Messy Can't Stop Her

The Power of Love: Dr. Anne E. Burnley on leaving an abusive marriage to embark on a journey to healing

June 16, 2022 Judith Kambia Obatusa (JKO)/DrAhne Season 2 Episode 9
Messy Can't Stop Her
The Power of Love: Dr. Anne E. Burnley on leaving an abusive marriage to embark on a journey to healing
Show Notes Transcript

We hear the question “Why didn’t she leave?” so many times when discussing domestic violence. 

Dr. Anne Burnley (DrAhne), physician and US Army combat veteran left. She tells us how she was able to overcome the fears and doubts and take that step. In this first part of her story, DrAhne shares how love empowered her to leave a marriage that had literally taken her voice and become hell on earth. She embarked on the healing journey that gave her back her voice and turned her “why me?” into her purpose.

DrAhne’s story inspires us to know that our pain counts for something and that we can find our purpose for being, in the pain we’ve experienced.

DrAhne continues her story in the next episode of Messy Can’t Stop Her.

 

References in this episode

The Undefeated Mind by Alex Lickerman, MD

Beyond Trauma: A Healing Journey for Women by Stephanie Covington

Website https://www.drahne.com/about

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/dr_ahne/

Please DM me on Instagram or Facebook @judithobatusa to let me know what you thought of this episode.

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Podcast Music Credit:  https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter

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Music Credit: https://indiefy.me/wanted-carter

This is Messy Can’t Stop Her. I am your host, Judith Kambia Obatusa-JKO.

JKO:       On today's episode, we have the amazing, the most loving, kind, generous woman I have met in recent times. Her name is is Anne Burnley, but we call her DrAhne. Welcome, Doctor Ahne. 

DrAhne:               Thank you so much, Judith. Thank you. Thank you. Warrior woman. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. 

JKO:       DrAhne is a trained physician. She specializes in occupational health and public health. Not only that, she is a US Army combat veteran and she has medals to show for it, including one bronze star from the Iraq War. Doctor Ahne is a woman that has gone through challenges that would have broken down others. But she has said no. There's more to my life than the mess that I found myself. As many other women that have come on this podcast, DrAhne has discovered her purpose from the messy. She has developed programs and like so many of these men practices that she has used to surmount the challenges that keep her down in the mess. And now she's leveraging her lived experience to help others through their own challenges and to encourage others that they too, can come out and shine in spite of the mess. So, like I always ask all those who come on this podcast, you are the one who knows your story, you know your journey, and you know that particular mess in your life. Because this life, we encounter many messes. There's a mess that defined your journey more than others. There's a mess from which you have to fight so hard to become the woman that you are today. Could you tell us a little bit about that? 

DrAhne:               Okay, so most people look at me and they think, oh, wow, she has a fabulous life, but they do not truly, I do have a fabulous life. But it wasn't always like that. Not so long ago, I was in a toxic marriage. 18 years, okay, 18 years. I kept hoping things would get better. I was married to an alcoholic who was a nasty drunk whose focus once he did get drunk, I was his primary target. There are so many times when I tried to make myself invisible because I felt like if he couldn't see me, then I would disappear. The verbal assault. I got to a point where I just became so anxious. I was having panic attacks. I was normally a very bubbly person. Always smiling. I lost my smile in that relationship, but not only my smile, I also lost my voice. I lost that part of me that could advocate. I lost my ability to speak up for myself. I was just worn down. There was a lot of gas lighting at the time. I did not know it was gas lighting. I started thinking that I was losing my mind. He would say something and 5 minutes later I would repeat what he said and he would look at me like I was crazy. Like he did not say that. I started really doubting my own sanity. There were times where I even wondered, Is this life worth living? I was in so much emotional pain. There is a difference between physical abuse and emotional abuse. Emotional abuse doesn't leave physical scars on the body, but it does leave scars in the soul. And somebody who is observing you really carefully can detect. And my dad actually detected it. About a year before he died, I went to Cameroon, where I'm originally from, and I just joined him for breakfast. I'm not a breakfast person, but I just decided to hang out with my dad that morning. And he said, what is going on? He said, there's such sadness in your eyes. So my father picked it up. Of course, I just brushed it off as nothing. And this did continue. I had my son late at the tenth year of the marriage and prior to that I lost a pregnancy at 14 weeks. That's another trauma on its own. But I had my son. And eventually the tipping point for me was one night, we went out to some traditional function. And this was really the first time I had my son with me. My ex was visibly, He was inebriated. But like I said, I lost my voice. I wasn't advocating for myself, and I definitely did not advocate for my son. That night, I got in the car. I sat in the backseat with my son. I strapped us both in the car, and we started heading home. And while I was sitting back there, I just heard this voice in my head, just asking, what are you doing? What the heck are you doing? You know, this man is obviously inebriated, but you get into the car and not only do you get into the car like you have done many times before, you have the minor child with you. You're supposed to be his ass tip. You're supposed to protect him, but right now, you're putting him in danger. I was literally just having this monologue in my head, like, you're not a good mother. You're not protecting your child. You're too scared. Where is your grit? Where is your mental toughness? You went to Iraq. You went to a combat zone. Yes. You cannot advocate for yourself. You cannot advocate for your son. And I literally just made a promise in that car that night. I said, this was it. I was done. Over the years, I kept hoping things will get better. Things will get better. But I'm a physician. I know an alcoholic just doesn't get better like that. Me wanting them to get better doesn't make them better. So I guess my head knew one thing, but my heart just kept hoping and hoping. Year after year, five years turned into ten years turned into 15. I just kept asking, when does this end? When do you realize that this is not okay? The sad thing is he was the kind of drunk who blacked out and so it took me a while to realize it, but there were whole days that he would lose. If I'm having this conversation. He looked at me like I was crazy. So I was kind of confused. When I'm looking back on it now, I was like, was it gas lighting or was it blackout? Probably a combination of both. But I said, you know, if I get home with my son this night, I am putting a stop to this. And that very night, you know, I moved out of the bedroom. I went to the guest room, and as am I'm leaving the bedroom. He wants to have sex. And I was like, absolutely not. And he's like, well, I’ll get it from somewhere. I say, hey, just knock yourself out. You've been getting it from somewhere anyway. So that would not be news to me. So that was my first step. I decided to be more orderly. I started making my plans. I got my own phone line. I literally just started gradually in an organized, ordered manner. I just was getting myself ready, and I was able to purchase a townhouse, and I literally left. I just kind of thought, I don't want too much drama. He was out on a work trip. I took the clothes on my back. The clothes on my son's back. The only piece of furniture that I took with me is right behind me. You see that Sidebar? They call it buffet. That was the only piece of furniture I took because it was in an unused part of the house. That was the only piece of furniture I took. I left everything behind. I took the clothes on my back. I took my son, and I was gone. So it was like three months after that night, I just said, enough already. I am done. And I started the really slow process of rebuilding my life. I decided to work on myself. For a long time I just said, why me? Why me? Why me? And in asking, why me? Why me? Why? Why? I found my compelling purpose. Okay, so really, that's where things started. When I tell people, I said, when I left that relationship, it was like a Caterpillar hatched out of an egg. So that woman that left that relationship was my Caterpillar stage. I consider that I'm in my butterfly stage right now, but it was a process from where I came from to where I am right now. 

JKO:       That's wonderful. I just want to take us back a little bit. When you were in that situation before you left, one thing I can say from your story is the power of love. The love for your son was the one thing absolutely to question that night when you sat in that car, do I really love my son? Do I love my son enough? Do I love him enough to leave him to experience this? The power of love. So for many of us that are living in messes or come through messes, Love is one thing that can propel us. Many times, love is the propeller. Either the love for self, love for another, or love for community. And when we talk about another, many times our children, it propels us out of the challenge that we find ourselves. And when I say community it’s other people that are like you, who you want to help, so you will love. So the place of love in setting us free from bondages in life cannot be over emphasized. And then another thing is how interesting that a combat warrior did not have a phone that was quite…

DrAhne:               I actually did, I was on the family plan, you see, so I got my own line. At that point, we had a family plan, so I just started making steps to get away. So, yeah, I did have a phone, but it was under the family plan.

JKO:       So you wanted something that he had no access to at all. (DrAhne: Absolutely, yeah.) Another thing was, your financial situation was good because you were able to buy a house, 

DrAhne:               Right. And the only reason I was able to do that is because of my service in the military, the bar wasn't set as high. If I were going with a conventional loan, it would have been more challenging. But things just aligned themselves and I was able to purchase. One of the things my mum always told me is to make sure you set money aside for yourself. And I wondered why. But then I realized that our spending habits were different. And so one of the things that we had was each person had their own account and we had a joint account for the bills. And I didn't worry about what the bills looked like or whatever, but by accident, about six months before, I opened an envelope. I was actually in Cameroon. And my cousin told me, oh, there's a FedEx here for you. If I could. Go ahead, send it. Somebody was coming. And when the suitcase came, I opened it and I saw the FedEx and I didn't even think anything, I didn't even look at who it was addressed to. And I opened it up and there was a letter from Bank of America saying that we're like $20,000 behind on the mortgage. And I'm like, Wait, what? Because every month I'm transferring money into the account to have the bills settled. I mean, you're in a relationship, you trust the person who's paying the bills. I'm just putting the money in there, I'm putting my half in. So I was like, what is going on? He was trying to renegotiate the mortgage or something like that. And it was a fairly new home we're in and I fought against us getting that home. I was like, Why do we need a big five bedroom home. We have one kid. Why do we need a home that size? And so one of the things that happened was I was like, okay, fine, I'll go ahead and do my portion of the down payment. But I am not getting anywhere on that house because that was my protest. I will find whatever, but don't put my name on whatever. So fortunately, when I walked away, I had no tie to the house. I left everything behind me. So unfortunate. That's the crazy thing though, Judith. I could afford to leave, unlike many women who are trapped because of finances. But I was trapped in my head.

JKO:       So good. That's something I have recently discovered. That when we yearn for change, things begin to fall into place, preparing us for the change that we desire, even though we don't know what that change is exactly. But we yearn. I feel that you have been yearning for change. Your heart had been yearning for so many years. You had waited for 18 years. 

DrAhne:               You don't even know how true that statement is. There were times where I would have a dream that I had left, and then I would wake up in the morning and I was in my hell. Vivid dream, I left and I was somewhere else. And then I would wake up in the morning and I was like, oh, my gosh, that was just a dream. So my heart had been yearning for a significant amount of time before I actually made that decision that night. And for me, there was no turning back. 

JKO:       The Bible says the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. That scripture talks about the fervency of our desire for us to get anything in life, we have to really desire it. You desire the change and things began to happen. Things you were not aware of. You were not aware that your mortgage wasn't being paid and the story just came and landed in your lap when you were not searching. No matter the situation we find ourselves, we cannot afford to just accept something that's not right. If you can't help yourself, still yearn for that change. The universe will begin to align things in your favor. And for someone like me, I believe in God. I believe in prayer. So I believe if Anne is a praying woman, she would have been praying, God, deliver me from this situation. Let there be change. And maybe she was even praying for change, change in the man. But God was going to change. Change in her location, change in her own life. You were beaten down. Your mind was beaten down. Your person was beaten down. Your voice was taken. 

DrAhne:               I got to the point where I started having trouble getting my words out. I would be in a meeting and I'll be talking. And I knew the word I wanted to say. But for some, it's like it was stuck. I couldn't get it out. It was just stuck. 

JKO:       Domestic violence has mental health challenges. Absolutely. Challenges that you can put your finger on. It has physical health challenges. It's not worth going the long haul waiting for change. The truth is that if a man is going to change, he can always change. After you've left, you don't have to wait for him to change there, especially when a child comes into the picture. If DrAhne hadn't had that child to think about, who knows? She may still have been taking that rubbish, because when it affects our children, it's just another piece of cake. So, DrAhne, you left and you had to start to rebuild yourself. I saw your picture on Facebook, the Ten Year Challenge. When I looked at the old eyes of the old Anne, I knew she had a story to tell. And that's why I wrote there that I couldn't wait for today, because the story is behind those sad eyes. 

DrAhne:               Oh, my gosh. And my father saw them. He was one of very few people who really he said, there's a sadness in your eyes. What's going on? 

JKO:       Thank God for a sensitive Daddy. When you left, how did you begin to rebuild yourself? How did you begin to find your voice? What steps did you take? 

DrAhne:               It took much longer than one would think, because after I left, after the first six months, I kind of settled into my co parenting role and we were “kind of friends.” But then what I realized, Judith, is that even though I left the relationship, even though we got divorced, I told my cousins, I said, if you ever see me trying to go back, you need to commit me to a 72 hour psychiatric hold until I regain my senses, because I would obviously not be thinking properly for me to even consider that. But then I realized that even with us being divorced, he was gaslighting me. Still, he was gaslighting me. And I recognized something about him. When he got into a relationship, he would come over here on the pretext of seeing his son. But a lot of that conversation would double back to his fiance. And it made me really uncomfortable. Like he would say, oh, she wanted to come with him. And he said, no. So I was like, well, why would you not bring her? It's not like something is going on here. I don't want her to think there's anything going on here. One thing about me, I could never revel in another woman's pain or suffering. That's what I don't do. And I just was really uncomfortable with that whole thing. He would come over, and sometimes I'll just stay upstairs, see your son and leave or whatever. But I think things got to a point where he finally eventually got married, which was fine for me. Congratulations. Not my problem anymore. But what happened was his son wasn't there. He wasn't there. So I found out about it on social media. I saw him about four days before he came to pick up his kid. He brought his kid back on a Monday, and he got married on Tuesday. And so when I saw it on social media, I'm thinking to myself, you know, I don't care. Why didn't you tell me? Like, you were here to pick up your kid? And then why did you bring your kid back? So I asked my son and my son, oh, he said, because of covid, they're not letting people. But then through mutual friends, I saw the picture, and I'm like, oh, there's all these other people there. And then I knew things were up when my phone started ringing, people were asking me why I didn't let my son go. And I'm like, what do you mean? I didn't know it was happening. But he was with his dad until Monday, and his dad brought him home on Monday and went to get married. So even if I were keeping my son away from him, he had possession of the boy. Why did he bring him back on Monday? And people were saying, I'm the one who did not let my son go. And that really disturbed me, because one of the things that I was concerned, I'm like, okay, fine. I don't want my kid to feel like other. To feel like other right there. And then I realized one really important thing, Judith, I was being gaslit. He was gaslighting me. 

JKO:       He set you up for the world to judge you.

DrAhne:               Yes. And I was just like, you're. You know what? I'm done. I don't care. I think for a really long time, I was worried about people saying maybe I was angry, but I left. If I wanted to reconcile, I couldn't reconcile. I made a clear decision when I left that I was done. I was done. I was not going back because it occurred to me also, I came to realize that his recollection of the marriage was so completely different from mine because most of the trouble happened when there was liquor on board. So he did not remember what happened after that episode. And them telling people, I kept my son when people were asking where my son was at the wedding, I just made a decision at that point. I said, you know what? I'm done with the gas lighting. I'm done with being the validation source for this narcissistic behavior. I just said, you know what? I am done. I started doing a lot of reading, and one of the things I instituted was no contact. I said, you know what? My son is old enough. He can have a relationship with his father. I don't have to. I literally stayed away. I saw a magic game or whatever. I just sat in my corner and I just maintained it. I said, you know what? I just refused to get dragged into this game where you guess, like me, if I were friends, but then you do these things that really call that into question. So one day, I'm sitting in my house on my couch, and he walks right into my house. The garage door was open. My cousin was bringing things into the house on the pretext that he had my son's T shirt. He walked right into my house, through the open garage door, scared my cousin half to death, and walked to my son's room to drop off the T-shirt. And I was like, if the garage door is open, just drop it right there. You don't have to. But I was frozen. I was frozen. I could not move. I could not talk. I was just like, we don't even talk. Why are you walking to my house? And I talked to a friend of mine, and he said, Just send a very clear message. So it's documented. Send it on WhatsApp? So that when it's read, it's acknowledged that it was read. And I sent a really strongly worded message. Very formal, Mr. So and so. So. And I signed off, Dr. Burnley. And I'm like, you don't get to walk into my home. Do not get straight in your son's room. Yes. I said, the next time you do that, I am calling the cops. 

JKO:       Has he been doing that before? How did he know your son's room? 

DrAhne:               Because he comes to my house to see his son. 

JKO:       Exactly. Setting boundaries is number one, because you are telling the story because you did not initially set those boundaries. And of course, wherever there are no boundaries, even the people who are supposed to be disciplined, they lose control. So he knows he's not supposed to do those things. Well, he lost control because he had so much freedom. I think that absolute freedom. Just like absolute power corrupts, in fact, it destroys absolutely. Apart from these boundary setting, you also did some things to grow yourself. (DrAhne: Absolutely.) Tell us about those things. Like the first six months, how did you cope? 

JKO:       The first six months, I was literally paralyzed. I had such severe anxiety, I couldn't even read a text message from him. I would give my cousin my phone. I'm like, what did he say? I mean, I remember one time I was at a store. I was literally in full blown panic, literally just completely destroyed in the store after a conversation, my anxiety was that severe. I was on medication for anxiety to control my anxiety. But then I also had Xanax for those acute episodes when I was having panic attacks. And so that settled down for me, actually, in terms of the care of my son, I used to do a lot of that on my own. Anyway, so leaving freed me up where I got this community of women around me. We looked after each other. We helped each other with our kids, so women were there to support me. So I started building this support system around me. But after that initial phase, then I kind of fell into this benign toxic relationship where he would come over to see his kid. He would sit around, he would eat. There was one thing I was sure about. We're not getting back together. So I really had to question myself what that was all about. Really, what that was all about. And I started working on myself, I started working on myself. I read a lot about gas lighting, narcissistic behavior. And it's so funny when I'm reading, I'm reading. I was like, oh my gosh, that was me. Oh my gosh. Like each new line, I recognized myself in those situations. For a long time, I was really angry. Why? I spent a lot of time asking why, why? Why me? Why me? Why me? And in asking why me, I found my why, I found my compelling purpose. I didn't go through that struggle. Yes, there was a reason. My lived experience is what I fall back on now to encourage, inspire, motivate and empower other women who may find themselves in a similar situation. 

JKO:       Awesome. Your lived experience counts for something. It’s not a waste. There is purpose behind the pain, that pain (DrAhne: right?) So amazing. And how this life is just an amalgamation of shifting shadows. Things just happen and you're like, it's all done, woe is me and then Wow is me. From woe is me to wow is me. Isn't it amazing how God does those great things for us? So you did do a lot of reading. Is there any particular book that made a real strong impact that you remember in the course of that time of healing? And apart from reading, did you maybe listen to podcast or something? Because we do read a lot. (DrAhne: Right.) And you read, read, but one day you read something or hear something or see something, and it just like tips turns you from that place you've been for six months and you just take that turn. Was that something like that? 

DrAhne:               I started reading a lot of different books. I looked into the psychology magazine to kind of really just understand. I think I really wanted to understand what took me so long. I really wanted to get it. And then looking at the psychology journals, I got a better understanding. I give myself compassion. I had to forgive myself because I think I was really angry at myself for staying so long, for not leaving sooner. But I realized that before I could move forward, I had to forgive myself. I had to forgive myself for my inaction. I had to forgive myself for putting my life in danger. I had to forgive myself for putting my son's life in danger. So one of the ones I'm actually listening to right now because this process is ongoing is Dr. Lickerman. He talks about building the undefeated mind. The Undefeated Mind by Alex Lickerman. He's a physician, and he also tells a story about how he went through hardships, medical school challenges. And it's really resonating with me in terms of one of the things is like, okay, fine, if you can't change your circumstances, then you have control over you, you can change. So I'm reading. There's another book I just read. I can't remember the author. It's about beyond trauma. And even more significant, Judith, I found a therapist.