FINDING OUR VOICES: Recent Episodes
Finding Our Voices
GUEST: Jackie Lee McLean
The host of this Podcast talks with her daughter about how the abuse impacted them separately and also together and their path to healing.
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Child abuse, narcissistic fathers, triangulation
Jackie is an executive of an IT company, and singer-songwriter who provides the music for this Podcast. More of Jackie's Music here.
GUESTS: Darcia and Dezarae
Darcia and Dezarae discuss how the “sweetest man in the world” in prison turned evil upon release.
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Failed judicial system, strangulation, impact on children
Guests: Laudan Ghayebi, Bethany McInnis, Mary Kamradt, Amy Thomsen, Mary Lou Smith, and Sydney
Description: How the medical community did and did not come to our aid when we were suffering from domestic abuse.
Topics discussed: How emotional abuse leads to physical ills, physical abuse, kind and unkind doctors
Guest: Sharon Kennedy
In 2020 Sharon Kennedy was convicted of depraved indifference murder for the death of her 10 year old daughter Marissa. No physical evidence tied her to this murder and she maintains her innocence.
She did not testify at her trial and in this conversation with Patrisha breaks her silence about the coercive control and domestic abuse she and Marissa endured at the hands of her ex Julio, who was sentenced to 55 years in prison on the same charge.
Julio, according to Sharon's father, "changed Sharon from the caring loving mother we all knew into a scared, domineered shell of her former self."
Topics discussed: Coercive control, child abuse, incarceration
GUEST: Katherine Erbes
Katherine talks about almost being killed by her ex to see him get a plea deal and, four years after his release from prison, almost kill another woman.
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Media abuse, sexual abuse, need for tougher DV sentencing
GUESTS: Rachel Davis and Mary Lou Smith.
Rachel, director of the public library in Cape Elizabeth, talks about her outwardly successful but abusive father and the impact that had on her and her brother.
Mary Lou celebrates her 20-year anniversary of freedom.
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Abusive fathers, how siblings are impacted differently by abuse, breaking the cycle.
GUEST: Anonymous (Male)
Many similarities to abuse of a woman by a man are shared in this conversation with "Mark."
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Emotional abuse, weaponizing of children, lack of resources for men abused by women.
GUEST: Vicki Murray, owner of Laugh Loud Smile Big bakery
Vicki talks about what kept her silent and what it like to break her silence over 15 years of abuse including strangulation by the man she started dating at 17 years old.
TOPICS DISCUSSED: Domestic violence strangulation, the abuser calling you crazy, being told by the next wife that he did the same thing to her
Guests: Agnes Brackett
Agnes discusses trying to keep her daughter safe from her gun-toting, fire-starting husband.
Topics discussed: Child Abuse, Guns, Failure of Justice System
Guests: Darcia and Dezarae – Darcia and Dezarae discuss how the “sweetest man in the world” in prison turned evil upon release.
Topics Discussed: Failed judicial system, strangulation, impact on children
Guest: Lilly DesRoberts – Lilly, a 20-year-old UNE Biddeford pre-dental student, talks about how cyber-stalking and suicide threats by her boyfriend from high school plagued her first year of college.
Topics: Life360 cyber-stalking, suicide threats, alcohol, failure of judicial court system
Guest: Kerry Smith – Kerry talks about the preventable DV murders of mother and daughter Jennie and Lisa Bailey in Bath.
Topics include: Police response to DV, Veteran’s Administration response to DV, systemic changes needed
Guests: Michelle, Kerry, Amber – Michelle, a communications executive talks about an early marriage that almost killed her. Kerry and Amber talk about their best friends who were murdered by DV this year.
Topics include: Financial abuse, guns, family impact of abuse
Guest: Melody – Melody, a Mi’kmaq native, realized when she connected with Finding Our Voices that domestic abuse is at the root of her substance abuse as well as incarceration. She talks here about how she transcended both to become a wellbriety coach and published author.
Topics include: Incarceration, Substance Abuse, Native culture
Guests: Anonymous and Jennifer.
Two-parter about how religion helped to trap both women in domestic abuse and made it harder to get out.
“Anonymous" talks about the Cantor who refused to give her a Get for a divorce, and Jennifer talks about the pious-acting husband who was anything but.
Guest: Shelly Edwards Jorgensen.
Shelly is the author of the memoir Beautiful Ashes: A quest to uncover family secrets and survive the truth. https://www.beautifulashesmemoir.com/books/
Topics: Child abuse, Siblings, Arson
Guest: Mary Kamradt, Chief of Staff of Finding Our Voices.
Her home was destroyed and dog killed in a fire set by her ex, and her family sided with him.
Topics:Sexual abuse, arson, estrangement from children and grandchildren.
Guests: Ashley and Dezarae.
Ashley talks about how overseas deployments made him increasingly abusive at home. Dezarae talks about being terrorized by a girlfriend.
Topics: The military, same sex abuse, impact on children
Guest: Caroline McKuen
The director of the Presbyterian Advocacy Council talks about her church’s enabling of criminal, financial, and sexual abuse
Topics: Religious abuse, financial abuse, sexual abuse.
https://www.presbyterianadvocacycoalition.org
Best friends Courtney and Jess discuss how Jess grew alarmed as Courtney’s new boyfriend slowly and steadily turned her into a shell of herself, and what Jess did to help rescue her.
“Financial Abuse” conversation with Lora and Jeannine.
Read more about Jeannine here.
Read the State of Maine H.P. 553 - L.D. 748, "An Act To Provide Relief to Survivors of Economic Abuse", here.
A woman wishing to remain anonymous relates what it was like having a childhood that seemed golden to the outside but inside the house, was a “living hell”.
He strangled her, smothered her with a pillow, at gunpoint forced her to take a bottle of sleeping pills in what he said would be a double-suicide.
He is out on bail pending trial.
Jolene of the Lewiston, Maine area talks about how her ex was emboldened by police and courts to become scarier and scarier.
Bethany talks about her 30-year odyssey of trying to get the terrorizing by her ex of her extended family to stop, with District Attorneys and judges dismissing of 19 separate occasions of violating restraining orders and conditions of release.
Six survivors talk about how holidays are the scariest and most miserable times of the year for moms and children when we are trapped with an angry and controlling family member. With Jolene's ex-husband in jail, her eight-year-old is having the first peaceful holiday season of her life.
Randall Liberty is Maine's Commissioner of Corrections, overseeing all prisons, jails and probationers in the state. Here, he talks with Patrisha about his father, beloved in the community and incarcerated for beating up his mother. He also talks about how the violence in the home impacted himself and his brothers.
Amy talks about how Maine courts and the Department of Health and Human Services worked overtime for three years to give full custody of her grand baby -- safe in the loving home of her daughter-- to a domestic violence felon.
Jackie Lee McLean and the host of this podcast Patrisha McLean talk about how control and violence from father and husband impacted each other, as well as their mother/daughter relationship. They also talk about their journey to healing themselves and their relationship.
Jackie is a mom of three, executive of an IT company, and singer-songwriter who provides the music for this Podcast.
Find Jackie's Music here
Donna Kaz talks about being physically and emotionally brutalized by the sensitive late actor --and serial domestic abuser --William (Body Heat) Hurt, when she was in her early 20s. We also talk about the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp trial.
Donna is a feminist activist and author of Unmasked: Memoirs of a Guerilla Girl on Tour
https://www.amazon.com/MASKED-Memoirs-Guerrilla-Girl-Tour/dp/1510709436
https://variety.com/2022/film/news/donna-kaz-william-hurt-former-partner-surviving-abuse-1235208312/
GUESTS: Jess, a nurse, talks about how drugs fueled escalating physical violence. When Mia was In her early 20s and living in the small Maine town in which we both reside, her boyfriend repeatedly beat her up publicly and no one said a word.
Best Friends Courtney and Jess: It was from admiring Courtney’s retro tattoo on a bench in a district court that I learned we we were both there to support the same friend, trying to get a protection from abuse order. She told me that in a matter of a few months, a man that presented as Prince Charming stripped her of her personality. Here I talk with Courtney and her best friend Jess who both introduced her to this man then helped to pull her out of his trap.
GUESTS: Rhonda and Ashley, mother and daughter: Rhonda reached out to me to tell me about the emotional terrorism she underwent in her marriage, and then her daughter hearing of her appearance on my show asked if she could join the conversation. Here, they talk about their different and same perspectives and how the abuse affected the mother/daughter relationship.
GUEST: Hannah got pulled into a relationship when she was 30 with someone she knew from high school and it wasn’t long before he trapped through pregnancy, shame, and fear.
Tiffany, from the Portland Maine area, talks about how her first romance with a woman went from exhilarating and liberating to scary, and how police in three departments let her down.
Don McLean's Daughter Alleges Mental Abuse by 'American Pie' Singer “There was a constant state of fear in the house about the slightest thing [that] would make my dad turn into a crazy person,” Jackie McLean says about her famous father. Read https://apple.news/A3VMaHwhdTCmMbF5evftG6Q (the article in Rolling Stone).
GUESTS: Kathi and Nicky are business partners in a house-cleaning business and best friends. It was while cleaning my house and seeing Finding Our Voices paraphernalia that Nicky mentioned to me she had been sucked into a relationship with an older man that left her a shell of herself within months. Kathi helped her to get out so joined our conversation, but in talking we came to realize Kathi is currently trapped in her own domestic abuse nightmare.
Patti & Julie - Sisters Julie, a teacher and Patti, an airline pilot, talk about how Patti blamed Julie for years over the torment their parents and family were going through over Patti’s marriage to a sadistic, violent man. The discuss how Patti came to understand that her sister was trapped and couldn’t “just leave,” and also how they healed their own relationship. Second part, 79-year-old entrepreneur-firecracker Linda of Rockport talks about a first, 20-year marriage to a cold controlling man who she only now is realizing was abusive.
GUEST: Mandy and I shared the same wonderful domestic abuse victim-advocate, Missy Fairfield of https://www.nextstepdvproject.org (NextStepDVProject.org). We talk here about emotional abuse from her boyfriend starting when she was 15, steadily escalating over the next 20 years and exploding in a sadistic rampage against her, their three children, and her mother that should have netted him 30 years in jail, but saw him released on "good behavior” after less than a year.