I am deeply passionate about raising awareness on coercive control and saving those who are currently in it. So, after I concluded my YouTube series deep diving each stage and also the science behind it, I knew I needed at least one survivor’s story. Because nothing brings us a deeper understanding of what it’s like and what we can do about it like those lived experiences. I immediately thought of a powerful advocate who I also have the honor of calling my friend. Lady Storm has endured every type of imaginable hell but she has come out the other side as a healer, mentor, and advocate.
Below are the transcripts to that interview because I believe that raising awareness requires doing so from multiple platforms. If you would rather listen to our interview, the link to my podcast is here. If you prefer watching our interview, see us on YouTube here.
The following terms mentioned in this article are in Trauma Glossary 1:
- Breadcrumbing
- Flying Monkey
- Future Faking
- Induced Conversation
- Love Bombing
- Trauma Bond
Introducing Lady Storm
Jaena: Hello, trauma warriors. I’m Jaena with Defeating Childhood Trauma and today we are meeting Lady Storm, a survivor of coercive control and now a very powerful advocate. We’re going to hear her story today. Welcome, Miss Lady Storm.
Lady Storm Healing: Hi! Thank you for having me.
Jaena: It’s great having you here. I was so glad – you were the first person I thought of when I closed the Coercive Control Series. I said, “I’ve got to get her story. Got to get Lady Storm’s story because it is so incredible.”
Lady Storm Healing: Thank you!
Jaena: So, how long were you in this relationship?
Lady Storm Healing: I was in that last relationship for 7 years, and off and on. When I look back, I believe I left and went back 7 times.
Jaena: Wow!
Lady Storm Healing: Yes, nuts, absolutely nuts. So, this is why I’m excited to be here because I appreciate the work. Just breaking down the different levels of coercive control has opened up a world to me that I thought was just a dream, like it’s real, you know. I always thought, “Oh, my God, these people! Do they have a book – these these abusers that I was with? There’s a book out there.” It’s so…textbook. What they did was very similar. So, it’s pretty amazing.
Jaena: Yeah, I mean, it really is like they all have the same playbook. They’re gonna do exactly the same thing. Just, you know, different forms and different levels of abuse. But I mean it’s the same blueprint.
Lady Storm Healing: Yes, it’s nuts, man and I dealt with it 7 years.
Stage 1: Love Bombing
Jaena: So, walk us through this relationship. Stage one, love bombing. How did he sweep you off your feet and all of that great, wonderful, amazing stuff?
Lady Storm Healing: Man I was high on love – as I thought. You know it’s funny. I just thought about this today; I had just had a breakup, so he he got me right on time. I was just broken up with another ass, and feeling lonely, bored, and my roommate set me up with him. And I never thought, “Why doesn’t she date him?” She was single also. But that’s a whole other story on a disorder. But anyway, he swept me off my feet.
We had a ball, and the interesting thing is anywhere we went – this was in Las Vegas, I lived there for many years – anywhere we went, he was the life of the party. He would walk into a room, and people would turn their heads. Good looking, 6’4″, the gift of the gab, – “Hey everybody!” – saying hello to everyone. I mean, he had it good, and we ran around town exploring buildings, sneaking in, going on rooftops. I mean, it was fun. We had a lot of fun in the beginning. It was a great trap.
Jaena: Wow! They are masters of crowd pleasing, aren’t they?
“This is the love bomb. It happens like that.”
Lady Storm Healing: Oh, yeah. On his birthday, he announces that he’s got it in the bar. So it’s [his] birthday. I was upset, because really that’s my money and he’s buying.
Jaena: He’s using your money to buy everyone in the bar…?
Lady Storm Healing: Drinks on his birthday. So yeah, everybody loved him. They think he’s really cool. Hotshot, cool car, the whole package.
Jaena: Yeah, they’re also masters of the mask outside the home.
Lady Storm Healing: And I didn’t realize that we were together every day from the beginning. Every day. I was renting a room from my roommate, and the door was wide open, and he came on in and sat down and made himself comfortable. And I one day just realized, like we’re together. It was not a conversation. Right? This is the love bomb. It happens like that. (She snaps her fingers.) And it’s a lot of fun.
Stage 2: Mask Slips
Jaena: So, how long did the love bombing last before the mask started slipping off?
Lady Storm Healing: It’s interesting. It’s hard sometimes to remember – exactly pinpoint it, because it’s not a good time anymore. Right? And I wanted to push that away and forget about it, and did. And that’s how I kept going back right. But I know it started with little put downs. I realized that I was trying to prove myself worthy of this guy. I was fighting for my rights, fighting for respect, fighting for…”Stop flirting with everyone” right?
And I fell into this hole of staying, but trying to prove that I’m worth it, because he would throw little daggers, you know. We’ve already opened up to each other, as I thought. So, he knew my story and my rough time with my parents, and then I’m out on the street when I was a kid, so he would use these things against me later, good or bad, right? And just start these little fights. And so that’s when I was like – uh-oh!
But I was used to it, the guy before him, the guy before him, and my own growing up childhood. It was always arguing, resentment going on. It was always somebody’s upset with someone. So I stayed and I fought, and so it was a lot of that up and down.
Trauma Bond vs. Trauma Bondage
Lady Storm Healing: What do we call that? The trauma bond? I know we spoke about changing that to the trauma bondage, right?
Jaena: Yeah it would slam home faster.
Lady Storm Healing: Right.
Jaena: Trauma bond kind of sounds nice, but trauma bondage, it’s like, “I don’t want to be in bondage!” Well, okay then.
Lady Storm Healing: Yes, so I’m gonna say that from now on. It was trauma bondage. Because we would make up, break up, make up, break up. And “I’ll never do it again”. [What her ex abuser would say.]
Jaena: It was my husband who gave me that light bulb. He was shocked to find out what trauma bond meant. He said, “That’s a misleading word. I thought trauma bond is what you guys do in your support group when you bond over similar traumas.”
Lady Storm Healing: I thought the same.
Future Faking
Jaena: So, was there any future faking? Like, “Oh, we need to move away from those closest to you”. Because some of that sometimes happens.
Lady Storm Healing: Yes, yeah. So we had a huge breakup, and I wasn’t speaking to him for a while, and I had moved to a new place, and that late night call. “I love you. I’m so sorry, I’ll change.” And I let him come back in. And now I’m in my own one bedroom house, this real cute little cottage, and he came up with this idea that we were going to take over his family’s business. It’s a car lot. There was a smog test guy there, and a car small car lot where we would buy used cars and sell them. And we did a little of that, but now it was, “Let’s go. Let’s go there from San Diego to Los Angeles. Let’s take over the business. The doors open for us. Let’s do this.”
And I said, “Okay. I think this is a good idea.” We didn’t have any business of our own. So let’s go, and it was, “Pack up all of your things and put it in storage because we’re starting from scratch.” So there was a room in this parking lot/auto shop/smog shop, and I was in this back room, cleaned it up, set it up. There was a desk and a guy behind the desk, and I was told that I would be, you know, the one handling the money and the advertising, and I never got that seat. Every day I was like, when are we gonna go in there? Right? When? And I paid some money, too.
“I got you good.”
Lady Storm Healing: Later found out they just needed me to pay three months worth of rent. Yeah, got me good. And during that argument he told me he was like, “I got you good.” We were never, gonna you know, do all that. And I thought he was taking care of the storage. No. Lost everything.
Jaena: Oh, my God!
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah, got me good, he said. Because again, I was arguing a lot, like I wanted the respect and the love that I dreamed of, and that I thought I had in the beginning. And as soon as I thought I was being cheated or lied to, I would question, right? I should have just left. But I thought I could change him back to the beginning.
So when that happened, though, I left again. I don’t remember how I got back. I don’t remember how I got back after losing all of my things in storage that he never paid for; I don’t remember. But we did get back together again. I know that he played The Card. He told me about his childhood trauma. He played that a lot with me. So, the mask fell off, but I guess not enough all the way for me, ’cause we started again. But this time, I started talking back with my family.
Becoming Less Isolated Than Before
Lady Storm Healing: See, I was already isolated. He had a good one. I was already not talking to many people. I just got into a breakup, so that involves a lot of cutting off friends, too, that were connected with the last guy. And so, I was already kind of isolated, anyway. And he really took advantage of that. But now I’m getting back in you see, and old friends are there and connected. Some of them said, “What’s up with this guy? He’s a trip.” I’d hear that and I heard a couple say, “Hmm…watch him.”
But I said, “No, he’s a good guy. He’s trying.”
On Addictions and the Trauma Bondage
Jaena: Yeah. Well, we get hooked in because they hooked us in the love bombing stage.
Lady Storm Healing: Right.
Jaena: And that’s where the addiction starts hitting all those same body chemicals that you see in substance abuse. So, we’re already not seeing clearly, and we get caught up in this cycle because it’s this high-octane kind of love. Like a substance abuser, they’re going to get a chemical high that you’re not going to find in the natural world.
Lady Storm Healing: Yes!
Jaena: And so that’s what the trauma bondage is like in the love bombing stage. You are hooked. It’s a false love. You’re convinced that you have so many intense feelings for this person and never loved anyone like this before. “Oh, my God! It makes no sense. I love this person so much.” It isn’t love, that’s the addiction that’s speaking to us.
Lady Storm Healing: And then the gift of the gab. Like I said earlier, you know. I would listen. I’d give him a chance. What now? And then, “I’m sorry, and I love you and I’ll never do it again.” And I believed it because I’m like that, you know? I would never purposely hurt someone and then hurt them again and then hurt them again, you know. So I thought, maybe he gets it. It’s sad, but that’s what happened.
We’re addicted but we don’t know we’re addicted
Jaena: Yeah, they never do, because they’re never gonna change. And they also another thing that keeps you hooked is, those little breadcrumb moments where they put that mask back on. “Oh, I got my person back. I knew it; I knew I’d get them back! I knew there was good in them.” But it doesn’t last. We’re living for those tiny little breadcrumb moments in between the abuse. We’re addicted but we don’t know we’re addicted.
Swear to God, this was actually in a support group. One of the newer members came in and said, “Are you sure there’s no hope and that’s she’s bad? Because there were so many beautiful moments in between the abuse.” And I was like, did you just read what you wrote? Those beautiful moments in between the abuse. And I remembered that, and that’s why it went into my article. [On coercive control here.] That’s literally what we get caught up doing. “Oh, they can be so loving,” because those little breadcrumbs.
Lady Storm Healing: Right.
Jaena: And that’s how they keep us, because they’re giving us a little bit of the drug each time.
Lady Storm Healing: That’s right, and I had no idea. I thought it was love and excitement.
Sleep Deprivation
Jaena: Did he ever pull any sleep deprivation on you like fights when you’re trying to sleep?
Lady Storm Healing: It’s textbook, I’m telling you! Now we’re at that point. Perfect timing, perfect question. I would be in the room sleeping while he would be in the front room playing video games late at night. I walked in on him – hold on to your seats – doing cocaine. I’ve never done drugs, never wanted to do drugs, and there he was and it was a huge argument. From that day on he went to Rehab, got out same day, went right back to this problem that he “only does on the weekends”. I couldn’t get him out of my house. Now this was the goal. But what ended up happening is arguments late at night. I remember reading about that, and I’m like – he did that. Oh, my gosh!
He would not let me get any rest, was arguing. “Well, this happened and this. And what about last time? And this happened?” I’m just like, exhausted and have no idea the real game. That’s what I call it. This is the game they play and I was the pawn. I really thought, “He’s upset and angry, and I need to calm him down so that I could get rest.” I was in charge of it all. Everything was my fault, and everything I needed to fix, and I’ve got to stay up all night and calm this guy that may still be high off cocaine that he’s hiding from me somewhere in his house was nuts.
How Sleep Deprivation Impacts the Thalamus
Jaena: Mm-hmm, absolutely. And see that that’s body chemical number six that’s being affected. Melatonin.
Lady Storm Healing: Yes.
Jaena: And then there’s a part of the brain, the thalamus. There’s a definite link between dopamine and melatonin because first of all, the thalamus wraps around the amygdala. So, it’s kind of like the messenger to the amygdala, and then messages the rest of the brain. But one of the things it does is regulate our sleep and alertness. And so, without sleep, we’re going to be sluggish. We’re going to have some brain fog and stuff like that. I mean, it’s just this whole domino effect with our body science.
Late Night Guy
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah, late-night guy, didn’t want to work. Wanted me to hustle. This is when I you know – I’m sorry, I don’t know if everyone knows I’m a survivor of sex trafficking. And this is when I was wanting to stop and get out of the life. I started to realize this is what he was angry about. He would have loved for me to get back in. So those late-night fights were about a lot of that – that I was weak and naive, and needed to get more things, right? But when you were just breaking down the science, it made me think about – what about when they use this? Because this guy was dangerous. He was violent.
That night that I found out that he did cocaine “only on the weekends” he tied me up with phone cord, put me in my room, and then tied the door with some more type of cord, so I couldn’t get out of my bedroom. Yeah, tied me up. It gets worse. I made enough noise for him to come in, and he took a little steak knife and held me down and pointed it to my head as he would yell at me about how much of a problem I am. He poked me a couple times with it in my hair. That was all night long – an all night long argument. I was exhausted.
The only thing I thought I could do is, I needed to call somebody to get him out.
Involving the Police
Lady Storm Healing: This was after, of course, I said, “Okay, I’m sorry, I love you.” Calm him down, right? And then two days after that, now he’s trusting me again, because what he did was wrong and he knew it. He didn’t want me to get out, leave the house, use my phone or anything after that night, but I got his trust back. I was able to say, “I’m going to the store for something.” So I drove off, called the police, and I said, “I need this guy out of my house. It’s in my name, not his. I need him out.”
And so they came, and I lied. I told him that I made a crazy turn, and the cops followed me here. So, it looked like they kind of pulled me over in the driveway, and he’s at the front door, and he’s just like, “What’s going on. Why are the cops here?”
I said, “I don’t know. I think they’re trying to pull me over, but I made it to the driveway.”
Then they told him, Come here, and he looked at me and he said, “You – you did it,” and I said, “No, I don’t know what’s going on.”
They ended up arresting him because he’s a fool. This guy thought his gift of the gab was going to work with the cops, but he doesn’t know that they know what I told them. So, they took them to jail, but I knew it wouldn’t stick. I knew he’d get out. So, I left my own house, went to my dad’s.
Avoiding the Induced Conversation
Lady Storm Healing: That’s when I started getting back in with my family. I was getting lots of phone calls from him. And I was just really trying not to answer the phone, right? I realized that’s what was getting me to get back in, hearing his excuses and his lies. And it took seven times for me to finally say, I need to cut off communication.
Jaena: Yeah, that’s their superpower. When I watched Ross Rosenberg’s video on induced conversation, my mind was blown. I was like, Wow! Because see? I remember that with the one before my husband – that somatic narcissist. I’d get fed up with him, we’d have a conversation – pow – hooked back in. It wouldn’t even take much. It would be a tone of his voice saying a phrase. I mean, I can’t explain it, but it’s their superpower. He’d say, “You want me to leave?” Before he said it, I was like, “Yes, get out!” Soon as he said his little line, “No, I don’t want you to go.”
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah, I figured out that they get good at that because they listen. They listen very well, and they listen and watch you, and and they compute your likes and your dislikes and your weaknesses, and they know when and how to push those buttons.
Jaena: I think that’s funny how you and I both figured out the patterns with our abusers was being fed up and then being hooked back in because of a conversation, because that’s what I did. I got him to leave, thinking he was just playing one of his manipulation games on me again, and then I didn’t answer the phone. “Nope, not talking to you.”
That Last Encounter with the Abuser
Lady Storm Healing: So, wait. I did answer once because I still had some of his things. So, I answered to give him his things. Oh, my gosh! That day…
I said, “Okay, I will meet you in a public parking lot. And I’m going to give you your electronic stuff, whatever it is.” I told you about that. So, I pulled up to the parking lot and I knew what room he was in, but I knew that I would not knock on the door and allow him to open the door. Because that’s the connection that I needed to stay away from. So my plan was to just leave it on the stairs and call him as I’m driving off.
So, I open my car door and the stuff is in the back. I’m about to close my car door to get to the back seat, and I just happened to look in the corner of my eye. And I’m telling you. This man was charging at me. It looked…it seemed like slow motion. I saw his face, and it was that dark eyebrows like this (turns her hands into a V-shape above her eyebrows) evil face, and he’s coming and charging at me to the point where I was like, (gasps) and I jumped back in the car and closed the door and locked it.
He’s screaming, yelling, and I’m now turning around. I’m driving out of there, and he threw a beer bottle or something at my window. The windshield busted. I got this huge hole, and I’m driving down the freeway, throwing his shit out the window. It was all over the street. Yeah, yeah, there’s your stuff. I still didn’t want, you know…
Her narrative is briefly interrupted because I burst out laughing…and applauding.
“That’s when they get really dangerous, when they know that you’re done.”
Jaena: That part I love! Serves him right. If he wanted his stuff…
Lady Storm Healing: You know, they say that’s when they get really dangerous, when they know that you’re done.
Jaena: Yep.
Lady Storm Healing: And he wanted to get me. He didn’t want his stuff. He wanted to get me, and I got in that car so quick, and that was when I didn’t even have to change my phone number. I knew I was done, done, done! And that phone would ring all night long, and I did not answer. I was screening the calls, and a part of that was I had to cut off friends, too. I realized some of them were flying monkeys. They’re calling for him. “Why haven’t you answered? He wants to talk to you.”
So I did a lot of kicking the habit. I literally was on the floor in an empty apartment, curled up in a ball, ignoring those calls, trying to to get it out of me. I just knew that I had to stay away, and the longer I stayed away the better things got. More clearly, I was able to think again, like literally, the clouds start lifting. This is where the Lady Storm comes in at, man like the storm started to clear, and I had my “why”.
Finding Her “Why”
Lady Storm Healing: See, when I met him I was already isolated from many people in my family and friends, hustling in Las Vegas. But I had my why because in between that, I got back in close with my sister and my niece and my nieces, and that was my why. I didn’t want them to have this horrible story about me because I was going to either die or die dealing with these types. Each type got worse and worse. He wasn’t the first but he had to be the last. He had to be, you know? Because that wasn’t the first physical problem.
Yeah, so he used fear, he used fraud, he used force, he used coercion. He used manipulation and false love. He played all the games, all of them.
Her Darkest Times in the Abuse
Jaena: Did you have a lot of fear? Like, how did it feel – like you’d leave him and then you’d keep going back? How much of that confidence was it destroying in you, and also, did you have fear making decisions?
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah, I mean, he knew how to pull my strings to where, when I would go back, I was the dummy. Somehow I was the one that made the mistake. And then it would be proven when the arguments and the fights and the lies would start again. Then I was like, I did it again. Me, me, me! I made this mistake. I’m doing things wrong. I can’t figure things out. And yeah, my confidence was just…I was disappearing.
There were times when I just gave up and wouldn’t talk. Just like, whatever – whatever you want to do. Just yell at me then. And I would sit there all night and just I didn’t even want to fight anymore, you know? I was getting drained, and I thought, maybe he’s right. Maybe I’m not worth anything but this. You know, I was stuck, but I got out. I got out. So, yeah.
The Body’s Ultimatum
Jaena: You told me one time that you got sick and you listened to your body and got out.
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah, that was another why. I dealt with irregular menstrual periods all through these years – all through the years, always either bleeding too much or not for many months. I was dealing with fibroids, uterine fibroids. After I did leave, and I was hiding out from him, I was having body aches, and pains, and I found out I had a herniated disc in my neck. He choked me before to the point where I passed out. So, I think that might have been why I had these herniated discs in my neck. I’m not sure. The doctor asked me if I was in an accident – No.
And so, I have arthritis still today. The fibroids are gone. I just had to get those removed three times while dealing with these types of people and later reading about all these survivors who have these…like asthma was a big one, I’ve heard. Then they don’t have asthma anymore once they finally get out of this life of abuse. And arthritis and all these types of body aches and pains, migraines, they get better. So I got better. I got better. The periods would come better, you know. It was stress. A lot of it was stress.
But I’m thinking [at the time] it’s just me. I’m the one, I’m the one that’s got the problem. I’m the one that’s causing it. I’ve got another problem. I’m always bleeding.
Sharing the lightbulb she gave me
Jaena: Funny you bring that up because the whole time I was with the ex – mine was always regular, [before the ex] you know, on time. Then I went to three weeks – every three weeks. I was like, Why? But as soon as he left -pow! – I went back to normal.
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah.
Jaena: But I was only with him for eight months, so I’m quite sure I would have had plenty of other medical problems had I kept him longer. But I mean, I just find that interesting how the eight months we were together my body decided to go on a three week cycle instead of four.
Lady Storm Healing: Oh, yeah, I did that a lot. Thought it was just me but I’ve come to realize that it was the situation I was in had a lot to do with it.
Jaena: Yeah, the stress takes a toll on the body and the body’s trying to help us cope through what we’re going through. But after a while it’s like it can’t go on much longer. So it’s like, Hey, we’re gonna make you sick. We’re gonna make these this weird stuff happen to your body.
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah, I mean, that was exactly the message I got finally was, “Okay, your body. What about you? Come on, you think something bad happened already? You’re gonna fall off – like you’re gonna die or just crumble up.” It was really a matter of life or death.
Putting Her Life Back Together
Jaena: So, the day you threw all his crap all over the street as you were driving – I love that!
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah, I called a friend, got the windshield fixed, and drove from Las Vegas to my dad’s house and he asked about him because he met him once. He said. “Where is he?” And I said, “He wasn’t a good guy, Dad.” My dad said, “All right. Well, what are we going to do?” And I said, “I need your help. I’m starting again, and I need your help.” And he helped me, and I’ve stayed away ever since.
Guy called and called and called. He was looking for me; I literally was like hiding out from this maniac and I wasn’t going to play the game anymore. I didn’t know about narcissism; I didn’t know about coercive control and that you could actually take people to court and use that as a defense for what he’s done to you. I didn’t know all of these things; I just knew that I needed to stay away from this bad guy. It wasn’t going to work. I couldn’t fix him and he couldn’t love me properly.
I got a new place with help from my dad and I believe I was reading a book – it was a YouTube channel actually on narcissism – and I was like, Wait a minute, Whoa! What? They gaslight you and manipulate you, and the mask falls off, and then comes back on? And love bombing? And there it was, I almost fell out of my chair. I was like, this is the game, this is it – I knew it! They have a book somewhere and it’s written down, the games they play, and that saved me.
Educating Ourselves on Personality Disorders
Jaena: It’s amazing how, when we find there’s a name for it, it’s just such a game changer in your head. I mean, you even feel it in your core. Just this, “A-ha! I feel so validated now. Wow!”
Lady Storm Healing: Validated absolutely. Yep. So, I had to get strong, right? And I had to learn all about that stuff to protect myself so that I don’t get back into the same situation again. Because all that’s going to happen unless you have the education on personality disorders. We all should. It should be in school at a young age to learn about bad people, people that yeah, they’ve been hurt, but they’re hurting other people, and that’s bad.
Jaena: Yeah, not everyone is going to make the choice to hurt others, regardless of how much they’ve been hurt. Because, yeah, I’m a little mad at Quackery Today, for that “hurt people hurt people” narrative. That’s behavior leveling. That’s what’s going on. The abuser becomes the victim, and the victim becomes the abuser. No, no, no, no, no! I think we need to know there’s a name for it, because there are bad people out there and we have names for those kinds of bad people. But there’s good people, too, and so, educating ourselves on the personality disorders, we can start using discernment and also start validating ourselves at the same time, because we’re not them. So what they do, that’s not on us. It’s on them.
Lady Storm Healing: That’s right.
Where Lady Storm is Today
Lady Storm Healing: Today I am happily married, have been for 10 years. I told you, I got that toolbox. So I was like, “Let me mark this off. Let me bang this together, and make sure that this guy isn’t going to put everything on me – and help me and lift me up, and I do the same for him, and it’s okay.”
So, happily married 10 years, and I am working as a empowerment coach and mentor for survivors of toxic relationships. I’ve got some certifications to teach on human sex trafficking. And yeah, things are going much better now. I am free at last. I pulled some friends out of the life, and I’m going to do nothing but go forward from here and spread the word.
You know, my mission is to just make communities that have like-minded people in it. And we have the knowledge to never get into an abusive relationship again. That’s it. That’s really the mission. So, I love that you invited me here, and I will continue to speak out and name the names of all the games that they play, the gaslighting, the manipulation, the coercive control, the love bombing. It’s real, it’s dangerous. It’s mind damaging and physically you could be sick, and it’s not your fault. You just got to get that tool belt to do the work and stay away.
Lady Storm Means Business When Calling Out Abuse!
Jaena: Yeah, I want to add something to what you said. I want make sure. YouTube and other platforms know this about you because I love this story about you. Okay, Lady Storm is not scared of calling out things. She sees something wrong, she’s going to call it out. [Reminding Lady Storm of the story I’m about to share] Our first phone call!
Lady Storm Healing: Oh! (laughter)
Jaena: She and I were talking and talking. Now, all of a sudden I hear her go, “Hey! You want your dog?” I mean, I’m over here kind of scared and thinking, “What dog? What are you talking about?” But you were yelling at a lady who was outside walking her dog, and you caught her beating the dog.
Lady Storm Healing: That’s right.
Jaena: And you immediately you said, “Hey, I’ve got to go outside real quick. I saw this woman beat her dog,” and I heard you saying, “If you don’t want your dog, I’ll take it!” And yeah, you found out which unit she was in. I was like, “Man, yeah, she stands up. She calls things out.” A great friend, a wonderful ally and I feel sorry for abusers who encounter Lady storm. I’m just gonna say that.
Lady Storm Healing: Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah, I’m calling it out. I’m on that side. I’m on the right side.
How to Find Lady Storm
Lady Storm Healing: You can find me on all the platforms: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, under Lady Storm Healing. In my bio on Instagram or Facebook, you can find my link to my website and set up a one on one personal private conversation with me, and we can call people out together and make a plan. I have a plan that I wrote. It’s called The 3 Core Steps to Empowerment, and we work on healing and growing and staying away from abuse.
Jaena: Yeah, you just upgraded the graphics and all that is so beautiful.
Lady Storm Healing: Oh, yeah, let me find it because I just upgraded it. The 3 steps to empowerment plan. 1) Reclaim your power, 2) Redefine your relationships and 3) Revise your future. This is what we’re gonna work on. It’s really based on what I did. So, this is why I call myself not only a coach, but a mentor, because I will help people get past those hurdles that I fell over and we’re gonna smoothly fly over them and get back to basics. And what is that? Peace! Peace, and get your power back.
Lady Storm: What’s in a Name?
Lady Storm Healing: My last name is actually Strom, but people always mistake it for storm and so I kind of went with that. One day this lady was like, “Oh, I like your name, Storm.” I was like, yeah, I bring the storm. And so, that’s really what it’s based on. Like you said, I call it out. I’ve gotten to the other side of the storm. I’m standing on top of the hill. And and that’s really basically where Lady Storm came from. I don’t know. Did I say something else before?
Jaena: Well, I like how you say transforming storms.
Lady Storm Healing: Oh, that part. I say that a lot. We transform storms. We got the Storm Transformers house on Clubhouse. It’s a healing circle. We talk about many things. Jaena is a moderator there, and she brings the knowledge, the science of it all. So yeah, we are transforming storms, and it’s the Storm Transformers and Lady Storm Clubhouse. Meet us there.
Jaena: Wednesday nights, guys.
Lady Storm Healing: Come transform those storms. Peace and power.
*Note, Clubhouse is a free app and the best way to describe it is think chat rooms, the audible version. If you’re on Clubhouse, look for the Storm Transformers house. The room opens every Wednesday night at 4:30 PT/7:30 ET.
What Lady Storm’s Story Represents
Jaena: See, I love your story because you went through hell.
Lady Storm Healing: Yeah.
Jaena: And you came out the other side and now you’re doing what you’re doing, from survivor to healer now, basically. And you’re in a wonderful relationship today. Ten years with a wonderful human being. I think that gives hope to so many people who are struggling to get out of coercive control, thinking, “Oh, nobody’s going to love me, anyway. I might as well stay,” or they’re recovering, and they’re feeling unlovable and “Am I going to just fall into another bad relationship?” You’re proof that there is love and life after this mess.
Lady Storm Healing: Yes, that’s right. There’s levels to it, you know. There was a time that I was exhausted and hated life, and then it was, I don’t ever want to talk to anybody ever again. And then it was, Wait a minute. I love myself, and then it was, I can do this again, and I now know so much more. And why not spread the word to help others so that they [abusers] can’t win? They’ll never win. Abusers are not going to win because we now know what they do.
Trauma Bondage “Love” vs. Authentic Love
Lady Storm Healing: I got a guy that doesn’t try anything. At first it was a little awkward. I was like, “We’re not gonna fight? You’re not gonna disappear for three days like nothing? Come on, where’s your strength at?” And I’ll never forget when he said, “What did they do to you?” You see, because I was still healing when I met my husband. Thank God, he’s not manipulative. He doesn’t have these disorders where he wants to take out his hurt on me. I’m so glad I was able to see myself in him. He was like a mirror. He was like, “Look at yourself. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”
I’m telling you. Love is real. It’s not powerful, and lots of things happening all the time, and and jumping and taking chances. And it’s not that. It’s smooth, it’s quiet, it’s warm, it’s comfortable. It’s being able to be yourself and goofy, and act like a child again, and nobody will question that. They will just hold your hand. It’s real.
Jaena: Yeah, because I can honestly say that my husband – 19 years with him – he’s the only one I’ve ever truly loved, because all the rest were trauma bondages before. Every single guy I dated before my husband sucked. But yeah, when I finally found him, it was drama free. It was calm. He brought the humor – he has a great sense of humor. So you know, it was fun minus the drama.
Lady Storm Healing: Right.
“That’s what we want. No more bad boys.”
Jaena: And yeah, I was like, I can’t believe I’m in a relationship that I’m not constantly worried, constantly questioning where he stands in this relationship, and we were taking it slow too. But yeah, it wasn’t – exactly like you said it – it wasn’t this intense, all of this going on. It was just calm, it was comfortable.
Lady Storm Healing: Yep, that’s what we want. No more bad boys.
Jaena: Yeah. No more!
Lady Storm Healing: I appreciate you. I love you so much. Thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you for being on my side of the fight. We need you, keep going. Thank you, thank you for the space.
Jaena: Thank you for being on our side. Yeah, we want somebody who will call out somebody beating their dog the way that you do. We want you on our side.
Lady Storm Healing: Yes, that’s right.
Jaena: Thank you so much. This is going to give people a lot of extra value and lightbulbs on what’s going on in a coercive control relationship. And that’s really what it’s all about, these real life stories. So, thank you so much.
Lady Storm Healing: Thank you for having me.
Jaena: Alright, I always close out this way. Forged in trauma, rising as warriors!