Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's Andrea Gunning. I know it's been a while,
Speaker 1: but today we are back with not just new bonus content,
Speaker 1: but with two major updates. First, we'll be back with
Speaker 1: season two of Betrayals starting May eighteenth, and we even
Speaker 1: have a sneak peek at the end of this episode. Second,
Speaker 1: Betrial Season one is being turned into a documentary. More
Speaker 1: details on where and when it will launch, so stay
Speaker 1: tuned on the feed for updates. In the meantime, check
Speaker 1: out this bonus episode about an incredible organization.
Speaker 2: Jen.
Speaker 1: One of the best parts of doing the podcast is
Speaker 1: learning about the resources didn't know about. And there's an
Speaker 1: organization called SASCO that really intrigues me.
Speaker 3: I had the opportunity a couple weekends ago to attend
Speaker 3: and I Will Survive weekend, which was put on by
Speaker 3: the SASCO organization out of South Carolina, and it was
Speaker 3: a great weekend. One of the ways we spent our
Speaker 3: time was learning self defense moves, specifically what were to
Speaker 3: happen if someone were to assault you or to come
Speaker 3: at you and attack you.
Speaker 1: And you brought some of the ladies back from the weekend.
Speaker 3: I wanted to bring back a little souvenir. So today,
Speaker 3: Shannon Henry and Brett Carney Brown of the SaaS Organization
Speaker 3: are here to talk to us about the five tactics
Speaker 3: predators used to break down their targets.
Speaker 1: Brett, can you share how SAS began?
Speaker 4: It really started because we have been working with survivors
Speaker 4: of violence for seventeen years in a number of different ways,
Speaker 4: and we kept hearing the same three questions. One why
Speaker 4: didn't I know that this could happen to me?
Speaker 5: Two?
Speaker 4: Why didn't I know what to do when it did?
Speaker 4: And three why didn't I know where to go for help?
Speaker 4: And that really was the beginning of what ultimately became
Speaker 4: the nonprofit because we wanted to make sure that everyone
Speaker 4: had the answers to those questions before anything ever happened.
Speaker 1: That makes total sense, Shannon, What was the idea that
Speaker 1: empowered you to do this?
Speaker 5: It wasn't until I took a self defense course that
Speaker 5: I really felt like for the first time I could
Speaker 5: trust my mind and my body to recognize danger and
Speaker 5: hopefully end it before anything happened, and it gave me
Speaker 5: the tools to do that. So really that was the
Speaker 5: impetus for me, was that empowerment it's the prevention which
Speaker 5: is super important. If we can keep people from having
Speaker 5: to experience this, that's what we want to do first
Speaker 5: and foremost. But it's also making sure that systems and
Speaker 5: agencies and women and girls and families know how to
Speaker 5: intervene when it does happen, and then how to get
Speaker 5: the response the help that they need in the aftermath.
Speaker 3: Shannon, you have gone through your own personal experience with
Speaker 3: sexual assault. Would you mind sharing that story with us?
Speaker 5: Like any other teenage girl, I dated a guy, fell
Speaker 5: in love. I thought he was wonderful. We dated for
Speaker 5: about a year. He put me on a pedestal and
Speaker 5: made me feel special. He was older than me, and
Speaker 5: I always had this idea in the back of my
Speaker 5: mind that I was lucky to be with him because
Speaker 5: he was somebody that other people wanted to be with
Speaker 5: as well, and he chose me. So one day after
Speaker 5: school he asked me to come by and bring him
Speaker 5: a mountain dew to his place. I didn't want to go,
Speaker 5: and I knew I didn't want to go, but I
Speaker 5: felt this disease to please, and so I thought, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'll just go by, I'll drop it off. I'm not
Speaker 5: going to tell my mom where I'm going, because she'd
Speaker 5: kill me if she knew I was going to his
Speaker 5: house by myself, but I did. When I walked in,
Speaker 5: things were different than they normally were there. It was
Speaker 5: loud and there were a few other people there. I
Speaker 5: also noticed that he had alcohol in his breath, and
Speaker 5: so I said, you know, here's your drink. I've got
Speaker 5: to go, but i'll talk to you later. And he said, well,
Speaker 5: just wait a second. I want you to come back
Speaker 5: in my bedroom with me for just a second. I
Speaker 5: want to show you something. And I thought, oh, I
Speaker 5: don't want to go back in his bedroom. But at
Speaker 5: the same time, it's my boyfriend and I trust him
Speaker 5: and I love him, he loves me. We're fine. So
Speaker 5: I walked back in his bedroom and he shut the door,
Speaker 5: and I can still see him turning the lock on it,
Speaker 5: and I remember looking at that and going, why is
Speaker 5: he locking the door? And then that's when he looked
Speaker 5: at me and he started to kiss me. But it
Speaker 5: was a kiss that wasn't about me, and it wasn't
Speaker 5: about us, it was about him, and I didn't like it.
Speaker 5: I was very uncomfortable, and I pushed away from him
Speaker 5: and I said, look, I've got to go, and he
Speaker 5: grabbed my wrist and it hurt, and he said, get
Speaker 5: on the bed or that's next, and beside the bed
Speaker 5: was a hunting knife, and I remember thinking, there's no
Speaker 5: way he's going to hurt me. But I was scared
Speaker 5: enough to lay down on the bed and not make
Speaker 5: a noise. And he did with me what I didn't
Speaker 5: want to do. And then he stood me up and
Speaker 5: he opened the door and kissed me on the cheek
Speaker 5: and said, how fun at dance? And I walked out.
Speaker 5: I remember just being totally in a fog, and as
Speaker 5: I looked to my right, there were three people that
Speaker 5: I knew well from high school, and they all high
Speaker 5: fived each other as I walked out, as if it
Speaker 5: had been planned before I got there. And I got
Speaker 5: in my car, I went to dance. I didn't say
Speaker 5: a word. I went home. I got in the bed
Speaker 5: and I cried myself to sleep, and I never talked
Speaker 5: about it again. In my mind, I was already turning
Speaker 5: inward and blaming myself. I was in dance clothes. I
Speaker 5: shouldn't have gone there. I knew better, like what was
Speaker 5: I doing? And so that started a spiral. I turned
Speaker 5: to drugs and alcohol and boys to self medici because
Speaker 5: I was only sixteen. But eventually I got the help
Speaker 5: that I needed and that was a turning point for me.
Speaker 5: But it wasn't until I took that self defense class
Speaker 5: that I really felt like I could trust my mind
Speaker 5: and my body again and fight for myself if I
Speaker 5: needed to. And I said, you know, if you left
Speaker 5: your purse out and somebody stole your wallet, it's not
Speaker 5: because you left your purse out, it's because there was
Speaker 5: a thief in the room. So nothing that I did
Speaker 5: that day should have resulted in my rape, except that
Speaker 5: there was a rapist in the room.
Speaker 1: Jan thank you for sharing that. It was difficult to
Speaker 1: hear as a fellow survivor.
Speaker 3: To be honest, Dre, you've never brought this up before.
Speaker 1: I know, I don't really talk about it. I think
Speaker 1: that the one thing that I'm just kind of reckoning
Speaker 1: with is the fact that you can kind of define
Speaker 1: look at this behavior after the fact, But these perpetrators
Speaker 1: and these predators are so good that the red flags
Speaker 1: are usually not even there. Like in my case, I
Speaker 1: wasn't picking up these character traits in the moment you
Speaker 1: would never know this was your boyfriend, Shannon, this was
Speaker 1: your husband that you knew from college.
Speaker 3: Jen, Shannon, I think one of the words that can
Speaker 3: describe my ex husband's behavior is predatory.
Speaker 5: What are some of.
Speaker 3: The tactics that these predators use?
Speaker 5: Sencer was using what we call the top five predatory tactics.
Speaker 5: The first one is what we call the smile that hides.
Speaker 5: Body can come into your world unless you invite them in.
Speaker 5: And these predators know that. And from the time we're little,
Speaker 5: when somebody smiles at us, it means what that they
Speaker 5: like you, they're approachable, Yeah, And so in that way
Speaker 5: they start to build the trust with you, and it
Speaker 5: seems like a welcoming environment, and so they use that.
Speaker 5: And there's something that we hall charm that they use,
Speaker 5: and charm is not something that we're born with. It
Speaker 5: is a mechanism we use in order to get what
Speaker 5: we want. And so when we look at what Spence did,
Speaker 5: there was a point in there when Jen, your friend said,
Speaker 5: I wanted to come to you, but he was just
Speaker 5: so charming, And I think that's a clear indicator right
Speaker 5: there of just how charming he was. And part of
Speaker 5: the reason he was such a beloved and decorated teacher
Speaker 5: was because he was charming to not only her, but
Speaker 5: to students and faculty and staff, so that he could
Speaker 5: be perceived as trustworthy and somebody that you would want
Speaker 5: to be around, and embedding himself in the community.
Speaker 4: That's something we see over and over again.
Speaker 5: So the second thing that happens is something called forced teaming.
Speaker 5: So it's a way to build a camaraderie and to
Speaker 5: kind of gain some trust, and in order to do
Speaker 5: the things that he wanted to do, he had to
Speaker 5: gain trust. We listened to your former friend talk about
Speaker 5: how he would talk to her about soccer.
Speaker 2: It happened so slowly, finding things that were similarities between us,
Speaker 2: like I played soccer, you know, he played soccer.
Speaker 6: I coached, he coached.
Speaker 2: So early conversations would be, you know, when we run
Speaker 2: into each other, like oh, how's the game, or how's coaching,
Speaker 2: or hey, coach. You know, certain things that were not
Speaker 2: necessarily flirtingacious, but getting to know me and my family
Speaker 2: and you know, making me feel comfortable with him.
Speaker 5: Over time, they turn what would be a normal conversation
Speaker 5: of I like to do this to a we like
Speaker 5: to do this because you want to form that bond
Speaker 5: between the two of you to further build trust. It
Speaker 5: killed me in his letter when he said, dear villagers,
Speaker 5: that's a we. We're all in this together. This is
Speaker 5: our village. Then he said thanks for being such good
Speaker 5: friends to Jin, and that was another way for him
Speaker 5: to create the wei where none existed.
Speaker 3: I never thought about it like that.
Speaker 5: Then we go into number three, which is too many details.
Speaker 5: So perpetrators often give too many details when they're covering
Speaker 5: their tracks, and the reason they do that is because
Speaker 5: they know that what they're saying is a lie, but
Speaker 5: they have to convince you that what they're saying is
Speaker 5: not a lie. So they go on and on giving
Speaker 5: you so many details to where it sounds convincing, and
Speaker 5: unless they see on your face that you believe them,
Speaker 5: they'll keep going on and on and on. When we
Speaker 5: go into the fourth one, we've got typecasting and judgment
Speaker 5: that pops up. I remember in one specific instance when
Speaker 5: the student was talking about meeting with Spencer and she said,
Speaker 5: at some point in that conversation, I quote, you are
Speaker 5: a woman, are you not.
Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, Spencer made a hard play for at
Speaker 1: least one other student at hel high school, and yes
Speaker 1: she was a teenager. Here are some of the messages
Speaker 1: he sent to that student.
Speaker 5: What about hanging after school one day, We'd get away
Speaker 5: from this place.
Speaker 1: And when he didn't get the result he wanted, he
Speaker 1: tried a different tactic her adulthood. You are a woman,
Speaker 1: are you not?
Speaker 5: That is a judgment, That is him saying, are you
Speaker 5: not going to act like a woman? And it type
Speaker 5: cast her into a role that she didn't sign up for.
Speaker 1: You mentioned earlier the need to please, trying to be friendly,
Speaker 1: be a good friend. Do you feel like the need
Speaker 1: to please comes from a place of fear, fear of
Speaker 1: losing your boyfriend, the fear of losing a friend.
Speaker 4: One of the things we teach in classes is really
Speaker 4: flipping that script. We talk about the fact that we
Speaker 4: have all walked into a room or a relationship and thought, oh,
Speaker 4: I hope they like me, but instead thinking I hope
Speaker 4: I like them, I hope they live up to my standard.
Speaker 4: I hope that this is somebody that I want to
Speaker 4: show off to the whole world. And if I don't,
Speaker 4: something is wrong. It's not something wrong with me, something
Speaker 4: is wrong with them. And looking at it that way
Speaker 4: and giving ourselves permission to hurt their feelings. You're allowed
Speaker 4: to say no, and they will survive it, even if
Speaker 4: they're unhappy about it. No is a full sentence. It
Speaker 4: doesn't have to be explained. It doesn't have to be
Speaker 4: excused like it is no period and teaching women and girls.
Speaker 4: You can do that and that's okay and still be
Speaker 4: a good person and happy with yourself because if you
Speaker 4: need to say no, they're not living up to your standard,
Speaker 4: and you can walk out with no explanation.
Speaker 1: Was there anything else that you heard in gen story
Speaker 1: that stayed with you?
Speaker 4: I think about the woman in the band because I
Speaker 4: remember she said I wasn't as good as everybody else,
Speaker 4: and I didn't know why I was there that hook
Speaker 4: of where there was a certain amount of really low
Speaker 4: self esteem and not trusting herself to be enough, which
Speaker 4: is not her fault, and he took advantage of that.
Speaker 6: I wasn't nearly as talented as any of the rest
Speaker 6: of them in the group. I don't really know how
Speaker 6: I got approve, but I felt like he made it
Speaker 6: a point to push for me to be in the band.
Speaker 6: Here I'm having this awesome opportunity, and I knew like
Speaker 6: God shouldn't be going, So I guess I felt like
Speaker 6: I owed him something.
Speaker 1: I have so much gratitude for Hope for being that
Speaker 1: radically honest about her self worth and self esteem, because
Speaker 1: that really showed the dynamics at play.
Speaker 5: Throughout the history of the podcast. It was so incredible
Speaker 5: to watch the different dynamics play out and the different
Speaker 5: people and jen it's so eye opening to people like
Speaker 5: us who've been doing this for a long time to
Speaker 5: hear the different patterns and to see the way that
Speaker 5: he moved through all of these people and the way
Speaker 5: he selected his victims. But it was also interesting to
Speaker 5: see that he chose you, and I think, you know,
Speaker 5: there was a Hartspense that really did look up to
Speaker 5: you and really thought you were this incredible woman who
Speaker 5: had all these gifts and all these talents, and you
Speaker 5: were confident and in a way when you look at
Speaker 5: it strategically, I guess we'll say it also was another
Speaker 5: plaque on the wall. I'm married, I have this great wife,
Speaker 5: she's smart. I'm not the guy that's doing these.
Speaker 7: Things, Jennifer. Ever since I saw you walk into that
Speaker 7: hotel lobby last year, I've known what I'm supposed to
Speaker 7: do with the rest of my life. I feel beyond
Speaker 7: honored to know you, to love you, and to accept
Speaker 7: the most privilege of all things being your husband.
Speaker 5: It was the Hollywood movie said that he was portraying
Speaker 5: with all of his accolades and his wife, that is
Speaker 5: this amazing human.
Speaker 4: The other thing that stood out to me was your
Speaker 4: kindness in hearing the truth and being honest about all
Speaker 4: the hard parts, but offering a soft place to land
Speaker 4: for these women who, while you have been through so much,
Speaker 4: you know they've been through. Something also that stood out
Speaker 4: to me over and over and over again, because part
Speaker 4: of the conversation that we have, particularly with families or schools,
Speaker 4: is understanding what grace looks like and how to wrap
Speaker 4: your arms around somebody in an almost impossible situation. I
Speaker 4: think it sets an example and opens up a safe space,
Speaker 4: like you said, for more people to come forward and
Speaker 4: to talk about it and to feel free doing that.
Speaker 1: What were some of the questions that a lot of
Speaker 1: survivors are bringing to the table when they're looking for help.
Speaker 4: More so than their general questions, is that they felt alone.
Speaker 4: And it wasn't until somebody stood up in front of
Speaker 4: a group of people and acknowledged that these things do happen,
Speaker 4: that we are not alone, and the more we talk
Speaker 4: about it, the stronger we get together, and that we
Speaker 4: can look at what's going on and recognize in every
Speaker 4: incident of violence or assault or abuse, there's really only
Speaker 4: one person to blame, and so how can we take
Speaker 4: freedom from that and then move forward looking at the
Speaker 4: world with a slightly different lens. Watching so many women
Speaker 4: recognize that there is a sisterhood in that room and yeah,
Speaker 4: that they're not alone. You genuinely can see people get
Speaker 4: taller and start to recognize that they did everything they
Speaker 4: could with what they had and collectively will build from here.
Speaker 5: When we look at natural disasters and different things that
Speaker 5: happen in the world, let's say a hurricane, there's this
Speaker 5: collective community response where everybody shows up and says, we're
Speaker 5: all here to support you and help. The problem with
Speaker 5: sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, any kind of interpersonal violence
Speaker 5: is behind closed. It's private, and so you do feel alone.
Speaker 5: But once you collectively come together as a group, and
Speaker 5: podcasts like yours are so helpful because you're saying no, no,
Speaker 5: you're not alone.
Speaker 1: You're not alone. Never forget that. You guys are doing
Speaker 1: incredible work. For more information on sasa's educational and self
Speaker 1: defense programs, go to sasco dot org. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us today, Yes, thank you, and thanks to you
Speaker 1: guys our Betrayal community, and get ready, we'll be back
Speaker 1: with season two of Betrayals starting May eighteenth. It's about
Speaker 1: a new betrayal that rarely ever is spoken about, but
Speaker 1: will confront it head on. Here's a sneak peek.
Speaker 8: My husband and I were opening a business. His first
Speaker 8: job was that very next day, one of the clients
Speaker 8: had asked if they could bend moo. Him called me
Speaker 8: that morning September twenty ninth, twenty twenty one. He was like,
Speaker 8: I need you to set up my business Venmo, and
Speaker 8: I was like, all right, use your name and password
Speaker 8: for whatever email is connected to your venmo. So he
Speaker 8: sent me the log in for his eCloud and as
Speaker 8: I'm signing in, he frantically calls me back. He was like, Oh,
Speaker 8: don't worry about it, we'll do it together when we
Speaker 8: get home. Like, I'm sorry, it's gonna be too much, Like,
Speaker 8: don't do it. I knew by the tenor of his
Speaker 8: voice that he was trying to hide something. I thought
Speaker 8: maybe he bought something that he didn't want me to
Speaker 8: know about. There was nothing in his photos, and then
Speaker 8: I scrolled down and that's when I saw a hidden
Speaker 8: folder and I opened it. You know, when you open
Speaker 8: your photos, it's going to show you like a whole
Speaker 8: bunch of them at once. I slammed my computer shut.
Speaker 8: What the hell did I just see