How To Survive Domestic Abuse

Unfiltered Stories

Today on Unfiltered Stories, we are talking with the brave Leslie Morgan Steiner, a survivor of domestic violence. Leslie tells us about how she found herself stuck in a toxic, abusive relationship and how she found the strength to get herself out.   #UnfilteredStories #Inspirational #DomesticAbuse   Instagram: @lesliebooks   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.   Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.   🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00I'm Leslie Morgan Steiner. I'm a victim of domestic violence and a survivor of domestic

00:04violence. I grew up in Washington, D.C. I went to Harvard just like my parents do. I worked

00:09really hard there, and so I barely dated at all in college. My life had really just begun,

00:13and I had this amazing job working as a writer and editor at Seventeen Magazine in New York City.

00:19I felt very much like I was a young woman whose life had just begun, and for me, that included

00:23dating. And one night, I had gone uptown, and I sat next to this guy on the subway because the

00:29subway train was crowded. He had this gorgeous blonde hair. He just looked so innocent, and he

00:34started chatting me up. He instantly told me that he worked at a big, prestigious Wall Street bank.

00:39He told me he just graduated from an Ivy League school. You know, he was like throwing the

00:42credentials on the table because we both knew that you're not supposed to meet men on the New York

00:46City subway. And so I met him. It was a five-minute conversation, and I got off the train and

00:50thought

00:51I'd never see him again. And a month later, he tracked me down at my job at Seventeen. I remember

00:56feeling flushed with pleasure and that feeling of flattery, like, oh my goodness, I made a real

01:04impression on this guy. I kind of disdainfully agreed to go on a date with him. I didn't want

01:08him to get any ideas, and he was grateful. And a couple weeks later, I walked into P.J. Clark's,

01:16a bar near Seventeen, and he was so excited to see me that when I walked in, he stood up

01:22and

01:22knocked over the entire table. He did this really smart thing that I could only see in retrospect,

01:27is that he made me feel like there was a hierarchy, and I was at the top, and he was

01:33underneath me. It was really flattering, but it also made me feel really safe. It was very,

01:40very clever of him, and I completely fell for it. Abusers use what they have very cleverly.

01:48There are so many tools in their toolkit. Connor did very much the same kind of thing. He made me

01:53feel

01:54pity for him in a funny way. And pity is a huge red flag because it's seductive. It feels a

02:01lot

02:01like love, and it made me feel strong and like a really powerful young woman that I could help this

02:07man and help heal him. We started dating very quickly, like falling off a cliff. I fell in love

02:14with him, and it was the first time I'd ever been in love. He made me feel so beautiful, valuable,

02:20and so seen. You know, he saw inside me every single abuse victim. We'll tell you that the

02:27relationship starts as a fairy tale, but the thing that that doesn't capture is that there's no

02:32warning label that says, this is a fairy tale. It just, it felt to me like I was Juliet and

02:38he was

02:38Romeo. I mean, it felt like I had found my soulmate, that I was so lucky, and it was deeply

02:43intoxicating.

02:44Connor had never talked much about himself. He'd been kind of secretive about his background. He'd

02:48been incredibly interested in me. He wanted to know every single thing in the world about me.

02:52I know now that that's a kind of love bombing, but at the time it just felt immensely complimentary.

02:58But one night he told me about his childhood, and his childhood was really different than mine.

03:02He had never met his father, and his mother had remarried when he was four. She married a really

03:08difficult man, an evil man, honestly, who abused Connor from day one. And it's not that he

03:14spanked Connor. He broke his arm, broke his collarbone, broke his nose, broke his ribs,

03:20beat Connor's mother in front of him. I mean, Connor had told me these horrific stories,

03:23all one after the other. You know, I was speechless and sobbing, and he's going on and on,

03:29afraid his mother was dead, going to the hospital every few months as a little boy. I mean,

03:34a four-year-old boy is a tiny little boy. And he had had to drop out of school in

03:38eighth grade

03:39because of the abuse. And he moved in with his grandparents, got a GED, started a couple of

03:44very successful martial arts businesses, and then had clawed his way back into the U.S. educational

03:49system and graduated magna cum laude from an Ivy League school the same year that I did. It was

03:55a remarkable story. I didn't know anything about abuse, so I didn't see in any way that this was a

04:00red flag about him. It just broke my heart open that he had survived so much and that he was

04:05such a

04:06wonderful person. That was the night that I really fell in love with him, and I stopped dating all

04:10other men, and that was it for me. After we had been dating for about six months, he asked me

04:15to

04:15marry him. I said yes immediately. And then he asked me something else that felt very romantic at the

04:21time, but now I see as an enormous red flag. He asked me to keep our engagement a secret. Secrets

04:27are really dangerous. He said, you know, it's so magical that we found each other and that we're going

04:33to spend the rest of our lives together. And let's just enjoy it for six months. Let's just really

04:38have this as being something between me and you. It's the way it should be. It's just about us. So

04:43I

04:43didn't tell my colleagues at 17 or my family or best friends that I was engaged. And when they found

04:49out, when I told them six months later, they were mad. And they weren't mad at Connor. They were mad

04:55at

04:55me. They felt like I had lied to them. And in some ways I had. And it created this little

05:00wedge of

05:00isolation between me and my closest allies. And that is brilliant PhD level abuse because the cycle

05:09is always, always a fairy tale and then isolation and then the threat of abuse and then abuse and

05:17then repeat. At that point, my friends and family didn't really like him. They could sense that he was

05:22driving a wedge between me and them and between me and who I had been before. So they were right

05:27about

05:27that and I couldn't see it at all. Abuse victims very rarely can see any of the red flags and

05:33they're

05:33very difficult to help at this time. But people did try to help me. The most noteworthy was a really

05:38good friend of mine from 17. And she sat me down and she said, look, this is trouble. This is

05:43happening

05:43too fast. He's asking too many sacrifices of you. This is too intense. She tried to point out the red

05:49flags

05:49and I remember looking at her and thinking with great pity that she had never really been in love

05:55and that she didn't know what she was talking about. I didn't certainly didn't understand,

05:59but a lot of people don't understand about the abuse cycle is that it has nothing to do with

06:04what kind of family you grew up in or how smart you are or how educated or uneducated. Anyone with

06:10an open heart is vulnerable. And Connor could sense it. He could sense it that night on the New York

06:14City subway, could sense it until the day that everything ended. And I changed and I learned,

06:21but it took a long time to get there. There were so many red flags. I compartmentalized every red flag

06:28and I'll tell you some of them just so that you can see how stark they were. Cause it's amazing

06:32that

06:32I was able to ignore them. He started dictating what kind of clothes I wore. He didn't like come to

06:37me

06:38and say, look, I'm really interested in controlling you because I'm an abuse victim. And in order to feel

06:42safe in a relationship, I need to control the woman I'm in love with. My wardrobe consisted 100% of

06:48miniskirts. He looked at one of them. He said, you know what, if you wear that, people are going

06:52to think that you're a s**t. And it was like, he had hit me. I was like, I'm not a

06:56s**t. Anyway,

06:57even if I were, it's not your business and I'm your girlfriend and don't talk to me that way.

07:01But I just, I remember thinking, God, you know, maybe he's right. Maybe I missed it all along.

07:07There were other things that were impossible to ignore, but I ignored them anyway.

07:11Right around that time, you know, we had started having s**t. And one night during s**t,

07:15as he was getting ready to climax, he put his hands around my throat and he strangled me.

07:21I like s**t a lot, but I am, I've always been like a super vanilla heterosexual girl. I went into

07:26the bathroom and I threw up. I was so scared and I never talked to him about it. I didn't

07:30know how

07:31to talk to him about it. I didn't know that these were red flags. I didn't know that this was

07:34possessiveness. I didn't know that this was the early stages of dominance and control.

07:39It took me a very long time to get to the point where I was willing to break the silence

07:44about the abuse. One of the things that abusers do really effectively is they convince

07:49their victims, paradoxically, that we are their protectors, that we're the strong ones. And I

07:55didn't want to betray him by telling people the truth. I felt really sorry for him and I wanted

08:01to help him. And I wanted to be the hero in his life, frankly. It was a long time before

08:05he actually

08:06physically abused me. And it was actually five days before our wedding. He strangled

08:09me again. Yet again, I wrote it off as just a one-off. He had not done anything violent

08:15before that, except he'd punched walls a few times, which is another classic thing. You

08:19introduce the threat of abuse, but my denial was very strong and we were getting married

08:23in five days. And so I didn't tell anybody. Five days later, the bruises were healed enough

08:29so that guests at the wedding didn't notice them. And I put on my mother's wedding dress,

08:33stood up in Harvard's Memorial Church, and I married him. And he beat me twice more on

08:38the honeymoon. It just started that the abuse was happening all the time. He poured coffee

08:42grinds on my head. He threw food at me all the time. He pushed me downstairs. He strangled

08:48me a lot. These were things that like a really out of control child would do. And that's what

08:53he really was, except Connor was in a grown man's body and he had a black belt in karate and

08:59a black cell in Kung Fu. And he started buying guns and eventually he had three guns. And

09:03it was a lethal, lethal situation that I was living in. And still my denial was very strong

09:09and still I didn't tell anybody. And I was very fortunate because what happened was two

09:15friends who, for reasons I may never understand, had the courage to confront me. And the first

09:22one, ironically, was Connor's best friend from work. He had also gone to Harvard and he was

09:27a big reader and we have a lot in common. He was a very kind, gentle man. He took me

09:32aside

09:32one day, putting his hand over mine. The way a kindergarten teacher would put her hand over

09:37a kid's hand and say, listen, he said, do you know that your voice shakes when Connor is

09:43in the room? And when he's gone, it doesn't. Something's wrong, Leslie. I don't know what

09:49it is, but I need to know that you are safe and I need you to know that I care

09:54about you.

09:54And it was the most powerful 30-second speech that anyone has delivered to me. And it was

10:01kind and non-confrontational. He didn't ask me to do anything. He didn't blame me. And

10:06most important, he didn't blame Connor. Because if he had, I would have defended Connor. And

10:12I could tell that Ed also really cared about Connor. That very simple confrontation shattered

10:18my denial. Because I saw that this wonderful man was really worried about me. And I knew suddenly

10:24that I wasn't fooling anybody and that I was in real danger. And it took me another couple of years

10:29to leave, but that was the turning point for me. That was really key because from then on in,

10:34I wasn't so alone. You know, one of the most terrible things about abuse is that you feel like

10:39you're the only person in the world that this has ever happened to. And that you're so isolated

10:43and alone. And no one will believe you. Everybody will think you're an idiot for loving this person

10:47or for staying. Some people might think you deserved it. You provoked it. There's a lot of shaming of

10:52victims in our society. It was so wonderful that I had these two people, my best friend from college

10:58and Ed, a man and a woman who knew what was happening. And so it felt like even then when

11:02Connor was

11:03beating me and holding loaded guns to my head and doing all of his crazy things, which he did

11:07all the time throughout our marriage, I knew that those two people knew about it. This is why breaking

11:12the silence is so important. If you're a victim of abuse, because it's your lifeline out. And it was

11:18for me, even after I broke the silence and I had those two friends, I did not realize that he

11:22could

11:22have pulled the trigger at any time. There were actually times where he would do this to me and I

11:27would laugh and be like, yeah, go ahead, which was idiocy. I mean, he could have intentionally or even

11:33accidentally killed me at any moment, but I wasn't afraid because I had such strong denial.

11:40That's the scariest thing for me to look back on is how much denial I had and how devoutly I

11:46believed

11:47that he would not kill me. And I was wrong about that every day of our marriage. That's what finally

11:53convinced me to leave is when my denial really broke down. There was one particular beating that I knew he

12:01was going to kill me. It was the scariest thing I've ever been through. Anybody who's a victim of

12:05violent crime knows what I'm talking about. That when you're looking another human being in the face

12:09and you realize that they, they're not just capable of killing you, they want to kill you. It changed

12:14me forever. That terrible night, the final beating, it's like a video in my head, a very traumatic

12:20experience. But it was also really noteworthy because he hadn't beaten me for six months. We had had a

12:25really serious discussion about the abuse, the only time we ever talked about. And I had told him that I

12:29would leave him if he beat me again. And he was so wonderful. He cried. He told me he loved

12:34me so much

12:35that I was his family, the girl of his dreams, that he needed me, that he would never do it

12:39again, that

12:40that he'd only been doing it because of what had happened to him as a kid. And he was trying

12:43to work

12:43it out. I had gotten very hopeful that this was in the past. The day of the beating, the next

12:48day was his

12:49birthday. And it was a big birthday. And I was taking him on a really wonderful birthday trip. And that

12:55night,

12:55I was in the bedroom packing. I packed the suitcases. And he came into the bedroom and he blocked the

13:01doorway. And I could tell that the bad Connor was back. And he blocked the doorway and he put out

13:06his arms. And he was a very broad-shouldered guy with big, muscular arms. And he said,

13:10I've decided we're not going. And he didn't say any explanation because in his mind, he was the king

13:15of the castle and he didn't have to explain. And I remember I went and I lay on the bed

13:18and I thought

13:18about what I wanted for my future and for my future kids because I wanted to have kids one day.

13:23And he came back in about a half an hour later. And he said, so did you call the airlines

13:27to

13:28cancel the tickets? You know, it was late at night. He knew I hadn't called the airlines.

13:32He was just rubbing my face in it. And I said something that was either the bravest or the

13:36stupidest thing I've ever said. And I just looked at him and I said, you know what? I've worked hard

13:40for this trip and I'm going anyway. And he immediately grabbed my t-shirt, ripped it off me,

13:48ripped off the rest of my clothes and just started beating me more violently and crazily

13:53than he ever had before. And it was like I was trapped in my own bedroom with a lunatic or

13:58a

13:58wild animal. You know, I was on the floor for most of the attack. I was unconscious for a lot

14:02of it

14:02because he kept strangling me into unconsciousness. He kicked me. He hit me. He broke my favorite

14:07wedding picture over my head. I remember looking at his face in the few moments that I could actually

14:12like see anything. And it was like a rabid animal, like his eyes were red and his face was flushed

14:17and sweaty. And it was complete craziness. What I knew was that he was going to kill me.

14:22I knew it. I kept imagining my mother and my little sister seeing my dead body on the floor

14:29of my own bedroom. And I heard, I'm not a very religious person, but I heard a voice say to

14:36me,

14:36something I'll never forget. The voice said, Leslie, we love you. And it's so great that you

14:40love him because he's a good person and he has been through a really hard life. But you have to

14:44choose

14:44and you can choose him. You can choose to put him first and we'll still love you. But you need

14:48to

14:48choose whether you can put yourself first or him. The reason I'm here now is that I chose me. And

14:52I

14:52chose me secretly and silently in my own head. I started just lying to Connor wildly. I was like,

14:57I love you so much. Of course, I'm not going to leave you because he was really afraid that because

15:01he had broken this vow that I was going to leave him. I was like, I'd never leave you. I

15:05know this is

15:05just because of what happened to you as a kid. And that wasn't your fault. I was really spitballing

15:10as you do if you think someone is going to kill you. He was like a little kid, you know,

15:16just crying and snot running out of his nose. And I said, look, can you just, can you leave

15:21and just give me some time to clean myself up? Can you leave your keys? You know, like I'm just

15:25lying, lying to all of it because I want him out. And I got him out. And as soon as

15:31he left,

15:31I locked the door and I called the police. That was it. There's a terrible chapter right after you

15:36leave. But then the happy part is that eventually like 99% of victims who survive, I completely

15:45rebuilt my life. It wasn't easy, but I got out. I rebuilt my life and I have such an incredibly

15:52happy,

15:52wonderful life. And I will never be in an abusive relationship again. It's a terrifying experience,

15:57but it actually changed me in a very powerful and empowering way. Because in that moment,

16:04what I realized was that it was irrelevant how much I cared about him. It was irrelevant how much

16:08I loved him. Irrelevant what a terrible life he had been through. That I was going to choose me.

16:13I was going to choose me above anybody else and especially above him. And it was the first time

16:17I ever put myself first. It's not something we teach women in our country, in any country,

16:22probably to put yourself first over the man who you love. And that's why I survived that night,

16:27that night. And that's why I was able to leave him. And it is informed every minute of the rest

16:31of my

16:31life. No abuse victims leave, leaves on her own, his or her own. And honestly, I needed a lot of

16:36strangers to help me too. You can't leave on your own. I needed a locksmith. I needed a lawyer. I

16:41needed a domestic violence advocate. I needed a judge. I needed neighbors. I needed police officers.

16:46The police were there almost immediately. I think that they passed Connor on the street in front of

16:51our apartment. The police were incredible. They believed me and they gave me information

16:56about what was going to happen if I went back with him. The number one domestic house call that

17:02police officers make in America is for domestic violence. So these police officers really knew

17:08what they were talking about. They were both veterans of the local police force. They said,

17:12we see this all the time. Let me tell you what's going to happen. One of them said, he said,

17:15if you get back with him, he is going to kill you. And we're going to find you dead on

17:19your own

17:20living room floor. So it really reinforced that spiritual moment that I'd have. And then the other

17:26thing that really helped me is that this is so hard to describe. And maybe it was because I was

17:31so

17:31raw and open then, but I could feel that these two police officers who I'd never met, whose names I

17:38still don't know, that they loved me. That they loved me the way my own husband didn't. And I could

17:44feel

17:44it. And I wanted that. It was like people say, you know, go towards the light. I was going towards

17:50the love that these random policemen held out to me. They told me exactly what to do to protect

17:57myself. They wanted to protect me, but they knew that they couldn't. So they wanted to give me the

18:02tools to protect myself. And they told me to go to city hall that night, to file a temporary

18:07restraining order, to serve it the next day, to turn his guns into the police station, to hire a divorce

18:13attorney. They told me everything. And I did absolutely every single thing they told me to do.

18:18I never saw either one of those police officers again. I was never able to adequately thank them,

18:23but they saved my life. Everybody who I told about what had happened was sympathetic and believed me

18:27and offered to support me. One of the things that touched me the most is that somebody kept telling me

18:32I had to change the locks. And I was like, no, I don't. He's never going to come back. But

18:35I finally

18:36agreed that I had to change the locks. So I called a locksmith and he said, you know, honey, it's

18:41Christmas.

18:42I'm really busy. And I could be there in five days. I knew how much I had the power of

18:46breaking

18:46the silence. So I took a deep breath and I said, I just left a man who was physically abusing

18:50me.

18:50And that was like, I was spitting it out. It was really hard to say it. And there was a

18:53long silence

18:54and he said, I'll be there in 20 minutes. I was a very lucky victim. And this is a terrible

19:00truth

19:00about being a domestic violence victim is that if you look like me and you went to Harvard College,

19:04you get more help. And it shouldn't be that way because there is not a person in the world

19:10who doesn't know somebody who's a domestic violence victim. And the more we educate and

19:14raise awareness about what it really looks like, the more we can help victims and the more we can

19:19help them break the cycle. The most powerful thing you can do is to break the silence. You can just

19:23tell your best friend or your current partner or your mom or someone else, anyone, anyone who's going

19:31to believe you. That's very important. Make sure you tell somebody who you trust, who's going to

19:34believe you. The solidarity that you get from breaking the silence is really amazing. If

19:39you're somebody who doesn't want to share your story, that's also okay. Like you have to put

19:43yourself first. And for some people, it makes them too vulnerable or makes them feel too exposed.

19:48I think it is barbaric that we ask victims of violence, domestic violence, assault, childhood

19:53abuse, to talk about the abuse right after it's happened. And that we blame them if they take a long

19:58time to report, because you cannot talk about this trauma at first. The first person you have to tell

20:04is yourself. And it took me a really long time, years, to be able to look myself in the mirror

20:10and say, I was a battered wife. I was the victim of domestic violence. What I thought was love was

20:15crazy love, and it was insanity. And I fell for all of it. It took me a long time to

20:20forgive myself.

20:21You may right now be thinking that I'm really different from you. Maybe my hair is a different

20:26color, or my skin is a different color, or I went to a different school, or I grew up in

20:30a different

20:30part of the country, or I had so many privileges and advantages, which I have. You may also be

20:35thinking that I'm much stupider than you are, that I'm much more naive, and that this would never

20:40happen to you. But this whole time that I have been talking about my own experience, believe it or not,

20:46I've been talking about you. Because abuse happens to everybody. It happens to men and women. It happens

20:51to people in every, I mean, every religious community, every neighborhood, every school,

20:57every country. If you think this is never going to happen to you, or your mom, or your daughter, or

21:02your sister, or your best friend, or your son, you're wrong. This is a very, very common human

21:09experience, to be in an emotionally or physically abusive relationship. And it is soul killing, and

21:14it destroys people, it destroys families, it destroys children. And we can all play our part in ending

21:20abuse just by learning about it. There's so much material that you can just passively take in,

21:25and I promise you, it will change the way you see relationships forever, in a way that's really

21:30healthy and really powerful. And it's what that I wish that I had been able to do the day before

21:35I

21:36met Connor on that New York City subway. You know, the takeaway of the story is that it's not just

21:40okay

21:41to ask for help. It's a wonderful, humanizing act to take. And by saying, I need help, and I'm not

21:48perfect, you also send a message to everybody else in your life, that it's okay to ask for help. And

21:54they that one day they can ask you for help. We need to value the person who's brave enough to

21:58say,

21:59I don't have this. I need you. I need your help. I'm Leslie Morgan Steiner. And I am really grateful

22:04that you took this time to listen to me. This is how we end abuse. This is how we end

22:11violence

22:12in our society is by learning about it by being brave enough to listen to a survivor, tell their

22:18story in your own way. You're breaking the silence just by listening. And I'm really proud of you.

22:23I just want to say to everybody out there, if you're in a dark moment, you can get out too.

22:28I promise you, I promise you one day, this will feel like a nightmare that happened to somebody else.

22:34And you'll be living your best life too. A lot of happiness lies on the other side of

22:39leaving an abusive relationship. Thank you.

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