After being married to John for about a month or two,
I definitely started to see a lot of red flags.
As quickly as we had fallen in love, it unraveled.
I learned that John was not a doctor,
nor a anesthesiologist,
but he was a nurse.
And I also found out that he had spent time in prison,
and he had a drug problem.
Heroin and prescription drugs.
Not only had I found out that he had been in jail,
but that he had just gotten out a couple days
before we met, and a few days later, went on a date.
When it came to John, I was 100% deceived.
With John, I had no idea what to do.
I was stuck.
What was the first thing that you found out
that was really alarming to you?
Well, the first thing, I think I went
to the mailbox, and there was this letter,
and it was from an inmate at Theo Lacy.
And I opened it.
And he ran up and grabbed it out of my hand
as fast as he could.
It was to him?
It was to him.
Yeah.
And he said, "That's fraud."
And I said, "Okay, but what's this all about?"
And I was starting to see, things were starting to unravel.
A different person slowly evolving.
And that's when I knew I had made
a huge mistake. Well, you knew
he lied about a lot,
so why were you still staying once it started to unravel?
Well, I went and got professional help
and asked, what should I do?
They told me what he was doing is called coercive control.
And you don't just walk away because that's when you
become in major danger.
And so, I had a forensic physiatrist working with me,
I had a private investigator working with me,
and they were showing me the steps of preparing myself
to leave at one point.
So, obviously, I had to change passwords,
I had to move money around.
I literally, at one point, when I felt it was safe to leave,
or at least, I couldn't deal with it anymore
'cause he saw what was happening, I left.
And I had a dark wig, I moved out of my place,
started living in hotels.
I would rent rental cars under my assistant's name,
I couldn't go to work.
It's amazing that you have to actually go on the run
in your life.
Oh, yeah.
My wife, Robin, is one of the most active ambassadors
for domestic violence in America.
Just returned from Capitol Hill where she testified
before a joint committee.
And Robin, talk about the separation assault
that Debra's referring to here,
because that is a very dangerous time, right?
Yes, that is the, one of the most dangerous times
when you're trying to exit a very dangerous relationship.
And you seem to be given very important information
because it is a time of preparation,
prepared to leave, not just walk out,
because that's when the abuser becomes very aggressive.
They feel they've lost control and they'll do anything
to find you.
And when they do, a large percentage of the time,
I'm gonna say over 90% of the time, it ends in death,
'cause they want to continue to have control,
and they will until they feel
that they have ended your life.
So I'm happy to hear that you were given the information
to prepare for that, especially when
there are young children involved.
You always wanna have birth certificates,
you wanna have any money that you can.
Start saving.
You wanna have their favorite toys,
you wanna have everything you can to make a clean exit
and make it at a time when it is the safest,
and a place to go.
And on our Aspire app, it tells all of that information.
When you go to whengeorgiasmiled.org,
we also list all of the information for preparing
the safest time to exit a dangerous relationship.
I'm happy that you got out of there.
Thank you. Yeah.