Hang In There

28. Beyond Coercive Control: To Myself: I Still Love Her

"I see clearly now. And I still love her." Two voices share this episode. One is inside the story, young, hopeful, learning what love is supposed to feel like. The other is watching her. Quietly. From a place of hard-won clarity. Not to warn her. Not to intervene. Just to witness her with the tenderness she always deserved. What follows is an intimate journey through survival, from the earliest moments when something inside her knew, to the years of losing herself quietly, to the day she finally found her voice and walked out for the last time. And through all of it, Now is there. Watching. Waiting. Loving her anyway. If you have ever looked back at an earlier version of yourself with shame or frustration or grief, this episode is an invitation to try something different.  To find the part of you that sees everything you were carrying and still loves you for how hard you tried. That voice exists inside you. This episode will help you find it. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459424/fan_mail/new] The personal experiences shared in this podcast are the opinions of the individuals sharing them and are not intended to serve as professional advice or constitute accusations about any other person, organization, or group. We encourage you to seek professional support and assistance.  The topics discussed in this podcast may be distressing and triggering for some listeners and could impact your mental health.  The content of this podcast is intended for educational and awareness purposes only. For more information and resources, please visit hanginthere.net.

27. Beyond Coercive Control: To My Parents- You Loved Me Through It

"You weren't silent because you approved. You were silent because you loved me." Walking into a small entryway. Physically and emotionally exhausted. Carrying bags, holding onto dogs, trying to hold onto the kids. Trying to hold onto myself. And you just… made room for us. In this episode I write a letter to my parents. To the people who loved me through something they couldn't fully see. Who stayed available even when they didn't know what to say. Who watched me go back again and again and kept the door open anyway. Tuesday phone calls on a landline. Lawyers who couldn't help. Missed holidays that slowly became normal. A magic wand no one could wave. And a voice in the background saying three words that changed everything. This episode is for every survivor who never found the words to tell their family what those years cost them. For every parent who watched their child disappear and didn't know whether speaking up would help or make things worse. For the child waiting to hear the door is still open. For the parent waiting for them to walk back through it. And for every survivor whose family wasn't there at all, this episode holds space for you too. Coercive control doesn't just affect the person living inside it. It spreads outward quietly. Into families. Into silence. Into the way everyone around it learns to survive too. Love doesn't always look the way we expect it to. Sometimes it looks like a door that stayed open. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459424/fan_mail/new] The personal experiences shared in this podcast are the opinions of the individuals sharing them and are not intended to serve as professional advice or constitute accusations about any other person, organization, or group. We encourage you to seek professional support and assistance.  The topics discussed in this podcast may be distressing and triggering for some listeners and could impact your mental health.  The content of this podcast is intended for educational and awareness purposes only. For more information and resources, please visit hanginthere.net.

26. Beyond Coercive Control: To My Siblings- Finding Our Way Back

"It can disrupt what you have. It can damage it. It doesn't erase what was real." There's a photograph I think about sometimes. All of us at the end of the driveway. Shorts and smiles. Not a care in the world. I didn't know then how much would change. How quietly it would happen. How one day I would look back at that photograph and try to remember what easy felt like. In this episode I write a letter to my siblings. To the ones who were always supposed to be there, and to the relationships that changed slowly, quietly, before any of us realized what was happening. Wrestling matches on living room couch cushions. Hockey in boots. A dirt-bike driven straight into a fence. Bunk beds and late night conversations. The first person I called when something big happened. And then, the drift. The isolation that looked like pulling away but wasn't. An envelope full of documentation. Going back anyway. And an email typed with shaking hands, words that weren't mine, that broke something that had always felt easy. For years there was silence. And then, pizza with no plates and no cups. And the slow imperfect work of finding our way back. This episode is for every survivor who lost family connections during the hardest years. For every family member who watched someone they loved disappear and didn't understand why. And for anyone carrying grief over relationships that coercive control quietly damaged. The distance wasn't what it seemed. And some things, even after everything, don't erase.  Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459424/fan_mail/new] The personal experiences shared in this podcast are the opinions of the individuals sharing them and are not intended to serve as professional advice or constitute accusations about any other person, organization, or group. We encourage you to seek professional support and assistance.  The topics discussed in this podcast may be distressing and triggering for some listeners and could impact your mental health.  The content of this podcast is intended for educational and awareness purposes only. For more information and resources, please visit hanginthere.net.

25. Beyond Coercive Control: To My Partner- What Safe Love Feels Like

"Something in me began again. And this time, I wasn't imagining it. I was living it." For years, she dreamed of a different life while lying on a basement floor. Someone kind. Someone steady. Someone she could trust. Someone who would love her children. She could see it. She could feel it. And then reality pulled her back- up the stairs, mask on, keep going. She had no idea that life was already on its way. This episode is a love story. A letter written to the person who found her again after everything, and chose to stay. A waving emoji sent with shaking hands after 25 years of silence. Hard chairs and three hours that disappeared. Learning that stopping along the way was allowed. Feeling like an adult again for the first time in a long time. And what happens when someone shows up with safe, steady love, and stays. Even when it's hard. Even when it's heavy. Even when the past comes back all at once. For survivors still learning what safe love feels like after trauma, this one is for you. For the partners choosing to stay and love someone through it, this one is for you too. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459424/fan_mail/new] The personal experiences shared in this podcast are the opinions of the individuals sharing them and are not intended to serve as professional advice or constitute accusations about any other person, organization, or group. We encourage you to seek professional support and assistance.  The topics discussed in this podcast may be distressing and triggering for some listeners and could impact your mental health.  The content of this podcast is intended for educational and awareness purposes only. For more information and resources, please visit hanginthere.net.

24. Beyond Coercive Control: To My Children- You Deserved Better

"You felt 30 years old when you were only 10. And I am so sorry." In this episode, a mother writes a letter to her children. To the ones who grew up inside something they didn't have words for, but felt in their bodies every single day. The hospital room where everything went quiet. The birthdays, the snickerdoodles, the car rides that felt safer than being home. The holidays that felt heavy. The stairs where little ears heard things they never should have. The two realities happening inside the same house at the same time. They never asked why she left. Because they already knew. This episode is for every parent carrying the weight of what their children lived through. For every adult child still making sense of a childhood that asked too much of them. And for anyone who has ever looked at a family and thought, they seem fine. They weren't always fine. Children inside coercive control witness it, absorb it, and many experience it directly. It is never too late to say- I see it now. I'm sorry. You didn't deserve any of it. And thank you. Send us Fan Mail [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2459424/fan_mail/new] The personal experiences shared in this podcast are the opinions of the individuals sharing them and are not intended to serve as professional advice or constitute accusations about any other person, organization, or group. We encourage you to seek professional support and assistance.  The topics discussed in this podcast may be distressing and triggering for some listeners and could impact your mental health.  The content of this podcast is intended for educational and awareness purposes only. For more information and resources, please visit hanginthere.net.