Really good to see you.
Good to see you.
Does it feel funny being in here?
A little bit yeah.
I feel like I've known you forever
and to realize how much of a big piece of the story of you
I was missing is brutal.
Do you have a shorthand to describe
what it is that happened to you?
When I was 23 years old
I married a man who beat me
and I'm one of the lucky ones.
I got out of that marriage within a year
by my first anniversary
but what he left me with
was not physical injury
it was the emotional and psychological pain
that I took with me out of that marriage
and kept with me for many, many years
but if you didn't know that about me
that's because I didn't want you to know right
and that was part of it.
There was a shame that has kind of trailed along after me
depending on what was going on in my life.
We can all hide things
and when I'm in broadcast mode
this voice of mine has hidden my greatest secret.
My name is Anna Maria Tremonti and this is my story.
When you started this podcast
there was no ending to this story
what did you want to happen?
I really wanted to tell my story to also kind of signal
that this can happen to people
who you don't think it can happen to
this can happen to people who you think are strong
and in fact victims of intimate partner abuse are strong from day one
because they get up in the morning and they keep living
and we don't realize we don't give them credit for being as strong
we think they're weak, they're not.
So can you tell us the story
you as you say married very young, 23.
I look at myself now and I look at that picture of my elopement day
and i think what were you thinking
it was a whirlwind.
He was very sort of out there
very outgoing, spontaneous, fun-loving guy
but he would be moody
and the first time it happened
he'd been moody and I didn't understand why
and I was trying to figure it out like ask him
and I was trying to get him to talk to me
and he just blew and he threw a pot of coffee at me.
It wasn't that hot
but it like that coffee hit me on my back
because I turned and then he started pummelling me
with his fists on my back
and I didn't know what was happening.
This had never happened to me before
I didn't understand it
I didn't know what to do
I kind of like hunched over
I probably asked him to stop
I don't even remember but he just kept hitting me and hitting me and when it ended
I remember going into the washroom
and I could already see bruise marks
I could already see marks on my back
and I remember thinking wow you bruise so easily
like I really wasn't registering yet what he had done
and of course I don't bruise easily
I bruise when you hit me hard.
Did you wonder if other people knew?
There was a Sunday that was particularly hard
it had started early afternoon
he was angry with me
he was punching me yelling
I no doubt yelled back but there was a lot of
there was a lot of hitting and punching
and there was a knock on the door
and there were two policemen there
and they wanted to come in
I wouldn't let them in.
They told me and they probably shouldn't have they told me
that my neighbour downstairs called them
and they wanted to come in.
They kept saying can we come and you know
where's your husband
and I'd say he's sleeping upstairs
and well are you okay I'm fine but I want them to go away
and I'm not happy that they're there.
I thought that bitch downstairs but that was the day
that was the day that somebody knew my secret.
And what did that date change?
Not a thing Adrienne, not a thing.
It is as if he has taken whatever's inside of me
and ripped it away
I have never felt such emptiness
such untethered unbeing.
I look down and look up again
and still see nothing, no one.
It is a moment of non-existence.
So, at some point you left.
What happened what was the decider there
I didn't decide I had to go, he did.
We had been in Ottawa
and um he had beat me up
and then he left me there
he said I'm going home.
We had driven from Fredericton and he left me there.
I decided I was going to take the train home
and it was an overnight train
and I spent my time on that train saying
this has got to stop
I'm going to be a better wife
and I remember getting in to the house early in the morning
it was like between 7 and 8
and he said hello to me
and I poured myself a coffee
and I sat down from across from him
a little closer than this
and he said either you leave or I leave
or I'm going to kill you
it's just a matter of time.
Oh my God.
What do you do in that moment?
I didn't know if i believed him
I didn't know if he was capable of it.
Because you didn't want to believe him, or?
I was so far down a rabbit hole
it was days later that I had a job interview with CBC
and yeah Fredericton's a small place for reporters
and by this time I'm in a guest house
and I've got my stuff
but I've got to get dressed for this interview
and I've got fingerprints on my neck
so I got to figure out what to wear.
They can't know that you're a battered wife
But why? Because they won't hire you, they wouldn't hire you
because you were a victim.
Well that's what I thought yeah
you know there you know that because to be a victim is to be blamed right.
You get the job.
I got the job.
This is a city already devastated by war.
You have the most extraordinary career
all these years later did you bring this experience with you as well?
Yes I brought it with me
but I didn't let it overtake me
I mean I look at my deep connection to the war in Bosnia
I just always wanted to go back in
like send me back send me back
but I think that I found something important
in finding people who are in the midst of a trauma
that is not of their making
that is not their fault
that they do not have control over
they're stuck in.
Another displaced victim in a war
which exacts its greatest toll on civilians.
Were you also looking for someone who understood you?
Were you looking to share this a bit and be less lonely in this experience?
I think I was trying to know
it's a good way to put it the loneliness of trauma
I think I was trying to help
I don't think I was trying to help myself
in the end iI was helping myself um
but I wasn't worried about my loneliness
and trauma again
I felt that that was separate
because you think you're alone
and I diminished my trauma
because that trauma was much more acute let's face it.
I've spent my career confronting people with power
getting them to account for their actions
it's what I do
so of course I've got these questions
and they're not going away and that 23 year old in me
who got sideswiped she wants some answers.
I'm not going to give away what happens.
But I do find it interesting
that you really worked hard
to go through accountability
like you intended to talk to him right
you wanted answers
and you went at it like, like Anna Maria Tremonti.
Well on a very intuitive journalistic level
you gotta hear from the person
you're talking about.
I have wanted to not confront
but to have a conversation with him for a long time
and I've not known how to do it
and then the question is well what if he denies it
what if he tells you you made it up
what if he says this is how I remember
and it's different what if he says well yeah
but it was your fault and navigating that is a lot
and it is a lot for a lot of victims and a lot of victims
don't even get to the point where they get to navigate it and I do.
And all these years later what do you think of that bitch downstairs?
I'm grateful for her.
I never knew her name.
Thank you for having the guts to open up about this
it's going to make a difference for a lot of people
who will not see this coming.
Thank you.