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get it fixed for me, or he's going to put a new app on there." It's all done in a very controlling, obvious, yet un-obvious way. That's the part that you don't want to believe is happening. You still want to believe that they love you. It's like, "Oh, I'll go see the accountant because you're working today." You think, "Oh, that's really nice," when they're actually going behind your back taking your credit cards and changing the name on the accounts to their name. When you're in an abusive relationship, everyone is isolated from you, and they're scared to call you. They're scared to get in contact with you, because they too have been verbally abused by your abuser. You end up walking around going, "Why hasn't my mom called?" Or "Why is my friend being really strange with me?" You don't really know why, but now looking back, I know exactly why. I get what you're saying, but I know that I could literally go to my mother at any time. I could go to a police station and call her if I had to. MB: How could I when I'm only allowed to be driven by him, or a driver that is one of his friends? And all I did was work, come home, work, come home. It's good to gain this deeper understanding from you, because people will think, she's not your average Jane. She has all the resources in the world. MB: It's like having everything and nothing. And on the flip side, you're not ready to admit anything to anyone else. If I were to call my mom up and say, "Mom, I'm being abused," she'll go, "What?!" You don't want to admit to anybody and have to explain, because there is an element of no one's going to believe you, which is what the abuser will put into your head, "No one's going to believe you. You're just fat and ugly. If you leave, I'm going to expose you on this level and that level. And even if you said anything to anybody, no one's going to believe you because you're full of shit," kind of thing. Your self-esteem is in the gutter and you stop believing in yourself. It becomes a mental prison, is what you're saying. MB: When I was at work, I did believe in myself, because he couldn't get to me at work. Nobody wanted to see him. They wanted to see me on camera. I'm very experienced and I'm very confident in what I say, so that was actually my savior, going to work. It was coming home that I dreaded, because I didn't know what I was going to be experiencing that night. You spent a decade walking on eggshells. MB: Yeah, basically. Having spoken to a lot of these women who are in [shelters], and that are essentially in hiding from their abuser, they have exactly the same story that I have. They're controlled, they're captured, they're abused on many different levels, they're embarrassed and ashamed, and they don't want anyone to know. Your oldest daughter, Phoenix is obviously old enough to understand the full scope of the situation. I am assuming she read your book cover to cover… MB: Oh yeah. She is the one who pushed me to write it, along with my friend who wrote it with me, Louise Gannon, because this story is bigger than just me. I'm just a voice that happens to be yelling about it right now. It happens to many hundreds of thousands of women, and men. It doesn't matter if you have no money, or if you live in a mansion with servants. It can happen to anyone. When you're in this situation, you think it's only happening to you. It's only when you get out and get to safety that you realize how bad this relationship was, how wrong it was. These abusers, they're very smart and you don't find them, they find you. They find women like me, who were in a vulnerable situation, and they latch onto you like Prince Charming, making you believe they are going to give you everything you need. My takeaway from your book was, do not go into a new relationship when you are feeling depleted, because you're likely not going to make empowering choices. MB: But sometimes you may think that you're over your ex, or you're over the drama of having a baby with somebody and then breaking up; you think that you do feel fine. Sometimes it's the kind of thing where you say, "I'm just going to smile, because the more I smile, the more I feel good." And you're thinking that you do feel good. There is no set time as to when you definitely feel at your most confident or your vulnerability is gone. We're women. We're always going to have that little bit of self-doubt or that moment where before our period we feel a bit bloated and a bit frumpy. Women are very emotional, so there's no set rule as to whether an abuser can come into your life. They don't show up and go, "I'm an abuser. I'm going to do this and that to you." No. They gaslight you. They make you feel like a princess one day, and then they make you feel like you're a fat, ugly, unworthy cow the next day. And like I said, they find you, you don't find them.