Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel

Episode 15: Coercive Control, Entrapment & Isolation: An interview with Luke & Ryan Hart

April 25, 2020 Ruth Stearns Mandel & David Mandel Season 1 Episode 15
Partnered with a Survivor: David Mandel and Ruth Reymundo Mandel
Episode 15: Coercive Control, Entrapment & Isolation: An interview with Luke & Ryan Hart
Show Notes Transcript

Before he murdered their mother Claire and their sister Charlotte, Luke and Ryan Hart's father spent years justifying his control by telling them the world is a dangerous place. All the while, he was the one who was dangerous to their lives and liberty. During this time of pandemic, Luke and Ryan are worried that other abusive partners and parents are using the pandemic to justify their coercive control. In this podcast, Ruth and David conduct a transatlantic interview with the two brothers who have been on a journey to raise awareness about coercive control and how dangerous it is. Authors of the book "Remembered Forever," the Hart brothers tell their family's story with an emphasis on how their father entrapped and isolated their family.  As always, they highlight that coercive control is best identified, not through acts of violence, but through the loss of choice.  David & Ruth explore with them about specific parallels between their story and the current context of the pandemic. The Hart brothers share some of the ways they resisted their father's control and maintained their sanity through small rituals of connection.  You can learn more about them on their website, or follow them on Twitter @CoCoAwareness.

Check out our Guide for friends and family on how to be an Ally to a Loved One Living in Abuse: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/5507857/Ally%20Guide/A4_AllyDoc_web.pdf

Now available! Mapping the Perpetrator’s Pattern: A Practitioner’s Tool for Improving Assessment, Intervention, and Outcomes The web-based Perpetrator Pattern Mapping Tool is a virtual practice tool for improving assessment, intervention, and outcomes through a perpetrator pattern-based approach. The tool allows practitioners to apply the Model’s critical concepts and principles to their current case load in real

Check out David Mandel's new book "Stop Blaming Mothers and Ignoring Fathers: How to transform the way we keep children safe from domestic violence."

Speaker 1: [00:00:01] All right, we're back, we're back. So this is partnered with the survivor, I think we may be at episode number 15.  [00:00:09][7.4]

Speaker 2: [00:00:09] Maybe we should be last track boxing ourselves in like that. I am David Mandel, executive director of the Safe and Together Institute, and I  [00:00:18][9.2]

Speaker 1: [00:00:19] am Stern's Mandel. I am the communications and learning manager,  [00:00:23][4.1]

Speaker 2: [00:00:24] and we are on how about four weeks of lockdown here on the East Coast, United States. And so we've been extremely busy with lots of things going on in terms of work and materials  [00:00:38][14.4]

Speaker 3: [00:00:39] and and reaching out  [00:00:40][1.4]

Speaker 2: [00:00:41] to folks. And so we're very excited today to  [00:00:44][3.7]

Speaker 3: [00:00:44] have  [00:00:44][0.0]

Speaker 2: [00:00:47] Luke and Ryan Hart on on Zoom with  [00:00:51][3.8]

Speaker 3: [00:00:51] us from  [00:00:52][0.9]

Speaker 2: [00:00:52] over in the UK and they're joining us for an interview. And Luke and Ryan both have spoken at our safe and together model conferences in in the UK, in North America and Australia, now ActionScript covering all the bases. Yeah, so, so welcome Luke Bryan. OK, thanks, thanks having us. And we're really pleased you have to tell our audience that we were, you know, expecting one of you. And we're really happy to have both of you,  [00:01:20][28.4]

Speaker 1: [00:01:21] right, because Luke was going to be doing the doggy daddy ing,  [00:01:24][3.0]

Speaker 3: [00:01:25] but they found it.  [00:01:26][0.9]

Speaker 1: [00:01:26] That's right. They found a dog with the dog.  [00:01:29][3.1]

Speaker 4: [00:01:30] Yeah, we certainly did. So you've got both stay, which is good. That's wonderful.  [00:01:33][3.1]

Speaker 2: [00:01:34] And first, I just want to acknowledge just. You know, both of you for the work that you've done in general and then also the you coming to our events and speaking about your story and about your mom and your sister story and just it's had such a huge impact on on me personally, to be honest. I know to lots of other people and we're really hoping on this episode to kind of give you another platform to talk about, about what you've experienced, what your mom and your sister experienced with a particular focus on isolation entrapment. Because I think there are lessons out of those experiences that can help people right now in this current context.  [00:02:27][53.4]

Speaker 1: [00:02:29] Yeah. And and I just have to say that, you know, I remember the first moment I read the article, I believe it was in the Guardian or I can't remember if it was on the BBC and that had been, you know, Ryan had been interviewed and I was I was just amazed how spot on you guys were as as a survivor. And I I think I woke you up. It was one of those moments where I woke David up at like six o'clock in the morning and I was like, We have to find these guys. We've got to get them to come and talk for us and. And I think that the insight that you bring because of how  [00:03:12][43.1]

Speaker 3: [00:03:13] reflective you are about  [00:03:14][1.4]

Speaker 1: [00:03:15] your experience and how you want to constantly translate that into concrete understanding of how we need to respond better as a society to coercive control and to domestic and gender based violence is just really inspiring. And I'm I'm just really grateful for you guys. So I just wanted to say that I was wondering if if actually if one of you could start off by beginning to start to tell the beginning of your story so people can understand the context of the story?  [00:03:51][36.1]

Speaker 5: [00:03:52] Yeah, I still say, I guess. Yeah, so we grew up. With what we thought was a normal household, I saw there was very controlling was very. Well, we thought we had a short temper. We thought, you know, we were, you know, aggravating and we just couldn't meet the rules he had demanded and we really struggled.  [00:04:14][21.3]

Speaker 3: [00:04:16] I think for early  [00:04:16][0.5]

Speaker 5: [00:04:16] childhood most of our teenage years trying to understand like why life was so difficult and then the league's oldest one year older than myself.  [00:04:25][8.3]

Speaker 3: [00:04:25] Ryan and our sister Charlotte  [00:04:27][1.7]

Speaker 5: [00:04:27] was about six years older than me, and we kind of went through life thinking, You know, this is hard, but I just kind of heads down to school and it's work hard. And we didn't like a father who was making things really difficult for us. Like, most days, were quite miserable, to be honest at home with him, and we thought we can try and one day escape from him  [00:04:47][20.3]

Speaker 3: [00:04:48] and create our own lives.  [00:04:49][0.8]

Speaker 5: [00:04:50] So he worked really hard and I went off to university and got jobs. We saved up enough money and we secretly rented a small place from my sister and my US two to move into to escape from our father. And we did that not because we thought that, you know, he was dangerous, but we just knew that. If he knew what we were going to do, he would have found another way to coerce or to intimidate or threaten our mum to stay with him. And she was he was also making up lots of new threats. He was buying things like Ebola safe to local government documents and not because he knew we were going to leave him, but because he knew we had the money to leave him if you were inclined to want it to. So he was escalating his demands, escalating his control and all the mechanisms he had to make escape as difficult as he could. But we fortunately managed to keep our intention secret and could get one step ahead of him. And we did manage to flee one day in the summer of 2016, and we did honestly think that we were safe at that point. You know, we thought we could be who we wanted to be without any fear and we can live our lives. Luke and I went back to work and only five days after the escape that we found, whilst according to the news on our phone and as a shooting in our hometown and it later turned out that it was our mum and dad were killed by our father. And then, I guess, weeks and months that followed, we you know about back in our hometown of Spalding in England, and we started to really unravel what we'd been through and start to really begin to learn about domestic abuse and coercive control and start understanding what we thought was previously our failings and meeting  [00:06:44][114.9]

Speaker 3: [00:06:45] the demands of life was  [00:06:47][1.7]

Speaker 5: [00:06:47] actually an intentional, toxic environment created by our father to add traps to  [00:06:53][5.9]

Speaker 3: [00:06:54] to, you know, push us  [00:06:55][1.3]

Speaker 5: [00:06:55] down so that he could remain on top castle in the house and to kind of keep us out. And he said.  [00:07:03][7.1]

Speaker 1: [00:07:05] Yeah, it's interesting because a lot of Americans at least are not familiar with coercive control. We really look at domestic violence through the lens of violence because we don't have any laws about coercive control in the United States. And a lot of the more subtle behaviors of coercive control are not well understood, even in other countries that we work in that do have an awareness of coercive control or may have regional laws against them. So I would be really helpful. I think if you could kind of go through some of the hallmark behaviors of coercive control, what that looks like, what that means, what that feels like to the people who are living in it.  [00:07:54][49.3]

Speaker 4: [00:07:55] Yeah, sure. So, yeah, so growing up, we'd never considered real victims to recipes because our father wasn't violent to us. Hey, hey, he might have been to a mother, but we never saw any bruises and we weren't aware of it. But our father had, I suppose he was. He was smart enough to make it often difficult for us to know what was going on. So just one example our father moved our entire family to a rundown farmhouse in the middle of nowhere when I was three years old. So Rahm is two at that point, so it wasn't even born that we were moved to the countryside where we grew our own food. Our parents didn't work a single day in a decade, so our family was entirely unemployed for about just over 10 years. And growing up, we basically just lived off the land. We had a good time and we kind of learned to enjoy the freedom of being around the animals.  [00:08:49][53.4]

Speaker 3: [00:08:50] And we thought that  [00:08:51][0.9]

Speaker 4: [00:08:51] basically, you know, our lives were there were great. We wouldn't be. So Jungle Book kids live and living our best life. It was idyllic. Many people looking in for the same. But actually,  [00:09:01][10.2]

Speaker 3: [00:09:03] that maybe it wasn't  [00:09:03][0.6]

Speaker 4: [00:09:04] everything that we thought it was. So our father always said that basically we moved to the countryside to keep me safe because I'd had an anaphylactic shock for me, and that's when I was when I was three. Just before that, when I was three years old, my father said we moved to the countryside, so we got our own food and that would keep me safe because there may be no contamination of nuts, right? But actually, it was only after the murders that we found out that the reason we had moved to the countryside was not in our interest. It certainly wasn't in my interest because what happened was our father.  [00:09:36][32.3]

Speaker 3: [00:09:37] Darcy demanded that our mum  [00:09:38][1.6]

Speaker 4: [00:09:40] leave her friends and her family in the town they were living in at the time and start their relationship. A mum said no, she wanted to be around her friends in a family where she had work. And then our father literally calmly picked up a peanut and fed to me in front of mom and sister, and I started having an honest, like, shocking moment. A sister rushed to hospital. My life was saved and everything was kind of obvious. Okay, from that point on,  [00:10:06][26.0]

Speaker 3: [00:10:06] but they can prove  [00:10:07][0.8]

Speaker 4: [00:10:08] to what just happened. Everyone is a little unaccustomed to everyone else, and I think that point set a fair at mum, like if she ever disobeyed him. It was very clear that our father  [00:10:20][12.5]

Speaker 3: [00:10:21] could do pretty extreme  [00:10:22][1.0]

Speaker 4: [00:10:22] things, but that was almost invisible to everyone. And we we genuinely thought we moved to the countryside because it was to keep me safe. It was a great upbringing and it was the start of it, but it wasn't. It was entirely controlled by a father, and our father actually managed to dictate many of our decisions to us and then tell us narratives. And we ended up believing them often, and he made us feel guilty for all sorts of things.  [00:10:47][25.0]

Speaker 3: [00:10:48] So we often used money to entrap us.  [00:10:50][2.5]

Speaker 4: [00:10:52] We always thought we were poor, but actually our father was often disposing of money because he found, I think that if we had no money, we simply  [00:11:01][9.3]

Speaker 3: [00:11:01] couldn't leave and if we had no money, so many  [00:11:04][2.7]

Speaker 4: [00:11:04] options weren't available to us. We were literally isolated at home because we couldn't afford the fuel to go anywhere else.  [00:11:09][5.3]

Speaker 3: [00:11:10] And he would  [00:11:11][0.7]

Speaker 4: [00:11:11] always say we couldn't do it would often make us think we'd made the decision ourselves. So if mom wanted to see  [00:11:17][5.8]

Speaker 3: [00:11:17] friends for coffee, our father would simply just say to them,  [00:11:20][2.7]

Speaker 4: [00:11:21] say to our mom so we can go and see your friends. But it's fuel or food. I've got enough money for both, and you can go and see your friends for coffee, but the kids won't be out of dinner tomorrow. And then mum would clearly being a good mum would just think of the kids and make that sacrifice in that moment and not see her friends and their mum would think she had made the decision not to have friends. And then our father would make similar dilemmas for us kids, and we choose not to go the off school clubs or whatever. And over time, we just made these sacrifices, but they were entirely dictated by our father. He created the circumstances often the poverty, the fire, whatever he needed to, so that we made the decision he always wanted. But when you're living every day, you don't notice you're making those decisions because that they're not yours because they're the only one they've given you. You kind of feel you are making decisions. And I guess over many, many decades, our father had effectively made us believe that we were just making bad decisions and our lives were bad because we had made bad decisions. But he was clever enough to effectively control, I suppose, control us like puppets, and we never really understood what was going on and the coercive control. It is what I mean is it's not just psychological abuse, it's deep, it gets right into your perception. And actually, it's not just making you feel bad, it's making you see the world incorrectly at a really fundamental level. And the fact that we could live with a murderer for so long and not ever recognized the true danger we're in shows just how much he'd messed up with our perception. And I think cost control is it's it's I think most people don't understand, frankly, just how sophisticated it can be and just how damaging can be. For us, it was only after the murders that we saw coercive control on a post in a police station, and that was when the unraveling happened, when we were just like, What is this? And we saw things in isolation. We saw things like control, like financial  [00:13:22][121.9]

Speaker 3: [00:13:23] control, et cetera, et  [00:13:24][1.4]

Speaker 4: [00:13:24] cetera. And that's me. And Ryan was opposed to the police station was what really unraveled our understanding of our lives. Our lives are very confusing for our entire lives, up to the point where we saw our poster and then everything started to make sense.  [00:13:38][13.3]

Speaker 2: [00:13:39] Right. I'm, you know, listening. You know, I've listened to both of you talk about about your story and you, your mom and Charlie and just the experiences you look through. And I was I remember the first time I heard the part about the peanut and the. Consciously giving you. Putting you in danger and communication of that message to your mom around, this is what I'm willing to do. If you don't go along with what I want you to go along with in the coercive power of that is is really was was a kick in the stomach for me, you know, just I could feel it. The calculated nature of it and and I think one of the things that's important is when people differentiate between this idea of people having temper issues and violence. And you know that that what people often misses is this kind of cold use, the tools at hand, the levers at hand. And I'm wondering if for you, if you, you know, either one of you or both of you as you're watching the current context unfold, you know what parallels you draw between the, you know, COVID 19 being a great excuse or justification for control. And the different things that you both experienced, because I to me, it feels like it's right there, but I'm not sure if that's the way you're looking at what's unfolding around the globe.  [00:15:16][97.4]

Speaker 5: [00:15:18] Yeah, so one thing that a father always used to do was to make  [00:15:23][4.5]

Speaker 3: [00:15:23] it he would tell  [00:15:24][0.9]

Speaker 5: [00:15:25] us that the outside world is a dangerous place and COVID 19, you know, that would have fitted his. Objectives perfectly, because it gives him another excuse, and he always tried to find excuses to back up what he was doing. And in the current circumstances, you know, he would have used our safety as his reasoning for stopping us doing stuff. But yeah, he always made the outside world sounds dangerous. He made us fear the police. He would make up things about the police say, in a drunken business that will corrupt, you know, the police in a bad people. He hid it always talked down about our relatives, about anyone who tried to really step in and help our family. He'd always make up things about what he did and who they were. And really, most of our lives, we did, I think fear of the people and the outside world because we grew up to believe that they were. You know, they were the ones we should be afraid of and be cautious of. And I guess now know that the most dangerous place for women and children is actually at home. And that was true for our eyes, too. So you had the current situation with this forced isolation as well. I don't know how I would have coped if if this had happened, you know, six years ago, when we are all living with our father at home as our environment, which I couldn't, couldn't handle, that was really getting to me. It wasn't really what our father was doing to us anymore. The abuse and the question of control was so ingrained that even if he just breathed deeply or shut a door slightly harder for all of us, we knew what he  [00:17:15][110.4]

Speaker 3: [00:17:15] meant and how he's feeling  [00:17:16][1.1]

Speaker 5: [00:17:17] and what was coming next. And I think that's what's difficult often is when someone's been in a situation and of course, the control and domestic abuse for so long,  [00:17:25][8.4]

Speaker 3: [00:17:26] it appears to an outsider that  [00:17:28][1.9]

Speaker 5: [00:17:28] the abuse  [00:17:29][0.1]

Speaker 3: [00:17:30] is diminishing  [00:17:30][0.2]

Speaker 5: [00:17:31] because the abuser doesn't have to do so much to instill that fear, to remind you of what you know they would do if you crossed the line again. But to their victim, that fear is always present. And in our case,  [00:17:42][11.0]

Speaker 3: [00:17:42] I thought it could literally  [00:17:43][1.0]

Speaker 5: [00:17:44] just breathe more deeply and we would all be terrified. And that's what makes us so powerful and so dangerous is it becomes harder and harder to spot from an outside perspective. And the longer you're in it, and I do really feel for anyone who's stuck at home with an abuser right  [00:18:02][17.9]

Speaker 3: [00:18:02] now, it must be  [00:18:03][0.5]

Speaker 5: [00:18:04] really, really difficult. And to have the courage to kind of keep going through. Yeah, I mean, I take my hat off to them. I know that my mom was really brave and she did everything she could  [00:18:16][11.6]

Speaker 3: [00:18:17] to keep her and Charlotte  [00:18:17][0.6]

Speaker 5: [00:18:18] spirits high. And I just wish everyone else use in that similar situation  [00:18:22][4.5]

Speaker 3: [00:18:23] to do their  [00:18:24][1.0]

Speaker 5: [00:18:24] best to keep the spirits high and how people maybe remotely that can help them.  [00:18:28][3.9]

Speaker 3: [00:18:29] Yeah.  [00:18:29][0.0]

Speaker 5: [00:18:29] So yeah, it's a difficult time right now.  [00:18:32][2.3]

Speaker 1: [00:18:32] I think I think, you know, for me because our stories are have similar tracks, but they're very different. You know, having grown up in intentional isolation far away from any mandatory reporters, home schooled grew our own food as well as much as we could because there was fifty five people, so we had to augment it. You know, we were definitely taught that the outside world was bad and dangerous and that other people who didn't live or believed the way that we did were a threat and a danger, and it's true. You know these. Sometimes abusers use violence or subtle violence, which is just a form of control, which says, I have the ability to set the directionality of your life. I have entitlement to do that to to to behave that way, and that's my place in the world and your place is to simply comply. And it's really sort of insidious and silence dynamic is set up by the abuser. Well, everything that happens in the home is set at their direction. It needs it needs to meet their their whim or their mood or assuage their fears or fill, you know, their their need for something. And everybody has to jump to respond.  [00:20:08][95.6]

Speaker 3: [00:20:10] And the true  [00:20:11][1.3]

Speaker 1: [00:20:11] measure of of really the danger that people are in is what somebody will do when you don't respond the way that that that person wants you to. And obviously, you know your story, Ryan, you know, it strikes me as your mum was resisting. She was resisting the control. And so he had to do something very definitive and very dramatic to reestablish that control. And that one action reverberated through the rest of the family and the rest of your life. Because she was such a protective mother, she wanted to take care of you and she didn't want you to be in danger. And so any decision she made towards, you know, in the future where she had to comply to keep the peace in the house was really a protective action. And and we often lose sight of that. We lose sight of that and we can really victim blame the people that are in that situation. But coercive control is is so powerful and so amazing in how everything gets funneled towards the abuser. They couldn't. In reality, they control reactions that other people have. They control the movement of the family. And so even if the person is saying, you know, during a pandemic, you can't do this, you can't do that. If if there's one person in the house that is controlling the directionality of everybody and everybody must comply with their demands and whims or fearful of what will happen, then you're living an abuse that's that's that is coercive control. And I really want to say that really clearly for people who may be at home, you know, we just had a really unfortunate case in the United States, where a 16 year old snuck out of the house in Atlanta. And when he came back, his stepfather shot him and he shot him because he said that he had told him not to leave because it was dangerous. And the media were actually it was the I believe it was one of the police chiefs who was responding to the situation said, Well, we all get concerned and we lose it a little bit. And I was just so disappointed in that thinking, thinking, you know, and I wasn't I wanted to sort of break down the thought that stress causes people to behave this way. So do you want to you want to talk a little bit about that because I know you have you have some insight into that as well.  [00:23:01][169.3]

Speaker 4: [00:23:02] Yeah, well, I think that example is a very good a very similar to our father in a way, it's like what was always most important to him was being right. He didn't care about what was happening. He had to be right. And now, stepfather, you can tell from his mentality. It wasn't about the child being safe or in danger. It was about him being right, having power. And that's why I shot him and our father would like if he we we often learned not to stand up to him. We learned the easiest way just to minimize distress was just to comply as best as you possibly could. Sacrifice everything to give up entire parts of your life just to create no conflict. But if we did have a stand up to him, even like just challenging him or even correcting him,  [00:23:50][47.9]

Speaker 3: [00:23:51] that would  [00:23:52][0.2]

Speaker 4: [00:23:52] unleash like just he would just ruin our lives intently, it could be four days. And he would he would do all sorts of things often if if he'd said something that was wrong. And we mentioned that he would then claim that we'd said something he would say, like we had said the thing he had or something and the whole thing would just lose light touch to reality entirely. He didn't care about us at all.  [00:24:17][25.1]

Speaker 3: [00:24:18] He would often pretend he did. But the narrative  [00:24:19][1.7]

Speaker 4: [00:24:20] was all about power, and it was all about control. And we learned that we just had to play to that constantly, because if we didn't,  [00:24:27][7.5]

Speaker 3: [00:24:28] he would just make everything  [00:24:30][1.2]

Speaker 4: [00:24:30] so, so difficult. And often it's always like, it's always a bit easier to take yourself, but it's much harder to see what you feel guilty for sort of triggering your father being taken out on everyone else. We always knew, I suppose, that did we? We I think we living in it. We sort of did attribute some of it to emotion, but we just thought he was emotionally incompetent. Like a child. We often felt like he was. It felt like he was a child of family and we had to be parents as children because he was so, so selfish and immature and lacked any perception of other people. It was like we were just objects in the world that it was almost like no one else existed to him. But what fundamentally characterizes  [00:25:20][49.6]

Speaker 3: [00:25:21] behavior  [00:25:21][0.0]

Speaker 4: [00:25:22] was just this this inability to ever be wrong. And that wasn't based on emotion at all. It was based in arrogance and insecurity in the sense of, I guess, supremacy at the same time. It was just this idea that he was unchallengeable in our own family. He was basically just an autocrat, and it was like living in some, you know, let's use like living in some totalitarian country somewhere way. But it was it was  [00:25:49][27.5]

Speaker 3: [00:25:49] the coat of our home.  [00:25:51][1.1]

Speaker 4: [00:25:52] And he just ran however he wanted to, and we just had to do what he said because he controlled all the money he controlled.  [00:25:58][6.7]

Speaker 3: [00:25:59] Literally, the air  [00:26:01][1.3]

Speaker 4: [00:26:01] in our home environment, everything we did. So we learned that he was our lifeline because he'd stolen everything we needed and we just had to basically sucker up and and hope for the best. And a lot of that wasn't due to emotion because he made our lives difficult, whether he's angry or not. If he was happy, he made our lives difficult. If he came home happy, which was rare. But if he came home happy, you would force us all to smile, even though he felt sick to our core. He would say that if we weren't happy and laughing, then we were ruining how he felt. So even though we were miserable, we had to laugh too. Otherwise, he would take out this righteous rage upon us all, say even to the level of whatever emotion he was with, we would have to mimic it, and it was just like we were just there to mirror him to be an extension of his will and nothing more. And it goes so much deeper than just emotions because anyone  [00:26:55][53.7]

Speaker 3: [00:26:55] who lives this way there will tell you that it  [00:26:59][3.5]

Speaker 4: [00:26:59] persists through every emotional state. And I think that's the thing that people who love can just don't pick up on. But when you're living in it every day, it never goes away. And that's the thing. I think that like Rama saying, like we could tell on how we breathe. And he knew he was communicating it. And whatever is over that emotion was he was always sending these messages and we were so receptive to them and it just meant we were so anxious all the time.  [00:27:24][25.6]

Speaker 1: [00:27:26] No, I totally. I think when a lot of times when guys, when you guys talk, it's just it brings me right back to my childhood too. You know, the hallmarks are so very, very similar. They they are almost so predictable that it's it's it's not. It's I don't know. It's it's crazy.  [00:27:48][21.8]

Speaker 2: [00:27:48] Yeah, you know. You know it thousands of miles apart, your experiences and you know, different countries. And there's so many similarities. I'm just wondering, you know, as I'm listening to you talk, you know, I'm thinking about. All the the families that are being forced to spend so much more time together, kids home from school, you know, if school was arrested, you know? You know, then it's not available in the same way now. If somebody went off to work, there might been relief. And I'm just wondering if you could talk a little about the strategies you know, within that environment, were you? He had so much control. I'm imagining that there were small strategies of resistance or strategies to maintain your sanity. I know one of the clerks about her story going outside was was part of was was part of resistance and staying sane. And we're hearing stories now where people are saying that the locks moms are taking their kids is the only time they're getting away from somebody who's abusive. So can you guys share a little bit about the strategies you and your your sister, your mom employed around resistance and sort of sanity in that space?  [00:29:02][73.2]

Speaker 5: [00:29:04] So I think growing up, the best thing that we did was with school. So now that would be  [00:29:12][8.3]

Speaker 3: [00:29:13] people being home, robbing  [00:29:14][1.3]

Speaker 5: [00:29:14] that school. But for school was one place we could really dedicate ourselves to make mom proud. I think that was one emotion that a father  [00:29:22][7.2]

Speaker 3: [00:29:22] can steal from us  [00:29:23][0.9]

Speaker 5: [00:29:24] to school was somewhere that we really thrived and enjoyed. I will say somewhere that we are free and away from him and in somewhere where the rules make sense. So that was really where we got most of our strength. But back at home, I think we have to just try and take. The little victories are not necessarily by challenging our father, but we found ways I think of feeling love for each other through our dogs. And so I think what we all did, which helped heal and give us strength was just to spend a lot of time  [00:30:00][35.8]

Speaker 3: [00:30:01] and a lot of give a lot of care  [00:30:02][1.1]

Speaker 5: [00:30:02] and a lot of love towards our dogs. And I think you're seeing them happy or happiness to tell like myself, I'm in Charlotte. And even though you know the days of miserable, if we could just still five minutes for the dogs, just play with them. I just know that we are still, you know, we still have control over some aspects of things. We can still create happiness. We can still try and dilute the the toxic, you know, environment that our fathers creating. If we just find those few minutes here and there with each other or with the dogs. I think that's what gave us strength. So much in China would occasionally run upstairs to Charlotte, and we just it a little bit. Did our father came storming around the house to find them, but those few minutes to them were precious. And I think while we  [00:30:52][50.0]

Speaker 3: [00:30:53] we were living in that situation  [00:30:54][1.2]

Speaker 5: [00:30:55] of abuse and coercive control, we we had to, I guess, put aside the bigger picture and try to get through each day and just really think of those small things. And then when we had the time when we had the space we can start planning for, you know what to do next. And for us, that was to get the house to renovating. But I, in the day to day survival came from just those few minutes that we could stand with each other.  [00:31:20][25.0]

Speaker 1: [00:31:22] Yeah, I mean, I I I get that completely. Luke, you know, for me, there was fifty five other people and there was like 30 other kids. And so that the other children could offered me a place to go and and process feelings. We would get together and talk about how unfair the world was. And sometimes sometimes, you know, the children also abused each other because that was the environment that they lived in. And definitely nature being outside. Learning how to avoid and sidestep the person who is the vector of pain and harm became almost like a skill set a game, and there were always people that were more of a target for that person than than I was. And so, you know, I thankfully was able to kind of recede into the background and receding into the background became a protective behavior for me. So I completely and totally get stealing those moments and having having that space just to feel good and not feel under attack or the potential for that attack to happen imminently.  [00:32:52][90.5]

Speaker 2: [00:32:54] I mean that the the the image is so clear to me carving out space where you you having interactions that are not being. Told. By your father, you know, and whatever way, whether that school or or with each other or with your dog and you know, that feels palpable to me and you're exercising this precious little bit of autonomy and person ness that lets you and your sense of yourself. I think that's hard to convey because to a lot of people who haven't experienced it, because those are images I think that people often associate and we did a show on torture tactics.  [00:33:34][40.2]

Speaker 3: [00:33:35] You know, I think that  [00:33:36][1.2]

Speaker 2: [00:33:36] we're prisoners of war. You think our concentration camp victims, you hear these stories about these little little routines or rituals that they  [00:33:45][8.2]

Speaker 3: [00:33:45] did that would let them  [00:33:47][2.1]

Speaker 2: [00:33:47] feel like a person, whether it's looking up at the sky at night or or interactions or that they had or and just hearing you, you, you talk about it. That's just what comes to mind for me is that that's what the similarities are there with those other other experiences that people often think of so far away and so dramatic and weather happening in homes right now. Yeah. Is what's so powerful.  [00:34:13][25.6]

Speaker 1: [00:34:14] Yeah. And it's a form of resistance and it's a form of creating sanity. Mm-Hmm. It's a it's a way to calm the nervous system because living with somebody who is unpredictable and reacts to everything is such a constant barrage on our nervous system. It is incredibly stressful to live that way for long periods of time and has really deep implications for us.  [00:34:40][26.4]

Speaker 2: [00:34:43] So I'm wondering if you know where you know this in this last portion of the podcast, if if either one of you has guidance  [00:34:52][9.2]

Speaker 3: [00:34:53] to, we have people who  [00:34:54][1.3]

Speaker 2: [00:34:55] are listening to us all over the world, and some of them we know are survivors and some of them are professionals. We're really speaking to both audiences. You know, if you've got guidance or thoughts or. You know, ideas, because people are asking us and saying, well, how do I help somebody in that situation? And this is where our friends and family ally guide that's coming on next week is going to be so important. But I'm wondering if from your  [00:35:20][25.9]

Speaker 3: [00:35:21] experience, there's things  [00:35:22][1.5]

Speaker 2: [00:35:23] that you can speak to that that if somebody is listening to in their home where they are feeling this kind of entrapment, better guidance or message and whatever you want to say.  [00:35:34][11.5]

Speaker 4: [00:35:36] Yes, I guess we always thought domestic abuse was, you know, it was solved by asking, what was it  [00:35:44][8.5]

Speaker 3: [00:35:44] done to, you know,  [00:35:45][1.1]

Speaker 4: [00:35:46] like? And then you ask someone that and they'll say, Punch me, broke my arm is done this and and you'll find really explicit, discrete, obvious things that have been done to a victim because control often isn't like that. It's the accumulation of a million million billion tiny pinpricks, right? And you're trying to point out a larger event, but you've just been stabs a tiny fraction, an incredible amount of times. And I think one of the things that we learn and I think is quite common for people in domestic abuse in general is you learn to make sacrifices to keep yourself safe. And those sacrifices are often the evidence  [00:36:25][39.1]

Speaker 3: [00:36:26] is not what has been  [00:36:27][1.3]

Speaker 4: [00:36:27] done to you, but it's what you feel you've had to do to keep yourself safe. And that evidences itself by what you can't do.  [00:36:34][7.0]

Speaker 3: [00:36:35] So over time, victims  [00:36:37][1.6]

Speaker 4: [00:36:37] won't have a life. They won't see their friends, their family, they won't do anything. They want to set themselves where in how dreams they won't go out and do what they want. They'll stay at home. And their first thought will always be, What does he want? I make sure he's got what he wants. My children will think now and say, well, the partner and what the question that we always needed to be asked is, what can't you do at home? And if people ask us that we would have told him so much stuff? And if so, on how they've said, that's the  [00:37:07][30.2]

Speaker 3: [00:37:08] evidence you're being  [00:37:09][1.2]

Speaker 4: [00:37:09] abused because you can't do these things. That would have been enough for us to validate that often we felt we have to show something he'd done. But actually, he was doing a million small things every moment. But he was clever not to do a large thing. And I think what's really scary about our circumstance? Our father wasn't violent and he was willing to kill. He was careful not to his because he knew that was the evidence we needed to believe  [00:37:39][30.4]

Speaker 3: [00:37:40] ourselves, but also for others  [00:37:41][1.3]

Speaker 4: [00:37:41] to believe us. But he was always willing to kill us from the very moment that he fed that peanut to me at the age of three to the moment he turned the gun on Charlotte for killing mom. He was willing to kill us for 30 years. But he was never willing to hate us. And he was clever enough to know that that would have given the game up. But I think to be a bit smarter and see the whole team because by perpetrators will often hide themselves the victims. That's where you look for the abuse you don't look for. You look for a victim because we can find victims very easily. And I think if I reflect back to myself, it was much easier to see all the sacrifices I was making when it was to see the abuse our father was perpetrating. And if people had ever asked me what I can do, that's the question I would have spoke four days on.  [00:38:28][46.4]

Speaker 3: [00:38:29] And I think  [00:38:29][0.3]

Speaker 4: [00:38:30] that's something that we often  [00:38:30][0.7]

Speaker 3: [00:38:31] don't do  [00:38:31][0.5]

Speaker 4: [00:38:32] and we don't see as significant. But I think when we understand the victims know how to keep themselves safe intuitively and they make all of these concessions, we can see them add up over time and particularly coercive control that that just a message and a masses in a massive internal case, there is no life left and the victims feel they have to leave because there's nothing there. And we got to that stage without anyone noticing because I suppose we'd never been asked that question and we felt that even though we have no life, it wasn't abuse because we haven't been here. But now we look back and we realize how wrong we were, and we just talk about our lives much. We can't just what other people can realize, and that is valid  [00:39:14][42.8]

Speaker 3: [00:39:15] and that is  [00:39:16][1.0]

Speaker 4: [00:39:17] abuse, and it's also indicative of serious risk. So if you had to give up a huge part of your life, you are a victim and you could be in serious risk. And I just think that's something we need to recognize a bit more explicitly and just help people understand.  [00:39:31][14.0]

Speaker 1: [00:39:32] Yeah. And I think to speaking to the the risk factors, once you're in a place where you realize that you are living in abuse and friends and family are starting to begin to try to assist you in, you know, leaving that  [00:39:53][20.5]

Speaker 3: [00:39:53] or whatever  [00:39:54][1.0]

Speaker 1: [00:39:55] it is that you need to do as a victim. Speaking to how to do that well and how to do that in a way that keeps everybody safe is really important. We've really done a very bad job at identifying coercive control and speaking to risk factors. And you guys talk about that very clearly that had you known how at risk you were that you would have chosen a different way to go forward. You would have made different decisions had somebody said to you, this is you're in a very dangerous time right now, then you would have. On different things, and so can you talk a little bit about that because I think that's super important right now?  [00:40:41][46.4]

Speaker 5: [00:40:43] Yes. I guess at the heart of our story was the fact that our father was never physically violent, and that's what I guess misled us into thinking we were safe. We thought that serious violence has to start from minor violence, and it escalates through the violent spectrum. At the end of that matter, that's what we  [00:41:05][22.5]

Speaker 3: [00:41:05] thought danger looks like  [00:41:07][1.6]

Speaker 5: [00:41:08] right now, we know and we also know or read that academics have known this for many years that coercive control  [00:41:13][5.3]

Speaker 3: [00:41:15] is the key  [00:41:16][0.5]

Speaker 5: [00:41:16] indicator of potential serious violence and coercive control with separation. Those two are, you know, they compound the risk and immensely. And it's not even just separation, but it could be the thought of separation inside the perpetrator's mind. And that's actually what I thought I was going through before we left him. He thought we were getting both. Resources to move him. And so he was actually writing his murder note and planning to kill all of us before we could even plan to leave him because. He had that thought that we were going to leave him, and now we know that really the key danger is is that control that controlling mindset. And that's what we should really be talking more about. I think that's why our story, it's very powerful because it's is textbook corrosive control. And even though it was, as everyone who knows about this subject describes it, we as victims have never had the information before. And I think that's why it's so key for us to tell our story because it's all what the professionals knowing so in-depth about the risk factors and what it needs to be done to help victims and survivors. And that message isn't getting to those who are living out of control with any day out. And how are they going to be able to understand their risk and ask for help? I think that's why we like to share our story as widely as possible to really highlight those key points that the coercive control is what we should be looking for. And if there's separation in that mix as well, then really we need to be very careful.  [00:43:03][106.8]

Speaker 4: [00:43:04] You know, in our case, we only moved just about five miles down the road because she was just going to carry on working at the same shop. She always worked out with the few friends that she had. She didn't want to leave. The only people that she knew to go move into some other part of the country to a different country. But we know now that's the only way she ever would have been safe was to become invisible, to leave everything behind. But I mean, we we we spoke to estate agents to get the rental place, and they didn't. I mean, they knew we were fleeing. They knew that we were trying to escape because they told us, Don't worry, we won't let this information leak to your father. They go trying to find somewhere else to run.  [00:43:47][43.5]

Speaker 3: [00:43:48] Don't worry, we  [00:43:49][0.7]

Speaker 4: [00:43:49] found somewhere fit to move in with the dogs in a hurry, et cetera, et cetera. And they even said they know how to handle this sort of sudden emergency moves. And some estate agents won't  [00:44:00][11.5]

Speaker 3: [00:44:01] actually let  [00:44:03][1.7]

Speaker 4: [00:44:03] these women escape in this way because they know the perpetrators will come into their state's office and cause chaos. Try to find out  [00:44:09][5.8]

Speaker 3: [00:44:09] whether a woman has got to.  [00:44:10][1.4]

Speaker 4: [00:44:11] So we met a number of people on our journey  [00:44:13][2.1]

Speaker 3: [00:44:14] who want public sector  [00:44:16][1.3]

Speaker 4: [00:44:16] professionals. They were just ordinary people going about their all kinds of different jobs, whether it was a  [00:44:22][5.6]

Speaker 3: [00:44:22] locksmith to help break  [00:44:23][1.4]

Speaker 4: [00:44:23] mom's keys and all of the documents are safe or lock them in to the estate agent, to the solicitor. The imam had actually given a diary of coercive control to recorded the control she'd been suffering for six months without knowing it was out of control. Mom recorded everything. I followed them for six months because she thought she needed to get divorce because she thought it was just unreasonable behavior. Mom thought everything our father had been doing was just the normal stuff the people got divorced about. So a solicitor was given a diary of coercive control when it would already become a crime six months before in the UK. So we did  [00:45:02][39.1]

Speaker 3: [00:45:03] everything that we  [00:45:04][1.2]

Speaker 4: [00:45:04] needed  [00:45:04][0.0]

Speaker 3: [00:45:04] to do to  [00:45:06][1.4]

Speaker 4: [00:45:06] keep them safe in our minds. We met all these people and we felt they were guiding us, but they weren't informed about the risks. We weren't informed about the risk and we just walked the path. We were thinking everyone had done their jobs around us. Yet no one had and we were totally blind. And I think if we'd known differently and we'd understood cost control and the risk of separation, we would have forced none. We were to talk about them. I mean, locked her up in some other country until we felt she was safe. We would have made sure we made entirely different steps because we thought that literally all we were doing was facilitating a divorce.  [00:45:43][37.3]

Speaker 3: [00:45:44] We thought this  [00:45:45][0.5]

Speaker 4: [00:45:45] is the stuff that all families go through. This is why people get divorced. But it wasn't. Is something much more. There is much more different. And our last thing that we never realized until it was too late, a mum certainly didn't realize either.  [00:45:55][10.6]

Speaker 3: [00:45:56] So it's definitely  [00:45:57][0.4]

Speaker 4: [00:45:57] important the victims understand it. But also, like we say, all the time, communities and frankly, everyone needs to understand it because victims don't turn up saying I'm suffering cost control, their suffering housing problems, they're suffering all kinds of different problems and  [00:46:12][15.1]

Speaker 3: [00:46:13] they're facing off  [00:46:13][0.8]

Speaker 4: [00:46:14] small little problems to a million different directions and someone needs to pick it up. No one did enough in our story.  [00:46:19][5.7]

Speaker 1: [00:46:20] Well, definitely, you know, so we we have developed a friends and family guide for those who believe that their loved one is living in domestic abuse and it's going to be available next week. And we would we're hoping that people use it. Download it from our website. Read it.  [00:46:44][23.3]

Speaker 3: [00:46:44] Disseminate it because we  [00:46:46][1.7]

Speaker 1: [00:46:46] would really like that information to get in the hands of people. Like the locksmith that you met or the the real estate agent or the solicitors, so that they understand the dangers that families are facing when living in coercive control and when trying to leave a coercively controlling relationship as as a society, we we really have to do better. So many of us have been raised in coercive control and domestic abuse that we believe that it's normal because this is what has been modeled to us,  [00:47:29][42.7]

Speaker 3: [00:47:29] both by our, our family  [00:47:31][1.7]

Speaker 1: [00:47:32] or by movies or by popular media that this these type of behaviors men are entitled to, or that these type of behaviors are just part of the male psyche, or this is how a family is run, you know? And so it's really, you know, your point that had everybody else around you done their job had they had the awareness, had they looked at you and said, this is a very dangerous time for you and your family that you would have had the information that you needed in order to proceed in a different way. So we're really hoping that this friends and family guy can help people who are not practitioners, people who are not working in domestic violence or child protection  [00:48:21][49.5]

Speaker 3: [00:48:23] to  [00:48:23][0.0]

Speaker 1: [00:48:23] understand the subtleties of coercive control, domestic abuse and the risk involved. And it gives scripts for how people can talk to their loved one with things to say that are helpful. The way to ask questions. And and so I know that you guys looked at that. But David, do you have anything to add to that?  [00:48:46][23.7]

Speaker 2: [00:48:47] You know, all I want to say, you know, as we move to wrapping up is just, you know, I I am terrified is probably not the wrong level of emotion. But you know, as I listen and you know, we've been spending the last month thinking about this, talking to practitioners all over the world, we do a virtual support group for practitioners. We've got hundreds of them from all over the world and really worried  [00:49:13][25.9]

Speaker 3: [00:49:14] that you know,  [00:49:14][0.8]

Speaker 2: [00:49:14] you're your point, which I agree with wholeheartedly is, you know, coercive control is is seen through what's taken away from people. It isn't always seen by the violence in the actions because they're their constant persistent and they don't rise to the level. Many of the time of the things that are arrestable that people look for  [00:49:34][19.4]

Speaker 3: [00:49:35] and that that that the  [00:49:38][2.7]

Speaker 2: [00:49:38] people who are engaging in coercive control is shaping the mindsets of their loved ones and controlling how they think and how they act, and that the COVID 19 situation and social distancing is going to make it harder for people in those families and people outside those families to identify when coercive control is going on. You know, when is when is sort of we're practicing, you know, collectively as a family ourselves, you know what we think of healthy social distancing, you know, setting limits for our kids and, you know, washed when we come in and go out and agreed to wear masks. You know, it's a joint decision making, you know, but there are a lot of families where where somebody is dictating, well, it's not a big deal and I don't think it's a big deal. And therefore you're not going to think it's a big deal because it could go the other way or it's a really big deal. We've got to circle up. You can't talk to anybody. No, I'm going to watch you. You're going to make sure you don't go out and that you know that that horrible justification that that case in Georgia, you know, you are stepping out of line is justification for extreme violence. I guess I'm just I'm just I'm so worried about the current context making this even harder. So I don't know if two of you want to have kind of a last word on that or before we kind of move to our formal wrap up.  [00:50:56][77.7]

Speaker 4: [00:50:58] Yeah, I think the thing is, father, I always say our father's strongest skill in a way was his kind of narrative power, so you can always if you want something. There are many ways you can sell it to people. And when there is an external justification that presents itself, if you're quite good with narrative, you can you can spin it however you want. So there'll be many abuses right now who will be imposing their will on their household and saying it's for their safety. And our father often used our safety, particularly my mum suffers from a lot diseases.  [00:51:36][38.7]

Speaker 3: [00:51:37] They were often the  [00:51:38][0.7]

Speaker 4: [00:51:38] causes for our father, limiting mum's life, taking her money, saying he was going to save up for  [00:51:43][5.0]

Speaker 3: [00:51:43] treatment during this that year, that  [00:51:45][1.6]

Speaker 4: [00:51:46] he used all kinds of things as reasons to get what you wanted. And what you said now is a time that a lot of these abuses might well be doubling down with this perfect justification to get what they always wanted, deeply embedding it and trying to normalize it so that when the time does come, they'll be worried about the remnants of it. They'll be worried it hasn't gone away. They'll be imposing these demands along past any point they need to. And by then, the victims might well have just habituated that behavior and become normalized to it and just not not notice it for what it is. And I think that's unfortunately what happened with us. I think as we normalized to the behavior so much that we couldn't see it for what it was and we learned to make concessions. And I think that's one of the things that we try and talk about a lot is just who we are, and hopefully people can understand how the abuse has affected us. And that's why we talk a lot about mum and Charlotte as well, because obviously they're not here anymore. So we try as best we can to to bring them into the world and let people understand what they were, what they were like, the influence they have in us because unfortunately, they they were silent for most of their lives because our father kept them locked away from the world and we do our best just to sort of release them up. And I guess now might be a good time for us to mention that we were all book. It was called Operation Lighthouse was the name of the book  [00:53:11][85.2]

Speaker 3: [00:53:12] that was named  [00:53:13][0.3]

Speaker 4: [00:53:13] after the police investigation, and that was our opportunity for Ryan and I really to,  [00:53:18][4.8]

Speaker 3: [00:53:18] you know, release Norman  [00:53:20][1.2]

Speaker 4: [00:53:20] Charlotte from that permanent lockdown that they'd always been in and our father had finally, you know, he's he'd impose through the murders. We just wanted to, I guess, give give them to the world in a way that they've never been able to get out themselves. And that's why Ron and I talk so much about this because we hope that we give him some insight, a legacy and hope and that we can, you know, keep them in the world, keep them in our hearts, but also help people with with their memory. And that's, I think, what's most important for us, and I just hope for the people who are going through this, that, you know, they can I suppose they can keep their strength up, but also  [00:53:59][39.1]

Speaker 3: [00:53:59] just just be really  [00:54:01][1.1]

Speaker 4: [00:54:01] aware of what's going on. I think that's the hardest thing. Sometimes when you're trying to survive, you do blind yourself because it can make it easier just not to think about things, not to, you know, not to actually face what's in front of you. But hopefully by talking about this, as we have today, it will give a lot of people just a moment to reflect and just to sort of calibrate and  [00:54:21][19.7]

Speaker 3: [00:54:21] and just really  [00:54:22][1.0]

Speaker 4: [00:54:23] take an assessment of where they are. If they think that possibly at risk, I think don't diminish the small stuff because it definitely adds up. And that's the thing that unfortunately, we learn too late.  [00:54:34][10.8]

Speaker 1: [00:54:35] I think I constantly just amazed and I know that you're honoring your mom and your sisters lives really well, and the work that you're doing is so valuable. If you guys could mention your website, I think that that would be really good because you have a lot of really good information about coercive control.  [00:54:59][24.4]

Speaker 4: [00:55:01] Yeah, sure. So we we we created an organization called  [00:55:04][2.8]

Speaker 3: [00:55:05] Coco Awareness  [00:55:05][0.8]

Speaker 4: [00:55:06] after coerced coercive control awareness. So call us Coco Awareness UK, and that's basically what we're. I guess that's been. Is this the face of what we're trying to do? It's kind of the organization from which we speak and try and share our story as much as we possibly can.  [00:55:23][16.9]

Speaker 3: [00:55:24] And I just think when  [00:55:26][1.3]

Speaker 4: [00:55:26] asked about this is, I think what we found is the best thing we can do. And if if our story can help people, then we'll just keep sharing it until people are bored of it and everyone knows it. But we just think we're trying our best, I suppose, to create the information that wasn't there when we were growing up, the information that would have saved Norman Charlotte. So we're just trying to put that into the world as much as possible to hopefully save mum and Charlotte somewhere else, you know, and make a difference in our life.  [00:55:53][27.2]

Speaker 2: [00:55:54] Well, I want to just join Ruth and. Appreciating the efforts and the voice you're bringing to your mom and Charlotte's lives and to your experience, and I and I, I can't help but think that you're there, you're the that you're not helping people. I think you're  [00:56:12][18.1]

Speaker 3: [00:56:12] really this is  [00:56:13][1.0]

Speaker 2: [00:56:13] really an important message. You're taking the pain  [00:56:20][7.0]

Speaker 3: [00:56:22] that  [00:56:22][0.0]

Speaker 2: [00:56:22] you've experienced and turned it into something that can really or at least used it as a place to move forward to help other people. And I really honor that as well. We. I'm going to wrap up and thank you both for for speaking to us trans-Atlantic early today and putting up with the technology for our listeners. We're again, this was Luke and Ryan Hart speaking about their experiences with coercive control and the murder of their their sister, Charlotte and their mom, and just lessons learned from it and things that people can maybe find some comfort and some guidance in terms of the current situation of lockdown. If people want more information about partnered with a survivor or about the Safe and Together institute,  [00:57:16][54.1]

Speaker 3: [00:57:18] you can go to  [00:57:18][0.5]

Speaker 2: [00:57:18] safe together in sitcom. We're also have a lot of material online at our virtual academy, which is Academy Dot, to fit together into dot com. And, as Ruth said, will be depending on when you're listening to this in late April 2020 or early May 2020 will be coming out with our friends and family guide and some other  [00:57:43][24.6]

Speaker 3: [00:57:44] resources for  [00:57:44][0.6]

Speaker 2: [00:57:44] family. So so whenever you listen to this, look out for that stuff and I think that's it for today, I think,  [00:57:53][8.7]

Speaker 1: [00:57:54] yeah, I think we're done and just thank you guys so much. You know, we just appreciate your work and you and the telling of your story is definitely helping so many people. So thank you.  [00:58:08][13.6]

Speaker 2: [00:58:08] Thank you. All right. We're out. We're out.  [00:58:08][0.0]

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