Surviving Domestic Violence As A Teen (Episode 39)

🎧 From teen dating violence to powerful survivor - Kim Keane's story will change how you think about toxic relationships forever. In this raw and real episode, Kim breaks her silence about surviving domestic abuse as a teenager, revealing the red flags she missed and how she finally broke free.

Through unflinching honesty, Kim exposes the harsh reality of teen dating violence that nobody talks about, but everyone needs to understand.

This life-changing episode explores:

• The subtle warning signs of abuse that teens often mistake for "love"
• How an abusive relationship starts and why it's hard to leave
• The manipulation tactics abusers use to control their partners
• Real strategies for escaping dangerous relationships safely
• The journey from victim to survivor to thriver
• How to help a friend who might be in an abusive relationship

Perfect for: Teens navigating relationships, anyone questioning if their relationship is healthy, those supporting friends through tough situations, and anyone wanting to understand the reality of teen dating violence.

To learn more about Kim Keane, please click the link below.

http://www.kimkeane.com/

Transcript

Welcome to Mindshift Power podcast, a show for teenagers and the adults who work with them, where we have raw and honest conversations. I'm your host, Fatima Bey, the mind shifter. And welcome, everyone. Today, we have with us Kim Keen, and she's from Pennsylvania. She's a holistic life coach.

But today, we're actually here to talk about her story as a domestic abuse victim and how she became a survivor as a teen. How are you doing today, Kim? I'm great. How are you? I'm great.

I'm really looking forward to this conversation. So I like to dive right into it. So go ahead and just tell us your story. So, it all started when I was in tenth grade. I had my first boyfriend who was not a good boyfriend, and I had another boy who was strongly pursuing me who, boyfriend number one was a a loser.

And this boy who was, you know, obsessively pursuing me was also a loser, and I would tell him that frequently and, you know, tell him I was repulsed by him. And I wanted him to leave me alone, and I didn't like him. But, man, he was persistent. So we had a flower shop in the high school, and he would buy me a rose every day with his lunch money instead of eating lunch and have it delivered last period math class. And then the math teacher started making math problems about Kim's roses, and I was mortified but, like, secretly loving it.

Mhmm. He walked me to all my classes, and, eventually, he just wore me down. And one of my girlfriends was like, oh my god. If you don't ask him out, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask him out for myself. And I was like, okay.

Fine. Like, I'll do it. Jeez. And that was in, March of ninety eight. So I was a sophomore in high school and not 16 yet, not until that summer.

And, so we started dating, and I was still kind of like, I don't really know about you, but, sure, we're together. And, it went from, like, the sweet loving roses to my math class to that and then some. So then it was jewelry. He bought me a necklace that said I love you, and he was walking me on my bus. And he would wait for me at the main entrance when I got to school in the morning and would, you know, just shower me with all this love and affection, and I really felt like I was the center of his universe.

But that really quickly changed from Mhmm. Like, the sunshine and rainbows and the unicorns farting pink puffy clouds to, thinking like, oh my god. Who is this person? Because he switched his classes to be in mine. And at first, I thought that was really sweet and endearing.

Like, oh my gosh. He just wants to be with me so much. Mhmm. But then I realized, like, no. It's so he can keep an eye on me.

Mhmm. And then it was the jealousy tendency. So I was on swim team, and he didn't like that there was the boys' swim team and that I was wearing a one piece bathing suit in front of the boys even though I wasn't the only girl wearing a one piece. Like, it's a swim team. Everybody's in a bathing suit.

No one's each other like that. But in his mind, all of the boys were looking at me, and I was looking at them. And so, you know, he it just the insecurity was just unreal, and it started showing so fast. And then it was, you know, wanting to be on the phone with me every night until I literally would fall asleep with a phone in my hand. And, you know, then it was accusing me of, you know, if I wasn't on the phone with him, well, then who are you talking to?

Who are you with? Why can't you be on the phone with me? Because I my parents said, like, I have to hang up. And so our parents were very different. He was smoking cigarettes in tenth grade.

I was, you know, the straight a student who had to be inside when the street lights were on. He had a car and was driving himself all over. I did not have a car. His parents, basically, it was like no rules. It was like, do whatever you want.

My parents, my dad, and my stepmom were super strict. It was, like, the thumb suppressive, like, helicopter parent. So he just was allowed to do whatever he wanted, and I wasn't. And he really couldn't understand that. And so then it was just constant fighting with each other because it was accusing me of cheating, accusing me of this, accusing me of that.

And then he would break up with me, and then he would start telling everybody at school that I was sleeping with people and that I was cheating on him and that it was you know, I was the problem, not him. And then people would stop talking to me, and they'd be giving me dirty looks in the hallway. And it was just this crazy out of control thing that I didn't even know what I had gotten myself into. I didn't know how to get out of it. I didn't know how to handle it.

But then fall of junior year, my parents confronted me with tapes. So my parents literally tapped my dad tapped the phone line like an FBI Wow. And was listening in on to conversations of all the things that I was doing at 15 that I should not have been doing. And then, mind you, my parents divorced when I was very young and didn't really get along. But, man, in this moment, they became a united force.

So there's my mom and my dad together, and I was like, oh, something big is going down, and it's not good. And it was them confronting me with the tapes of the fighting, of him accusing me of cheating on him, just like the verbal, the mental abuse, the emotional abuse. And, of course, I'm 16 at that point. So I'm like, I'm an adult, and you can't tell me what to do. And I was like, I'm going to live with my mom.

And in the heat of the moment, I swear my dad said, yes. Fine. Go. So that night, I went upstairs, and I packed my whole bedroom. Well, the next day my dad saw it.

And he was like, well, what's all this? I was like, I told you I'm moving in with my mom. And he was like, you wanna go live with your mom? Get your and he said effing. Get your effing shit and get out.

Loaded up all my stuff in the car, sped to my mom's house, literally was throwing my stuff in the driveway, demanded the car key, and sped or the house key and sped away. And so my dad and I really didn't talk for the five and a half years that I was with him. Oh, wow. So, initially, like, when I moved in with my mom, my dad would try to force me to come over every other weekend like it had been growing up with my mom. But it was just constant fighting, because my parents didn't trust me because I was lying and I was sneaking out, all to try and keep things at bay with not nice boyfriend.

And so when they confronted me, they're like, you can't see him anymore. And I really didn't wanna be with him anymore. But I knew it wasn't just that plain and simple of, like, okay. My parents said I can't see you anymore, so I can't see you anymore. Like, I wasn't escaping him that easily because we were at school all day, and my parents couldn't protect me Mhmm.

At school. So my dad called the principal and basically had teachers and principals spying on me at school and was told they were told, you know, if you see her with him, you are to call me at work immediately. So then I would get home from school and be screamed at and, you know, grounded, and it was just really not a good situation at all. And so, and I stayed until I was 21 because I didn't know how to leave. But he also convinced me that no one would ever wanna be with me.

You know, they say that the typical things like your body is disgusting. You're ugly. No one will love you. Mhmm. You know?

Without me, you're nothing. And so I believe that. Like, I didn't go to college right out of high school. I lost my acceptance to the University of Delaware because my grades went down in, junior and senior junior and senior year. So I was working at the grocery store.

I was working at the mall, barely making a minimum wage, not really having enough money to survive. And then on top of it, he developed a really bad drug addiction. So then I was trying to support his drug addiction and stay alive, because at around 18 was when the physical abuse started. So then on top of it was the emotional, the mental, the verbal, and then the physical abuse came. And so that lasted until I left.

But when I was about 20, he actually went to jail for violation of probation. And I stayed with him on the promise of, you know, when I get out, things are gonna be better. They're gonna be different. I promise I'll never put my hands on you again. But the whole time he was in jail, he was talking to other girls and having them send you know, they were sending him money and things for commissary and all of this stuff.

So nothing was changing while he was in jail, but I was still naively thinking that it was gonna change. And so I said yes to the jailhouse proposal. He got out. And then a couple months after he got out, his cousin told me that he had gotten a girl pregnant. And I was like, okay.

That is finally the straw that broke the camel's back. I am 100% done now because now you've made me to look, like, look like a fool. I've given up my family for you. I've given up school. I've waited for you for over a year to get out of jail.

And, really, this is this is it. All done. And that was really what it took for me to leave, at 21. And I basically had to start all over again with rebuilding my self esteem and, you know, the belief in myself that I was enough without him. And, ironically enough, it was probably about five years ago when the Eagles won the Super Bowl.

He actually reached out to me on Facebook. I and that was, like, my biggest, biggest, biggest fear ever because now I'm married. I have young girls. Like, I don't want him to know where I am. I don't want him to be able to find me.

And he found me, and he reached out on Facebook with his most pathetic apology ever. And I wanted so badly to give him a piece of my mind, but my girlfriend was like, don't open Pandora's box. Do not give him the time of day. Let it lie him because you ignoring him is gonna eat at him more than you will give him the satisfaction of responding to that message. So I did.

I ignored it. I blocked it, and that was it. So yeah. So even after all those years I mean, almost twenty years had gone by, and he was reaching out to me on Facebook. Like, dude, enough already.

So, yeah. So that was really it. It was kind of this relationship that I didn't really want, but there really wasn't anyone else knocking on my door. And I was kinda like, well, this must be as good as it gets. So okay.

I'll go out with them. Little did I know what I was signing up for. Let me ask you this. For the sake of the other young women, specifically, who are listening, tell us what did the domestic violence look like when it started? Yeah.

So it was a lot of verbal and mental manipulation. So it was a lot of verbal abuse. Oh, you don't love me because you wore makeup. You you oh, you I see you looking at him. You think oh, I I know you like him.

Oh, you wanna be with him? You don't wanna be with me anymore? I knew you were gonna leave me. So it was this always this, like, this almost like he was always the victim, and I was always the perpetrator. And then it would quickly you know, I would defend myself.

Like, I'm not looking at anyone. I wore makeup today because I wanted to wear makeup. It has nothing to do with anyone else but my own self. Right. Yeah.

And then it would turn into this huge fight about how I was lying, and he knows, and I should just be honest and tell the truth, and that would make the argument end. And so that was really how it started. It was just a lot of questioning me about my decisions, about my choices, making things up, saying that other people told him, oh, well, so and so saw you talking to him, and they told me that you were talking to him. I don't even know that kid's name. What are you talking about?

So then I would go ask that person, did you say that I was talking to this person? And they're like, no. I don't know what you're talking about. Well, he seems to think you told him that. So it was just, like, all these mind games and and following, like, switching his class to be in my classes.

So wanting to be with me all the time. And if he couldn't actually have eyes on me, then he needed to be talking to me. And so that was where the phone conversations came in because this is in the nineties, so we didn't have smartphones. Right. Right.

Cell phones. We had pagers. And so the other thing he would do is page messages. So it was kind of like texting before texting was a thing so that you would have to text a sequence of numbers on the pager, and it would show up on the little itty bitty screen, and you'd have to get a pen and paper, and you have to write all the numbers down and figure out which letter they corresponded to on the buttons of the phone. And so he would rip me up in that, and there would be these long, just endless amounts of pages coming through on my pager with these crazy things.

Like, why are you telling people that we're not together? I never said that. If you don't wanna be with me, then why don't you just tell me? Oh my gosh. What are you talking about?

But that was for him to get reassurance from me. Like, I do wanna be with you. I do love you. I don't know what you're talking about. I will never leave you.

I will always be with you. Mhmm. It was just this manipulation of always trying to have the upper hand and making it feel like I had to walk on eggshells because I never knew what would set him off. I never knew what was gonna come out of his mouth. So I always just fell on high alert.

So that was a nice precursor to the physical Oh, yeah. Physical part. So the first time he I don't know if he hit, punched, or slapped you, or pushed. But the first time Right in the mouth. Say it again?

A closed fist right in the mouth. Almost knocked my front tooth out. And did he apologize afterwards? Oh, yes. Perfusely.

Always do. Not not initially. So he had an argument with me. I couldn't even tell you what the argument was about. Something so stupid punched me in the mouth, then took my car and went out for the night to leave me home, icing my busted lip, thinking like, oh my god.

What in the world am I gonna do if my tooth falls out? So then I, like, put my retainers in and just kept icing and praying, like, please don't let my tooth fall out. Please don't let my tooth fall out because it was loose, and it hurt so bad. So then after the fact, when he was done gallivanting in my car, god knows where he was, probably cheating on me with another girl. Then it was the, I'm so sorry.

I don't know what happened. I just can't live without you. I promise you I will never hit you again. That was a onetime thing. Please don't leave me.

I need you. I'm nothing without you. Yeah. That was definitely not the last time. Yeah.

And, unfortunately, that's quite common. Mhmm. That's usually how it starts. So I wanna summarize a little bit, pull out some principles of what you just said, and I'm doing this for the listeners. So what I hear is the mental manipulation first, which starts with planting seeds of doubt about yourself, with the conversation.

False accusations. I I hear when I hear these stories, I don't think I've ever heard of a time where there's not starting with false accusations. Starting with false accusations and then making you doubt yourself. Mhmm. And constantly the insults, the insults, which gets you ready.

It primes you. It's like tenderizing the meat Yes. Before you cook it. So it it primes you and gets you ready for the next level of abuse. Yes.

And That's what happened with you. Oh, a %. It was, like, classic classic signs of abusive relationship straight from the gate. But I think I I in the beginning, I didn't see it as much because, the boyfriend the first boyfriend that I had, he was two years older than me. So he was 17.

He also had been in jail and, really just kind of used me and had me around when he wanted to to hang out with me. But then when he didn't, he was like, you're annoying. Get away from me. I don't want, like, I don't want you around me. And so it kind of made it very easy for me to go to boyfriend number two.

Mhmm. And because I was like, oh, he wants to be with me. He does love me. He wants me. Can I reword that?

Yeah. He wanted to own you. Yes. That's what he wanted to. And at first, that can look like, oh, he's we call it love bombing.

Yes. Oh my god. Look at all the teddy bears, the roses, the chocolate, the compliments, the attention, attention, attention. I need to feel love. So And I was the talk of the school.

I mean, I went to a high school with, like, 3,000 kids, so it's not like I've really been talk of the school. But I was the talk of the school in the majority of my grade, because word travels fast that he Right. That he was giving me flowers and everyone would see the flower. I'm like, oh my god. Another flower from him.

Oh my god. Another rose from him. And then they would see the necklace and then the bracelet. Oh my gosh. You're so lucky.

Oh my god. He's I wish I had a boyfriend like that. So at first, I was like, thought I was hot to trot. I was like, yep. I got it.

But then afterwards, I wanted to be like, oh my god. Do you want them? Because I surely don't. Because this isn't all that this is cracked up to be. You can gladly take him off my hands.

Let me ask you this. So when this was happening with you, did you reach out to anyone? No. Why? Well, because I didn't want to make him mad.

Mhmm. So I like I said, with my parents singing very naively that if you say, oh, you can't be with him anymore. That was it. That was gonna end it. I didn't have a an escape from him.

We were in the same school together all day. He was more popular than I was, so to speak, and he had switched his schedule to be in all my classes. So we were literally together all day every day, and I didn't want someone confronting him about what he was doing because I knew that there would be some serious hell to pay. I knew, at that point, it wasn't even a it wasn't even physical abuse. I just knew the verbal and mental abuse that was gonna follow.

I didn't want that. Plus, I didn't have physical bruises. I didn't have really any proof to say he's abusing me. So I wanna backtrack a little bit to your parents. I know that your parents weren't perfect, but it does sound like they tried to to do something.

Maybe not the right thing, but Yeah. They tried to do something. Yes. If you could go back and we can't go back. But if you could go back That's it.

What should your parents what would have been effective, more effective for your parents to do that they didn't know to do at the time? Yeah. So here's the thing is they have been asking me questions about him. Mhmm. And they knew see, in my mind, they didn't think I was lying, but I guess they thought I was lying because they heard the fighting on the tapes.

And then I would say, oh, can we you know, can he come over? And they'd be like, no. Then that would cause a fight with us. Like, well, why can't he come over? I mean, that was because I don't like him.

He's a loser. Like, no. So then I felt like it was my dad being, like, protective of of his little girl and not wanting me to grow up. And so it was just this constant fighting at home with my parents, because and I'm super stubborn. And if you tell me no, then I'm most likely gonna do it anyways, when things like that with my parents.

So even the joke now is that my husband says, I would rather you not. And I'm like, okay. I'll listen. Don't tell me no because that means yes. Yeah.

Which is really not a great way to do things sometimes. Sometimes it gets you into more trouble than it's worth. And so, so, honestly, I don't know that there was a whole lot more they could have done because they were asking questions, but I didn't have the greatest relationship with my stepmom, and that was also part of it. That's bingo. That's the point I really wanna I kinda wanna hone in on.

You didn't have parents that you could really honestly talk to in the first place, and correct me if I'm wrong. Yes. A %. And I'm saying that because we're talking to the audience sometimes, but I'm really kinda talking to two sets of audiences here. To the parents who have the children that are that are going through this right now, you know.

You may not have the proof, but you it doesn't matter if you have proof or not. You know that this is what's happening with your daughter or your son. And having this is why having a relationship where your kids can talk to you without you jumping down their throat or trying to beat them to death with a speech is critical because when they need to talk to you about something important, they know they can come to you. But if they know they're just gonna get a speech or told what to do or told how to think instead of actually listen to, they they ain't talking to you. I mean, as adults, do we do that?

We don't. So I just wanted to point that out because it's not just true in your situation. It's true for a lot. Yes. And so, and so I did have a more open relationship with my mom, but it was kind of the same thing where I my mom probably wasn't gonna lecture me, but I still didn't want her reaction Mhmm.

To the situation. And so and kind of and I'll back up a little bit too. So, one of the things that sort of propelled me into this relationship is that, I felt like no one would ever wanna be with me or get or marry me, and I had that feeling since I was really, really small. And I can never articulate why I had that feeling. But, I mean, little.

Like, four years old, I had that feeling. And so my parents divorced when I was really young. My mom remarried, and, there are three stepbrothers in in that family from my stepdad. And then my mom and my stepdad had a son, and then my dad and my stepmom have two boys who are 13 years and 16 years younger than me. So I kind of always just felt like I really didn't belong in each household.

I knew my parents loved me, but I kinda felt like I was in this purgatory state. Like, almost like my dad and my stepmom had started a life, and I was kinda just there, but I didn't necessarily really fit in. Even though, like, we went on vacations and from the outside looking out, people thought it was perfect. So I had posted an Instagram post a couple years ago on my childhood friend that I have had been friends with since I was in first grade. She messaged me on Instagram.

I was like, how could you save those things? Your father loved you, and you had a great childhood. I was like, yeah. From the outside looking in, it's I hate when people say, oh, you had a great child. You weren't living it.

Shut up. Right. Like Shut up. You saw the purse like, that was your perception, but you didn't really know what went on behind closed doors. My parents weren't abusive to me.

It was more of like a, like so in therapy, it was childhood emotional neglect. So was that, like because my parents were dealing with divorce and then new marriages and new kids, they weren't always available for me. I wanna reword some of what you said, not for you, but for some of the audience who I know listens differently. What I heard you just explaining was the fact that four years old you remember at four years old, basically feeling unwanted. Yes.

And that's when the divorce happened, and that left you feeling unwanted. Yeah. That wasn't the whole that moment or that season of your life. It's not your whole life, but it snowballed into more. Yes.

Yes. And that left you vulnerable Mhmm. To to the you know, to to be to be abused. And abusers, whether we're talking about domestic violence, whether we're talking about sexual abusers, whether we're talking about traffickers, they all look for the same thing in in terms of this context anyway, and they look for those who don't, don't have enough self value. Mhmm.

And whatever the your reason is is the divorce, that's where it started. That's not the whole reason because I don't think it's ever one thing. No. I think it's foolish to blame it on one moment, but that may you know, it snowballed from there. Yeah.

Everybody's reason is not gonna be the same as yours, but what is the same as your situation is that feeling of I'm not, you know, I'm not worthy, so I better take love where I can get it. Mhmm. I completely get that because I felt that way most of most of my life too. Yeah. So I I really, really get that.

And and so now I can look back and recognize that, you know, he you know, as my dad calls him a loser, he behaved that way because he was also insecure. So it was a recipe for disaster of us getting together because I was insecure with low self esteem. He was insecure with low self esteem, and so he really was so afraid of losing me because he thought there would be no one else, which is ironic in a way because he had a notebook that I found of, like, 30 girls that he cheated on me with. So it was just this constant need for him as well to feel Mhmm. Loved and accepted.

And so it was really a a bad combination with the two of us getting together. And I would if I had to guess, I would say things probably have not changed in his world. That's and it's that's sad. That is really sad. The sad part it's sad for him, but it's worse because people like that run around damaging everybody else around them.

Yes. And and they're just you know, they just never learned how to be men, and so there's still little boys running around Yes. Damaging whom they whom they can. Yes. And the signs were there from his childhood, because of his parents' marriage was dysfunctional.

Mhmm. And, you know, they kinda tell the story where they laughed. But when he was in six when he was six in first grade, he had glasses, and this little boy was making fun of him for his glasses. And you could see his house from the elementary school. He ran through the field to go home.

And the next day, he was like, I'm I'm going home. And so the next day when he came back to school, he had a knife in his backpack. So and first grade. So and they kinda laughed about it. You know?

Like, oh, he stomped the glasses in the backpack and ran home, and then the next day, he brought a knife or tried to bring not funny. It's not funny. But so, like because that would end up on six o'clock news today. Today at his age, that would end up on Well, he really could've done he really could've hurt somebody for real. And so also shows you where his mindset was back then.

Yes. At six years old in first grade. So the the red flags were there from the get go. I just and I saw them. I felt them, but I just I was almost like I was too far in, and I didn't know how to get back out.

There was an I was in the swimming pool, and I was just treading water, and I couldn't get to the ladder to climb out and to catch my breath. And so it was really hard because there was one teacher at school who I had a relationship with, where I felt like, okay. Maybe I could talk to her, but my dad got to her first. So then she became an ally for my dad. Yeah.

And then then I lost that ally in her. And she would lecture me all the time, you know, because I was still involved in acts in after school things. And so one of the activities she was driving me to the thing, it was that off campus. And, you know, she was saying to me that, you know, he's a loser. He has nothing going for him.

He doesn't get good grades. He, you know, is not motivated. He's not ambitious. I'm deserving of someone who is. Yada yada yada.

And, yes, I knew as she was saying all those things to me, I knew that deep down inside. I agreed with her wholeheartedly. But in that conversation, I still couldn't say to her, you're right. He is none of those things, and I deserve those things, but I don't know how to make it stop. Even after junior year, he got expelled from school, for blowing smoke in an administrator's face because he was outside smoking in the parking lot.

He wasn't supposed to be. Right. Even still, that whole senior year, he was not at school, and I still could not find the strength to leave because all of his friends were still at school, still spying on me and reporting back to him. And sometimes he would show up at school, to meet me in the parking lot at the end of the day, or he would show up at school in the morning to get me off the bus. So I still even though he wasn't at school for that last first senior year, I still couldn't escape him.

Because he was obsessed with controlling you. Yeah. Let me ask you this. For the young women who are listening right now, who are where you were, and, hopefully, they recognize it through this conversation. But to to the young Kims who are out there right now, she's 16 years old with someone who's maybe only in the controlling verbal controlling state right now because it usually escalates to violence after that.

Mhmm. What what can you say to that young woman right now? So you absolutely do not have to stay. You can leave. You can talk to someone.

Maybe it isn't your parent, but maybe there is that teacher at school, the guidance counselor, the principal, it is possible to leave. You deserve way better than that, and I promise you, he will survive without you. He will make you think that he won't, but he will. And that was one of the reasons I stayed too. I was like, he's gonna kill himself if I leave.

Like, he will literally commit suicide if I leave him, and I don't wanna be responsible for that. No. He that he will not. He has But what if he's the only love that I'll ever have because I don't really see myself ever being loved? No.

You're young. You still have your whole life ahead of you, and there really are good guys out there who will value you and appreciate you but I can tell you the misery and the suffering is not worth it because, he he might not kill you, but the stress and the agony and the pain, it will. The stress I love the way you just said that. Yeah. A %.

Now, very quick, because we're running out of time, but very quick, has what you went through, during that time period, has that played a role in you being a coach now? Yes. Because I left my teaching career thinking that I was having an identity crisis, after six years of teaching. And when I was in therapy, I went naively thinking like, okay. She's gonna help me get over leaving my career.

But what she did was she brought up all of the childhood emotional neglect, the codependency, the dysfunction from my childhood and my teen years. And that was really kind of like a gaping, open wound. And she just wanted me to take medication, which I'm not opposed to medication, but I knew for myself that I had to unlearn all of these unserving behaviors that I was doing with the limiting belief, the negative self talk, the codependency, the anxiety. That was all learned behavior from constantly being in the fight, flight, or freeze mode, always living in a trauma stress response. And, it wasn't until I really got a full grasp of that was when I started seeing a life coach.

And then I realized, like, oh my gosh. The anxiety, the the negative self talk, the limiting beliefs, all of that stuff that I went through, not just in childhood, but with loser boyfriend as a teenager, was still rearing its ugly head twenty years later as an adult. And it gave me it was like this almost like parting the clouds, like a clear clean slate for me to see, like, okay. This is how I change this. This is how I move forward.

This is how I leave all that gunk, all that yucky stuff in the past and actually take the lessons from it and move forward rather than holding on to it. And it was bad. It was gonna get a yes, but, I was able to turn it into something positive. So that way now I have two daughters, I can do things differently for them so that we're not repeating that cycle. Right.

So tell, tell the audience how they can find you. So, I'm on Instagram, not really TikTok, but Instagram and Facebook. I have a website. It's KimKean.com. So those are the easiest ways to find me.

And her information will be in the show notes. And I also wanna say to the audience right now, if you are out there right now and we're talking about you, or you're a parent of a teen that's being abused right now, and if you don't know where to go, there is help for you. I don't care where you are in this country, in The US, because this podcast is for The US and Canada. So I I only know about the systems in The US. If you go to Fatima Bay Dot Com and they I have a page called other help.

At the bottom of that page, you can click on there's a little black box you can click on. It'll take you to all the resources where you are that can help you. I put it there in case people need it. Just another resource for you. So, please, if this is you, listen to what Kim is saying because she has been where you are, and, try to get some help.

Because if you get it now, you can get out, and you too can be healed, And some of you can go on to also be the healer such as Kim has done. Thank you, Kim, so so so much for coming on and and sharing your story. Oh my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.

And now for a mind shifting moment. Young woman, you know you identified with a lot of what she said throughout this episode. You're with someone right now who's controlling. You don't wanna admit it. You try to excuse it away.

You try to paint the red flags pink, but you know it's true. Just know mental manipulation and violence is coming next. They soon follow. Kim was able to get out of her situation. I'm so grateful she was.

If you don't get out of that situation, you will be one of those women walking around like a zombie, dead on the inside, scared all the time. That's no way to live. Some women only get out by death. Don't be either one of those. Get out now while you can.

And if you don't know how to get out, there are so many of us who care and want to help you get out. You don't have to be so afraid to get out. And you might not know us yet, but we'll be willing to help you if you just let us know. Go to FatimaBay.com. Go to the other help page.

Scroll to the bottom. Click on the black box, and find your local people who care because we're all around, and we will do whatever we can to help you get out. Thank you for listening to mind shift power podcast. Please like and subscribe to my YouTube channel at the mind shifter. If you have any comments, topic suggestions, or would like to be a guest on the show, please visit fatimabay.com/podcast.

Remember, there's power in shifting your thinking. Tune in for next week.