May 6, 2025
When Healing Becomes Your Mission with Dana Hanuszczak (Part 2/2) I Ep. 67
Dana's transformation from abuse survivor to community leader shows how trauma can become purpose when channeled into helping others. After enduring 17 years of family court battles and multiple forms of abuse, Dana founded the Survivor Center to create the support system she wished she'd had during her darkest moments. The Survivor Center began with online support groups connecting women across the country facing similar struggles with domestic violence. What started as informal conversatio...
Dana's transformation from abuse survivor to community leader shows how trauma can become purpose when channeled into helping others. After enduring 17 years of family court battles and multiple forms of abuse, Dana founded the Survivor Center to create the support system she wished she'd had during her darkest moments.
The Survivor Center began with online support groups connecting women across the country facing similar struggles with domestic violence. What started as informal conversations evolved into a structured "survivor support bootcamp" addressing every aspect of healing - from identifying different forms of abuse to processing childhood trauma through powerful exercises like writing letters to your younger self.
Dana's approach combines emotional healing with practical support. Beyond the therapeutic elements of the program, she provides court accompaniment, teaching survivors how to navigate the complex and often biased family court system. Drawing from her extensive personal experience, she offers crucial guidance on everything from how to present yourself effectively in court to avoiding retraumatization when facing an abuser in legal settings.
The work extends to prevention through youth mentoring, prison ministry for incarcerated women, and Dana's book "Savage Angel," which provides spiritual guidance while supporting the nonprofit's mission. Throughout all these initiatives runs a thread of profound empathy and lived experience - Dana knows exactly what survivors need because she's walked the same path.
What's most striking about Dana's work is how she transforms even the most painful experiences into tools for helping others. Her message resonates with unwavering hope: "If I made it through, you can too." For those trapped in cycles of abuse, these words and the support system behind them may be the lifeline they desperately need.
To connect with the Survivor Center, visit survivorcenter.org, call 386-450-1966, or email info@survivorcenter.org. All proceeds from Dana's book "Savage Angel" directly support the organization's vital work.
Dana's 1in3 bio: https://www.1in3podcast.com/guests/dana-hanuszczak/
1 in 3 is intended for mature audiences. Episodes contain explicit content and may be triggering to some.
If you are in the United States and need help right now, call the national domestic violence hotline at 800-799-7233 or text the word “start” to 88788.
Contact 1 in 3:
- Send your emails to 1in3podcast@gmail.com
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- Check out the website https://www.1in3podcast.com/
Thank you for listening!
Cover art by Laura Swift Dahlke
Music by Tim Crowe
00:00 - Welcome Back to Dana's Story
04:25 - Creating the Survivor Center
09:31 - Childhood Trauma and Healing
15:52 - Finding Forgiveness and Peace
19:48 - Court Accompaniment and Family Court
29:18 - Support Services and Safety Planning
35:53 - Sharing Stories and Book Writing
WEBVTT
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Hi Warriors, welcome to One in Three.
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I'm your host, ingrid.
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Last week we heard Dana's powerful story.
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Today, in part two, we explore how she transformed her trauma into purpose, creating a safe space for others through her lived experience.
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Let's dive back in with Dana.
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Hi, dana, welcome back.
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So last episode we got to hear about your background, and I mean the incredible amount of obstacles seems like a very lame word for everything that you've been through, but all of the things that you've overcome to get to where you are now, and despite all of these things that you faced, you came through and you started a nonprofit called Survivor Center.
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So thank you so much for coming back.
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Thank you so much for having me.
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I just I'm excited to be here and to share what we're doing.
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So, yeah, now that you've gotten to know me a little bit and to hear all of the obstacles and circumstances I overcame when I thought about the Survivor Center and what I wanted, or what was needed right, because it was more of a need than a want Like, nobody wants to start a domestic violence organization and you start seeing the need.
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So I, for one, knew what I needed.
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I needed someone to be there with me, someone to understand, someone to not think I was crazy when I shared my story.
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I needed someone to believe me.
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I needed someone to hold my hand through court.
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I needed to hear from other women what they were living through.
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And so when I first birthed the Survivor Center, we started out just doing online support groups, where women from the area as well as other states can join in online and we can be a support system to each other.
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And in that journey, I met amazing women all over the world.
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Like we have someone from California, someone from Ohio, someone from New York, new Jersey, pennsylvania it's just amazing how many women in different areas are all experiencing similar types of situations.
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And so we started out with the support center and just having these conversations, talking about where they're at, you know, in life and what's going on, a lot of women are still battling, either in family court or they're battling.
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Some of them were still at home with their abusers and some of them were ready to start dating and were afraid to date.
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So we started developing programs.
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So I created what I call like a survivor support bootcamp where we created a model and not even intentionally, we just went through.
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So, like I have a book of my survivor support group when I went to therapy for survivorship and I have a book of things that we accumulated, that I progressed through so different things that I learned along the way, like what are the forms of abuse?
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You know there is a lot of people that don't know financial abuse is abuse.
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They don't know that name calling is abuse.
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They don't know that someone telling you where you can and cannot go is abuse.
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Or what clothes you can wear, why do you have on makeup.
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So I started looking at that book and like each day we would tackle something.
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So we would tackle all the forms of abuse.
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We would all talk about what we endured, what we lived through and we would also talk about what we did to get past that.
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And then we'd go into the next group and we'd talk about, maybe, red flags.
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We also talked about childhood trauma and things that we witnessed as kids, things that we lived through as kids, and ironically, everyone in the group shared a story of childhood trauma, except for one girl who said, oh, I had a great childhood, my parents were awesome, and by the time we finished the group, she said I'd like to change that.
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My father was verbally abusive.
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My father used to call me this, this, this and this, and so I began to take a look at all of those weeks and I think we were kind of like into week 16 or 17.
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And I realized, wow, we have a foundation.
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We went through all of these different things, discussing all these different subjects about abuse and about our childhood and recognizing how we got to where we are Now.
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How do we move past that?
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We also did things.
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I gave the girls homework, right.
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So after we talked about the childhood trauma, I said to everybody now I want you to go home and you have homework.
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I want you to write down a letter to that four-year-old you and I say four-year-old, because that's when my first trauma happens.
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Ironically, whenever you ask someone what was their earliest childhood memory, it's a trauma.
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So I want you to go home and write that letter to that four-year-old girl, because what I want to do is teach you how to go back and hug that little girl, how to heal her, how to tell her it's going to be okay.
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It turned out freaking amazing and although you couldn't protect her, it wasn't your job to acknowledge the fact that your parents failed.
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Whether it was intentional or not, whether it was mental illness or drug addiction or they were in their own life of violence, no matter what it was, we need to go back and help that little girl, run through the field again, you know, be innocent again and tell her it's going to be okay.
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And so everybody wrote these amazing letters.
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And the next group.
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We shared our letters, we talked about it, we laughed, we cried.
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You know we show empathy to each other, we're supportive, we're nonjudgmental, we came up with rules.
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What we say here stays here.
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If you see someone outside in the public, you don't share.
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And one of our survivors is a pastor and she spoke about a lot of trauma she went through.
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We had a rule you can't talk about this outside.
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So it made everyone be in a safe space to share things they never shared with anyone.
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Each and every person in the group said I've never told this or I never thought about this, or I haven't gone back into my childhood to recognize all the things that I went through.
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Healing.
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Look like I remember one of the survivors wouldn't even turn on her camera.
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She would just come kind of listen.
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She.
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You know, once in a while she would turn on the camera.
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Then we would talk about affirmations.
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You know I always like to end the support group on a positive.
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I like to check in with everybody.
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Where are you?
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You know, how are you feeling right now?
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And we remind ourselves that we're not that four-year-old girl anymore.
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We're a grown woman.
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Now we're in a safe place.
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Those are things we lived through.
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Those are not who we are.
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Those are not stripes that are painted on us that we have to carry for the rest of our lives.
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And so a couple of groups in.
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Now this woman's got her light on.
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Now she's got her camera on.
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Then one day I'm like oh my God, you look freaking amazing.
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Like what did you do?
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And she starts laughing.
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She's like I don't know.
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I took a shower, I washed my hair and I was like and how did that feel?
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Like how are you feeling?
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And she shared how writing that letter really set her free.
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She shared how walking back through her life and listening to other people's lives set her free and how she wasn't carrying those chains anymore.
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We also talked about forgiveness, and that's a very difficult conversation.
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When it comes to survivorship, you have to forgive yourself for staying.
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You have to forgive yourself for allowing your kids to grow up in that environment.
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You have to forgive yourself for forgiving him.
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There is so many different aspects to forgiveness and when you find that forgiveness, when you encompass it, when it becomes you, you're actually lifting weights off your own shoulders.
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You know, walking around angry, sad and mad every day is very heavy.
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It's like you won't even want to get out of bed because you're carrying all that pain and shame and guilt and worthlessness.
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And, honestly, finding forgiveness is not for the other person, it's for you.
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It takes a weight off your shoulders and you start living different, you start eating different, you start thinking different.
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A lot of times we'll pray in the group.
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You know sometimes we need to go into spiritual warfare.
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I believe in deliverance ministry.
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So sometimes, you know, we have to deliver demons that we're carrying, that we've carried for a lifetime, that we didn't even know we had, and they're keeping us heavy and bogged down and sad and depressed and suicidal.
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And sometimes it's just a matter of checking in with each other and saying, okay, so no homework tonight.
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You know everyone, just take the day off and what are you going to do for your self-care and we'll talk about.
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You know someone will say, well, I don't really have the money.
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Okay, so go take a walk.
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You know, go outside and smell the flowers.
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Like when was the last time you stopped to smell the roses?
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You know, we were so busy surviving we forget to survive.
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We're so busy thinking about all the thoughts, what I should have done, what I could have done.
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How do I do it different?
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I should have left sooner.
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Okay, let's just stop for a moment and breathe.
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You know one of the main things we learn is how to take a deep breath.
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You know, breathe in good oxygen, let out all the bad stuff.
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Take a walk, go smell the flowers, go look at a butterfly.
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You know, go enjoy the scenery, go see a mountain, go to the beach.
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You know that's my happy place.
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I know whenever I'm stressed, no matter where I'm at, I can close my eyes and I can hear the roar of the ocean, I can smell the salt water, I can literally feel my toes in the sands, no matter where I'm at, no matter what I'm going through.
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Teaching yourself how to center yourself and be calm is so important, and so that survivor support group it's going strong and a lot of the women that started with us are still with us.
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Some women have gotten through and moved on and some women stayed for a little while and left it just.
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In some cases is triggering because they don't want to talk about the memories, they don't want to go back and, you know, rip off the top and deal with them.
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But then other women are like one girl in particular said to me you know, dana, the top and deal with them.
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But then other women are like one girl in particular said to me you know, dana, me and my daughter went through sexual assault and I went and I had her do the homework assignment and she wrote the letter and then we went to the park and we set it on fire and we got rid of it and it's out there and it's not a secret anymore and it's not a weight anymore.
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So the group not only helped her, but it also helped her child.
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So informing that, coming to the realization that so many survivors have dealt with childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences, we started doing mentoring with the youth.
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I'm like it would be so amazing if I could get ahold of those kids and help them heal before they become survivors.
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You know, as a preventative measure, let's take classes and learn how to become credible messengers.
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Where the life I lived through wasn't for nothing, I can go back and tell a kid well, this is what happened to me and these are the choices I made and this is what it ended me up in.
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So maybe if we teach them how to survive what they're currently dealing with, how to deal with, maybe, a parent that has mental illness, maybe a parent that has drug addiction, maybe a parent that's prostituting or being trafficked, if we teach them how to navigate their life when they don't have an active parent present, maybe they won't grow up to be a survivor, or maybe they won't grow up to be an abuser.
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Be a survivor, or maybe they won't grow up to be an abuser.
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It's begun to craft.
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Some of the work we did is now going to help some of the work we're doing so that we could create the same types of groups to support groups for the youth as well, in the hopes that one day we can have a world that's free of violence.
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You know, and that's my dream like to have a world that's free of violence, where men, women, children, everyone feels safe, safe.
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So another thing I do is court accompaniment.
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So if I have someone who's going to family court, or even and I say family court automatically you think husband and wife, it may even be DCF or ACS and you need someone to go with you, we'll do that as well.
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We'll go hold your hand through.
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The matter being that I spent so many years in family court.
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Some things I learned along the way is one don't sit in the room with your abuser or your accuser, you know, because you get tormented and tortured through that hour so that by the time you get into the courtroom you're so shaken, you're so upset, you can't speak, you can't talk, nothing comes out right and you look like a buffoon.
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So, yeah, you look like the crazy one.
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Yeah, so just somewhere else and like block it out.
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You know you don't hear what they're saying and you're not being tormented, and those little tidbits matter.
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And then I teach you how to present yourself in court, how to be calm, how to breathe, how to go to the beach when you're feeling stressed out, you know or wherever your happy place is.
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So that's a big part of it, and there are cases where I do court watch online.
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Thank God for zoom.
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I sit in a California courtroom all the time watching what's happening, watching, and not just that I'm watching, but that the judge knows I'm watching, that the judge is recognizing that there are people in the room court watching to see how you're acting, to see, you know, are you following the Constitution, which they are not.
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Many people don't know that family court is a court that was not made behind the Constitution.
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Family court is a rogue court that follows their own rules and regulations and the judge makes all the decisions and you get no jury regulations.
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And the judge makes all the decisions and you get no jury.
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You know, court says that we're supposed to be able to be heard by a jury of our peers, but not in family court.
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And let's just point out that when you go before these judges.
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They are going to appoint you, most times, evaluator.
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They're going to appoint you the child lawyer In some cases, women get appointed a lawyer.
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You get appointed services.
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You get appointed forensics and these are all handpicked people by the judge.
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And if you come in there and you're upset or emotional, you're going to need a mental health evaluation.
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Or if the opposite party accuses you of mental health, you're going to need it.
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If they accuse you of drug addiction, you're going to need to go get tested.
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I mean, no matter what they say, the judge has a handful of people that he works with that are going to side with him the way he wants.
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Well, and when you've been victimized and you've been either literally or figuratively beat down by this person, and now you're in the same room as this person and most of the time and I'm not going to generalize abusers as having a diagnosed mental illness, but if they're carrying these other possible mental illness diagnoses they lack empathy, they lack self-accountability.
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So they're going to go in and they're going to be calm and collected because they don't believe that they've done anything wrong and they don't believe that they can be convicted of anything because I've done nothing wrong.
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Look at her.
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She's obviously the crazy one.
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I think a very good example this was in a courtroom, but I bring this up a lot is the Gabby Petito documentary and even if people haven't watched the documentary on Netflix, a lot of people have seen the clips of when they were pulled over by the police, because the police were called and alerted by a passerby saying this man is hitting this woman in the car.
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That's why they were pulled over.
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But the way the scenario plays out, gabby has now reached this breaking point where she is crying.
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She is taking accountability for her actions, which were provoked by by um brian brian, I think his name is.
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I can't remember whatever, right, whatever his name is and you watch it play out.
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And it started with this girl is the victim and, because of how she was reacting and his ability to remain calm and then even make jokes about it, turned him into he's the good guy, she's the aggressor, you know.
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He's given the hotel room.
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He's given the hotel room.
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He's sitting in the police car making jokes with the police officer talking about what music do you like?
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And the officer saying like, yeah, my wife can get like that too.
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It turned into that situation and that exact same scenario can play out in, unfortunately, the courtroom where there is big decisions being made.
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And that you know is a reality, and the fact that the judge has all say, most of the judges were lawyers at one point.
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Right, that's the, that's the pathway to becoming a judge.
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And some of them abuse their spouse and so if I call it out and I say this is what's happening, I'm calling myself out.
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Some of them come in, you know, depending on what mood they're in.
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You know, that's that's, that's something that the lawyer will say to you.
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The lawyer will be like, yeah, you have all the evidence, all the proof, and depends on what mood the judge is in.
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But, like I've done so much research at this point in time that we've even come to a conclusion that the lawyers that you hire, the ones you pay like I know someone who paid 10 grand they did not fight for them, they did not fight for what's right, they did not bring up certain evidence, they did not submit evidence into the court system where it is in the actual case.
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So they'll come and say something, show a piece of paper, but it was never admitted into evidence.
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So there are certain procedures that even our own lawyers that get paid for it don't follow.
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And a little more about that background If you learn about what it takes to become a lawyer.
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One of the things that they learn is you're not here to defend your clients.
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You are supposed to be upholding the law of the lands.
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So no matter whether your client is right or wrong, you're supposed to be upholding the law of the lands.
00:18:19.817 --> 00:18:29.442
And then we can even go a little deeper and talk about what lands and what laws does the family court abide by, because we're supposed to be on maritime law.
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There's just so many catch-22s.
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There's a whole language that most of us don't understand that they all say are you the custodial guardian of so-and-so?
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And you're like no, I'm the mother of the child.
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Like there are certain language you have to use because they make your child into a commodity.
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You know that child.
00:18:49.637 --> 00:18:53.488
As long as you continue to fight, everybody in that system makes money.
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So the judge is making money, the lawyer is making money, the child advocate, the gal, whatever you want to call them, the therapist, the investigators, the forensics they're all making money.
00:19:03.538 --> 00:19:10.483
So can you imagine how much they made out of me for 17 years, even though I didn't pay any of it out of pocket?
00:19:10.483 --> 00:19:19.432
I didn't pay for my lawyer, I got court appointed, everything, but there are bonds that go into federal and family courts and that's one of them.
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Your child has a number on it.
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That's why social security numbers aren't made.
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They track how much you're worth and then they drag out your life for as long as you can.
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Let's talk about how many missed days of work because you're in family court or you have a visitation or you have some sort of evaluation or accusing of this that You've got to go take a mental health.
00:19:40.945 --> 00:19:44.606
Now we want you to go see this therapist, which they know.
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That therapist is going to be biased to whatever the judge decides.
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The judge says I want mom to have the kid.
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The therapist is going to side with mom.
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I want dad to have the kid.
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This is literally.
00:19:54.101 --> 00:20:06.390
You know, when you think about a work environment, think about the judge who works there every day with the same lawyers, with the same staff, with the same legal system, with the same players.
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They go out and they have golf games together, they have brunches together, they go to family barbecues together, like everybody working in that building are friends.
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So you'll come into the courtroom one day or the courtroom waiting area and, like I'm looking for my lawyer, I pop open a door and he's in there laughing and joking with the opposing lawyer and I'm like what kind of crap is this?
00:20:27.676 --> 00:20:31.586
Like so many light bulbs went off, like this is not okay.
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And then they'll be like hold on a second and they'll go into the courtroom before me.
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So, like you guys decided what was going to happen before I even entered the room.
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I love that part of what you do is being there for victims, because you do go in.
00:20:48.647 --> 00:20:51.030
You're unfamiliar with the scenario.
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You're afraid your brain is just spinning and you mentioned it in the last episode.
00:20:56.934 --> 00:20:59.097
You just like word vomit, like well, and then there was this.
00:20:59.097 --> 00:21:02.042
And like well, and then there was this, and then there was this, and then there was this.
00:21:02.042 --> 00:21:13.048
And it may all be important information to share, but if you're, if you're just throwing it out there and this jumbled mess, it's going to sound crazy, wow.
00:21:13.048 --> 00:21:24.079
And so while you're sitting there, you're being told by your lawyer like well, you may, you might just want to go along with this, because you're going to have to fight to get this.
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You know you start to get backed into a corner.
00:21:26.224 --> 00:21:31.286
So I think it's amazing to be able to have somebody sitting behind you like you've got this.
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You know you're good, keep going.
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You've got this.
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That's amazing that you do that.
00:21:36.474 --> 00:21:43.068
I think too, while your child's life is at stake, you know your nerves are running, your mind is running.
00:21:43.068 --> 00:21:44.821
You think this lawyer is here to help you.
00:21:44.821 --> 00:21:47.924
You think they're telling you you know the best advice.
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No, they're trying to make their day easier.
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They're trying to make the time go by quicker, and I know people have paid $100,000 into lawyers and gotten aware and they don't always tell you the right things to say.
00:21:59.844 --> 00:22:08.209
And a lot of times they tell you don't mention domestic violence, because when you mention domestic violence, now it's going to be even harder.
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And now you have to prove more.
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And you're like what?
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I am?
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A victim.
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What do you mean?
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Don't mention what I lived through.
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Don't mention what type of person he is.
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Oh well, did he do that to the kids?
00:22:18.965 --> 00:22:26.992
I mean, he did it in front of the kids and in some cases he did it to the kids, you know and and they're like well, let's not mention that.
00:22:28.596 --> 00:22:32.359
Right, Right, Because it's uncomfortable and nobody wants to talk about it.
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And then now you know, there's this whole thing, especially in the high profile cases with the celebrities of oh, did he really abuse her or did that really happen to her?
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Is she going after money?
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That's what I was thinking, and she's making up this whole story.
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