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[0:36] Grace Aki: Welcome to Tell Me on a Sunday podcast. It's me, Grace Aki, and I hope you're doing okay. I was gonna say, I hope this finds you well. But the truth is that you might not be, and that's okay. I haven't been for the past year. That's why it's been radio silent on this podcast, and that's okay. I needed some time away. I also kind of was forced into some time away, which I'll get into. I just want you to know that I'm here for you if you need. Even though I've had to take a lot of time to be here for myself. I wanna go ahead and put a trigger warning out for anyone just because this content might deal with suicide, domestic abuse, gaslighting, narcissism.

[1:26] Grace Aki: There's no guest today. It's just me. I figured there's so many times when I ask other people to tell their stories, and I don't always share my own, and particularly in the past year I've been very scared to share mine, and I cannot do that anymore. This isn't like if you ever need to at any point stop listening to this, that's okay. This is not a chef's tasting menu where you have to finish because you've spent like $200 on your reservation. Like it, you know, this is someone sharing a story and you may not be in a place to hear it. I've certainly not been in a place to share it for a long time. All I ask is that you try to listen. I won't be using proper nouns, just some pronouns because I don't think that I could get through it if I used proper nouns.

I don't really want to give people power that don't deserve it. And it just makes me uncomfortable. So I don't want to do that. I think anybody listening who has a brain might figure out what I'm talking about. But even if you don't, that's not important. This is not to damn any one person or thing. And that's also why I've been very scared to talk about it. But I'm a little exhausted from keeping a lot of this to myself because every time someone asks me, like, where are you? Where is so-and-so? How are you? Where have you been? I didn't see you, and it just feels like they're fishing for something and they've noticed some kind of social media change, which is so strange that I even have to address that, but that's the truth.

[3:11] Grace Aki: And you know, I've spent years perpetuating a life and a lifestyle that was not accurate, that was incredibly fabricated. I look back at a lot of photos now and I see so much pain in my face. Where I'm looking like I'm, you know, having the time of my life, or I'm so excited to be at this opening, or so excited to be at, you know, some red carpet thing, and I can see the conversations that were right before that photo was taken. I can see being ignored on the bus back to my home by so, you know what? So, uh, Grace, can you tell me a story about 2020? Um, yeah. So there's not really a good place to start because we're talking about like, you know, a culmination of like a hundred things, right? In addition to like an addiction to narcissistic men since the age of like six, which is a whole other story, to a marriage to a man who never deserved her gifts. I don't know, but sure, like we can start with when she realized it may not be safe anymore to just be.

[4:50] Grace Aki: She was visiting her husband when he was working in another country in 2019, and for some reason he had like he began ignoring her like right before her flight. And she kept asking, you know, like where's the hotel? And you know, she's like, Where are you staying so that I know where to go after this? It was just like a weird, you know, he knew she was visiting, but refused to kind of give the information, the very general information of like where to meet, was not going to meet her at the airport, which is you know, fine, that's not like a necessary thing, but I guess like when you're going to another country and if you're available, like you would think that your husband or partner would I don't know, help or show up.

Anyways, she gets off the plane. And again, like she doesn't even have that much financial support either. And by much I mean zero. The differentiation between these two household incomes are she's making like 12,000 a year, and he's making like 20,000 plus an episode of a thing that he's working on. But she's still required to meet halfway and split everything, and that's kind of a whole other financial abuse conversation.

[6:16] Grace Aki: But she finds herself at the airport and she's desperately trying to know where to go. And he sends her a text basically saying, figure it out. And she's sitting in an airport in another country that she's not been to. And she calls her mom and she's like sitting like a child on the floor of an airport she's ever been to, and she's crying and she's like, I just I wish he would just tell me where to go. And she's like, Do you want me to call him? And she's like, I don't know. I just like I'm just like scared and I just feel I feel silly and and I'm here already. I mean, this was like a planned trip, you know, this is like their anniversary trip to celebrate their wedding. And he finally, like an hour later, after I guess her mother calls and says, like, I think you know, my daughter's having some trouble getting in contact with you for where to go.

I mean, this is all incredibly degrading. And she, you know, he finally sends her just the address. And so she gets there and she's waiting downstairs and she can't get upstairs, and he eventually comes downstairs but ignores her the entire time. This is kind of just a power play. Like, there's no reason. There was no she justifies this a hundred times in her head, like, well, he's upset, he's working and and you shouldn't have come. But he invited her and he wanted her there to meet, you know, the people like you're supposed to.

[7:55] Grace Aki: And he gets her upstairs at his, you know, place, and she's just exhausted and crying and wondering what she did wrong. What did she do to deserve this? And of course, in hindsight, we learned that nobody should be treated like that. But this was a very regular occurrence. Oftentimes when this person would get angry or disappointed in themselves, when they would mess up something, they would ignore, take it out, dismiss on her. And it was incredibly childish. And during that anniversary trip, what was interesting is that he refused to wear his wedding ring because he didn't feel as though this is a quote, that she was being a good enough wife. She was undeserving of the bare minimum of wearing a wedding ring, even though she was wearing hers, and it was an anniversary trip.

But put it on for a photography session that was had. And every time she would say, but aren't we not married? And he would say, Well, I'd, you know, I'll put it back on when I feel like you know, you're my wife again. And that's kind of like an arbitrary like, what does that even mean? I'm sure. But anyway, so that's kind of just like a first story of like an instigator that was in 2019. So I guess we can fast forward to about a month into 2020. Husband returns from his gig out of the country and comes home. And, you know, they had actually offered their extra room in their apartment to his best friend. And so she's kind of like being there for him. And he's really so incredibly kind and gracious, the best friend. But it is, you know, she's helping him navigate the city and figuring things out on top of her three jobs that she's balancing all the time.

[9:58] Grace Aki: But he comes home and he is for the first time aggressive, confrontational, verbally abusive in front of his friend, to his wife, to her. And that's kind of the first time that anyone is seeing this like explicitly. I know that it just like glimmers of it, especially during their wedding time, a lot of like negligence, narcissism, that kind of thing, that she just kind of glossed over for a long time. I mean, you know, again, she, you know, she's used to a raised voice from this person, a yell, a shove to the ground. Once she had to replace her phone and tell all of her friends that she had dropped it when in truth she had discovered Tinder on his phone from when he was out of town doing a show and in retaliation to that and her asking about it being exposed, he took her phone and hurled it at the wall to where it shattered into a million pieces.

You know, he's trained in jujitsu, he's strong. It was alarming and scary and that was the last time she ever dared to look at any device and that's not something that anybody should do. If you develop a relationship that's not built on trust you shouldn't be looking at devices anyways but she had done she had unfortunately every time she had gone to look at that kind of thing it wasn't good so that was kind of the last time that happened. But anyways like you know he returns home to their apartment and he is particularly negative and blatantly just verbally aggressive to her in front of you know company in front of his friend who does call it out and says I think I think he has an anger problem and she's like yeah maybe maybe I don't know I think I think it's you know hard because now he's not working, and you know, just a million excuses all the time, all the time, for this kind of behavior, and you know, it's every day she's coming home, like to bottles and Cheeto wrappers on the floor and video games in the living room, screaming into a headset, and it gets to be a really negative place to live, and she kind of becomes so anxious that her throat closes, which had to be googled because that didn't seem right, and she just kept having she wasn't equating the anxiousness with her throat closing, she just thought that that was just something that was happening to her. It didn't have anything to do with her circumstances in life.

[13:06] Grace Aki: And so she's living off of baby food and pouches, which is still a thing that's going on, and SlimFast for protein, so she becomes like depressed, unmotivated, but in order to, you know, like afford life, all that good stuff, regardless of her husband's income. She's working multiple jobs, she's coming home every day to an angry, depressed, aggressive person. One day, in February, she finally decides to like say something to him about all of this because it's too much, it's finally breaking her about the home, and he immediately shuts down and just in a huge immature kind of brash way after she says, you know, can you pick up after yourself at the bare minimum?

[14:07] Grace Aki: You know, he packed a bag and headed into the city. Um, the two were supposed to were scheduled to do a concert that week. Um, but he told the producer that his wife was sick. Um, uh, when she, you know, said before it was before he left, you know, she's crying and thinking that she did something wrong because he's gaslighting her into thinking that this is all her fault. She says, you know, this doesn't have to be so dramatic. You know, she feels like this is a little dramatic, you know, it's a simple request you can pick up after yourself so that she doesn't you know have to do everything. And she says, This doesn't have to be a scene. And he says to her, knowing that they're both actors, you wouldn't know what a scene is.

I'm an actor, you're not. You want to know why um your best friend abandoned you, you want to know why your dad abandoned you. This is why, because you're unbearable. And proceeds to um expose every almost uh uh every fear that she has that has nothing to do with tidying up after yourself in a living room for sure. Uh and it's so crippling that she um the rest of that month is kind of a blur. Uh he eventually uh comes home. I unsure of the date, but she's you know, she's still unable to eat. And then, you know, uh, you fast forward to like March. And in March of 2020, we get notice that the world is gonna shut down like mid-March. And the day after the shutdown, the husband packs a huge suitcase and with the best friend, bounces from the apartment.

So in a global pandemic, um, having been left multiple times, having been told that she's no longer worthy of his time, attention, love, care, never having been supported, she's alone with her cat, and for some reason it's um peaceful, which is also scary because that means that a world um without him is better, and she starts to figure that out. A couple of weeks go by. She is still having trouble eating, but is cooking more for herself and realizes that she hadn't been cooking for herself in about two years for about two years, because uh two years ago, he told her that um and and cooking and food are just a huge um passions of of hers, uh, that her cooking wasn't very good, and for some reason it destroyed her enough to not do that anymore.

Because when you have when you are a narcissistic abusive person, you have an incredibly strong chokehold, literally and figuratively sometimes, on a person and their psyche and how they feel about themselves. So um, she rediscovers food, and it's horrible to watch the world burn um in front of you, but. But it's it's kind it's also horrible to um realize that you've uh that you've been stuck for a long, long time, and that you're all these little um things that you've been recording or trying to uh put out into the world are uh cries for help sometimes. Um so anyways, uh you want to fast forward to April. April out of kind of nowhere after a lot of radio silence, a lot of um ignored text on both ends.

She gets an email from 1-800divorce.com. That is not to be funny. That is um a real thing. All this is a real thing. To be honest, that's not you can't that's that's just not how it works. Being the the daughter of a lawyer um can't go to a website, pay 129 dollars, send the receipt to your wife and say, I'm divorcing you. That's uh not really how that goes. Um and then just the schlue of of aggressive um mean, mean uh text messages just kind of flowing because you know, if if you're not in front of a person, then you can verbally assault them via your phone all the time. Um you can create a a Fensta account and make fun of them, which also was a thing, uh, for no reason, not on her end. Um, he created a fake Instagram of like memes that was essentially like an eighth grader creating a tumbler against their ex-girlfriend.

And so just wanting attention because they weren't getting it, and she's out there trying to survive in a global pandemic with the cat, being all alone in New York City. So in May, a friend of hers decides to make a road trip, and she asks the shaken come along because she needs to not be here anymore. And they take a super fun trip back to her childhood home where she feels safe, someone's watching the cat, it's all good. After being alone for two plus months, completely alone, completely isolated, seeing some friends on the stoop, uh sometimes, you know, staying connected through Zoom like everybody else was, but you know, um, she had asked multiple times prior to all of this to go to therapy, and he told her that until the husband told her that until uh she got help for her craziness that he would not go, um, that she's the one who needed therapy, and they as a unit did not.

Um when you have uh a disorder like bipolar two, um hearing the word you're crazy uh can really destroy you because it's not used in a like, oh, you're so silly, you're so crazy. It's it's this really um degrading kind of sentiment. Uh you know, therapy is a beautiful, wonderful thing, and definitely believe that um everyone should partake in some capacity in mentally bettering yourself. So hearing that someone's unwilling to do that is kind of uh strange. Um what was interesting is they the husband kind of started to figure out that perhaps that might be the only way to um salvage something because they weren't getting the attention that they wanted anymore. Uh, because this person had already been left multiple times.

They had started to realize their power. They had started they also had received the email that they were being divorced, so um, it's kind of uh assumed that that's no longer something. Uh, but they attended a couple of virtual um sessions in which um she was completely gaslit and did not feel seen or heard at all. And um that just seemed to be a huge waste of time. So we'll fast forward to after spending a month back home. So coming back to New York, this kind of like impending fear starts to come over her, and she starts finally for the first time being very, very transparent about what's happened and what kind of verbiage she's getting and um again not realizing that any of it is uh in any way wrong, just um that it's something that she's having to deal with and um her incredibly close, powerful circle of women mainly, um begin to show a lot of concern for her, um in no way saying, Oh, well, there's two sides to this, like there's let me say this well, let's say this right now, and then we'll we'll revisit it at the end.

There are no two sides to abuse. There is an abuser and there is someone who was abused. There are not, let me repeat it. There is no such thing as two sides to an abuse story. I'm sorry, but there's not. And so about the end of the July, let's cut to that of 2020. Um, he tells her that he, the husband, is coming back to their apartment. Um this kind of this incredibly impending, like that something bad is going to happen to her because for the first time she's not taking any shit. She's not, and it's not this like, you know, J-Lo in enough sense. She's not been training, um, even though she did buy a trampoline. Um, she she's not been, you know, preparing for any kind of altercation. She just feels like her safety is going to be compromised again.

Um, her mental safety, her possible physical safety. And she starts posting more and more to her close friends on Instagram account, which uh at the time was was pretty tight because she didn't want to again incriminate or um embarrass, possibly this perfect person in everyone's eyes. This very charming, fun, you know, entertaining person, she didn't want to possibly ruin ruin an image, and that's why a lot of it was kept to herself for so long because she had she had helped to perpetuate an image. So the week of July 24th, 2020. He comes home on a Monday, and almost every day, and again, we're in a pandemic, he isn't quarantining properly in the other room, he's not really wearing a mask. This person did end up getting and spreading COVID uh later on in the year.

That's the T. Um, so it wasn't far off to say that this person might um, you know, be irresponsible when it comes to all that. Uh so, anyways, um, he comes back into the house uh to their apartment, and she's asked that he quarantine in the other room, and um they're kind of just tiptoeing around each other. She's staying locked in her room. He's telling her that she can't lock their her bedroom door. She feels safer when she does. Uh and then one morning, I believe on a Friday, July 24th, she's asleep in her bed. She's not wearing bottoms. Cause just like a top. And the bedroom door that was locked to her room swings open so hard, there's so much force that there that the door handle makes a hole in the wall behind it.

It's flung that open. And the husband is screaming at the top of his lungs, get the fuck out of my house, get the fuck out, and yanks her by her leg onto the floor, throwing her out of bed onto the floor.

[27:26] Grace Aki: And she, this is how she wakes up. Um, and he is so fully enraged to a point that she had never seen, except for she had seen him almost to this level on an episode of um a TV show that he was on. That's the only time that she's seen this level of rage. Um, but there have been definitely variants uh before that that it was not totally far off. Um and she is on the floor screaming and crying, what's wrong? What's wrong? I don't understand. And he is yelling at her, physically tossing her around while she's still on the floor. Um to get the fuck out of his house, his house, they are on the joint lease. Um and she's like, I don't understand. And he shows his phone and says, You don't change your passwords, bitch. And then she realizes that he has gone into her Instagram account.

[28:34] Grace Aki: And it's also worth noting that she is one of her many side hustles is as a content creator for other people's Instagram accounts. So when you sign into one, all of the uh accounts that she monitors are notified that there is a separate source, and those accounts begin messaging her on via text and email. Hey, we got a we got a notification that this um there was a separate login. Do you know anything about this? Because they're going to have to delete those passwords or whatever it is, right? Um, but we'll get to that. Um, and she realizes that he has gone in and looked at what she's been posting on her close friend story, which is a lot of honest information about him and what he's been saying and doing because she was looking to make sure that and in hindsight is that without realizing it, she was trying to leave breadcrumbs without without knowing that's what she was doing.

[29:47] Grace Aki: Um, and he saw it, and like any narcissistic abuser, was embarrassed, and the only person to take that out on is not him, not accountability for him, uh, but is to hurt her for being vocal and having agency over herself. And he's got her on the floor. Um, she starts to get up, she's trying to find pants, she's struggling to she's this is how she's become awake. Um the months after this, by the way, she has trouble hearing doors open and close because she is scared that something bad is going to happen to her. Um so he's sweaty, hot, enraged. Um, he's logged into her stuff.

[30:39] Grace Aki: He's showing her what he's seeing of all of her private conversations, and he uses the phrase, because this is all very blurry. Um, there's a better, there's a more well there's a more well-written account of all of this because it had to be filed for um for court. But he says, if you're going to ruin an image of me to your friends, I get to ruin an image of you to your family and your people. And she didn't understand what that meant and why. And he starts to film her crying, screaming on the floor, please stop. Um, and he says, No, I want everyone to see you. And he is trying to embarrass her and lie.

[31:35] Grace Aki: Um, because he is obviously so incredibly embarrassed. And so she's very scared. She's never seen this level um out of him. He's saying things like, if people really knew who you were, they wouldn't even like you. He's trying to um damn damage her so much for taking care of herself because this ruins his capacity to have control over her anymore. Um, and she on her phone dials 911. And just a reminder, um, this person uh her husband was a person of color. Um, this was July of 2020. If there were other options to call someone else, something else for protection.

[32:37] Grace Aki: And this is again why it's so important that uh we figure out how to deal with a lot of um domestic disturbances, domestic abuse, um, because there was something that came over her that thought you have to be mindful of how police deal with people with darker skin. Um and in that moment she was so scared that that felt like the only option to her. He began recording her saying that this bitch is calling the cops on a black man. You're such a hypocrite, etc. etc. Um a team of people arrive and they sit them in separate rooms, and she's still waking up and she's still shaking.

[33:28] Grace Aki: And the officer asks her, a female officer says, What did what did you do to make him this mad? And she's like, I I don't really understand. And then she says, Well, he's saying that, you know, you were lying about him and that you were cheating on him and that you were, and she's she's kind of shocked and astonished, and she says, I'm sorry, I uh um, I I'm sc I'm scared. And she says, Did he hit you? And she says, Well, no, uh no, but um uh, and she says, but I mean, uh, you know, uh, I feel like maybe if we give him some time to cool down.

[34:23] Grace Aki: And so she says, Oh, I I guess. But if you're familiar with how narcissistic abuse is, you feel the need to please them at all times, and your fear of them is so strong that it's better to know where they are. This person still, I you know, she she couldn't ask them to release, you know, the fact that he had gotten into all of her accounts. By this time, all the accounts that she managed had to delete her from all of that, which ended up resulting in the fact that she could no longer work for many months, um, because that was her one of her only sources of income.

[35:08] Grace Aki: But he leaves, and she is so scared of what will happen afterwards or what he is doing, that she tells him to come back. She calls him and tells him to come back to talk to her about this. She wants to figure out what's going on. And then he um he comes back and he's still still hot and raged and somehow gets worse, begins recording her without her consent. She keeps saying, please don't record me. He's asking her to say things that aren't true so that he can have them on record. Um, and she's like, No, I I you know, I don't want to do that.

[35:50] Grace Aki: And he says, Okay, well, if you don't give me so and so's number, um, I'm gonna call your mother. And she doesn't understand. She he wanted a friend of hers phone number that he didn't have, um, to embarrass her, to call and embarrass her. Um, and so he calls her mother and says, Hi, Mrs. Uh, I I know that this is kind of coming out of the blue, um, but I just wanted to call and let you know that your daughter is disgusting, that your daughter um has sent nude photographs to people, that she um she's not a good person, she's not nice, she's and and again, it's all kind of blurry.

[36:42] Grace Aki: And because of this person's chokehold again on her self-esteem, and she's she's thinking that her mother is going to believe all of this and hate her. And he knows that that would kill her. And so he is calling to embarrass and lie to her mother about her because he is so incredibly hurt that people now have a different image of him, which is the real one. Um in this time, she put up on her Instagram story to her close friends the a picture of the uh hole in the door as uh kind of an SOS signal.

[37:27] Grace Aki: And one of her her best friend, one of her best friends, uh catches on and starts to try to call her. She's you know, uh ignoring the call, ignoring the call, uh, because she's so scared to answer it while you know he's in the in the room back to her mom. She says something to the extent of like, I'm sorry that it sounds like you're going through something, and um, you know, I hope you're okay. And so, you know, she takes this as like that her mom is never gonna talk to her again, that she thinks she's a disgusting, horrible person because you know, he's he's saying all of this with um passion, and he's saying all of this with some semblance of like it sounds like you know it's the honest truth.

[38:12] Grace Aki: And then he then the husband proceeds to call her little brother and say the exact same thing. But the little brother is kind of smart, uh, even though the mom had figured out that something was wrong and off with him, um, and she you know didn't go for it. Um, and and the little brother hangs up on him, and uh then he says that he wants her to schedule a time to zoom all of her close girlfriends to recant the story, and he's going to sit behind her um behind the behind the screen while she says some kind of scripted thing that you know all of everything that she was saying about him wasn't true, and that you know, all of the things that she was putting up was doctored, the screenshots were doctored.

[39:06] Grace Aki: Um that's what he wants her to do. And so she he's saying, You have to text them all right now. And he's standing over her shoulder. She's starting to text one of her friends to come and get her to call the police again. She's feeling scared and she should not have brought him back. And he's realizing this, and he snatches the phone out of her hands and then stands on their dining room table so that she can't get to it. And then this time he changes all of her passcodes to be for his thumb slash face recognition so that she cannot get into any of her things.

[39:46] Grace Aki: Um at this point, he during during all of this, he's saying things like, see, good luck having anyone ever love you again. Uh and there's an entire laundry list of hurtful things that can't even be said um because they're they're still incredibly painful here. Uh so um she's thinking that maybe she needs to scream downstairs for help um because he's totally out of reach and eliminating her ability to contact anyone from the outside world and fully breaks down beyond what she hasn't eaten. It's been hours of this, it's been days, it's been years of being told that she's not good enough, and um being jerked around physically being ignored, being uh, you know, and then being told that her family might not ever love her again, and that um he's going to embarrass her on a public scale.

[41:06] Grace Aki: And this should not be a shock, but it is. Um, she remembers it now, um, him telling her about in high school when he made a video, a music video, um, rapping about a girl he had dated, calling her a fat bitch, and how he was so mad at her for breaking up with him that he embarrassed her. And she thought, well, that's a that's that's an that's you know the young version of you. And really, that didn't change. That that person did not change. That spiteful, hateful, ignorant asshole did not change. Um, and she always expected him to. Um, the SOS worked, but um she gets to the point where she starts saying out loud that she doesn't want to exist anymore. Because if all of these things are true and they're not, no one will ever love her.

Everyone will abandon her. She is not worth love. She is not worth anything. And she's sitting there and she's trying to go to the bathroom, and she's never wanted to or thought that this was the answer, which is to uh eliminate herself from this earth. And she doesn't know how to do it. She doesn't like pain. She doesn't know how to go about that in an effortless way. She can't Google it. She's um really hopeless, and she just kept keeps reiterating that she doesn't want to exist anymore. Um, and in this a strange moment of, oh, he's gonna become a hero in some way. He says, Oh, I'm gonna call someone then, and um tries to call, you know, suicide hotlines and and all of these different um uh phone lines and hotlines, and eventually uh the hospital gets called and he Ubers her there and she takes all of her electronics with her because some part of her realizes that her security will continue to be compromised, and she gets there and they check her in, and um he as the husband is able to sign her into the psychiatric facility. Um, although she's trying to communicate with the nursing staff that she is scared of this person, and that she doesn't want to stay there, but she cannot go home with him.

[43:44] Grace Aki: Um, a friend of hers that is local stops by and convinces him to leave the room for a moment. Um, so smart. She says, Um, I don't want to embarrass her, you know. Um, I'm gonna have to like, you know, call their family or something. And like, I just, you know, it's better if you're not in here. And she figures it out and says, like, give me your stuff. Um, I'm gonna, we're gonna figure this out. I'm gonna I need your keys. I'm gonna start to get some things out of your apartment um that you need. I wanna make sure that your cat's taken care of, et cetera, et cetera. And she's still really out of it again, having not eaten, having been through all of this like crazy trauma stuff. She's not kind of aware of the world.

Her friend is on a train from another state to come get her because she knew that the Instagram story that he deleted while he was in her Instagram um after he'd taken her phone uh with a cry for something. That friend contacts her family. There's a longer story of when she gets admitted into the hospital psychiatric third floor facility. You know, uh, where were you when Regis Philbin died? I know where she was. She was on the third floor of a particular hospital with a doctor who could not find her arm veins to save his life and was the worst phlebotomist ever.

[45:15] Grace Aki: Yeah. You know, nothing's weirder than watching a movie that you were at the premiere of and thinking, this is the last time I saw this. Um, while she's there, he has continued to fake her identity on her own social media platforms. Um, the last thing she had posted was kind of this revelation of the person that she had dated before being with him and then marrying him. And it really was kind of an awakening to say that she unfortunately had attached herself to really monster, abusive, narcissistic, arrogant, entitled assholes. And she wasn't ready to post about this person, obviously. She had perpetuated a narrative for many, many years. Um, this person was charming and perfect and wonderful, and pictures were everything, and an image uh cultivating that kind of image took such a long time because she was very proud of it, and she was very proud, and and not even like in a fake way, she loved her life.

And um, there were parts of her that really loved him, and but the truth is is like um wasn't was never in that. That's not how you love someone. Um, but but during this time she's in this hospital and he's continuing to um try to investigate more of who she's talked to and what she's talked about and um pretending to be her, but you know, she tells she's able to call her friends to say, like, don't answer this person. Um and then she gets out um secretly. She asks that he not be contacted because she she's kind of designed to make him think that to not alarm him, because you know, you can't do that, um, to not let him know that she's been released because we don't want him to know her whereabouts.

[47:19] Grace Aki: Um, she devises a plan with her friend where she stays at uh another apartment that's you know miles and miles away from their house. And they confide in a friend who, again, another saint, like happened to be an attorney in in New York at one point that dealt with domestic abuse, and she sat there and told a very in-depth story to him, and he is telling her, I just want you to know that you can prosecute all this. And um a lot of I you just need to know this is domestic abuse, and she keeps denying it because it's it's not only embarrassing, but also we're given this image of domestic abuse that's like, you know, it's a black eye and a sling from Little Shop. Like that's what the image is. And truth be told, it's it's so much more than that.

It can be financial abuse, it can be mental abuse, it can be verbal abuse, it can be being tossed to the ground every once in a while, or being ignored, or being it can be all the things that you experience that don't feel good. Um, it can be so many of those things. And so she denies it for a very long time, and it's taken a very, very, very long time to come to terms with that's exactly what that is, and it's unacceptable, and no one should ever deal with that, especially no, just no one should ever deal with that. That's that's where that ends.

[48:41] Grace Aki: Um, and so they kind of devise a plan to get some more things out of their home. And uh she's scared, she can't go in without a police escort. She can't go in without a police escort. Um, her friend uh who is an attorney, her attorney friends advise her that that's not a safe environment for her to go to mentally, physically, however you want to kind of dissect it. And so her friend, uh, they have to go to the police station, they get to the apartment, he's flustered, and he begins to gaslight her. The first thing he says to her, the very first thing is person's name. You know, I never I would never hurt her. I would never yell at her. Unprompted, this person, just a very thing to say to someone that you haven't seen in a while during a pandemic, not masked, um, in your home, kind of uh just kind uh yeah, out of nowhere.

And she says, Okay, I'm just here to get a few things. I just want to, you know, help her transition out of, you know, the hospital was really scary for her, and so she's just trying to like cool down and be somewhere safe.

[49:54] Grace Aki: And he says, Well, well, I I packed this bag for her. And the bag ended up being a bag that she had packed for the salvation army. I mean, he he's the lying on top of lying on top of lying is kind of crazy. And so she's having to watch this person that she thought she knew unravel and gaslight her. That no one should have to go through. Um, her friends snuck things out of the apartment while he was at work, just to kind of get a head start on it. Any of her valuables, any of the things that she really cherished. Um, but the one thing that was left was her her baby, her cat. And it gets to be August, and she's still hiding out and having to really detox. She's not able to use her phone for any reason because it's still being tracked.

We're getting um messages that um, you know, your your Gmail has been signed into this device. Is this you? No. Um, your Gmail's being uh opened on this kind of device, your your Instagram, your da da da-da-da. And so nothing is is able to be used. Um she's having to live in a hole even more small than when you know uh the pandemic started.

[51:06] Grace Aki: So all of a sudden one day she gets a formal phone call from an attorney, which was uh I guess funny because you know, thought that ball was already rolling in April. And so this person, this attorney calls her and says he wants you to get out of his apartment. It's funny because he keeps saying his entitlement. Um she says she just has nowhere to go, um, because she's staying at a friend's house right now, kind of living off one outfit that she entered the hospital with. And he says, well, uh, he he says, You're the only one that can come. Again, control, um, that can come and get your things, and you can't have anyone with you. And so she says, can she have her family with her? Can her family come up and and help her, even though we are in a global pandemic, they are willing to drive up. And he gives her a call back, and he her his attorney begrudgingly says out loud, which is still unfathomable, he doesn't want you to have a support system.

[52:15] Grace Aki: And he even had to stop himself for a moment when he was saying that. And she says, I'm sorry, can you re sorry, what was that? And he says, I I don't I don't know why why he's not allowing, but he won't allow anybody in the apartment. Well, when they finally get there, and again, this is such a long story, and I'm sorry. Um, but when they finally get there, his mother is there, the most narcissistic abusive person that uh truly can't even get into that uh part of the story because this person is is such a monster, and unfortunately created another one and her son.

[52:55] Grace Aki: Uh through the packing, um, two saintly friends uh help within 10 hours pack up what's left of the apartment, even though he has had a head start and packed up so many of her things, destroyed some of her items, threw some away. Um, she has no idea what's left over. She's just packing things into bags. Um, her friends are having to do this with her within like six to ten hours. Um, at a certain point, he, and again, this is kind of speculation, and I don't want to diminish anyone's panic attack, but she's never seen this person have a panic attack. Um, that doesn't seem to be something that you know he's ever experienced. She definitely has had them. Um, but she's never known him to have had one, and it feels like he fabricates one.

[53:50] Grace Aki: I mean, he's you know, an actor, and the mother starts screaming at oh oh, on top of all of this, totally forgot this part of the story. All of the doors within the three-week period that she's gone have been bolted shut. We're talking full padlocks on each door, not able so she when she's packing up, she's not able to get into every room of the house, even though she has things in every room of the house. Um, there are also surveillance cameras put up so that he and his mother can watch them and record them while they're packing up their things.

[54:31] Grace Aki: It's this psychotic level of power dynamic of just the entitlement that it's their house, even though it was their house.

[54:46] Grace Aki: So the mother gets furious that the son is having a panic attack, seemingly um, because all of uh the packing is going on, even though they're doing it very quietly, and these people are watching them, snickering, talking, laughing, um, at these women having to, you know, um pack up their life.

[55:08] Grace Aki: And she begins verbally attacking, which is also recorded, um the her and her friends are like, we need to get out.

[55:21] Grace Aki: And she's like, I'm just finishing taking pictures because the place had been destroyed.

[55:26] Grace Aki: It was disgusting.

[55:27] Grace Aki: Um, what he was having, what he was letting that cat live in was filthy.

[55:34] Grace Aki: The water um fountain that she drank from was filled with hair.

[55:39] Grace Aki: Um, it was it was beyond within just that three-week period was beyond disgusting.

[55:47] Grace Aki: And she starts to chase uh the mother starts to chase the girls out of the apartment.

[55:53] Grace Aki: She starts charging at them with uh a Swiffer.

[55:57] Grace Aki: Um and this woman is a big woman.

[56:01] Grace Aki: So they have plenty of reason to be scared.

[56:04] Grace Aki: This person's literally charging at them, and uh it's it's also recorded um because the friends were smart and and figured out that this might have to come up at some point.

[56:17] Grace Aki: So they leave and they have to go, they contact their lawyer, and they said, you know, that they can't get anything out without these people not being present, like they refuse to leave for them to pack up the house, but they don't feel safe in the house with these people.

[56:32] Grace Aki: So they have to go file a restraining order at the police station, which takes several hours, and by the way, is not always given out.

[56:40] Grace Aki: There are plenty of times when people request a restraining order, but they don't, but if they don't have proof of necessity, and sometimes we know famously in the past, people have not been granted restraining orders, and then terrible things have happened.

[56:54] Grace Aki: So I don't mean to say that you know everyone that deserves it is given one.

[56:59] Grace Aki: It just needs to be said that it has to be proven for you for a person to be given um any kind of acknowledgement that that needs to happen.

[57:14] Grace Aki: So the court system pretty much uh immediately grants a restraining order on the husband, which needed to happen earlier, but it's a temporary one, um, because she can't afford to press charges on this person.

[57:28] Grace Aki: Uh that's that's also how the legal system works.

[57:31] Grace Aki: People can do horrible things to you, and if you cannot afford to pursue legal action, they can do it.

[57:39] Grace Aki: Um, and sometimes they know that.

[57:41] Grace Aki: So the next day a storage facility comes, a place car comes to extract these two people.

[57:49] Grace Aki: The mother refuses to leave for about an hour, the movers don't mind staying.

[57:53] Grace Aki: Long story short, the stuff gets in the in the van for the movers to put it in storage.

[58:00] Grace Aki: And those things have been in storage until one week ago.

[58:14] Grace Aki: No one should ever have to deal or tell a story like this.

[58:20] Grace Aki: The amount of times after all of that, the amount of times that I wanted to not exist on this earth anymore, thinking that I would only deserve and only be subject to anger and gaslighting and abusive behavior.

[58:40] Grace Aki: I can I you know I can count like three times on my hand in the past year, where you know the world was all we had time to do was was think about our lives and ourselves and who we had around us and what was important.

[58:53] Grace Aki: And I just want to say that you are very important, you're very necessary for this world.

[59:01] Grace Aki: Um your art matters, your laugh matters, your anecdotes matter, even if people cut you off because you've already told some story before, tell it a fucking again.

[59:14] Grace Aki: Like tell tell a better version of it, tell a dumber version of it, tell a shorter version of it, tell a long version of it.

[59:21] Grace Aki: You you and your voice matters, and the scariest thing to insecure idiots.

[59:32] Grace Aki: The most intimidating thing is a person that is confident in themselves, that loves themselves, and the second that they can just poach you and ruin your idea of yourself.

[59:46] Grace Aki: It's not your fault that people take advantage of your kindness.

[1:00:13] Grace Aki: And I thought I can't call it um, I can't call it abuse because I didn't have a bloody lip every Friday.

[1:00:23] Grace Aki: I didn't, you know, but when I look at it on paper and and I go through all of these stories, and I go through and I go through all of my texts and screenshots and um memories.

[1:00:41] Grace Aki: My friends are right.

[1:00:42] Grace Aki: Um trust your experts, trust, and I'm gonna say this till the day I die, uh, which is hopefully a very long time from now.

[1:00:55] Grace Aki: I had the most incredible, I had the most incredible support system, and it's a shock.

[1:01:06] Grace Aki: It I've never seen so many people um, I just keep saying thank you.

[1:01:13] Grace Aki: I, you know, I'll I'll reach out to someone and say, like, you did that.

[1:01:13] Grace Aki: Like you did that for me.

[1:01:18] Grace Aki: You know, um, I've so let's let's you know what?

[1:01:20] Grace Aki: Let's talk about where I am now.

[1:01:22] Grace Aki: I am now a co-host on Broadway Radio Tuesday through Thursday, every single week.

[1:01:29] Grace Aki: It is so much fun I'm also their content creator on all their social media platforms I'm so honored that uh Matt Tammanini listened to this podcast and thought I would be a good fit for their show and I love it I love Ashley I love James I love I love doing it every single week because it keeps me up to date with Broadway news and being an actor and being a a storyteller um I'm already up to date on those things and and so I get to utilize and and learn all the time from the people that I host the show with.

[1:02:01] Grace Aki: And so it's it's just so exhilarating to have this to work on.

[1:02:05] Grace Aki: And then on the flip side of that I am also the content strategist for Broadway Records now which is also a really great um I I love creating content for them.

[1:02:17] Grace Aki: I love strategizing I love working working um with their marketing group because I I know so many of their artists and uh I'm able to grab from my ability to create art and speaking of that um right when I got out of the hospital a friend of mine who I love so dearly um made me a bag of coloring books and put together a bag of coloring books and um markers for me because if you didn't know I have always really loved being a visual artist.

[1:02:52] Grace Aki: I had like a small kind of commission art company in high school where I would draw and vans and and I would paint beautiful pictures on uh on like canvas shoes like Tom's and whatnot um and I'd kind of stopped for a long time because I didn't feel like it was I just felt like it was silly and I, you know, as an artist you kind of go like oh well that's I'm not a real artist and because you think of real artists quote unquote as like oil painters only or or acrylic you know what I mean so it's it's not I just felt like that's not something I should do and I started doing these illustrations that um at the beginning of quarantine that were little ink drawings that I would share with a friend uh called uh I would just say I'm doing a doodle drop and they would uh tell me like these this is a diary like this is um and so I've started to put together a book of of all of those drawings that kind of tell you the the calendar um just giving you uh a day by day or a week by week of this is how I was feeling but like this is I drew a you know a picture of my leg unshaved and saying I am not I don't know when the next time I'm gonna have to shave my legs and and then there's one picture where I drew like I can't find my vibrator cord and then the next day I was like I found it um but yeah like I um I I just began drawing a lot and eventually into the winter I was trying to figure out how I can generate more income because I didn't have any jobs still and I don't know if you're familiar with the pandemic but most of us didn't have work.

[1:04:28] Grace Aki: And so I started uh doing commission artwork again drawing doing my ink and uh watercolor prints and I started doing that on Etsy and it's called Graysaki Made It and you can follow it on Instagram or whatever.

[1:04:44] Grace Aki: And I'm still doing it.

[1:04:46] Grace Aki: I love it so much.

[1:04:47] Grace Aki: I'm able to run it out of my new apartment that I got, which I'm so thankful for.

[1:04:51] Grace Aki: And um everything has changed so much.

[1:04:56] Grace Aki: Uh but I'm really happy being me.

[1:05:03] Grace Aki: And I feel like I'm being loved for being me.

[1:05:06] Grace Aki: And even if that's just like me loving myself, that's enough.

[1:05:12] Grace Aki: And I'm I'm uh able to do my solo show.

[1:05:17] Grace Aki: It got picked up by She ATL.

[1:05:18] Grace Aki: I'm so excited about that.

[1:05:20] Grace Aki: It's gonna be streaming uh September 9th through the 12th of this year.

[1:05:24] Grace Aki: We're filming it at the end of August in Atlanta.

[1:05:28] Grace Aki: Please watch it if you can.

[1:05:30] Grace Aki: Um what's interesting is that like none of the story that I've just told is a part of it.

[1:05:37] Grace Aki: Um when you hear it, uh it's gonna feel like I feel like um at this point, just because of all of the stories and the people that have been in my life, and um I just feel like really old, but I'm not.

[1:05:54] Grace Aki: Um I still have so much life left uh to experience and live, and and hopefully none of it is filled with as much pain as as has been up until this point.

[1:06:07] Grace Aki: So as I reenter the world, as you re-enter the world, just know that we're all here for each other.

[1:06:14] Grace Aki: I just care for you, and and there are so many people's stories that are left to be heard, and I want to get to all of them.

[1:06:23] Grace Aki: Um I'm here for you if if you need uh I'm gonna create in the show notes some resources that I highly recommend.

[1:06:33] Grace Aki: And I can't wait to see you back uh on the gram, on Twitter, on all these platforms that I've so desperately missed.

[1:06:42] Grace Aki: Uh not because I miss attention, even though we all probably do, but because I feel I I've felt so disconnected from a lot of people's lives.

[1:06:51] Grace Aki: I've tried to keep up.

[1:06:53] Grace Aki: But sometimes it can be kind of painful because I feel like I'm not there yet.

[1:06:58] Grace Aki: And it's coming, you know.

[1:07:02] Grace Aki: But I love you.

[1:07:04] Grace Aki: And I'm proud of you.

[1:07:06] Grace Aki: And it's gonna be okay.

[1:07:07] Grace Aki: Thank you for listening to this story.

[1:07:11] Grace Aki: Um find me on it's Grace Aki on Instagram, Twitter.

[1:07:17] Grace Aki: You can find the Tell Me on a Sunday podcast.

[1:07:20] Grace Aki: Uh, wherever you listen to podcasts, I'm sure how you're listening now.

[1:07:23] Grace Aki: You can also go to tell me on a Sunday podcast.com or Grace Aki.com to listen all the time.

[1:07:28] Grace Aki: You can find our Patreon there.

[1:07:30] Grace Aki: Uh stay tuned because uh I'm rolling out more episodes of Tell Me on a Sunday.

[1:07:36] Grace Aki: It's we're back.

[1:07:38] Grace Aki: Uh and if we take a hate it's again, that's okay.

[1:07:41] Grace Aki: But it won't be for the same reason at all.

[1:07:44] Grace Aki: Thanks for giving me your time and your ears.

[1:07:48] Grace Aki: I know.