Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by MHA of Dutchess county and produced by CMJW Entertainment.
This episode of the Vital Women of Washington Heights is proudly sponsored by Levia Med Spa.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: You're listening to the Vital Women of Washington Heights.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: Hey there, producer Connor here. Just a quick note. To protect the author and their family, we transcribed the entire interview and I dubbed over all of the author's responses to secure their anonymity. Hope you enjoyed the interview.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Hello everyone, I am Iris Douglas and joining me today is my co host, I. O'. Sullivan.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Hello everyone. I hope you're having a fantastic day.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: We are I and I. Welcome to the Vital women from Washington Heights living in Dutchess County. Today we have the pleasure of having and let's give her a warm welcome, Carla Fendrex, the author of Shattered without a Break.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: Welcome, Carla. Welcome.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Hi, good morning. Thank you for having me.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Well, we're happy that you are on our show today and I always like to start with a Bochin che. And for those of you that haven't caught on so far, a Bochinche is a gathering of women and basically sitting around the table discussing everyday problems or joy. So I like to connect our Dominican culture with our show. So today being that we have the author of Shattered without a Break, I want to talk about two famous author from the Dominican Republic, Julia Alvarez, who wrote the book in the Time of the Butterflies and of course another well known author and her name is.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: Oh my goodness, I just lost Elizabeth Acevedo. Thank you, dear. You're very welcome.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Who is the author of the Poet X. And both these ladies are my favorite authors and I just wanted to share that with our listeners.
[00:01:56] Speaker C: Well, I like that because I didn't even know about Elizabeth Acevedo but that's something that I would like to look into. The Poet X. I like that. I'd like to read that book.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: It's a very good book and I hope the listeners also take advantage of reading both their materials.
[00:02:12] Speaker C: Yeah. So it was very nice to have you here, Carla. I mean Yvette met you and she was excited to have you here and sharing your story of why you wrote your your book is Shattered without a Break.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: So I just like to say my name actually was changed to K. Carla. I'm adopted and when I was born, my birth mother, who was very young, she was 14 and my dad was 15. My parents changed my name because they just wanted to make it, you know, their own. So my name is actually K. I wrote Shattered without a Break because I've had Quite the journey. And all my friends said, you need to write a book someday. And it's interesting because in 10th grade, my English teacher said, you're going to be an author someday. And I laughed because that was the furthest thing from my mind. I never thought about writing. And I just, you know, went on and had a lot of things happen in my life. But what inspired me, the last thing about writing the book was I was in a car accident and everybody had said, you know, you should write a book. And I needed free time, and that's all I had when I was laying up in a rehab and I couldn't leave my bed because my pelvis was shattered and it was healing. So I ended up taking the notes on my cell phone and started writing. And I just went back to when I was given up for adoption and, you know, kind of went all the way up to what happened with the accident and just started putting it all together on my phone and just kind of breaking it up into chapters.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: So your life story is your inspiration of writing this book?
[00:03:46] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Can I share. Can I share a little bit about the book?
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: Okay. So young parents, teenage pregnancy, disabled brother, abusive relationship, family court drama.
Mom had a heart attack, and then a transplant, and then she had colon cancer. You've been through a lot.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: Been through a lot.
[00:04:08] Speaker A: Yes. You can say that.
[00:04:09] Speaker C: You lost your job, biological father, and you had the car accident.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Yes. All in one. And it was definitely a lot that I experienced. It was just like the story. The title, Without a Break means that I just really never had a chance to, like, just kind of breathe. I mean, there were good things. Finding my birth family was definitely a very, very positive thing that came from.
I grew up in a town 20 minutes away from where they were, roller skated at the same place my half brothers roller skated and all that came together. When I met them, it was actually a radio show host that gave me a tip that led me to find my birth family. So it's very, very amazing. It's amazing story how that all came together. And I actually worked with a guy who golfed with my relative and put us together. So it was like unbelievable timing.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Just.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: It was. It was just all pulled together.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: Synchronicity as its best.
[00:05:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. Absolutely. The real thing that inspired me, in shadow without a break. And, you know, growing up, the things that I had witnessed with my brother being in a wheelchair. Now when I was in the Martine center healing, I was actually in a wheelchair. So the struggles that I watched, I now actually lived Myself. So I, as a child, I learned at a very young age to appreciate walking, riding a bike, doing the simple things that we take for granted. I saw life very differently because of what I watched with my brother. I'd be able to go on an amusement park ride, and he sat on the bench. And I always felt bad, so it always got me. I had a compassionate heart. So I always helped people. I always was the generous person that always saw things and always felt bad for people. And then. So when I was in, you know, the rehab, healing from the injury, from the car accident again, now I saw his struggles firsthand, like, wow, you know how difficult it is not being able to just get up and walk somewhere.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: You know, with Thanksgiving around the corner. I believe that some people do take simple things as walking, being able to move around for granted. Because there are those people that live in a wheelchair constantly or don't have certain limbs. They have a missing arm or a missing leg. And that is something that I feel that we should be grateful for, even if we don't have anything in terms of money or food, but the fact that we have our mobility, it's huge. And that is. We need to be grateful for that.
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Absolutely. So the other part of my story, and this is very sad, it touches upon domestic violence, child abuse, and parental alienation. And if you don't know what parental alienation is, it's basically when a child is put in the middle as a pawn in a divorce, where the parent is not able to put aside their differences with the other person when they get divorced. And if it doesn't work out, you move on. But they put the child in the middle and use them as a pawn, and it hurts and damages the child.
It's a form of abuse. Also another part of child abuse. And that's what happened in my situation. I was going through. I got married and discovered that he was controlling, abusive. I went through therapy with my son for many years, like 10 years. And it wasn't until actually I was in therapy with my son when he was 10 that the therapist said, if you don't leave, I'm calling CPS on your family. So it took me a bit to leave, and I had tried to leave several times, and I always went back because I always told myself, he's going to change. I wanted to keep the family together. But at one point I realized it wasn't just me. Now he was injuring my son. So I thought it would be better to just remove myself from the whole situation and start over with another. Eventually, down the road, meet someone that, you know, I wasn't arguing with. And, you know, the kids were picking up on everything, too. I tell a story. When my son was 4, I actually was working at a fitness club where he came to work with downstairs, and he'd always get in trouble. He was a rambunctious boy. And one day I was called into a meeting, and there were five people sitting around a table. And they're like, we're going to have to let you go. And I said, well, what happened? And basically they told me my son got so angry, he slapped a little girl across the face and called her a very derogatory name. And they weren't going to tolerate that.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Well. Domestic domestic abuse is a tough cycle to break for the person that is experiencing the abuse and also for the children within the family. They're observing, they're picking up that behavior, and then they go out into the world and demonstrate what they're seeing in the home is a tough situation to be in.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: Well, that's what happened. I actually ended up. Well, my friend. Friend of mine was a therapist, but she didn't want to be my therapist, so she sent me to counseling. And they did play therapy with my son and discovered that they did, you know, these little dolls acting it out to see how mom was acting, how dad was acting. And it was, you know, yelling at each other, mom runs off crying. So he was picking up on it. You know, the place where I work thought I was watching bad tv. They didn't realize what was actually going on in my home. So at that point, I tried to leave. We were doing therapy, and it just. I even had my daughter thinking things were going to get better. But then it went back, and then I found out that when the therapist said, I'm going to call CPS on your family if you don't leave, I realized that this is not getting better. And now my children are getting affected by the behaviors that's going on in the home. So I needed to remove myself. Thinking I was doing the right thing. I went to family court. I spent 13 years in family court. It was the kids. They were dragged into it. We had a situation where we exchanged the kids at. At the police station. Every time I went to pick up my daughter, it was a situation where, like, he's blaming me for breaking up the family. He stalked me. He pushed me in public in front of the girl Scouts. I had, like, 40 witnesses. I ended up getting an order of protection.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: The person that is the abuser, what are they thinking? To do something like that in front of people, how much anger and rage and darkness is in them to feel that they have the right to abuse somebody and not only abuse a person, but also in public and think that they can get away with it?
[00:10:14] Speaker A: Well, see, I think. And this actually comes down to my ex actually took me to court 40 days before my daughter turned 18, and I had a local domestic violence person come with me to be an advocate. And they pulled me aside halfway through the trial at this point to let me know that he was not well. And they even used that term, not well. I mean, they didn't have training, but they've seen other cases where they made the determination based on what they've witnessed. So it dawned on me that he needed some mental health or some therapy himself. And he was in therapy, and it wasn't helping for whatever reason. And, you know, unfortunately, it just put everything a strain on the kids. Like, every time we went to events, there was an episode. You know, at dance performances, he would act out, and he'd always put my daughter in the middle of things. And it just made it so uncomfortable. And it's continuing even with my daughter. In college, he was just at Family Day, copped an attitude, and left in the middle of the event. And my daughter was like, you know, it's been 14 years, so somebody needs to get through this after 14 years. You know, this is why I bring this up. And a lot of why I'm pushing this book is because there's two laws out there right now. It's Melanie's Law and Kyra's Law. And both of those are about domestic violence. Melanie's Law is right in Dutchess County. And the woman who's now doing Melanie's Law, her daughter was murdered. And it was by her boyfriend. And she went to the courts and asked for an order of protection. But an order of protection is just basically a piece of paper.
Another law is Kira's Law. Now, Kira's Law is in Long island, and A little girl, 26 months old, was shot by her dad, and then he set himself on fire. And the mom is now advocating saying that any man or person could be on the other side, female, who has an order of protection doesn't get custody of their children. That's what happened in my situation. The courts decided to divide our children physical custody. I got my daughter and my ex got my son so that he divided the children.
And that would not have happened because I had an order of protection. So if Kira's Law was in place, When I left, when my son was 11, I would have gotten custody of my son and then they could have worked with that. Bringing my ex, making him go to therapy, getting court appointed, therapist seeing, just overseeing it. And then he got better and proved that he was valuable and worthy. But if you took the children out of the equation and he wasn't seen, he had something, an incentive to get better.
Instead, it just got angrier and he just pulled my son away.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Well, mental illness can rob the person that is suffering with the disease and also the loved ones around that person. It's incredible of how you lose yourself when you're suffering with a mental illness. But also the pain, they don't realize the pain that they're putting, whether it is their partner or their children, the people around you.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: Right. So the thing is too now when I would be in therapy, there's different types of abuse. There's emotional abuse, there's physical abuse, there's psychological abuse, there's financial abuse and it's control. So when I left the abusive relationship, he lost control. So the only thing he could control was the children. They were the pawns so he could use them. And the biggest thing that can take a strong person down is your children. By not seeing my son, and he would come over, but I would miss birthdays, I would miss holidays. I always had my daughter, they were split, he wasn't allowed to come. And then, you know, I always tried to follow the rules because they were supposed to go on certain days to see dad and they were supposed to come see me. I followed the law and everything that was put in place by the courts. I was able to see my son, but he never came over.
But I made sure that my daughter visited with her brother so that they could still have a bond and have a relationship since they weren't living together.
So I.
It broke my heart. And I talked about it in this book, how I had gone down and I wrote the amount of times that I would drop my daughter off in the park so that they could play together and drive away in tears as I watched them flying a kite, kicking a ball, doing something simple or bowling. They used to go bowling together, but I never got that back. I never got the time with my son and my daughter.
It was very few and far between. So I missed all that.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: How was your mental illness with all this girl? How was it at the time? Because you were juggling a whole bunch of stuff.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: So I channeled my energy into work. I actually worked for a company and, you know, I would try to stay focused on that. I actually did find another man, and he had a daughter. So I put that energy into that. Even on Facebook, it was hard because different events that we had. My son was missing at the events, so it even got to a point. And this was another reason why Shattered Without a Break came out, because I had somebody come up to me and say, you know, I know your ex and I know you, and I know that I was told that you abandoned your family and chose your daughter over your son. And, you know, how do you sleep at night?
[00:15:17] Speaker B: It's interesting how people form opinion without knowing the. All the details. And the family dynamic really takes place behind closed doors.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: So I had written the book on the notes in my cell phone, and it sat there till about 20, 23, right?
I got out, and it's still sitting on my cell phone. And when that person said that to me, that was my inspiration to tell my side of the story, because I had gone to another friend of mine who was saying the same thing and discovered that it was true. That's what people thought of me, because on.
On Facebook, you don't have your son in your picture. So they only believe one side of the story.
So I got that book together.
I became an advocate on domestic violence. I started reaching out even to our local senator, trying to get out there, trying to help, researching the laws on Melanie's Law, Kira's Law, seeing how we can make changes. And basically what I did, I finished my book and I teamed up with a domestic violence group. And they said, we're going to get your book out there because we're going to show your side of the story.
And I had facts, and I had papers and I had documents, and, you know, I had people that called in CPS on him. And, you know, now it's all in the book. It's all out there. And I have dates and times, and that's my side of the story.
So, no, I didn't sleep at night. I cried at night.
People don't know my story. And I didn't see my son.
It broke my heart.
I don't even.
I'd have him over and I'd visit, and I didn't even know him anymore.
Like, he had got him himself.
Like he had gotten himself to a point where he was just doing video games constantly. He even pulled away from his friends. And it's really sad because my son.
My son had the greatest personality. I was in Kohl's, and I always tell this little story because it's the cutest Little thing. And he had his birthday party and he invited the lady at from behind the counter to come because she had a spongebob watch and he wanted that. And he told her to bring the spongebob watch to the party at the park. He's yelling back at the counter. He also got on the bus when he was going to school and he told his bus driver it was a cloudy day, but not to worry because he had a ladder to climb up to the clouds and pull it out away from the sun. And he had the greatest little personality. And because of this divorce. And I'm not going to blame myself because I left an abusive relationship. I thought I was doing the right thing.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: You did the right thing. You're not supposed. You're not forced to stay in a relationship where you're being physically, emotionally and even financially abused.
You're not meant.
God did not put you in this life, in this world for you to receive abuse. You deserve better.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: So that was the purpose of this book, was these laws would have changed my ending. It could have changed lives. It could have stopped my kids from having anxiety and watching abuse, living abuse, having emotional abuse, my son having alienation from me. It could have changed everything because I had the order of protection. Multiple as a matter of fact, when he pushed me in the park in front of the witnesses, I got a two year order of protection to stay away from him. And they still left my son with him. And that was the thing it took when my daughter was sorry. When my son was 18, I had gone back to the court. We had different. We had a different judge. And it's only because the judge was living with his current wife in a domestic violence relationship. He recognized the signs and things that I was saying. He. He knew I was telling the truth. We also got a video. I had separated eight years. I was in a local hospital and my daughter was there for a panic attack and having an anxiety attack. And they brought her there to check her heart to make sure it nothing heart related because her heart was racing. My ex came. We were in the lobby waiting to be seen and he threw a fit where my daughter was up against the vending machine, scared of her dad. My current boyfriend at the time fiance recorded it. We had that to go back to the court for trial. The judge saw that. He ordered a CPS investigation. He ordered a forensics investigation. He had a court appointed therapist. He separated my daughter from her father. They only saw each other during the court. The court appointed therapy. At the end of the investigation, I got sole Custody of my daughter. They found him indicated for abuse. He paid an attorney to reverse that, but they said that he was abusive. So that came about for my daughter. But unfortunately, my son was 18, so he was now an adult.
[00:19:54] Speaker B: But prior to your son being 18, at any time did the court assign a child advocate to be. Be his voice and to talk to him and find out how he felt about the whole breakup between you and your husband and what was really happening in the home to see if his father was abusive to him as well?
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Well, that's an interesting thing, because we had a court appointed, they call it an attorney for a child.
And I actually had to have him removed. And that's a very difficult thing to do. But he told my daughter, you know, when a man and a woman fall in love and take a vow in front of God, well, your mother broke that vow. So my daughter came home crying, and she told me everything. And actually, I think she was around 8. So I quoted her an affidavit. I knew about code of ethics, so I documented everything. And I went above him out of the county and got his boss wrote a letter, and he stepped down.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: He did abuse his license to practice by sharing that with his daughter. Because that was his view, his opinion that had nothing to do with the law that he was supposed to be practicing.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: But again, see, the problem is it's he said, she said. So if someone is crying victim and playing, oh, my wife left me for somebody else. And it's just a matter of like, that person favored that side.
And now he's the advocate for the child. But he really isn't advocating for the child. He's advocating for the other side. So anyway, another law guardian, attorney for the child, stepped in, and my daughter actually ended up getting back on dance because he pulled her off dance for a year. That's how spiteful he was.
[00:21:32] Speaker C: How, why? And how could he do that?
[00:21:35] Speaker A: He found a loophole because one of the dance practices was during his time for visitation. So he didn't agree with it because it was cutting into his time. So that was interesting. But that inspired me to write the book because like I said, these laws can make changes. Let's just say I found out during my daughter's first communion around Easter time. I wasn't even around.
My daughter was visiting over at her dad's. They were coloring Easter eggs. He lost his temper, shoved the table, ran after my son, kicked him down a flight of stairs. When he got down, he landed on his tailbone. One week later, we were in the church for my daughter's first communion. My son couldn't sit on the bench because it was a hard bench. And he turned around and said to me, well. I said, what happened? He goes, well, ask him, and looked at his dad.
I guess he ran out to the car and he even missed his sister's speech and everything for the first communion because it hurt too much to sit. So I immediately brought him to the doctors the next day and had his X rays done and it turned out that he had a bruised tailbone one week later.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: It sounds like your son was intimidated by his father. So you went through all this pain and lost.
How did you come back?
What made you resilience to deal with all the experience that you went through with your ex husband and your accident and the loss of your father. Like Ira said, what builds Carla's resiliency that you're able to tell the story today?
[00:23:02] Speaker A: I think one of the things is first of all, your love for your children will make you do anything. You'll jump through fires. And that's what I was doing. So when that person said, how do I sleep at night? When they thought that I had walked away from my son and you know, I was the mom, the room mom, I was the one making the brownies, bringing it to school, I attended all the different events. Every event you could have for your kids, I was there, never missed an event, you know, was at every dance recital, every soccer game for my son, I was always that person. So for someone to come after me and say what they said and it's not true. I guess I wanted to prove that I'm not the person that people see on Facebook just because my son's not in the pictures. So that was part of it. And then your will to live and God, because I swear this is, this is God healing me. It really absolutely healing me. Like accident and having a shattered pelvis.
One doctor said I needed pins and plates in surgery and the other one said I was going to heal and God healed me and I guess shattered. Like I said in the beginning, the reason for shatter was to tell my story because maybe I could help other people.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: Having that voice, how do you think you're helping other people? What do you hope that will resonate with?
[00:24:27] Speaker A: I already spoke to a couple of women, one in particular who's going through divorce in family court, stressed out like I was.
It's very stressful. You go almost every month, they adjourn it, they bring it back. You're missing time from work, you know, you've Got your attorney there. Maybe you can't afford your attorney. So I helped this woman, let her know that she was entitled to a public defender. Her mother was coming up with money and paying the bill where it's. It's not her mother's responsibility. I also got her with local services for therapy because what was happening was the therapist had favored the father, so the kids were afraid to speak up. I said, you need to take the children into a situation where they don't feel threatened and they might do play therapy like they did with my son. So these are things that I mentioned in the book that maybe somebody will get that information and realize that the manipulation that goes on is basically possible. But again, like, just wanting happiness for your children is really what can bring you to have the strength to get through this.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Given the emotional depth and the universal themes in your book, do you feel that your story has the potential to be adapted into a compelling film?
[00:25:36] Speaker A: So I've talked to several people.
Cause, you know, that was another thing. I never went to school to be a writer, so I had no idea how to do this. There's different ways that you can do it. You can do it yourself and upload it on Amazon, but I didn't know how to structure or format the book. And then there's a package deal where you can have them all do it for you, and they put it on Amazon for you, and you speak to people.
And that's where it came out, where I talked to editors who've been seasoned editors that heard my story, and they're like, wow, you have got like, 12 different hot topics in one lifetime. This could be a movie because from the day you were born, being adopted, having a disabled brother like you announced, like, the teenage pregnancy, which was another whole thing that I had to go through. My parents stepped in. Then losing my dad, blown away. You know, he was sick one month, and then he's gone the next. Like, I was just beside myself. And then my mom getting sick, and then this whole finding my adopted family, that's another thing. And then, of course, leaving abuse and then going through the courts for 13 years. Then the accident. So, yes, it's definitely something where I was told it gives the director nothing to think about. It's an entire movie laid out with nothing to think about.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: I say to you is that you're definitely a daughter of God, that you've surrendered to whatever's happening, but that you know that something. The outcome will have a brighter light.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: And like I said, I've been helping people since My brother needed me. You know, here's another interesting thing about my brother. I'm friends with his best friend. I'm still friends with him. He's like a brother to me. And he remembers me from when I was like, nine. And he said, you know, you were always the best sister. We'd be out in the pool and your brother would want a sandwich, and you would get out, out of the pool and run to make him a bologna sandwich and come out with the soda and everything.
You always protected him when people made fun of him. You were there. Like, I've always been the caretaker. Then I took care of my mother back and forth to New York City, to the hospital, the one that drove, because my brother didn't drive, and I was the caretaker. So I had to give up my career wanting to be a teacher and basically took care of her. So I've always been that caring type of person, and now I feel I can help other people by my knowledge and everything that I've been through and how strong I was, that as weak as you are or as low as you are, that you can climb back up and be strong and getting through this and to be there for your kids.
[00:27:55] Speaker C: But that's inside of you. That will is inside of you. That fire is inside of you. Well, I can't wait to read your book. I really want to embrace that.
[00:28:03] Speaker B: Any thought about writing a second book?
[00:28:05] Speaker A: I already have, because, let's see. In 2020, when Covid hit and I lost my father and I lost my job, and I was not seeing my son because my son had actually.
He had a female person he was friends with and turned away from him. And then his dad used that as a device to even get him and build a worse wedge between us, saying how women are horrible. And look what happened to you.
I had a lot of anxiety, and I fell apart. I ended up taking a medication where when they say 1% of America is going to have this, well, I had that and then some.
So I left that out of the book. And I have an entire sequel that includes my breakdown, which a lot of mental health comes into play. And to help people with that also, because I'm definitely a survivor.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: You definitely are. Absolutely. What is the title of your second book?
[00:28:59] Speaker A: The Break and Beyond.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:29:01] Speaker C: I like that.
Very powerful.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Well, pretty soon we're coming to the conclusion of our show. Show.
What would you say is your call of action? What would you like people to do with the information that you're sharing today with the books that you've written?
What kind of impact do you want to create?
[00:29:24] Speaker A: So with Melanie's law, which is local, it actually passed in New York State, she's trying to get it out there throughout the United States. And that's basically, if you don't have a relationship romantically with someone, you could still get an order protection. That would have been something that, if I had that in place with my son, when he was kicked down the stairs, CPS was involved, I could have gotten custody of my son. I think the laws that they're trying to put in place, people need to really look at the laws and how can affect the situation to help children.
And Kira's law is huge because an order of protection, if it's in place and they say you can't get custody of your child, that gives the courts time to fix the situation, fix the parent, and, you know, try to make things better. So I think our politicians that are pushing whatever they're trying to push through with the laws, you need to back up those politicians, vote them in so that we put these laws through. And at the end of the day, I mean, I think we can all work together. And if the courts see what that other judge saw and did the right thing by separating, you know, it really saved my daughter. My daughter is doing fantastic. She was on the Dean's list at college. She was on National Honor Society. She danced and, you know, since she was 4 and continues to dance at college, she's doing amazing.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: That's fantastic to know that besides her experience that she is also a resilient person and it's doing well.
[00:31:01] Speaker C: That's because of you. She sees you, she sees what you're doing.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: And she's actually.
She's an RA in college, so she's like a facilitator between, which is not an easy job. Right. But she has been dealing with conflict, so she knows how to handle it. And now she's using her skills to help other people and be in a place where she should be.
[00:31:22] Speaker C: And again, it's because of you. So my mother had, I wouldn't say it's exact experience that you've had, but my mother went through a lot with my dad. He was an alcoholic, he was verbally and mentally abusive. Listen, you gotta just move on, keep going, you know, and she did it. She did it. So I appreciate you and your story.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Well, you have become a voice for women that have experienced domestic violence. So thank you so much, Carla, for being here on our show today.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: This podcast is brought to you by MHA of Dutchess county and produced by cmjw Entertain Entertainment. Thank you once again to this episode's sponsor, Levia Medspa.
