her account, were also capable of doing generous things, you know, for her and her family.  And it was chilling to read.

I mean, there was a level of denial even with all of the evidence to the contrary because she had had a good experience with them that she felt like they’re being made out to be worse than they are.  And as she said, “People are complicated and we are made in the image of God,” which means we are capable of great good, but we are capable of making terrible choices.  That image has been impacted by our separation from God and we’re capable of doing terrible things and justifying those to ourselves.  That’s something we have to grapple with deeply.

Andrea:  Hmm.  And then I know that another myth that we’d talked about has to do with when a victim comes forward you think to yourself, “The victims of abuse should be able to accurately account details.  They’re confused.  Why are they confused?  Well, they must be lying.”  Tell us why that’s not right.

Rosanne Moore:  Or yeah, they changed their timeline.  Their details changed or whatever.  Trauma impacts memory, memory is malleable to begin with but trauma impacts the brain.  And it doesn’t mean that you’re coming up, like you’re just creating things in your mind, but you can be piecing together things from different incidents and putting them together so that they’re not really accurate.  They happened, but maybe not at the time that you’re thinking they both happened, things like that.

So often, abuse victims are expected to behave in ways that they would only be capable of behaving if they had not actually been honest.  If you think simply about anybody who’s involved in law enforcement who’s been trained in taking witness statements.  If you have four witnesses to something and their story is exactly alike, that’s a sign that they’re lying.

They’ve planned a story because in reality, if you have four witnesses to the same crime or the same incident, they’re all going to be noticing different things.  Their perceptions are going to be different.  The core truth of what’s there may overlap, but they’re all going to be seeing something somewhat differently.  And so, often there’s this great burden of expectation that somebody who has been deeply traumatized should be able to give a very clear, cohesive, you know, organized account of what happened.  And in fact, that’s not true.  That would be an indication that they were making it up, not that they were telling the truth.

Andrea:  Very important to know.  All right, number 10, this is 10 of 14.  We did the first seven in the first episode.  Don’t forget to go back and listen to that.  All right, number 10; “She’s the one who is harming everyone.”

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah.

Andrea:  Now, wait a second.  In what context are we hearing this, Rosanne?

Rosanne Moore:  OK, so all right.  There’s a woman that I have walked closely with who she discovered her husband was having an affair and she made known that she was going to be taking legal steps to protect herself and her children and he didn’t pay child support and alimony when he was supposed to.  And so she followed through with court system and he ended up going to jail for not paying what he was supposed to be paying.  He withheld funds for the provision of children and he went to jail.

And her mother-in-law said, “You put him in jail.”  

No, he made all of those choices.  He chose to be unfaithful.  He chose to shack up with somebody else and to spend money on drugs and other things.  He chose not to provide for his children.  He put himself in jail.  She didn’t do that, she just asked the court to address the behavior that he chose.  And yet you see that happen constantly, you know that kind of thing.

The abused one who comes forward in a church setting and is told, “Well, you are harming not only him but his family and you’re harming the name of Christ.”  

No, he chose all of that by choosing to behave in unhealthy ways, in wrongful ways.  

In a situation where there’s a whistleblower in a corporation, “You’re harming our bottom line.  Our stock has dropped because of you, because you made this known.”  

No, whoever did the deceitful or unethical thing; they’re the ones who created that situation.  It’s not the whistle blower, it’s the one who did the wrong that created the situation and yet has fallout for other people.  Be mad at the right person, not at the one who calls the abuser on it but for the one who makes the bad choice.

Andrea:  Hmm, so important.  OK, number 11; this really shouldn’t impact you that bad “Why do you have to make such a big deal of this sort of thing?

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  I can tell you that when you live with somebody who is seeking to destroy you and who’s constantly playing mind games with you, who is constantly attempting to distort your perception of reality, one of the impacts of that is that it makes you distrust your own judgment.  Another reason, just to kind of go back a little bit, why is it difficult to the whole thing of accounting details in a timeline or whatever.  This plays into that as well.

Often an awareness of what’s happening dawns over time.  You see things that don’t add up, but then there’s a plausible explanation that gets given and so you accept that because you don’t want to be hard-nosed and so an awareness of what’s happening unfolds over time.  But then in retrospect, when you look back and you realize, “I saw signs of this, I should have figured it out sooner.  I should have known.  I should have somehow like recognized what was going on and protected myself and then I could have escaped being through all this pain or having my children go through this pain,” whatever.  All of that happens in your head.  It takes time to uncover that.

The reality is we’re built for trusting healthy relationships and when those are violated and violated at a deep level the way that they are in a domestic abuse situation; it’s not just your trust in other people, it’s trusting your own judgment that gets violated.  And that’s what keeps women in that or keeps going back for so long.

So this kind of goes back as well to the whole issue of that there should be a sequential account that can be given and a cohesive narrative and all of that.  The reality is a person who’s in an abusive situation, they see things, but then they’re given a plausible explanation for them and so they go on.  And the awareness of what’s actually happening takes place over time.  And so when the clarity about what has happened finally comes enough so that they start to take steps to get out of the abusive situation, they’re looking back and they’re thinking, “Oh, I should have seen this sooner.”  I mean, when and such and such happened, like, “Why didn’t I get out?”  Or “What didn’t I do something differently then?”  So they’re actually their own sense of being able to trust their perceptions have been undermined over time.

So, not only do they have to learn to trust other people after having their trust deeply violated, and that’s a big part of health is the ability to trust again, trust other people again.  But first they have to learn to trust their own perceptions again.  And when you have your own sense of your ability to know who is safe and who’s not and what’s right and what’s not right and all of that, when that gets taken from you, when that gets violated that takes time to recover that.  It’s like having the floor fall out from under you and just be in free fall for a long time.

And there are also physiological changes that take place.  A lot of times, women who are in abusive relationships get accused of being codependent and what they actually are is trauma bonded.  Codependency has to do with behavior patterns that try to manage somebody else’s addiction, unhealthy caretaking patterns that try to manage somebody else’s addiction.

A trauma bonding is actual changes in the brain of someone who’s being abused where they’re trying to figure out in the relationship what’s causing the person to behave badly sometimes and be kind other times.  It’s not necessarily a cycle, but there’s usually some reward delivery system that’s intermittent that takes place in an abusive relationship and the person is being told something that you did caused the punishment. 

And then the person will be nice, and so they’re trying to figure out,  “What was it that made the relationship work?” at that point where they’re regaining your trust.  And not only does it draw you back in emotionally, but there are actual physiological changes that take place in trauma bonding in the brain where it’s almost like an addictive chemical release in the brain, and it’s one of the most difficult things to overcome.  And so it takes time and it takes proper understanding with a therapist, working with therapist who understands trauma to be able to get through that.  You can’t just flip a switch.  Just because you’re out of the relationship doesn’t mean all of that goes away.  It takes time.  It takes safety.  It takes safe people to be able to recover from that.

Andrea:  Hmm.  OK, so, here we are at number 12.  This myth that “The victim must be exaggerating.” 

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  Usually, actually, in a domestic abuse situation and coercive control situation, the person is not exaggerating.  They’re minimizing.  They’re actually minimizing, and that’s because denial while it has its negatives, it also serves the function of only giving us as much information as we can deal with in a highly traumatic situation.

Andrea:  And you said that’s denial that does that.

Rosanne Moore:  Yeah.

Andrea:  So denial serves both purposes.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  Denial for the person who is being abused is what you’re talking about right now. 

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  For the person who’s being abused, denial is both friend and foe.  When you’re living in that kind of intense trauma, there’s only so much reality that you can handle at a time without being completely destroyed by it.  And so when you take that little part that you can bear to talk about and you take it to another person and their response is to say, you’re exaggerating, that person’s actually being gaslighted by society in general.  Gaslighting comes from a movie, an old movie where there was a deliberate attempt by an abuser to drive his wife insane in order to get her money.

Andrea:  And to make her think that she was wrong all the time and that she wasn’t thinking correctly.

Rosanne Moore:  That she was losing her mind, where he would adjust the gaslights in the house to make the lights flicker and then tell her that that wasn’t happening.  So she would think she was losing her mind.  So when someone takes that piece of information that they’re able finally to address and they go to someone else and they’re being told, “You’re just exaggerating, it’s not that bad.  You should be able to cope.”  It’s incredibly damaging, incredibly damaging.  The reality is most of the time that’s the tip of the iceberg, and what’s happening underneath in the dynamics of the relationship is far, far worse.

And when someone in that situation takes that little piece of information and is finally heard and is brought to a safe place where they can start to unpack it, usually you’re looking at a huge process of having to look at what the depths of the reality that they were living with actually is.  And so it’s adding insult to injury to say, “Oh, you’re just exaggerating.”

Andrea:  Hmm.  So number 13, “I couldn’t possibly be deceived by this person.  Surely I know that this isn’t true.”

Rosanne Moore:  Well, the reality is all of us are vulnerable to deception if we’re given the right circumstances.  All you have to do, again, go back to Nazi Germany, you had an entire nation, there were a few people who stood out as being people who didn’t buy into the lie, who saw what was happening and spoke out against it.  But the vast majority of the country was not Nazi.  They didn’t agree with the ideology, but they were impacted by it.  They were party to it.  They helped make it happen because they didn’t see the dynamics of what was happening for what they were and they minimized, and all it took was being afraid to speak up or looking the other way or collaborating in various ways.  So, you didn’t have to be the spearhead that was doing the actual abuse, all you had to do is collaborate by not speaking out.

Andrea:  OK.  And just this idea of not speaking out, I think, it’s tough for people to know, Rosanne, when they should speak out and when they shouldn’t, especially on behalf of somebody else. 

Rosanne Moore:  Right.

Andrea:  It’s hard to know and yet when you see somebody being targeted for abuse or you see these negative behaviors to not stand up and say something…

Rosanne Moore:  Empowers the abuser.

Andrea:  It certainly does, it certainly empowers the abuser and so silence, unfortunately, is consent.

Rosanne Moore:  Right.  Yes, yes.  You know, part of this is when I say that everybody is vulnerable to deception given the right circumstances, part of the protection against this is being really honest about what motivates you. 

Andrea:  Oh, that’s so good.

Rosanne Moore:  You know, you’re going to be less likely to be open to hearing from someone about an abuse situation if the person that they’re accusing is someone that does something for you or you’re somehow a member of the tribe that they help lead. That can be political.  I mean, we see it all the time in both political parties where they’ll point to something in the other side that they are giving a blind eye too in their own camp.  That’s true in churches where they’ll criticize something that’s outside, but they won’t deal with it when it’s in their own myths.

So, there has to be an awareness of what am I getting out of choosing not to listen, not to see, and not to be willing to investigate.  That’s a big part of it is we’re most vulnerable to deception when we have our own motives that are being served, our own agenda that is being served.

Andrea:  And that’s a toughie because people want to believe that their tribe, that their people are good people and that anybody that would come and attack their people are bad people.  And so we do this dualistic kind of idea in our minds about good and evil and assume that we’re on the side of good and that those who are with us are on the side of good when we’re all very much more complicated than that.  And if we can’t recognize that, if we don’t humble ourselves to recognize that we could also be deceived – it’s humility.  It’s the honest humility that’s saying I might not be right.

Rosanne Moore: Right, right.

Andrea:  And if we can’t say that we’re going to end up inadvertently possibly, very sadly helping abusers.

Rosanne Moore:  I would say that’s the early stages of it, is that the humility to recognize that I could be deceived and be willing to humble myself and investigate.  But then the backside of that or the deeper implication is when we lack that and we’re challenged with evidence, then there’s a hardening that I’ve seen take place where that unwillingness because now I have something to defend.  Not only do I not want to admit that I’m not capable of being deceived, but I have decided that I have to be on the right side already.  Therefore, anything further challenges not just my perception, but my rightness.

Andrea:  Uh-hmm, my identity.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes, my identity, exactly.  And so then not only am I willing to look at the possibility of being deceived, but now once I’ve chosen not to go there and I’ve taken steps that have proven to be wrong then I have to face that I actually was the bad guy.  I was not the hero.  I empowered evil, and a lot of people are not willing to recognize that, I mean, all of us.  I will say this myself, I have journeyed with abuse survivors for over 30 years, and I did not do it well early on because I had a lot of these myths that I believed, and I was not good at listening appropriately early on.

And so part of my own journey has been having to humble myself and recognize I was at times part of the problem, not part of the solution.  The only way I can be a good guide now is to be willing to acknowledge when I’m wrong.

Andrea:  Yeah, absolutely.  And that’s really hard.  It’s really hard to do when you feel so strongly about a topic, and the person that you’re defending cares about that topic too.

Rosanne Moore:  Right, right.

Andrea:  But I think that’s just the idea of keeping in mind that everybody is complicated and that we’re not all just good or evil and that we could also be wrong about things.  This is being a mature person, and if you’re wanting to have a voice of influence in the world, you have to cultivate these things in yourself.  You have to be able to confront some of the really hard things in life and kind of take a really hard look at yourself in order to be able to move forward so that you can actually be an advocate, be a support, be a positive impact on the culture to minimize the power dynamics that are at play and be a part of good.  And I say good – it kind of sounds like we’re the good ones and they’re the bad ones – I guess, and I don’t really mean that, but you know, to be furthering good in the world.

Rosanne Moore:  Right, there is good and evil that is absolute.  And at times we join it and at times we don’t.  And so instead of trying to see ourselves in terms of us being good or evil, we need to acknowledge that we’re a mixture and that we need to be constantly looking at where we’re giving place to evil in our lives so that we can move away from that. 

Andrea:  So good.  OK, and this last one is a toughie.  It’s a hard one to swallow Rosanne, and so I hope that you can leave us on a positive note in some way.  But the last myth that we’re talking about is “If I tell the truth, the system will bring me justice.”

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.

Andrea:  And why is that not necessarily true?

Rosanne Moore:  And the social myth being that if what the woman is sharing is true, then the system will protect her.  It’s not true because the laws are written by fallible people, and they’re executed by fallible evil, and the same things that can be social myths in the greater society also play out in the court system.  I have frequently heard it said that the courts favor women.  If they accuse abuse, the courts automatically assume that that’s true.

A study was recently done that shows absolutely, that is not true.  Actually, if a woman comes forward with allegations of abuse, it doesn’t really matter how much evidence she has that her children are being abused; the court will actually punish her for trying to protect her kids.  And so you just have to understand that the court is flawed.  And while I do not advocate doing anything illegal – you definitely want to utilize the court system to the degree that you can.

One of the things I had to come to terms with, I went into a very naive thinking that I will just tell the truth, and I’ll present evidence of the truth, and the legal system will protect me.  And that was not the case, at least not to the degree that I expected that it would happen.  And so that was a bitter pill. That almost as bad as the whole situation I was facing, was the sense of betrayal that I felt by the legal system.  The courts tend to assume that women exaggerate the abuse to use it as a weapon to get back at somebody that they’re just fed up with for lesser reasons.

This isn’t true, but that’s the mindset.  That’s the myth that the court is operating under.  Often the boxes that the lawyers are ticking off basically in terms of building a case,  lawyers build a case looking at the laws and these are the parameters for how we build a case.  Those boxes often don’t fit the reality of what an abuse situation looks like. 

And so you may have a good attorney who’s able to take enough of your situation and put it in a box that they can protect you.  But if your situation is kind of outside those boxes, then your solution lies outside of those boxes.  That’s not suggesting that you should thumb your nose at the law, but one of the things that we’re going to address in the Lifeline system is what do you do, for instance, when you have a partner who is an abusive parent without engaging in criminal behavior.  So your children are having to deal with abuse, but it’s not the kind of abuse that the law views as criminal and therefore will take action on.

There are things you can do but your help is going to have to come outside the legal system.  It’s not going to be from the system itself.  Like I said, I had a very naive view of the justice system, but what I’ve come to realize is the legal system can restrain evil, but it cannot provide justice.  God has to do that.  And it doesn’t come on our timetable, unfortunately.  I mean, no, ultimately, fortunately, because He knows more about what we need than we do.  But the legal system can only restrain evil.  It can’t provide us ultimate justice, and that’s an awareness we have to come to the system with so that we’re not asking it to do something it’s not capable of doing.

Andrea:  Or expecting it to save us in a way, like, there’s a lot of responsibility that you still have to sort of understand how to make it work, how to navigate it.  And in hearing, Rosanne, the content of the Lifeline course and working with you on that, it has helped me to have a way better idea of the importance of so many different kinds of support that women need and how they can get that support and then how they can navigate all of the changes that they’re going through navigate the legal system.  Not that you’re a lawyer, we’re certainly not lawyers, though there some counseling background and spiritual direction background in Voice of Influence, we’re not claiming counseling or, you know, legal advice in this course; however it is a guide for someone to help gain clarity that they know how to proceed with the right people.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes, and how to choose the professionals that can help them in those areas.

Andrea:  So if you don’t have a friend that has been down this road before and can help you make those decisions then this course would certainly be a benefit to a woman that is going through that process. 

Rosanne Moore:  You asked about, how do we look at that last one with hope?

Andrea:  Yeah.

Rosanne Moore:  The system can’t bring me justice, but God is a God of justice.  God is a God of justice. He is always on the side of the oppressed.  He’s always against oppression.  And so when we feel trapped, I mean that was the point that I had to keep coming back to.  I’ve worked this past week with a woman who is in an extremely dangerous situation, and we are trying to get her all of the people on her team that can help her get out of that safely and preserve her life.  This is probably the most escalated violent situation that I’ve worked with to date, and we got some bad news earlier in the week.   That night, my prayer was, “God, evil cannot be stronger than you.  It just can’t be stronger than you, so we need you to step into this because evil cannot be stronger than you.”

And the next day, the resources that she needed came into place.  And so that I would say is while the system is flawed, like every other man-made thing, God is on the side of the oppressed.  And so there is hope.  There is hope, and if anybody hearing this feels absolutely trapped in your situation, there is a way of escape, and you want to proceed carefully, we want to help you get resources.  You don’t want to act precipitously, we want to help you put things in place to keep things as safe as possible for you.  That’s our goal.

But just know that there is hope.  You do not have to believe what you’re being told by your oppressor, which is that there is no way out.  That’s not true.  There are things that can be done to help rescue you.

Andrea:  Yeah, I mean it’s so complicated.  I just want to say too that there’s no promises, there’s no guarantees in life.  Even with prayer, there’s no guarantee that something will just come.

Rosanne Moore:  But I will say, I have seen again and again and again and again with the women that I’ve worked with – I’ve seen again and again and again because one of the lies that women believe that there is nothing that they can do, that they are completely helpless.  And they stay in that situation for a long time believing that there is no way out, but when they art to come to terms with the possibility of escape, I have seen things lined up that were not readily visible.

So are there bad things that happen?  Yes, there are.  But I would tell you that there are options that may not be immediately visible for you and we want to try to get you the resources that you need, get you plugged in locally or wherever, to things that can help make that path of escape for you.

Andrea:  Thank you so much for sharing this.  I don’t know your passion for this Rosanne, your wisdom that you have gained through walking very difficult path.  And I want to remind everyone that you can download the list of resources by texting, VOILifeline, Voice of Influence Lifeline, VOILifeline, all one word, no spaces to the number 44222.  And you can also find that information there as well as information about the course at voiceofinfluence.net/lifeline.  We hope that this is helpful for a lot of people.

Rosanne Moore:  Yes.

Andrea:  All right.  Thank you so much for spending your time with us today.  Rosanne and I are glad that you have stuck it out and listened and are so grateful that you’re open to learning and growing and, you know, finding even more humility within yourself to be able to recognize that some of these myths might even be things that you have thought in yourself.  So let’s go out and know that…

Rosanne Moore:  I was going to say just a word of challenge.  Next time you watch a crime drama, pay attention to how many of these myths are voiced in it because they’re very common in television.

Andrea:   Hmm.  Perfect.  OK, so just know that your voice matters and you can make it matter more.  Thanks, Rosanne!