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Dion's Story: Sorry Ass F Boy
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Berraca is Colombian slang for a resilient woman who has been through something difficult but still stands strong. In Episode 4, Benita begins telling the stories of other berracas, launching with Dion, whose story includes burner phones, a secret fiancee and a fire sale.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Benita and the Baracas'
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Benita and the Baracas. Baraca is a Colombian slang term for a strong, resilient woman who's been through something difficult, but still keeps going. A Baraca is a badass, and the show is dedicated to badass women. A few quick notes, disclaimer, we do use adult content and language on this show. If you haven't already, please hit that subscribe button and follow me on social media. And with that, let's launch right into episode four.
00:00:33
Speaker
This is episode four, Dion's Story, Sorry Ass F-Boy.
Introducing Dion: A Story of Survival
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Tonight I have with me my beloved Nancy. Hey, Nancy.
00:00:48
Speaker
Hi, honey. How are you? Good. How are you? And joining us tonight, I'm really excited because we've spent so far the podcast revisiting my own crazy saga. But tonight we start interviewing other women and talking to other women who've badass survivors who've been through crap like we have. And tonight I'm very happy to welcome the first one to join us, which is Dion from Texas. Hello, ladies. So excited to be here with Benita and the Barakas.
00:01:25
Speaker
I love it. I can't say it to save my life. Why is that so difficult, right? I don't know. You nailed it. Hilarious. I love it.
00:01:39
Speaker
Well, I'm really happy to have you on the show and excited to delve into all of this, even though it's difficult territory.
Humor as a Coping Mechanism
00:01:48
Speaker
Before we even start, I have to say I'm going to jump ahead a little bit without giving too much of it away because you sent me some pictures of your guy who we're going to call Mike, which is not his real name.
00:01:56
Speaker
And some of his texts and I cracked up because I looked at the top of the text and you had sorry ass boy Instead of his name Mike and I laugh because at some point with with my guy one of my girlfriends said change his name in your phone to Anything like call him asshole. Call it call him motherfucker. Whatever you want Just change his name and I didn't know that so I cracked up when I saw that I'm like, yeah, I really think it's a thing, you know
00:02:25
Speaker
Every time it pops up, you're just like, oh, yeah, no, I don't want to talk to you. Sorry. I love it. So Dion, let's start. We're
Unveiling Deceit: The Con Artist Exposed
00:02:38
Speaker
going to go. I want to go all the way back to the beginning. I think what's really important to acknowledge with you is this is somebody you were married to. This is someone you had a child with. This is someone you were with for a long, long time, like decades. And this is a very important distinction because
00:02:54
Speaker
There are all types of love cons and con men and they don't always have to be just the kind of fly by night guy that comes in that's looking for money or the guy that you meet on a dating site. This can happen in
00:03:07
Speaker
in long-standing relationships. And I think that's something that's very important to talk about. And whatever they want, it still comes down to the same thing that when you finally uncover the truth and you reel back, you realize that from the very beginning, they were lying to you, basically. It's like they literally have the same playbook. And everyone that I'm talking to, same game, different players. Yeah. Yeah. It's like there should be a handbook, right?
00:03:36
Speaker
They may have. Exactly. They might just be passing this thing around.
00:03:42
Speaker
So let's go back. You meet this guy way back in 1992. And one of the things that you said to me when we talked on the phone that really struck me was that you said, in hindsight, it was kind of the perfect scenario for him because you were kind of vulnerable at the time. And this is something that I talk about all the time, that that's when we have to have our guard up. And often we look back and realize that there was something going on in our life that we were vulnerable.
00:04:07
Speaker
When these guys kind of swoop in, what was it with you? When him and I met, I had just gotten out of my first marriage. Actually was still married, but getting out of that relationship and my mom had died. She had just passed away. It was the perfect storm. At the beginning, Dion, what were the things about him at the beginning that attracted
00:04:29
Speaker
you to him. It made you fall for him. The love bombing there all the time, just smothering you. We didn't really have text messaging the way we do now, but always phone calling kind of embedded himself in my house in retrospect almost immediately. Very attentive.
00:04:50
Speaker
He was very attentive. Very attentive. Always wanted to be with you. Had a daughter, treated her as if she was his own. Just really checking off all the boxes. That's the scary part. They really do, right? They seem to pass the bill. They seem to pass muster. You don't have any reason to doubt them.
00:05:12
Speaker
So I know this in your case happened over the course of many, many years, but you talked about things that were sort of nagging at you over the years and the disappearing and these things that were nagging at you, but you weren't adding
Suspicions and Manipulations
00:05:26
Speaker
up yet. Yeah, exactly. So to kind of fast forward, this is decades into it. And he did deploy.
00:05:35
Speaker
not in anything combat related, and you don't have to be in combat to get PTSD at all, but not in anything combat related, would come back and be real cryptic. But one thing that definitely I noticed was when it suited him, there would be this rage that would be normal for a condition like that. But when we're out or around a friend or anything, completely normal.
00:05:59
Speaker
So he's claiming to have PTSD, but you're seeing a disparity that sometimes he supposedly has it and sometimes he doesn't. Correct. Literally, you're turning it on and off now. Come on now. That's not how it works. Let me stop you there for one second because you're a very smart, intelligent woman and you had a big job.
00:06:15
Speaker
corporate investigator, and you told me you were attached to your phone, and Nancy and I know this very well, your phone and computer 24-7, right? Literally. You don't even have time to think about this stuff. I was an insurance investigator, auto insurance for a major insurance company.
00:06:32
Speaker
So there was really no 40 hour weeks. Those weeks were 40 hours, 50 hours, 60 hours. My phone was on 24 hours. So I was hardly home and I had work. Um, did everything with the kids because according to him and his condition, he couldn't do anything with the kids. So I'm racing around one kid to sports here. I'm racing another kid to sports there. I'm sitting at their sporting events with my computer on and my phone on taking statements.
00:06:57
Speaker
He made me his caregiver. So now I'm his caregiver. So I'm literally doing all of his stuff. I mean, everything. How old were your kids then during that time? Eight years old and 14. Just to explain it, when you said he made you his caregiver, just explain what that means and what that entails. That's the VA, the Veterans Association. That's a program that they had and literally
00:07:24
Speaker
It's based on what the needs are of the veteran. So for Mike, he supposedly couldn't do anything, memory, because if I can't remember anything, I'm not held accountable to anything. So when I say everything, I did everything. All the bills, everything in the house, all he had to do was come and go. Wow. That's a huge responsibility. Wow.
00:07:55
Speaker
You're doing all this and you have some kind of medical issue of your own and you end up having to stop work, right? Correct. Now on top of all that, now I have my medical issue that's going on and I just got to a breaking point, something had to give.
00:08:09
Speaker
So I left work. And you're feeling a little bit now, like something's not quite right, right? Yes. But you're not sure
Confronting Evidence of Betrayal
00:08:16
Speaker
what it is. Exactly. In the lead up to this, definite Easter eggs that were left around. And by Easter eggs, I mean, I'm finding condoms in the trunk of his car, in his gym bag.
00:08:29
Speaker
I was crazy. There's nothing going on there. The lady at the bar was handing them out. So from back then I was already put on notice that there was something sketchy going on. He's disappearing at odd hours where he normally wouldn't. Um, the story is always, you know, you just got to drive and clear my mind and I'm going to the gym. Somebody in the gym this long, he should have been in way better shape than what he keeps coming back home with. I'm gonna put that out there. Yeah. Where's that six pack? Exactly. Yeah.
00:08:59
Speaker
Oh, they're in the Easter eggs. My bad. He becomes a gym rat, literally there all day. Come on, sir. Antennas went up because of what I did for living for so long. I'm very methodical with what I do. Once you start just peeling back their little layers, that little onion starts to stink more and more.
00:09:20
Speaker
you kind of realize something's seriously effed up, right? Yes. Tell me what happens. I'm like, okay, you know, you're telling me that I'm crazy. I know I'm not crazy. So I noticed that there's almost a thousand dollars missing from our account to a jewelry store.
00:09:34
Speaker
I'm like, well, that's interesting. Bring it up to him. Oh my God. I was just helping out a friend at the gym that wanted to get his girlfriend or fiance. I said, so you grown men that were just working out in sweaty, got in one of your vehicles. You drove all the way over to a jewelry store.
00:09:50
Speaker
so that you can help this person purchase a ring. He said yes, but it gets better. And you got a G so I can get a ring for my girl? Oh, hell no. Hell no. So that's what blew the lid off of everything. You also found a plane ticket, right? Yep. We weren't in the same state at the time. Still together, but my son had gone to play sports. Nancy, I was in your state. He went out there to play sports.
00:10:17
Speaker
and calls me out of nowhere. Again, while I'm away, he's calling me all the time. The smothering and calls me and he says, hey, did you change the password to the email? I said, no, I didn't change the password to the email. He's like, oh man, well, can you help me get in?
00:10:33
Speaker
That's not a weird question. It is because of what I find, but that's not something weird of him. So I'm like, sure, trying to change the password. This is not working. It's just not changing. He gets a little frustrated. He said, fine, I'm going to go take a nap. We'll work with it later. But while he says that, it does change and it opens and there was a plane ticket to go somewhere that I didn't know about. Now there's a plane ticket for him to go to another state. That's what he was trying to get.
00:11:01
Speaker
But I didn't say anything. I just forwarded it to myself, told him I couldn't get in, hung up the phone. And I'm not super religious, to be honest with you, but I believe in my higher power. And I just started praying and I was like, hey, whatever there is to show me, please just show me now. And I kid you not, within two days,
00:11:23
Speaker
I dusted off my investigator hat, opened up that computer, and I had about 70% of his other lives that I needed right there in my hand. Found a burner phone numbers for him, alternate addresses, him associated with other names.
00:11:41
Speaker
Does he know what you do for a living? Yes. Just checking. Yes. How did you think you were getting away with this? That's everyone's reaction. They're like, what is he doing? So this deposit he made for his friend, what did that actually, what did you, what do you find out? You said you had like a folder, right? A whole folder earmarked for, you got it right there?
00:12:04
Speaker
Oh wow. He became a client. He became a client. Oh my God. So things just started falling in place. I knew at that point, I mean, I knew something was wrong. I knew that he was up to no good. I was done, but I literally didn't tell anyone. Bought myself a ticket to come back home, never told him about it.
Dramatic Confrontations and Realizations
00:12:24
Speaker
um, get home. Um, and I'm like stalking just like you guys were stalking the house, but now I'm stalking my own house. I'm sitting in a rental car down the block from my house. Now I'm on the phone with my best friend and I'm telling her, she's like, Oh my God, I can't take it. But I'm like, all right, do I go in? I'm like, all right, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. So like a heart's pumping this, which sounds stupid. It's my house.
00:12:53
Speaker
Right. But you don't know what's in there. Exactly. So I go inside the house. First thing that I noticed was that lawn is overgrown. The house looked abandoned. So I go in the house. This house is deserted. There's nothing in the fridge. You could tell it was looked unlived in. So I take out my phone and I call them.
00:13:12
Speaker
And he answers, and I'm like, oh, hey, what's up? What you doing? He said, oh, just got up from a nap about to go head out to the gym. So I'm like, all right, well, you just go ahead and do that. I'll talk to you later. Hung up the phone, raced upstairs, got in my closet, took everything out of my closet, grabbed all my important papers, shoved it in my car, because my car was still there, parked in the driveway, speed off. And something was nagging me about that ring and the address that I saw when I was investigating them.
00:13:41
Speaker
Made a U-turn on the highway, sped back to that house. Mind you now, the house is, I want to say, a mile away from our house. This is how close they are. I go there, ring the doorbell, a lady answers the door, and then puts her hand on the door so that I can see her left hand. And there was that ring sitting on her left hand. It was the fiancรฉ's house.
00:14:06
Speaker
This was your mic's fiancรฉ. This is the other woman, but he's a fiancรฉ. The ring that he supposedly bought for this friend, this was the ring that's now on this woman's finger. The other woman, yes. That is a fiancรฉ. I didn't even know that she had existed. I just knew the address. So now here I am face to face with the sister wife that I didn't ask for.
00:14:26
Speaker
He's somewhere roaming around the neighborhood. I was trying to get out of Dodge. He pulls up. I know he was lying to her. She's not as innocent as she liked to play though. I mean, she knew what was happening. She knew she was the other woman, but just hoping. He pulls up. He likes to keep everything very in the shadows and he doesn't like anybody to know anything. And at this point, she closes the door.
00:14:53
Speaker
His face, he was just like a whole different person, because at this point, he knows that all of the jig is up. Yeah, he's caught. Yeah, he snatches me up, pulls me into the garage so that the neighbors can't hear, because I'm cursing them out. Now we're scrapping in his fiance's garage while he has me in a, yes, he's got, yes, he has me in a choke hole. I'm kicking the car. She's running out screaming. I mean, when I say a hot mess, this was a mess.
00:15:22
Speaker
But just to stop you there for a second, Dion, because you said that got so intense that, I mean, you actually had to call the cops, right? Yep. Cops came, ambulance came, it was a thing. Were you hurt? Was he hurt? Yeah, I was hurt. I had bruises all on my neck because my chain, you know, when he had me at a headlock, I guess it had rubbed all on my neck. My neck is hurting. I was just an emotional wreck. Did you get a few licks in though? Did you get a couple of licks? I know you did, girl.
00:15:51
Speaker
Come on now. Bye bye. Bye bye. Let you put me in a headlock and you don't catch a couple. That should have stopped everything. Nope. He went full gaslight effect and told me that this is not what it seems. And she was a dog sitter. Sure. She was a dog sitter, but you put a ring on it, right? OK, sure. Yes, that's exactly. She's the dog sitter. That was his story. And he trains her at the gym.
00:16:25
Speaker
How much was this ring? It was between $7,000 and $8,000. Wow. It was crazy. But then it gets much worse, right? Not only does he have this fiancรฉ on the side while he's still married to you that he bought a ring with,
00:16:43
Speaker
Do you ultimately find out that there's another woman too, right? Yes. This is the one that's on the West coast. This lady out there, she's an old lady. So I kind of feel bad. She looks old. And yeah, he's doing that. What was he doing? Just using her for money? Yeah. She's giving him a lot of money. So he's using that one for money. Hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands. What are we talking about? Oh, at a minimum that I saw just back then.
00:17:13
Speaker
We were up to about $40,000. Wow. So he's probably using that money to finance little fiancee with the ring. So he's got several women. And what did you say he was doing with them? Winding dining, $69ing. Winding, dining, and $69ing. Playa, playa.
00:17:32
Speaker
Geez. So it was a wife, a fiance, at least one girlfriend, an older woman that he would smash for cash. Smash for cash. So what would have been next? And I don't know.
00:17:49
Speaker
I interviewed the fiance. I'm in full investigation mode now, not stopping. And he was so narcissistic that once I sat down and started looking at things, he'd kind of been telling me about this fiance, but more importantly, telling me about her parents, which is weird. Found the parents, went to their house. I sat down with her parents for about two hours, had lemonade. Her dad knew who I was when I showed up. He said, oh, you're the wife.
00:18:14
Speaker
So I was like, yep, sure am. His story though to them and what kept rocking their world, they just kept saying to me, so he doesn't, he's not rich. He doesn't have money. So I'm like, what are you talking about? He told them that he was some businessman that owned a business in another state and on the West coast. He was a wealthy one that owned a business with his brother in the West coast.
00:18:38
Speaker
So I'm like, all right, this is a lie. Diane, there was a scene you told me about when you went to the house and you were like posting everything on Craigslist and everything. So part of my exit strategy, even in the hurt, I still like to have fun with things.
Clever Revenge and Humor
00:18:55
Speaker
That's just my personality.
00:18:57
Speaker
So after I found fiance, I'm still packing up everything else that I wanted in the house. But I'm like, you know what? There's some really nice stuff in here. And if I'm not taking it with me, no one hears having it. So I have the movers packing stuff up and I'm having a fire sale posting stuff on Craigslist.
00:19:15
Speaker
I'm in the house. Little girl. Yes, that little thing's dirt cheap. But people are like, I can comb my nails. It's a little bit of a revenge, right? They're like, I can comb right now. You better hurry up. That's right. That sounds like a movie. Yes. How much did you sell?
00:19:32
Speaker
Um, it wasn't, I think I maybe $300, but stuff was worth way more. It wasn't about the money. Yeah. I had already called the VA, called them, had them meet me at the Starbucks across the street, told them what was happening, showed them the pictures, because I found pictures because of course, Beyonce was posting. Are you me on social media? Mm-hmm. What kind of pictures did you show them?
00:19:56
Speaker
Oh, it was everything he couldn't do. They were playing. He couldn't be around guns and rifles and all that because it's a no pun intended trigger. They were out playing paintball. He could never go to any events with us because he couldn't be in crowds. They're out at concerts, I mean like mega concerts.
00:20:14
Speaker
Their con starts together on couples outings. He's got, and physical ailments and everything. He can't do any of this. Okay. But he's out doing all of this. So all these things he claims he can't do because he has, he has to. That's fucked up. They're canoeing. He's just out doing, he's out living his best life. So, and that part for me, herd aside, that part for me was also,
00:20:42
Speaker
I'm like, come on now, you know, it's bad enough, you know, you're snaking me, but now just any, because anybody that has to do with goodwill toward veterans, now you've saved everybody. And I didn't want to be complacent in that. So immediately
00:20:57
Speaker
contacted the VA. I'm like, Hey, I need you to meet me at Starbucks and sat down. I was like, Hey, they're like, what's going on? Cause they're thinking maybe it's something in the house. I'm like, no, I quit. This is why I don't want you to think that I was at all complicit in this. I don't know what more there is that has to do with this, but I've washed my hands of it.
00:21:15
Speaker
Quit right there on the spot. I'm done. So, ultimately, obviously, you divorce this guy, you get out.
Reflecting on Damage and Loss
00:21:23
Speaker
At the end of the day, what do you think his story was? Who is this guy? Why was he living these multiple lives? I don't know what his story is. I don't know who he is. Yeah. Who were you married to? Obviously, he's got narcissistic tendencies. Do you think he's a sociopath? Definitely. He's a sociopath. Oh, no, definitely. He's a sociopath.
00:21:45
Speaker
No doubt about it. Yeah, you're obviously very strong and you have the kind of same dark sense of humor. I think that we all do and that sort of, you know, that fire in you that's not gonna let anything take you down. I can see that in you. But at the same time, I know, and I know Nancy knows too from things she's been through, this takes a toll on you. What kind of toll, what did this do to you? No, it does. There is the,
00:22:14
Speaker
There's the, one is the crushing loss of what you thought that you had. Physically, I was diagnosed with cancer after this. Definitely not saying that the man gave me cancer, but stress does not help it. I look at the career that I walked away from. It was a 15 year career that I had. There's just so much loss. They don't care about it, but it leads to the, you know, to the why, you know, what was the point?
00:22:42
Speaker
How are you now? Are you dating? Are you open to that? Or is that door closed? And how's your health as well? Health is good. Definitely open to dating because in the end, and this is kind of the twist of the sadness.
00:23:06
Speaker
In the end, it was also like a huge weight that was lifted. Once I got past being sad, once I got past the spurts of crying out of nowhere, once all of that was done, I just felt so free. Your wing was no longer broken. You said one of the things that was hard for you, which I thought was interesting that one of the kind of cruel things when something like this happens and this whole
00:23:35
Speaker
thing falls apart is that you never had the chance to grieve, that your immediate reaction is to go into, you know, to mitigate the damage and to go into strong mode, take care of the children, take care of everybody else. And the weird thing about this type of thing is you lose that chance to even grieve the relationship because like you said, you don't even know who you were with. And I felt like that too, like there's
00:23:57
Speaker
The person I thought I was in love with didn't exist, so it's such a weird ending to a relationship. Exactly. Yeah, it's like a void. But wait a second. What do I do now? I was just so glad that you put it on a spotlight because we almost, especially being intelligent women, we almost feel ashamed.
Empowering Others Through Sharing Experiences
00:24:17
Speaker
We can't believe that we got got like this.
00:24:20
Speaker
We do feel ashamed. Yeah. The stigma, I think, is very important to talk about. And that's one of the reasons I'm doing this podcast in the first place and talking to women like you. Because I don't... Yeah, that's a really good point. Whatever we can do to help eradicate the stigma and stop women from feeling ashamed, I want to do it. What do you want women to know? I want them to know, one, we have to stop feeling
00:24:49
Speaker
Um, ashamed for just being women. We're loving creatures. We want to help, you know, and this is the vulnerability that they play onto. And in the end, it's, it's not okay that it was done to us, but we can't beat ourselves up for letting this happen. You know, it's not something that we asked for. It's not something that you even really see when it's happening because they're so good at what they're doing. Um,
00:25:18
Speaker
And you almost want to tell the world, hey, these are the signs, look for them. But then you also don't want to shade just relationships. Because not everybody is a raving nut. But it's just such a...
00:25:32
Speaker
It's hard. It's hard to balance it because, and I don't know how you are, but even myself now, as soon as somebody says something that just sounds like it could be sort of sociopathy, I'm like, we're done. So I'm over analyzing everything. But in the end, I just want us to just break the stigma. You know, if we've been hurt, we've been hurt.
00:25:55
Speaker
And hiding it is not getting that support that you need. It's not the answer. It's not the solution. All of us agree that we're still open to love again. And that's the crazy part. It's not where nobody's shutting the door saying, I am done. I am never going to love again. We're all saying that
00:26:15
Speaker
Well, if it happens, we're open to it. Isn't that crazy? I don't think it's crazy. I think that's the beautiful part. I mean, Nancy and I met this thing with butterflies. We love blue butterflies and the blue butterflies specifically means starting over and rebirth and all these good things.
00:26:35
Speaker
That's what I think all of us strong women are. We're butterflies that are still going to spread our wings. They're not going to stop us. There was a line you said down to me last time that I wrote down because it just struck with me, not last time when we talked on the phone. You said, too many of us are just sitting around broken and defeated. Fuck that. Yeah.
00:26:56
Speaker
I love that. Yeah, you know, that's no, that's really what it boils down to, you know, for what, you know, get up, dust ourselves off. One day when it first first happened, I remember I was, you know, back, my son came and saw me, I have like tears streaming down my face. And he's like, Mom, what are you crying for? He's like, You're better off. You know that. And I said, You're exact. No, I said, No, you're exactly right. I was like, And that's not why I'm crying. I just have to go through it. Yeah.
00:27:22
Speaker
And then he understood, he's like, okay, I get it. Go through it, dust yourself off and just go, yeah, get back up and live. Don't be, they will treat us like trash and discard us because we're not, yep, they don't care and we're not fulfilling that piece of the fantasy anymore.
00:27:45
Speaker
At the same time, a lot of us have also been mentally beat down as well in that relationship. So you begin to believe that, you know? So, you know, I am, you know, whatever you say I am, like Emma knows it. Nope, nope, nope, nope. Once you recognize it and you've, it's not easy to break away from it, but once you recognize it and you've broken away from it,
00:28:05
Speaker
Go ahead and how did I phrase it? Yeah, reclaim your sparkle. There was a nurse that visited us one day and she looked at me and she said, oh, you don't have your usual spark. And that's always stayed with me. And that was years ago. I used to have people tell me that sparkle in my eyes wasn't there anymore. And that almost hurt me more than anything, because I thought I don't want this to change me or him to
00:28:32
Speaker
Well, I got to ask you something, Dion. Did you find when you cleaned your house? Because I recently have gone through having to clean my house. Everybody that came over, that has come over, is like, wow, the energy in here has changed. It's shifted. But I might have been in the fetal position crying for a second.
00:28:55
Speaker
But then it's like, okay, put my big girl panties back on and get skin to step in. Did that happen with you as well? Oh no, absolutely. Like I said, it was literally a weight lifted. Somebody would be like, oh, did you lose some weight? Yes. You lost about 220 pounds and left that in a courthouse.
00:29:23
Speaker
Yes, yeah, it's just like it's like it's just everything is just so much better. And when you try to when I just can't even mentally put myself back in that space, you know, and it gets back at such a vicious cycle of almost beating myself up for even allowing that to have happened.
00:29:40
Speaker
But then I'm like, no, stupid. You didn't allow it to happen. It was done to you. I'm not going to stop you there and take the word stupid out because you're not stupid. Oh, thank you. Yeah, no, I was being self-deprecating, but I appreciate. Yeah, no, I definitely appreciate that. And that's why I think this is so important. I say that self-deprecating, there are a lot of people that are just like,
00:30:02
Speaker
They'll believe that. They'll believe everything that was drilled into them by these people. They're going to believe they're going to feel that way about themselves as well. Nope. There's a lot of power in the tongue. That's for sure. Oh my gosh.
Trusting Instincts and Recognizing Signs
00:30:17
Speaker
Yeah. It's hard. And there are some things that I give in terms of like warning signs or things that people can look out for. Are there a couple that you would suggest to women that if women are in a relationship or that the things that they should
00:30:32
Speaker
you know, not ignore or really try to pay attention to. Yeah. My warning signs when I
00:30:43
Speaker
One is you're listening to your gut. Yeah, absolutely. Listening to your gut, and that's kind of the anti-warning, but that goes with usually we'll say something, you know, like, hey, this is not sitting right or something like that. And once they're giving you answers, the flim-flam answers, we know it doesn't make any sense. We know it, but listen exactly, pay attention. That's what I have up on my writer's board. It literally says, just listen.
00:31:10
Speaker
Just listen. Yeah, there's a quote that I saw somewhere. I think this is a very important one because it was especially true for Mike. A narcissist accusations are their confessions.
00:31:29
Speaker
And that was spot on because what I see they tend to do, you know, when things fall apart, they can't be the bad guy. So however fell apart, we are the bad guy in it. Uh-huh. And you know, they'll just go around, just say the most horrible things about us, but everything that he's telling other people that have been like, Oh, he'll say this, this, this, and this is literally him.
00:31:55
Speaker
And when him and I were together, things that he would say that seemed quirky, but you kind of ignore, they were confessions. That's very interesting. So yeah, definitely listen, if it doesn't sit right, it's probably not right. It's so simple in a way, right? Because I think as women, and we talked about this at the beginning, we have such strong intuition. And yet, we're such loving, giving people that we ignore it, you know, or we don't, we so want to be loved and to
00:32:24
Speaker
be embraced in that love that we kind of push those little things down. It's very hard. It's hard. But I think if it's nagging at your gut, you've got to listen.
00:32:37
Speaker
That's, yeah, change in habits, definite warning sign. That's when I, that's kind of when I knew, knew. Yes, exactly. Change, the change in habits of glaring. You know, I said, you know, don't ignore, don't ignore them. Don't be afraid to question it. You know, you don't have to go in like a pit bull and you don't have to be accusatory, but
00:32:59
Speaker
ask, and again, if those answers don't sit right when they're answering you. Yeah, maybe look a little deeper. The working out every day, but no muscle is formed. You're at the gym at 6 a.m. for hours, and it's 6 p.m. for hours. You should be. Start. You should be swollen. At least bring home something to make all this work. I'm kidding, right? Yeah, it's just crazy.
00:33:28
Speaker
Well, Dion, a lot of similarities. Yeah. I want to thank you for sharing your story and, uh, being a brave. No, but seriously, I do want to thank you for sharing your story. I know that, uh,
00:33:51
Speaker
things are, you know, the, the ball rolls slow, whatever the saying is, but you really are an inspiration for a lot of people. And I'm not just throwing out just words when I tell you that whenever I see something in yours or you come on the TV or there's a snippet, you get me out of my complacency. Cause like I said, I've been writing and I've been trying to write forever to get this story out. Cause it's so much more, more so for the,
00:34:17
Speaker
more so for the humorous thoughts of what went on. That's why I really want to share this. But when I see you, that at least gets me going to do a little bit more and a little bit more. I really want to thank you. And I'm Nancy Knowles, and I'm going to tell you just a quick story because as strong as I am and after, what is it? This is seven years later this year? Yeah, seven years.
00:34:38
Speaker
There are moments, and this just happened. I just called Nancy last week. Somebody had commented on something on social media, and I went in to look at it. And it was a post from four years ago when my first film came out. He lied about everything. And I had made a promise to myself not to read all these comments from the haters and the trolls, but I went down the rabbit hole, and the comments were
00:35:02
Speaker
But they were so cruel and so nasty. And I was sitting here with tears streaming on my face, and I couldn't stop. I kept reading and reading. And then for a moment, and I was telling Nancy this, and I knew I shouldn't be doing this, but I just got stuck in it for a minute.
00:35:18
Speaker
And so many things hit me. You know, you think about kids that are bullied, teenagers, and these horrible things, kids that commit suicide, because I could really feel it for a second, because if you let all that stuff get to you, and I was just having this moment about, why am I doing any of this? Why am I putting myself out there like this? And so thank you for what you said, because that makes it, there's far more of you and the people that thank me, and it just, it means a lot to hear that.
00:35:47
Speaker
No, I'm so glad. This is always going to be a troll. And that's what they sit around and do when they're a little miserable of life. And that's fine. Well, and it amazes me at all the women that will know that you're married or know you have a husband and don't care. And not say anything. Yeah. And not say anything. And it's like, well, karma is a bitch. You know what I mean? And they say that a lot. But people say that.
00:36:13
Speaker
I called Nancy after I talked to you and I'm like, we're going to be friends with this one. Yes. And it's actually, I guess serendipitous, the relationship that comes across from you two, me and my Keisha. I love it. You feel you coming out. You are my Keisha. I mean, it's just,
00:36:34
Speaker
You know what? All of them have the same playbook. So all of us bad-ass Baracas with a moral compass. We got one too. Well, and one of the beautiful things about, you know, this whole f-ed up thing, I have a lot of really special, important people in my life now that I wouldn't have met actually have this happen. And so those are the things you also have to, you know, everything happens for a reason and you have to be grateful for that, you know, and there is,
00:37:04
Speaker
beauty in it afterwards. And there is happiness and there is, there is another side to all of it. Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree. And that's the message that I just wish that all of us would hear so that they don't, you know, just come out of this the right
Overcoming Deceit and Moving Forward
00:37:20
Speaker
way. Cause that's, it's kind of like coming out of Vegas. Come out of it the right way and support each other and, and, and it holds up, you know,
00:37:30
Speaker
Yeah, because with all these romance scams and the dating apps and all the other things that are coming out right now, I'm more amazed at the comments that people are leaving behind. I just think that that is crazy. But you know what? That is what they do. And it's not happened to me.
00:37:51
Speaker
yet. It's never happened to me. So I don't even know how I would react. It's not going to happen to you because you're more aware. We're operating on a higher level of awareness now because of what we've been through. So we rose up to that. And just because that happened to them, that doesn't mean those women are stupid or whatever.
00:38:16
Speaker
They were just open to wanting to be loved and to love. It's not a part. And, you know, I just am amazed at what people could say just such hateful things. I know. And when Benita calls me like that, I just want to slap her through the phone. Stop it. Exactly. I didn't say, don't you? You know what is it? We know better.
00:38:37
Speaker
Yeah. Let them be miserable and just leave them miserable. I just, and there are some people that they are just going to be miserable. It's that Twitter though. So sit there behind your little computer and do.
00:38:50
Speaker
you know, whatever, your message is being received by the people that need it. So normally Nancy closes a show out because she can pronounce this word, but I'm going to let you do it tonight and just, if you can say good night and thank you for joining the word I can't say. Good night. Thank you for joining Benita, Nancy, and guests Dion.
00:39:17
Speaker
on this wonderful episode of Benita and the Barack. Thank you. Thank you so much. She said it better than I did. This episode is hosted and executive produced by me, Benita Alexander. My guests are Nancy Kumba and the lovely Dion. This was edited by Yaseid Lopez.