I've got a very special episode to share with you today, and it's part of a series we're releasing called Something to Normalize. One of the reasons I've always loved the Wolf Parable is because it normalizes being human and having difficult emotions. These podcast episodes feature my partner Ginny, talking with her friend and previous guest of the show, Brandy Lust.
In these unguarded conversations, they'll be sharing their lives and perspectives as women, alongside insights from experts, researchers, and writers on topics that are hard to talk about. We tend to keep these things to ourselves, though, and when we do, it can breed a sense of being the only one, feelings of shame, or evidence we're somehow doing life wrong.
Brandy and Ginny hope that by giving voice to experiences, feelings, and thoughts we often keep to ourselves, we can create a community with less shame and a deeper sense of belonging. I am so happy to share their voices with you. I think you'll find these episodes a wonderfully nourishing and supportive addition to the regularly scheduled one you feed podcast episodes you are used to hearing here and now I'm proud to present to you something to normalize.
Welcome, Welcome back, Welcome everybody, Hey, Brandy.
Hi Jenny, Welcome everyone. Welcome to something to normalize.
Welcome to something to normalize. Right, And so this today is part two of a two part series. If you have not listened to part one, pause here, head back to the previous episode and take a listen, because these two episodes definitely go in combination with one another. But today we are going to continue the conversation around understanding how abuse of power happens and learning to trust and care for ourselves in the wake of being a victim
of the abuse. Right, So, what we're normalizing is talking about the process of grooming and how systems protect abusers so that we can be more informed about prevention and also care for ourselves when it happens. So I think it's an important thing to talk about. But before we go any further, just a trigger warning, right.
So, if this is a topic that you have some.
History with in a way that feels unsafe or vulnerable and not territory you want to tread back through at the moment, maybe skip this episode, right, Maybe come back next time with us. All right, Brandy, let's just dive in, shall we sounds great? Okay, So maybe first let's just reorient to who we are. So just a remind listeners.
So I'm Jinny Gay and I'm a certified mindfulness and meditation teacher who helps people become more aware of and work skillfully with their thoughts, their emotions, their experiences so they feel less stressed and struggle in more freedom, joy and ease.
And I'm Brandy lest and I'm a speaker and facilitator who works with organizations to create safe spaces where folks can share their truth and organizations can be well wonderful.
All right, So Brandy, let's just start with what is abuse of power?
I'm going to use a definition that I read in the forward of a book that I'll be relying pretty heavily on in this conversation and my situation. I did a lot of research on grooming and predatory behaviors and how these things happen with individuals and organizations, and the most helpful resource that I found was by Wade Mullin, and it's a book called Something's Not Right. And so
this definition is from the forward of that book. And it is from Diane Lamberg, who is a psychologist, and she says, when someone treats you as an op they are willing to harm for their own benefit, abuse has occurred in that person has become an abuser. So any time that someone is willing to use another person in a way that creates harm, that's when abuse has happened.
Can we pause for a second. I just want to like sit in that definition. Read what you read at the beginning there one more time for me.
Absolutely, when someone treats you as an object, they are willing to harm for their own benefit, abuse has occurred, and that person has become an abuser.
That's a great definition, right, Like that just calls to my mind scenarios that I might not have even considered or labeled as such before. Yeah, but yeah, that tracks, that tracks. Yeah, that's helpful, I should say too.
In most situations where abuse happens, there is some sort of power differential, and that power differential might be because of the role that someone holds in a community, it might be because of their social identity as a person who is of a specific gender, and that power is what allows.
The abuse to be effective.
Yeah.
Yeah, and I think that mitigates the self blame that comes sometimes with these situations, because it's never our fault when this happens. There's something that was already established that creates the ground upon which abuse grows. And we're going to talk a lot more about that ground because we'll be talking about how this happens in interpersonal interactions, but then also how organizations and communities create the space for this to be more likely.
Let's dive into that you want too, So, like, where would you want to start? Do you want to start on the personal level or the organizational level?
Well, I want to start with the personal level, and I also want to share a little bit more about how this abuse begins, especially on that interpersonal level, although it's also true at the organizational stage in many cases, but almost always, abuse speaks with language, and the person being abused gets this feeling something's not right, and the response to that feeling is no, it's not that something's not right, it's that you're not right. And that dismantling
of self trust is how abuse begins. Oh so, understanding this and understanding that language is this powerful tool we can begin to enhance our own ability to fight back through having this language that describes how abuse happens. So this is a very empowering way to regain a sense of control in these situations where abuses happened. And then, furthermore, language is the thing that we use to speak our truth and create change in the communities that we're experiencing this.
Yeah, yeah, I love the precision with which you talk about how this starts, because I think to become aware of and intervene earlier, if possible, in the process is
potentially helpful. So in your experience, is there already a power differential that exists when that planting the seed of distrust in oneself starts, Because I mean, if that's the case, what then is happening is even more powers being garnered by the abuser because of the way they were removing your own sense of authority and trust in your own voice.
Absolutely, I think that very oftentimes there is already a power differential, and so this undermining is more effective because of the power differential that already exists. And then it's this continuous process of dismantling our ability to trust ourselves that allows it to continue further than we would want
it to. I'm reflecting back upon the last episode where you had shared a situation that you had at work and you felt in the beginning like there was already a power differential and you were trapped in a situation with another person that didn't completely feel safe, and then how they used that situation that was already in existence to then begin to plant information that crossed your boundaries and actions that cross your boundaries.
You know, I'm not sure I want to go into a huge tangent here, but I think it's important to kind of explore this idea of power, especially in this scenario, because I think, you know, when I say the word power in standing in your power or those who have power, I mean that word power might conjure up, at least for me, traditionally, it conjures up a bit of a how do I want to say?
There's a resistance?
Yeah, like a resistance and an authoritarian yes stance to it. Power feels very like not necessarily violent, that's the wrong word, but there's a confrontation aspect. There's a force in that. And so I'm interested in thinking about what do I mean by power and what does it mean for me to be power?
You know?
And so I think about in fact, Elizabeth Lesser talks about this a lot and well in her book Cassandra Speaks, and she talks about what power can also mean. And I think for me, power can mean knowing my own voice, trusting my own voice, and speaking my own voice like and acting out of that deeper knowing that I have and not giving that away to someone else, right, Yeah, I think that can be a form of real power for me.
Yeah. So I think we're talking about the dichotomy of power. And first I want to say that many many people have this response when they hear the word power, especially women, where they associate power with something quite negative. And I think what's important in this conversation is that when we're talking about abuse of power, what we're talking about is power over We're using the power that we have to try to influence another person to get something that we want,
and that something is harmful to them. And so that is a very specific type of power. But another type of power, yeah, a misuse of power. That's a really
great way to frame that. And then the other type of power that we're going to be talking about today is the power that we have within ourselves that comes from a sense of integrity and wholeness, That knowing where we realize that a situation is unsupportive and it's not good for us, and we can fully feel that experience and then use that experience to create real change, change in our own lives and change in our communities.
That's really good. That's so interesting. Okay, so sorry for the tangent, but no, I don't think it's a tangent.
I think this topic of power, I'm fascinated with it because I have, long before this abuse happened, the question that I had been asked king myself as why am I afraid of my own power? And it was because I had had so many people who used power over to try to get something from me that ultimately resulted in harm to myself. And when that's happened over and over, the fear is that when you step into your own power,
you'll do the same thing. And one thing that this situation did for me is is it clarified who I am as a person in a way that I'm no longer afraid of that.
And I think that.
Being able to uphold truth in situations that are incredibly difficult, where everyone around us is trying to get us to question ourselves. That process is like a homing in on our own internal sense of what's right. And for me, that's the gift that I've been given from this experience.
Oh wow, okay, So what else would you like to sort of set up for us or share on a personal level.
So I'd like to talk a little bit about how abuse happens in these interactions that we have. And one of the things that's I think an important concept when we're talking about abuse of power is something that the sociologist Irvin Goffman calls impression management. And so the way that he describes this is that we all have a front stage and a backstage self, and that is something that is normal. We all behave differently and want to represent ourselves in a certain way when we're in the
presence of others. This becomes problematic when our front stage self is used to hide things, as they describe it, that ought not be hidden. These are things about ourselves that can cause damage. And so this concept of impression management is something that abusers are really adept at, and they use a variety of really specific tools to do this.
So one of the things that they do in these situations where they're intending to abuse, consciously or unconsciously, is that they make the person feel like they're really special, make the person feel like they're part of their inner circle of trust. This might include a level of exclusivity, It might include doing favors for that person, or they describe it as overhelping. And this is something that I
can say that I experienced in my situation. There were things that I shared with my teacher, and then later those points of vulnerability were wrapped up in the ways that this person tried to use our relationship to cross boundaries. And so, for example, knowing that I had had an emotional affair nine years ago, when this person had an affair, it was we're the same and that we're the same feeling.
As part of what abusers use to garner that sense of trust, they oftentimes reveal more than they should in situations, so they're using their own vulnerability to weaponize and create that inner circle feeling. And that combination of getting a lot of positive attention, combined with the sense of this is specifically for you, and you and I are the same, creates a scenario where that person ultimately allows boundaries to be crossed that they would not normally allow to be crossed.
So this is like a testing process. They slowly build this vulnerability and then this trust, and then once that is established, they strategically insert information and actions that would normally face resistance, but they're not facing resistance because that person has so much invested in the situation and there's such a bond. Can we pause for a second, because this.
Is a pattern that immediately calls to mind, like a handful of people, it's crystallized that there was abuse happening there. Then they were the abuser, they abused power, and I was, in a sense in this kind of abusive relationship with them, which is a thing to just sit with for a second.
And then also, I think the other place in my mind immediately goes is like when you use words like strategically kind of sharing information or I mean essentially what you're doing is like disarming people, like you want to get them disarmed so that there's closeness and boundaries that are normally there in the beginning of a relationship or sort of or dissolved so that right there's not that
resistance to what's going to happen. But I'm just thinking about my worldview, and like, do people intentionally think like, oh, now's the time to drop that nugget of information so that this process can continue and I can disarm her. Wah, you know, Like I just yeah, I wonder is this something they've learned and they are doing, whether or not it's conscious or not. I mean that this is just how they operate in the world. Where does this come from?
That's a great question.
So I'm reflecting back upon situations where I was abused by someone, especially in my much younger years, and upon reflection, it's become clear to me.
That those people were also abused.
And so I think there is a pattern that exists, a template where it becomes imprinted in some way and then activated in these situations without people even realizing that it's happening. I wouldn't say for sure that that's the case with every individual. I'm curious how many folks who engage in these sort of behaviors have experienced this themselves.
Yeah, I think that tracks because as I think about like the examples in my life. I mean, I talk a lot on the one you feed about the relationship with my mom and also her illness and her death, and at the heart of that relationship was so much love and devotion for like me to her and her to me. I mean, I count myself so fortunate to have known that kind of love and devotion. And it was a very complicated relationship with also layers of a lot of pain and I realize, you know, emotional and
verbal abuse. If I think about my mother, my sense is she didn't think the world was a safe place, and so she felt like in order to stay two steps ahead, this is how you move through life so that you're not caught off guard and potentially harmed. Ye right, Yeah, And I'm not even sure it was conscious. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, But I think that was a learned thing for her. I think that was a bit of
a blind spot and a pattern that wasn't interrupted. Or if she just felt like the world was unsafe, she was unwilling to operate differently.
Yeah, And I want to pause here and just say that regardless of the love and care that's present in a relationship, that does not negate the need for boundaries when abuse is occurring. Unfortunately, many folks, I think can relate Jenny to the experience that you're describing. And I just worked with a group of teenagers just a few weeks ago, and we were talking about boundaries specifically, and many of them were describing situations at home where they
had no control over those boundaries. And that is such a complicated and difficult dynamic. And I'm assuming that most of our audience right now are adults, and so in that scenario, the really empowering thing is that we can regain control in those situations and assert those boundaries and not have our past experience reframed for us as something that was okay. That's part of our power, yeah, is to be able to yea claim that because you're right.
I mean, that's the other thing that was just not present with my mom was boundaries.
Yeah. That was a bad word, right, Like boundaries equaled separation, and separation was not loving. And so therefore there's this enmeshment that happens, yeah.
Right, Yeah, And in situations where we're not talking about a parent, that enmeshment is also something that perpetrators of
abuse rely upon. I think part of the reason that my boundaries were tested so significantly in the last interaction with my teacher was because he knew because I had shared with him how central he was to my spiritual life and experience, and that cost benefit analysis is something that perpetrators rely upon that the benefits are going to outweigh the costs of speaking our truth.
Yeah.
Yeah, I want to talk a little bit too about in these personal interactions, when someone does cross a boundary with us, and we have the resources and the skill to say that's not okay, what happens? Then what is a standard response that a perpetrator might have in those situations? And in Wademullen's book, he specifically describes this concept called a flexible script, which I think is really an interesting
idea that I saw played out in my own experience. So, when abusers get called out, what they do is basically say whatever they need to say to save the reputation and create the possibility that they'll still be able to fulfill that role and ultimately they'll still be able to abuse others in the same way. And so some of the things that I saw in my situation is that the abuser would respond very differently to different people depending
upon what he thought they wanted to hear. So, just to give an example of this, one of the complaint processes was with this person's nomination, and they were Methodists, and so I was going through a process with a Methodist bishop's office, and far into the process, I asked this question of have you seen genuine remorse from this person?
And they shared with me that they had seen so much remorse from him that they worried that he was going to hurt himself, and then proceeded to say that I did not need to worry about consequences because his life had been ruined, and that the letter that I had written was difficult for her to read, let alone
for him to read. Meanwhile, at the same time, he was communicating with the church community and diminishing his role in the situation, asking them to hold any communications that I'd sent in confidentiality, and basically saying that he did not believe that what I was describing was an accurate portrayal of what had happened. So he's presenting very different fronts to different people. This can look like denials, it
can look like excuses, it can look like justification. In the process, he very often said to the folks that were responsible for enforcing consequences, I was just at this point of crisis, and I made a mistake. It can include comparisons to others worse actions, so at least I didn't do blank and then lastly, relying upon any good deeds that that person has engaged in the past as a counterbalance to the complaints that are now coming forward.
So all of that can happen when someone comes forward and says this wasn't right.
And the thing that's missing on the side of the user is accountability, right, like acceptance, ownership of the action and accountability. Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of things can be missing. Accountability is one of them and the most profound.
I think.
Also, you know, true remorse can be missing because in order to engage in abuse that is harmful to others, there has to be justification on the other person's side, and so that justification then becomes what I did, wasn't that bad? Or you know, that wasn't my intention, or here are the reasons that this unfolded the way that it did. So all of that has a lot of impacts on the individual who is trying to come forward and say this thing that happened wasn't okay.
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I just want to pause for a second here and say there's a great book called Mistakes Were Made But Not by Me, And it's a book all about like this phenomenon of cognitive dissonance and how our brains can't tolerate it. Like there is a basic sense that we all have that we all need to preserve, which is that I'm a good person. Yeah, and so when we
do actions that violate some sort of moral code. There's some sort of justification that happens subconsciously most of the time that explains why that was okay, or explains why normal consequences that could happen aren't going to happen to us. The example that they use is like smoking. You know, you engage smoking. It's very well known that that causes
cancer and other kinds of illnesses. But like, if you know that and you still smoke, there's some story you're telling which makes that something you can engage in and not have that kind of dissonance that is hard to hold. Like, for example, well, I only have one a day, so it's not like I'm smoking a packa day, so et cetera, et cetera. Or well, I'm going to quit, you know, in the next couple of years and then I'll have plenty of time for my lungs to reset and I'll
be fine, or cancer doesn't run in my family. I mean, there are all kinds of things to make this action that is objectively harmful not somehow as harmful. Yeah, and I just think about what you're saying, which is like there's this need to preserve a sense of well, but I'm not an abuser, and here's why.
Yeah, and I think in this conversation, yes, we need to understand how this happens, and that's why these things are important to talk about. And I also don't want to get in the place of trying to over empathize with people who engage in this type of behavior, because ultimately systems are doing that. And this might be a good time to shift gears and talk about how organizations allow this kind of thing to happen, because that's the norm. Okay, let's do that. The norm is that this is allowed.
The norm is that this is excused. The norm is that this is justified. And I think that this is another quote from Wade Mullen, nothing stays hidden without help, and that help comes through silence and then this is my term, and through willful ignorance. So another concept that was described in this book is this idea of disruptive information. And oftentimes in organizations, disruptive information is hidden or it's obscured because it threatens people's vision of that key leader
and it threatens their vision of that community. So it's actually too painful to be able to acknowledge what's really happened. And again, consciously or unconsciously, this information gets buried. I want to talk a little bit more about this concept of disruptive information, and before I do, I want to read this quote, and this is from Judith Herman in the book. It says, it's very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that
the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the other hand, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement. Remembering, so when a victim is presenting disruptive information, the desire of the organization is to take the path of least resistance, and oftentimes that looks like tactful and attention. So this is
another concept that's from a sociologist. And this concept I think goes from what I would describe is benign strategies that we all use to get through social situations, to collective delusions that create a safe haven for abuse to happen. On the benign example, I think this is something that many folks can relate to. I've showed this example before
and it seems to resonate. We are on public transit for a moment, and the train, the plane, wherever it is that we are is full, and everybody's kind of scrunched in together, and someone on that train or that plane or that bus starts playing a video or a song or whatever on their phone very loudly without headphones.
And this is a pet peeve of mine.
Normally, what happens in that situation is that we all engage in tactful inattention. We just agree to pretend that this isn't happening, that it's not annoying, and no one says anything. But the same idea of tactful in attention also comes into play when disruptive information that threatens organizations or threatens leaders comes to the fore, and collectively, the decision is made that we're going to obscure that information. We're not going to hear it fully, we're not going
to engage in transparency. We're just going to all sit and you know, hold our hands on our laps and wait for this to be over. So what happens is that organizations desire to avoid a scandal rather than seeking the real change that would actually make community spaces safer. And then the second way that this happens is that there's a lack of transparency in the community about exactly
what happened. This is where I think the term confidentiality becomes weaponized under the assumption the confidentiality is about keeping the victim safe. Very oftentimes it's a about keeping the organization safe. It's about keeping the perpetrator safe because they oftentimes fulfill these key roles in the community where if there's damage done to them, it also impacts the organization
as a whole. And then lastly, organizations and communities become really overly focused on the good that they've done, like, yes, this thing happened, but you know, look at all of these other good things that we're doing at the same time, Like we're thriving more than ever, Like we're going to move past this. It's almost like that grit and resilience idea of we're going to be better than ever.
You know what's interesting is I think back in my years in corporate America when realizations come into mind, which is I was either told or lured or whatever. Now, if you're listening and you're in HR and I'm getting this wrong, please do let me know. I don't mean to mislabel HR in this way if this is incorrect. My understanding was that HR's role is to protect the company, not you, the person, right Like, they're not actually there
to advocate for individuals. They're actually there to advocate and protect the organization. So I just find that an interesting idea. I've managed people, that was one of my roles, and so I worked with HR a lot in the personnel management, in hiring and firing kind of process. So that does track with my experience of the HR departments I worked with.
But it also makes me think about, you know, an idea that we've talked about, which is just the importance of gathering allies of your own, right, like those that you know whose role is about supporting and protecting like you. Yeah, that's a team of people that can be very important to assemble, I would say, But I'd love to know what your thoughts are.
Yeah.
Well, one of the things that your comment made me think of was my own disillusionment with communities in this process, because what I realized is that while I was hearing the message, our priorities are first of all, protecting you, second of all, protecting any other victims, and third of all, protecting the church. It became very clear that the church was the prime thing that was being protected, and I
don't think that's even a conscious choice. I think when folks invest their lives, their work, their energy, their resources into these communities, it becomes too personally damaging to actually do the work that would require them to reassess the fruitful and good nature of that organization. It becomes a position that people take without even realizing that their primary motivation is to make sure that that community doesn't get damaged, and how they view that is shutting someone down instead
of really looking at what change needs to happen. Organizations are primed for this type of abuse when a few things happen. The first one is when secrets are kept. The second one is when roles are seen as above reproach. The term used here might be keystone rolls. These are roles that are pivotal to the community and the reliance upon that charismatic leader makes the community overinvested in they're
being a safe person. And then, lastly, when organizations are insular and they're not transparent to influence and oversight, which is why in my process. Bringing a DEI expert, my friend law Baker, into the experience was key because she was the outside set of eyes to say, this isn't just our community who's looking at this issue, this is a larger issue.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
So I think we can transition into what this process actually feels like for individuals who are experiencing it, and you maybe you can talk a little bit about what it was like for you to be in a situation where there was abuse of power in an organization and you didn't.
Have the support that you needed.
Yeah, and I think it's important to talk about because as we've described how abusive power can happen on the individual and collective level. You know, it's helpful because then we can begin to spot it and know what things to watch out for. So now talking about what that experience feels like for people experiencing it, individuals experiencing it, I think it's important because then you can begin to
identify it within yourself. When you start noticing things, feelings and thoughts like this, you know they can be markers, trailheads. So just if I reflect on that, when you think about really that grooming stage of when the abuser is creating closeness beyond what is maybe appropriate in either that
relationship or that stage of the relationship or whatever. For me, that initially feels like a privilege, Like I'm getting this like closeness and inside access to someone who is in power, which makes me feel like somehow I'm then in a position of privilege, right, Like somehow I'm in a position where it's going to be advantageous to have that kind of relationship, especially in a corporate setting, because you know, there is that power over you as like an employee,
so career wise, you know, we all know that relationships are so important. So like now you have the super relationship with someone that has power, and so like that can only be good, right, I Mean, that's just going to put you in an advantageous position moving forward. That's just the reality of the world. So I feel like that's something that might be good to watch out for and to sort of investigate when it comes up, like
what's actually happening here? But then when the abuse of power is so clearly happening, and the abuse is happening, and there's really a sense that there's no one I can tell or there's no way to seek protection from this person and that it's up to me. There's a sense of panic, There's a sense of like the burden of figuring this out is just completely on me, Like I just got to figure this out. Like I've got to find a way I not only have to take
this abuse, but then I've got to fix the abuse. Yeah, and I've got to just do that by my bootstraps. I've just got to, you know, somehow be savvy enough to navigate my way out of an abusive relationship in a system that can never know what happens. Yeah, and you're sort of always on guard. You know, you're always on guard for mitigating opportunities for abuse to happen again while also not further hurting yourself by disrupting the relationship or the organization.
Yeah.
It's an impossible charge, really, I mean it feels that way.
Yeah, it is an impossible charge to both be able to protect ourselves and also not disrupt a system where when we disrupt it, we know there will be costs to us. I have some kind of questions or statements that really resonated when I thought about what this feels like on a personal level and what feelings are that came up. I think when abuse happens, it creates confusion, it creates disorientation. There's this question of how did I
get here? Like how did I let this happen? Which I think can lead to a sense of self blame.
Yeah, totally.
Then there's this lack of agency too, like and I heard you saying that, like can I even stop this? How can I stop this? That feeling of helplessness. I think that can come up in situations like this, And then for some folks, and I'm curious if you felt this at all. I think it's very common. It can create a sense of shame like how could I let this happen? Oh?
Yeah, that is literally the next thing I was going to say, which is it's the shame and the anticipation of others judging you, Like I anticipate others going like what did you do to get into this situation? Like how did you let this happen? Like with the previous sposs I had that I talked about in the last episode, it's like, what signs did you give him that this was okay?
Right?
Like, yeah, you clearly are not operating in an ethical way because you left the door wide open. You know, he thought they were was an opportunity there, So you anticipate that judgment.
Yeah, at least I did.
And so then there's that thinking that that's true inside myself that keeps you silent.
Yeah, which is the last thing that I would say really happens in these situations when we're in these scenarios, is this is my fault. So I can't tell anyone and will anyone even believe my side of the story, because there's going to be another side. These folks are going to fight back because they want their reputation and their position of power to be protected.
Yes. Yeah, it's very hard.
It's a very difficult situation to be in. Yeah, it's the hardest situation. Yes, the situations where abuse have happened in my life are my hardest moments.
Yeah.
And then you know, we can take this lens of thinking about how incredibly challenging this is to the person who's experiencing it all ready, and then we can shift this over to Okay, so now we want to do something, and we say something, and then what happens at the organizational level. This is my experience when you share disruptive information, when you share abuse has happened, and I am a victim of abuse. You are made to feel like a problem. Yes, you become the problem.
Yes, yeah, well that's you nailed it right there for sure. Now you've got this trouble maker. Now we got to deal with this problem. Thanks a lot, exactly exactly I mean. And in the aftermath of that, feeling again conscious or unconscious, you get ignored, literally ignored, you know, like I talked about in the last episode, I went months without just being able to have a meeting where I gave feedback on how this situation was handled.
And it's dehumanizing.
M h.
You feel like you don't matter and you're doing this incredibly hard thing, one of the hardest things you've done in your life. And at the same time, that's the message that you're receiving, not thinks not I'm sorry, but.
I wish you would disappear.
Yes, it's insanity making process because you have this really strong sense of urgency about what needs to be done because you have just been traumatized, and no one else that you're communicating with seems to share that sense of urgency. It makes you question everything because you're like, you're like, why is everyone around me behaving as if nothing is happening, Right, You.
Anticipate the shame and blame that's going to come with speaking up, and instead what you're met with oftentimes is like the sense of like indifference, indifference, and like, yeah, it makes you crazy. You're like, wait a minute, everybody, this awful thing has happened.
What Yeah?
Yeah, And you know, I think again we talked before about like templates of abuse and interpersonal relationships. I think there's a template for the collective indifference to abuse by people in power, and that template it comes with a goal, and the goal is to where the victim's mental, emotional, spiritual resources down so that they will give up any attempt at making real change.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think of the word like disruptors, this disruption that happens, and even on like the mass transit example of like the person playing the really annoying music, but it's like you don't want to disrupt the situation that's collectively being agreed to, Like that's just really hard.
Yeah, And the impact of that is that victims feel completely alone.
Yeah, completely alone.
Yeah.
So let's talk a little bit about how healing can happen.
Yes, what can we do what would be healing to do, what would be helpful to do if we find ourselves in this situation.
I have another quote that I want to share with you from Something's Not Right, and it says many live with untold stories not because they know want to tell them, but because they never encounter safe people in safe spaces where their stories.
Can be heard.
And so what this said to me, The reason that this spoke to me is because it's paramount to find those safe spaces where we can speak our truth. And I think that navigating these situations, there's no right or wrong way to go about it. But first of all, it needs to look like finding allies and community members who will look at us and say, I believe you, this isn't your fault. I want to stand with you. When you find those supportive folks, you can begin to
navigate these confusing waters of what to do next. But to do that without some sort of support is a difficult path that I want to navigate folks away from because it is so emotionallymaging. And I also understand that it is a challenge sometimes to find those people, but we have to keep looking, and even if we need to tell them. Here's what I need from you in this moment. This is what I need, and make that
very clear. I need you to say these words to me, and that I need you to trust how I choose to move through this situation and support that. And then from there we can begin to ask ourselves the question of what does it look like to share our truth and spaces that are unsafe and we know that, and that might be conversations with someone who has crossed a boundary with us, with someone else present and we're saying
this wasn't okay and I need it to stop. It might be saying our truth in our communities and making a formal report in some way. Those are choices and options that we have once we have the support that we need, and in speaking our truth however much we can with as much authority as we can, that's where healing happens, because we're affirming our own human dignity in those moments where we say, no, enough, this isn't okay.
So I want to just go back to the first step, which is to begin sharing our experience with safe people.
Yeah, because I think.
That's sometimes when you're in this boat of shame of like anticipatory shame and existing current shame for like the whole situation, or maybe you're afraid of the consequences and so speaking up to anyone feels very dangerous. Whatever the reasons that keep you blocked and stuck in silenced, it might be helpful to orient towards a person even outside of the community where the abuse is happening, to start with, Like,
perhaps it's a trusted friend. Perhaps it's someone that's completely disconnected from that situation, but you know you can trust to listen and respond in a way that you know you either ask them to or that you anticipate will be.
Like they're on team Brandy, you know, or their team Jinny. Yeah, and so a family member, a friend, therapist, Because I think the act of just speaking your truth for even the first time, is a powerful act because you begin to let those words come out of your head and out of your mouth and they are received by somebody, and therefore that experience now exists in like a safe
context where it can be explored and witnessed. And hell yeah, just that very first brave act of telling someone that you trust can be the beginning of some healing there. I mean, I think that the part of staying silent and being like the one on the public transit who hears the music and is like, we need to say something like this is crazy. This person should just put on some headphones. Like if there's one other person that you turn to and you say that too, and they're like, absolutely,
who is this jackass listening to this video? You know, immediately you feel a sense of like you're power coming back. Yeah, like, oh, it's not just me, it's not just me. No, that's really fun. Wrong, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I resonate with what you're saying, and it's really important.
Yeah, it's really important.
I think when we put the abusive experience into a safe context, even we then begin to see the harm that's been caused and how not okay the actions are, and then we can begin to talk through what else, if anything needs to be done at this time, right for your own healing or for organizational support to eradicate the systemic.
Abuse of power, use of power.
Yeah, we can begin to explore that.
Yeah.
Well, I think one framework that is helpful for me is, again, this is from something's not right, but abuse is a community concern. It's not an individual issue, and So it's communities that create the spaces that allow for us to happen, and then as we continue in the process and try to share our truth, that then allow these experiences to be hidden. It's through community that we will begin to find healing.
Again.
It cannot be an individual endeavor because it's not our fault and it's not just our problem. It's everyone's problem that this happens so frequently.
Yes, yes, even in a one on one relationship. I mean, community sounds like a big word, right, but it's like community is just you and another person that is its own little community. You in a handful of people, or you in an entire organization.
Yeah, And in both of our situations, yes, it was a one on one interaction. It was a one on one abuse situation, but you were in this corporate environment where you knew that if you shared the information it was at risk to your financial success, your sense of purpose in your career, all of these things. So there's a huge cost, and that cost is established by the
community that you're a part of. And similarly, in my situation, this person was embedded in a community of people that he used to fish for potential victims that he could then cross boundaries with yeah, and again, whether that's conscious or unconscious, that's the process that was happening, and the community itself is what allowed for that of use to happen. And in the wake of reporting my own incident, I found out that this church had experienced similar situations with
other perpetrators on a number of occasions. So this is not a one time thing that's happening. This is happening over and over and over again in so many of these communities.
I guess I'm thinking too about like even in friendships or romantic relationships, like where it's you and the other person, right, and it's not necessarily a greater community that holds that relationship as much as it is one on one in your own life. I mean, I think you can still then go build a community of support right outside of that relationship to help you navigate those waters.
Absolutely.
Yeah, when we're talking about abuse, and we're talking about abuse of power, it can begin to feel that the world is a really dark place and that we are unsafe in our communities, in our relationships, and our bodies. And I definitely got that sense in this experience, and so I want to end our conversation today on a note of hope. And there's another quote that I want to read from Wade Mullen's book, and it's this, every
act of abuse is an assault on beauty. So I've learned to find the beauty that the abuser is seeking to assault and dismantle. In this conversation, I think the beauty that is being assaulted is our willingness to trust others to hold our vulnerability, to create safe space for us. And I felt confident and determined throughout this entire process until today that I would not allow that to be dismantled by a single person, or even by a community
or a system that doesn't value my truth. And I think that that's something that we can all hold as we move through these situations of abuse. What is the beauty that's here that's being assaulted, and what do I want to do to protect that beauty?
Because it's real?
I love that. Thank you for that. That's a wonderful note to end this conversation on. And I just hope that the things that we've shared have helped people identify instances in their own lives where there's an opportunity to reclaim power to speak truth to first safe people, and then to navigate the waters in community because we're not alone, right, because we're not alone.
Yeah, And to find healing in ourselves and healing in our world for people who have experienced abuse, and to know that that healing includes the awareness that we're not alone in these experiences, even if not a single other person ever knows what we've been through, and that there is some beauty inside of us that while others may seek to dismantle it, it's ours and they can't take it.
Thank you, Brandy so much, and thank you listeners for joining us in this conversation, and we hope that it's been supportive and helpful and we've really enjoyed talking. Thank you friends, all right, see you next time, See you next tie.
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