Oprah: What is the most difficult
decision you've had to make to
fulfill your destiny?
Reese: For me, probably leaving an
abusive relationship.
Mindy: For me it was realizing that
I was not going to be friends with
everybody on the path of achieving
what I wanted. I would have to,
it's not that profound, but that I
would make enemies, make people that
would not be my friends and being
okay with that.
Oprah: Okay, I have to followup to
leaving an abusive relationship.
What was the decision?
Was it a moment? Was it physically
or verbally or both?
Reese: Psychological, verbal,
and yeah.
Oprah: Okay, okay. What moment?
Was it several instances …
Reese: Yes.
Oprah: Some moment, you decided.
Reese: A line got drawn in the sand
and it got crossed, and my brain
just switched and I knew it was
going to be very difficult,
but I just couldn't go any further.
It was profound and I was young,
really young.
Oprah: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Reese: Yeah. I just …
Oprah: And that made all the
difference.
Reese: I could never be the person
I am today. I was a different person.
It changed who I was on a cellular
level, the fact that I stood up for
myself. None of leaving those
situations is easy, it's really
wrought with self doubt,
particularly if someone damages
your self esteem, which is …
Oprah: Yeah.
Reese: People say to me, they knew
me then, I didn't have self esteem.
You know?
Oprah: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Reese: I'm a different person now,
and it's part of the reason I can
stand up and say yes I'm ambitious,
because someone tried to take that
from me.
Oprah: It's also part of the reason
why you wanted to ...
or a part of your drive is telling
the complexity of those stories
for other women.
Reese: It was incredibly when we
did Big Little Lies, how we would
sit around all the women and talk
about each one of us had very
specific experiences.
They weren't ... There was a range
of experiences but there wasn't a
woman there that hadn't been
affected by abuse. Not one of those
women and it's why we decided to
make this show.
Oprah: Yeah. I was telling you
earlier …
Reese: I'm hard pressed to find
any group of women where you can't
say it happened to my sister,
it happened to my mom, I saw this.
There's a range of abuse.
Oprah: Right. Reese: There's verbal,
there's psychological, there's so
many things other than physical.
Oprah: Yeah.
Reese: That can be completely
detrimental to your self worth,
your self esteem, and your progress
in life.
Oprah: You know what, it's all the
same, because I remember holding
the standard for myself,
having grown up watching a cousin
of mine who was like my mother's
sister. I grew up in the house with
her older cousin, and her boyfriend
used to abuse her, so that was my
standard. Physically abuse her.
I was a kid, ten years old.
Saw him knock her down the stairs.
My thing was I will never let
somebody hit me. I will never let
somebody hit me.
Reese: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Oprah: So I lived in that superior
better than thou space of as long
as he doesn't hit me, he can say
anything, he can do anything,
but as long as he doesn't hit me.
One day, in my 20s, guy was leaving,
the person who wouldn't hit me,
slammed the door on my hand and
I fell. I saw myself in the mirror,
and I realized I had become that
woman who would allow myself to be
psychologically, verbally assaulted,
that there was no difference
between that and being actually hit.