The Entirety Of Our Relationship Was Riddled With Abuse

Unfiltered Stories

Today, our guest Linda Dylan, a survivor of domestic violence, shares her powerful story. Watch as she recounts her inspiring journey of finding the courage to leave an abusive relationship, all while prioritizing the safety and wellbeing of her children and herself.   #domesticviolence #survivorstories #trauma   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

00:00Hi, my name is Linda Dinell. I met Dorian in the early 90s. We were together for about 10 years.

00:06The entirety of our relationship was riddled with abuse. He always said to me, you know,

00:10I just want you to be the best version of yourself that you can be. But over time,

00:14those helpful critiques turned into sharp criticisms. He was 26 when we met. He had a

00:21college education. I did not. He had a very good job. I did not. Eventually, I convinced myself

00:26that the silent treatment and the cursing and the name calling and the yelling and the fits of just

00:33unbelievable jealousy weren't that bad. When it would happen, he would always say to me,

00:38you push my buttons. You know exactly how to push my buttons. I wanted to believe that. And I told

00:43myself that it wasn't like he was putting his hands on me. And that was true until it wasn't.

00:47That was true until the day that he strangled me and nearly killed me in our kitchen with my little

00:53baby daughter sitting in her nip nap chair on the kitchen table. We had no gradual build up to

00:57violence. And we went right from verbal abuse to lethal force. I immediately went into denial. I

01:05was so shocked. I said, I pushed him too far. I wanted to believe that because that could not be

01:11my life.

01:12I had pushed all of my family and friends away in order to be with him. At that point in

01:16my life,

01:17I had nobody but him. I said to myself, this will never happen again. I will never say what I

01:22said.

01:22I will never do what I did. And he will never do this again. And we'll be fine. But that

01:27was the

01:28beginning of the physical abuse. Once that barrier was lifted, he put his hands on me almost every day

01:33until the day that I left. When I finally mustered the courage to leave him, this was February of 2000,

01:39so I had just turned 30 years old. I sat him down and I said, we need to talk. My

01:43little daughters,

01:43they were three and four years old. They were just in their bedroom. And I said, we cannot continue

01:48this. We cannot live like this anymore. What is happening between us is not okay. It's not good

01:53for us, but it's also not good for the girls. At the time we were very serious Roman Catholics. I

01:58said,

01:58we just need to get divorced. We need to figure this out, you know, share custody of the girls,

02:03file for an annulment and move on with our lives because this cannot continue. I remember he was really

02:08calm and he leaned forward and he looked at me and he said, if you try and leave me,

02:13I will kill you. I will snap your neck like a twig. You will be dead before your body hits

02:18the ground

02:19and then I'll kill the girls. I knew he was serious. He had nearly killed me twice before

02:23through strangulation. So not long after that, I took my daughters and I ran away. I ran to my

02:28brother's home. At the time we lived in Kenmore, New York. I ran away to Hamburg, New York. That was

02:32about 45 minutes away because I had not been in contact with my family. I didn't know where my brother

02:37lived. I was working as a restaurant manager at the time and he and his wife and their children had

02:41just

02:41randomly come into this restaurant one day about a year before and he was so shocked to see me

02:46and he knew something was really terribly wrong. And he handed me his business card and he said,

02:51if you need me, I'm here. And I remember I tucked that business card away in my wallet. I knew

02:56how

02:56dangerous that was to keep that because Dorian went through all my things. I didn't have any privacy,

03:01but something inside me just said, you know, I'm not letting my brother go again. So I called my brother

03:05and I said, you know, I need help. I have to go. This is what's going on. And he let

03:10me come and live

03:11with him. I've lived in hiding for the duration of the divorce. My bosses, my management team took my

03:17situation incredibly seriously and not all victims are availed that level of help. Many victims have a

03:26very difficult time moving forward with their lives, a very difficult time staying gone from their abusers

03:32because they don't have economic security. And I was very lucky that the company that I worked for

03:36took my economic security seriously. They sent me to a different unit, a unit closer to where I was

03:42living. And that management team had me working under an assumed name. So I couldn't manage, but I worked

03:47as a waitress and I was Becky, the waitress. And I worked there for the months that I lived in

03:53hiding

03:53with my daughters. And I was able to save enough money that when the divorce was finally completed,

03:59I was able to move out on my own and restart my life. So I was very lucky. I had

04:04given birth to

04:05my daughter. It was actually our second pregnancy. None of my children were ever planned. I, I never

04:10knew as a woman that I could say no to my partner. And so while I have three beautiful children

04:15that I

04:15love very much, and I always wanted to be a mom, all of my children were surprises. So I was

04:20surprised

04:20the second time I became pregnant, I had to go back to work because he was not the kind of

04:26guy that

04:27could keep a job. He was probably a narcissist. Of course, being a narcissist, he would didn't want

04:34to go to therapy. So there's no, I don't have documentation to say that he didn't always want

04:39to work. He couldn't get along with people. He had a very difficult time being out in the world.

04:42And so in order to support our little family, I had to go back to work. So I did.

04:46Went to my very first appointment doctor's appointment after I had Anna and my doctor told me I had

04:53an issue and I had to take antibiotics. I came home from work. After the doctor's appointment,

04:58after work, I was exhausted. He had been home all day with her and I was nursing her. But being

05:03on

05:03antibiotics, I couldn't nurse. So I had to make bottles. So I'm standing at the kitchen counter,

05:07still dressed for work, exhausted, not feeling well, had this prescription that I knew I needed to take.

05:13But he was walking her and he was pacing and he was saying, if you really loved her, if you

05:18really

05:19loved God, you would pray to God for a resolution to this infection that you have. Nursing is more

05:23important than anything you've got going on. He just kept talking and he just kept telling me what

05:28a bad mom I was and what a bad person I was and what a bad Christian I was. And

05:32that if, you know,

05:33if only I would just pray hard enough that God would take this infection away from me and I could

05:37continue to nurse her. And I got very frustrated with him. I started yelling at him and telling him to

05:43leave me alone, that I was exhausted and I was hungry and I just wanted to take the medicine. I

05:46wanted him to walk out of the kitchen just long enough for me to pop one in my mouth and

05:50take

05:50a drink of water. And I just wanted it to be over. And he just kept grinding. And while he

05:55was holding

05:56Anna, I pushed him, pushed him in the shoulder with the palm of my hand. I'm five foot seven,

06:01150 pounds. He was six foot two, 280. He was a big guy. He's a big guy. He lifted weights.

06:07I didn't

06:07make it. I just pushed him for many years. I thought it was my fault. I thought I was the

06:11one

06:11that started the physical abuse because I shoved him out of frustration. And he looked

06:16at me and he went over and he put Anna Claire down in her nap nap chair very calmly. And

06:22he turned

06:22around and he got me by the throat and he just started pressing on my windpipe. And he is holding

06:27me and his thumbs are in my windpipe and he is screaming at me. And he's saying, oh, he's swearing

06:33at me and telling me I'm never going to do that again. And I was losing consciousness. I just thought,

06:38you know, this is, this is how it's going to end. My daughter's going to watch me die. But she

06:41didn't.

06:42While he was, while he was strangling me, the look on his face changed. He, he was calm and it

06:47was like,

06:48it was almost like he had thought about it before. It was like, he strangling me wasn't what he thought

06:54it was going to be. Killing me was going to be a lot harder than he thought it was going

06:57to be.

06:57And he stopped and he turned me around and he started slamming my head into the kitchen counter.

07:03We have bottles of hot water and formula and he is just slamming me. And there,

07:08the bottles are flying everywhere. Hot water's in my face and my eyes, the grit from that powder

07:12formula is in my face and in my eyes. And he's holding me and slamming my head into the counter,

07:18just telling me that I'm, this is never going to happen again. My daughter is screaming and crying

07:23and he is just beat right in the face. And then he just dropped me on the floor and he

07:26very calmly

07:27took a dish towel, wiped his face, picked her up out of her nip nap chair and looked at me

07:32as I was

07:32lying on the foreign floor and said, clean up the mess. And he just walked out of the kitchen. I

07:36knew that

07:37everything had changed, but I blame myself for that. And I remember years later, my second husband

07:43said to me, that wasn't your fault. You shoved him like you were, he was yelling at you. You were

07:48sick. That that one shove doesn't justify years of physical abuse, emotional abuse, religious abuse,

07:57financial abuse was one shot, but I blamed myself. And that's why it took me so long to want to

08:03tell

08:03anybody what was going on because I was ashamed and I was embarrassed. And I thought I had brought

08:07it on myself. And victims think that all the time, because that's what the abuser tells them. It's

08:11your fault. I wouldn't do what I do if you didn't do what you did. And that's ridiculous. We never

08:15bring that on ourselves. Initially, it was emotional abuse, yelling, swearing, screaming, implying that I

08:20wanted to go back to college and learn sign language. I wanted to be a teacher, elementary school

08:25teacher and learn sign language. And he told me I was too stupid. I wasn't smart enough to do that.

08:28And I should go for something else, criticizing my weight, criticizing the way that I dressed,

08:33criticizing my friends. He criticized every physical abuse. So pushing, slapping, hitting,

08:38pinching, sexual abuse. I didn't know until I was in my forties. And then I started and I had already

08:45written leaving Dorian and I was in a second marriage. I had no idea that as a woman, I could

08:50say no. That's why I have children and I love them. I always wanted to be a mama, but my

08:54babies came along

08:55because I didn't believe I had the right to say no. And the very first time I ever had sex

09:01with Dorian,

09:01he sexually assaulted me. But I didn't know it was sexual assault because I thought that's just

09:05what guys did. I thought they just overpowered you. They just did what they wanted to do. And

09:10you know, I didn't know. I didn't know until my niece had read the book and said to me,

09:14oh my God, I was sexually assaulted too. And I was like, what are you talking about?

09:18I wasn't sexually assaulted. And she was like, uh, Aunt Linda, I think you need to reread chapter six.

09:25How would I know? Financial abuse. As I mentioned, he didn't always work. And so I always had to work

09:31to make sure that the bills were paid, but I didn't have any control over my own paycheck.

09:34My paycheck went into an account. He paid the bills. He had a very confusing idea about what

09:39religion and spirituality were for. Much of our money went overseas to religious charities. He was,

09:44it was very important to him that he tithe at our church. My daughters and I were wearing

09:49used clothing from a used clothing store. He was buying brand new clothes for himself,

09:53and the rest of our money was going to religious charities. I didn't have a say

09:58in where any of that money went. And to the religion, to the religious aspect, a lot of people

10:04don't know what religious abuse is. And I didn't know until, uh, the woman that I dedicated leaving

10:09Dorian to, um, she was a victim of religious abuse. Her husband murdered her. And when I watched her

10:16story, this was 2009, before I had written the book, I watched and I read in the paper what this

10:23woman had gone through. And it was exactly what I had gone through. She was Muslim. I was Roman Catholic,

10:27but it was exactly the same. Her husband telling her, you know, God doesn't love you. You don't

10:33practice your religion properly. And, and trying to manipulate the way that she practiced her religion.

10:37And that is not okay. Religious abuse is a thing. If somebody is telling you,

10:42you can't practice your religion or you need to practice it more, trying to manipulate the way you

10:47pray, trying to manipulate the, your perception of God, your perception of your spirituality,

10:53that's religious abuse. And I wish it was talked about more because that is also a way, because

11:00most religions are patriarchal, that men tend to control women is through religion. And then also

11:06controlling our reproductive rights, because many religions say that the man is in charge

11:12and that you can't use birth control or all of these different things, right? So religion,

11:17when I realized I had been a victim of religious abuse, it was a tipping point for me. All of

11:21the

11:21things, all of the problems that I had had that I didn't have a label for started to come together.

11:27And I realized that what I was suffering from was complex post-traumatic stress disorder,

11:31from unresolved childhood trauma, from all of the trauma in that marriage, that first marriage,

11:36things that I had not therapied my way out of because therapy wasn't a thing in my family.

11:41My family of origin thought that mental illness was not a thing. And if you went to therapy,

11:45it was shameful. My mother was seriously mentally ill and she was shamed for seeking help. And so I did

11:51not seek help. And so I just powered through for more than a decade, complex post-traumatic stress

11:56disorder, paranoia, hypervigilance, trust issues, anger issues. I had an unresolved eating disorder

12:04for almost 20 years. I was way too overprotective with my children. I was afraid of everything. There

12:11were years that I did not leave the house unless I absolutely had to. I surrounded myself with my

12:18children. I got married to my second husband a year to the day that I left Orient. It was a

12:23mistake.

12:24I was useful. And he was 10 years older than me. I raised my daughters. I raised his sons,

12:32which became like my sons. And then we had a baby together. I got pregnant maybe three months after

12:38we got married. And it just started all over again. I was the useful person in the house. And

12:44I raised my babies and my kiddos. And that fear was just like a black cloud over me for years

12:50and years.

12:51And Dorian didn't make it any better. Abusers don't just go away, right? Just because the victim

12:56is ready to move on doesn't mean that that abuser just throws up his hands and goes,

13:00oh, you don't want to be with me anymore? Oh, that's fine. You just, you go ahead and I'll just

13:04go

13:05over here and cry in a corn. Dorian stalked me. He harassed me, even though I was remarried almost 10

13:10years worth. And it wasn't until we did end up getting an annulment that he backed off. But he never

13:17backed off my daughters. My daughters endured emotional abuse until he walked out of their

13:22lives when they were 14 and 15 years old. When he could no longer emotionally abuse me,

13:27he emotionally abused them. And they still are bearing the emotional scars of that to this day.

13:33The show Monk, he goes through this terrible tragedy and then he has all these little behaviors and he

13:37just thinks he's weird. And you know, it's not that he's weird, it's that he's traumatized. Watching that

13:42show, I watch, I watch every rerun is what helped to trigger in my mind. Like there's nothing there.

13:48I'm not just a weird person. I've been through something terrible. Like there's a reason. And then

13:54I had to revisit childhood trauma, childhood sexual assault, neglect, emotional abuse, all these things.

13:59Watching Monk was something that, that helped to enlighten me. But I will tell you that it was around

14:092011 when I started to realize that, uh, without therapy, I wasn't going to get better, but I still

14:14couldn't bring myself to do therapy. And I just thought my life is over. My kiddos are all going

14:18to fly away and I'm going to be left with this, my second husband who found me to be useful.

14:23And I just

14:24was never going to get better. And so I thought it's time somebody speaks up because they had done this

14:31spread in the local newspaper of all these women in my county that had been killed by their partners.

14:35And I, I just thought, my God, all of these women are dying at the hands of men who claim

14:40to love

14:40them. What is happening? Why doesn't somebody speak up? Why does somebody say something? Why

14:44doesn't a victim come forward and say, I move forward with my life and you can too. And even

14:48though I was really in the pits of despair, my second husband said to me, maybe that's you,

14:52maybe the call is coming from inside the house. So to his credit, you know, he, he did, he did

14:58suggest

14:58that to me. And I, I remember thinking, well, my life is over. I'm never going to be able to

15:03move forward.

15:03But if my story can set, can help one woman save her all life, you don't have to go through

15:08this.

15:09I got out, run, run away, go tell somebody. I thought it would all be worth it. And so I

15:13sat down

15:14and I wrote Leaving Dorian. I wrote it in three months. I just poured my heart out. I just told

15:18the truth of what had happened to me, but I had no background. I didn't have the background then that

15:23I have now, you know, after studying intimate partner violence for 10 years, I just wrote what

15:27happened. And so after I self published the book, I had 65 publishing houses and agents tell me they

15:33didn't want it, who would read it. And my sister-in-law is a social worker across the state.

15:38And I sent it to her after about a year of trying to get this book published. And I said,

15:41just,

15:41if it's terrible, just tell me and I'll just stop trying. She read it in one sitting and many,

15:46many of my students do. And she called me and she said, you have to find a way to publish

15:50this book.

15:50It's going to help so many people. She said, I have clients right now that need this book.

15:53So I took the leap. I self published it. I just, just a month ago was the 10 year anniversary

15:59of

15:59leaving Dorian. And so I had a new publication. I have pictures in it and I have a new, it

16:04has a

16:05new dedication. So writing the book was terrible. It was heartbreaking, but I knew I had to tell.

16:10And I think that's what victims don't understand. The only real power your abuser has over you is your

16:15silence. And I know you're ashamed and I know you're embarrassed. I know you think nobody's going to

16:19believe you, but they will. There are help centers available. Go to a help center,

16:24put together a safety plan and move your life forward. Right. And it is a huge problem. And I

16:30do understand why victims are afraid that they're not going to be believed because I wasn't believed.

16:34My own lawyer didn't believe me. Not until my lawyer saw Dorian in court. Did he say, oh my God,

16:39look at this guy. My own, I was paying this guy and he didn't believe me. I had family that

16:44came back in

16:45my life. Asked me how, how I could have let it happen. There is certainly going to be a group

16:49of

16:50people or a few people that will not believe you. But when you go to a help center and you

16:54ask for

16:54help and you put together a safety plan, because this is a statistic that, that is important to

17:00remember 75% of victims who are murdered by their partners are not murdered during the relationship.

17:05They are killed either when they try and leave or once they've already left because abuse is about

17:09power and control. And as soon as that abuser realizes he is about to lose control over his victim,

17:14even if he has never put his hands on you, he may amp up and you are in extreme danger

17:20when you are

17:20preparing to leave and the year, the first year after you're out. So it's very important that you

17:27go to train professionals at a help center, put together a safety plan and extract yourself from

17:33that relationship as safely as you can, because it is dangerous. And I, I don't say that to be

17:38sensational or to strike fearing people, but we want women to live and we want them to be able to

17:43mother their children. I had the opportunity to mother my children. My life was not taken from me.

17:47And that is what, that is our best case scenario. So what finally helped me heal and process the

17:54trauma was speaking about what I had gone through. Once the book was published, I started being asked

17:59by different people to come speak about it, what I had gone through. And initially I did not want

18:03to in the first couple of years was torture because to constantly having to scratch open

18:08that unhealed wound was terrible. But over time talking about it, processing it, going through it,

18:15also learning about intimate partner rounds. I spent eight years reading all these professors that I

18:20worked with gave me all these suggestions for reading. So while I didn't, I did not avail myself

18:24therapy, working with victims, working with survivors, speaking about my story, reading about intimate

18:29partner violence. All of those things came together to help me become a person, a human being with

18:36wants and needs and desires to become a person that could stand up and have boundaries to become

18:41someone who could say, no, I don't like that. I don't want that. I'm not okay with that. I am.

18:46I just turned 55. I have only been able to stand up and say no for about five years. I

18:52don't want other

18:53women to wait until they're in their fifties to hold their boundaries, to say no, to find their

18:59voice. Do it now. But if you are 55, do it now. It's never too late to move yourself forward

19:06and

19:06to heal. And just over the last couple of years, I have started therapy. No more shame. I go to

19:11therapy. I have a wonderful therapist. She's helping me along, but everybody's going to do what they need

19:15to do to heal in their own time. Yeah. Yeah. So the light at the end of the tunnel for

19:19a long time

19:20felt like a train coming at me. But not. So unfortunately, my second marriage ended. 19

19:26year marriage ended during COVID. Move forward. My daughters are grown now. Anna Claire and Gracie,

19:32who were three and four when I left, are in their mid to late twenties now. My youngest child is

19:37almost

19:3722. He is wonderful. I have moved my life forward. Ten year anniversary of leaving Doreen that I

19:42mentioned. I also published Finding Chrissy, which is the sequel. Tons of people asked for it. Published that

19:47a year and a half ago. I have a wonderful job. I have moved forward and continued my education and

19:53I am in an extremely healthy relationship with my high school sweetheart. We reconnected during COVID.

20:02We were 17 and 18 when we dated and we are together now. And I believe that we're going to

20:08make it for

20:09the long haul. He's probably the guy I should have been with the whole time. But the guy is not

20:13the

20:13solution. And the kiddos being happy is not the solution. The solution is me, like I said, becoming

20:19a person with boundaries, becoming a person who who can move herself forward and take her life where

20:29she wants it to be without shame, without guilt, without having to explain myself to anybody. I am

20:34allowed to do that as a woman and I will continue to do that. We need men to hold each

20:38other accountable

20:39and we need men to change the culture of masculinity because the shelter movement started in England

20:45in 1971, Chiswick, England. And since then women have raised funds and opened help centers and we've

20:51raised awareness and we've done marches and we've worn purple and we're out there. The men, the men need

20:56to stand up and say no more. I guess another statistic, it takes the average victim seven times to leave

21:02and

21:02stay gone. So as a friend and family member, if you know that you have a loved one who is

21:08enduring abuse

21:09and you keep hoping they're going to, this is going to be the time they're going to leave and they're

21:14going to, you know, they're done. That is not always the case. Please be understanding. Please don't throw

21:19up your hands and give up. Also do not push a victim if she is not ready, because again, once

21:25that abuser

21:26realizes he's going to lose power and control, it becomes a very dangerous situation for her. And if she's not

21:31ready to leave and stay gone, going back could imperil her. And so we don't want that. So we

21:36want to be extremely encouraging. We want to make sure we tell her, it's not your fault. I believe

21:40you. I love you. You didn't bring this on yourself. You're going to be okay. And just can, even if

21:44she

21:45goes back, you just got to keep trying. You just have to keep loving and supporting. And that can be

21:49very difficult to watch a loved one continue to sort of beat their head against this wall, you know,

21:54metaphorically, of course, because you want the best for them. But three women a day on average die as a

22:00result of intimate partner violence in America. Three women a day. It is an epidemic. It is a

22:05public health crisis that we are not addressing. And abuse can happen to anyone, right? There's

22:10abuse in the LGBTQAI community. There's abuse, teen dating violence, the elderly, anybody can be a

22:16victim of abuse. Highly educated women, doctors, lawyers, you know, it's not just in marginalized

22:22communities. It's not just in communities of color. Everybody can be a victim and men can be victims

22:28as well. 92% of victims are women, but men can be victims as well. So let's not, let's not

22:33think

22:34that it's just a problem for women, although largely it is men can be victims as well. I said before,

22:39you know, I sort of just became a person with boundaries five years ago, or, you know, and it

22:43started that maybe 10 years ago. Part of the healing process for me was a couple of years back,

22:50Dorian passed away. It was very unexpectedly. He was only 56 years old. He was not an old man,

22:56but I didn't realize how afraid I still was because abusers come back. You know, when they

23:01end an abusive relationship, oftentimes they will go back and try and reoffend every victim before

23:05that. And so I never knew where Dorian was in his life. So I never knew if he had relationships

23:09that were ending. And I was always afraid. I was always afraid that I was going to open my garage

23:14door and he was going to be standing there with a gun, that I was going to go out to

23:16my car and he

23:17was going to be there. Years I worked and I never put on social media where I was going to

23:21be

23:22because I thought if he comes into that classroom with a gun, he's going to try and kill me,

23:26but he's going to end up knocking out some of my students before he gets to me. And I knew

23:30I needed

23:30to protect, I needed to protect the people that I was there working with. So little things like

23:36being able to post on social media. Oh, I'm going to be at Hobart William Smith College this weekend.

23:40It was crazy for me to be able to post it because I didn't have to worry about him showing

23:44up. And so

23:45I didn't realize how much fear I had lived in even being married a second time for all those years,

23:5020 years of just being afraid all the time. But that's over. And sadly for my children,

23:55he is gone, but I'm free. And that's a beautiful thing. And it's a shame he had to die for

24:00that to happen.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended