Carly: I Was Essentially Held Hostage By My Client For 2 Years

Carly was a love addict from a young age and held captive in a toxic relationship for two years. When she met her ex-husband at 27, she forced the relationship to work because he was the least toxic person she'd been with in a while. Unfortunately, it descended into a cycle of him grabbing at her and her pulling back, making him feel unloved and her feel disempowered. She stayed out of a sense of obligation, but when the pandemic hit and her ex-husband lost his job, he spiraled into depression. 

At this point, Carly was in a state of self-deprivation and vulnerable to flattery, attention, and compliments. This is when her client--who was married--started pursuing her despite her shutting down his advances multiple times. He persisted and eventually called her from a different number, love-bombing her and begging her to give him a chance. 

Unfortunately, this ended in an all-too-familiar scenario. The client sexually forced himself upon her, making it clear that it is possible to be taken advantage of even if you don't say no. This is why it is so important to recognize the difference between a sex addict and a sociopathic or narcissistic person, and to run if someone is threatening suicide over you, or abort the mission if someone cannot be alone. It is also possible to disappear to save yourself from an abusive situation.

Host Brianne Davis dives deep into the often-ignored dark side of romantic relationships. Through interviews and personal accounts of her own experiences with love addiction, she offers insight and advice to listeners looking to heal from past hurts and break free from unhealthy relationships. Join Brianne every week as she shares stories of heartache, resilience and triumph as she works to help others find the strength to overcome their situation and build better relationships going forward.

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TRANSCRIPT

[0:00:00] Carly: But it was just continual threats of, you know, I will tell my wife, she'll come after me. And she does have a history. She'll come after you, she'll come after your license. I will destroy your life. I will get your kids taken away from you here. I'm in the middle of a divorce, too, at the same time, so there's a lot of poll there.

[0:00:30] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine. Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and love Addict. A four time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon.

Welcome to Secret Life Podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave, or those lighter or funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing, really, the how, what, when live at all. Today.

[0:01:31] Brianne Davis: My guest is Carly. Now, Carly, I have a question for you. Dun dun dun. What is your secret?

[0:01:39] Carly: Oh, my goodness. Yeah. My biggest life secret is how I ended up being literally held captive by a qualifier for about two years. And on the outside, I was like, this working professional and raising three kids and doing all that, but nobody would have known that on a day to day basis, I was like, being tracked and couldn't communicate with friends and was stuck at home in my personal life. Yeah. So it's a complicated story, but I thought it would be better to start with the end first so that we kind of know what we're building up to because there's obviously history there as to how one gets to that place.

[0:02:22] Brianne Davis: Yeah. So take us back take us back to the beginning. How did you get involved with this person?

[0:02:29] Carly: Yes, well, we'll actually go back a little bit further than that because it's important. I'll just truncate the earlier years of my life, let's just say that I became a love addict pretty early on. Didn't get a lot of affection and love from my caregivers, and so really learned early on in high school years, early 20s, like, relationships hit the hit just that spot for me and was involved in a lot of relationships just because I wanted the validation and the approval and the praise. So I just wanted to share that piece because this has been a long, ongoing pattern that I think really built up for this.

[0:03:13] Brianne Davis: I have a question for you, though. I have a question before you get into that, because you said you would get with people for the attention and validation. Did you get with people that were toxic? Did you get with people you weren't really in love with? Did you get with people that just liked you, so you automatically liked them? What was that little dynamic?

[0:03:35] Carly: Yeah, I think that's a great question. I would say all of the above. It kind of just depended on the mood I was in, what I needed. Sometimes I'll even say, like, how desperate I was.

[0:03:45] Brianne Davis: Yes.

[0:03:46] Carly: The very first relationship that I really noticed this love addiction over was a qualifier. He was definitely a narcissist, and so I got hooked into that. Unfortunately, he did rape me in the day rape scenario, and so I think that also there was this trauma bonding piece there.

[0:04:12] Brianne Davis: So you dated him after he did that?

[0:04:15] Carly: Yeah, that was the first time I'd ever had sex, and I had told him I didn't want to have sex. I wanted to wait until I was married. And he played along for a while, and then one night, he just forced me to do it. Like, literally held down. Wow. And so after that and it was so confusing because at this point, I was infatuated with this person, and I just couldn't see him for who he really was. And I was 18, and he was very popular, and he was kind of picturesque. We were both pretty well into our sports and went to college for that. So it's kind of this picturesque from the outside scenario.

[0:04:56] Brianne Davis: But inside, he totally violated you.

[0:04:59] Carly: Yes.

[0:04:59] Brianne Davis: Didn't listen to you, you didn't have a voice, and that was your first person you ever slept with and how damaging that is.

[0:05:08] Carly: Yeah, well, I just remember walking away feeling ruined, like, okay, I have to stay with this person. I have to make this work because I don't have anything to really offer. That's an important piece. That relationship went on and off for about three years. But I would say that we'd get into a lot of relationships, some that were toxic, some that were convenient, some with people I wasn't even interested in.

[0:05:36] Brianne Davis: I've been there too. I was like, oh, you like me. I guess I like you, too, for.

[0:05:42] Carly: The attention I liked that. The validation, the praise. I believed I needed that stuff.

[0:05:50] Brianne Davis: Did you always feel, too, for you with the power dynamic? If someone liked you and you weren't really interested in them, at least you had that power position?

[0:05:58] Carly: Yes. Because I could always play the card if I needed to. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, cool.

[0:06:04] Brianne Davis: Thank you for sharing that. I was just wondering.

[0:06:06] Carly: Thank you.

[0:06:07] Brianne Davis: But you were saying then at 26, you were about to stay at 26.

[0:06:11] Carly: Yeah, 27. I had been dating on and off, and many of my friends were married at that time and were starting to have kids, and so I was feeling the pressure there to do that, and I hadn't really found anyone that I'd hand out. And so I met my ex husband at 27 and I pretty much forced it to work because he was like the least toxic person that I had been with in a while. And he needed some rescuing, which we all love to do.

[0:06:48] Brianne Davis: You need some rescuing? I'm there.

[0:06:50] Carly: That's right. You need me, I will be there. And so I kind of knew in my heart that my higher power was like, no, but I pushed it. I own the fact that I was not ready to be alone again. And so I kind of forced that situation.

[0:07:10] Brianne Davis: What do you mean by forced that situation? Mean, in your mind, you forced it.

[0:07:14] Carly: Yeah, exactly. He was way into me and was fine. He was pursuing me. I just had other insight in my heart that I was like, It's kind of a mess. Like, his family life was a mess. I mean, there was just a lot going on, but I was terrified of being alone again. I was like, no, this person is good enough. I remember saying that and thinking that this person is good enough. Because I think, I believe deep down in my heart that I might be alone, that I might not get married. And I think that has a lot to do with my feeling of value and self worth. Yeah.

[0:07:52] Brianne Davis: Especially if everyone around you is doing it.

[0:07:55] Carly: Yeah. And asking you, right, when are you going to settle down? Or whatever. So that's what I mean by force, that I didn't force him. I was forcing myself, in a sense, to just ignore my intuition. Yeah. I don't recommend that, but I would.

[0:08:13] Brianne Davis: Not recommend that either. Tip number one, don't ignore your intuition.

[0:08:20] Carly: Great. Write that down. So we got married and it's kind of, I would say predictable a bit, but I was the love avoidant in the marriage. He was the love addict in the marriage and he was very needy and I was constantly rescuing and saving. And there was a lot of struggles in the marriage.

[0:08:45] Brianne Davis: Can you name some in case someone is in a marriage that is sounding similar? Like, what are some of the struggles you remember?

[0:08:53] Carly: Neither one of us really had a healthy sense of ourselves. I was very successful and confident in my career and he didn't have that confidence, so he would over rely on me to sort of build him up or help him get some connections. There was just a really overreliance on me for his security. And then what's interesting, right, I have some meshmen from my childhood. And so his grabbing at me is what that felt like was very repulsive to me. I was like, oh, my gosh, I need you to be a man, get your career set up. Yeah, I need someone for me. I'm forging a brand new business and doing all this stuff. Yeah. And so we would just kind of go round and round in circles with that, and he just didn't have the tools. And I didn't either, honestly, to just say, this is who he is. This is who I am. I can't make somebody be somebody that they're not. Because in rescuing, I thought, okay, well, I'll just teach them these things and I'll help them, and that's not my job. I don't think that's anybody's job.

[0:10:07] Brianne Davis: No, it's nobody's job. I mean, I've been with my husband for 18 years, and there's things that I don't struggle with that he struggles with, that I can't fix for him or even teach him. It's like he has to do it for himself without side help. You can't do that within the relationship.

[0:10:25] Carly: Exactly. And I didn't have a family that sought different help. I just went in with that naivety of like, oh, well, I'll help him and change him, and exactly. It was so disempowering for him. Right. Because I'm the one who's sort of, like, helping him through everything. And I think it was really emasculating in some ways, not intentionally, but when somebody's constantly helping and rescuing you, that doesn't feel empowering, that you don't get.

[0:11:00] Brianne Davis: To even build that inner self of self reliance.

[0:11:04] Carly: Right. Yeah. So as you can imagine, the cycle went on. He would grab at me, I would pull back. He would get really angry that I was pulling back, and he would not feel loved and cared for, and then I would just grab some more. I'd pull back. It was just kind of this really long cycle. Eventually, towards the end of the marriage, we were together. We were married for 14 years. Towards the end of the marriage, we had both just sort of, I would say, become apathetic. Like, we're just living together. Exactly. He kind of got settled in his own career, which, I mean, that was good. So I think we just sort of came to status quo, if you will. We weren't intimate.

[0:11:49] Carly: We weren't connecting. We had three kids well, sorry, two at the time, towards the end of the marriage. And so we were living. And it wasn't bad, but it was, like, very lonely, just like, okay. And throughout my marriage, I didn't want to get a divorce. That was something that I should throw in here. That's just some of my own personal things. And my parents pushed through their marriage. I'm not saying that that was necessarily the best thing, but I think I just had agreed to, like, okay, this is what it's going to be like in my marriage. We're just going to do the best.

[0:12:28] Brianne Davis: Of it, and I'm just going to keep living. Not thriving, but almost surviving. Right?

[0:12:34] Carly: Exactly. I think that there was just this part of me like this would have meant we just had become apathetic. Never once in my marriage did I ever look at another man, talk to another man inappropriately. I really didn't. And I had not been unfaithful to anybody before that in any of my relationships. And I'm not saying that was like self praise. It's not something I had really, I just didn't believe.

[0:13:04] Brianne Davis: I don't know. I think that's great because lots of people do do that, even DM, or getting that attention somewhere else, or having a close friend. That's what I hear about, I'm like close friend, please, or emotional affair or even a physical affair. People do do those things instead of saying, hey, something's wrong in this marriage. But yes, I think it's great you didn't go that route. I've went that route.

[0:13:28] Carly: I'm the cheater.

[0:13:29] Brianne Davis: Totally.

[0:13:30] Carly: So, I mean, it's interesting, right? The route that I went was just like sheer self deprivation. That's really what ended up happening, is like, okay, well, I'm going to settle for this, and it's just going to suck, and we're going to make this happen, and I just won't have what I need or what I want. I don't know. I just settled for that. And that's an old lifelong pattern as well. And my career to you by your.

[0:13:54] Brianne Davis: Parents, it seemed it was mirrored almost.

[0:13:57] Carly: Yeah, exactly. I was there for them. They weren't there for me growing up. I was there for them. So my career is important to mention at this point because I am in the mental health profession or the field, and I work with sex addiction, I work with sex addicts and with couples. And so it's interesting, right, because I had a lot of insight and a lot of knowledge about what does happen when you go outside of the marriage. Just all the stuff, right, with betrayal and trauma. And so anyways, had worked with many a male individually at that point, some quite truly narcissistic, truly controlling, manipulative. And I had actually learned how to advocate for myself and draw some really clear boundaries throughout those years with working with that population, and at that point had even just had to fire some clients depending on the situation of appropriateness and that sort of thing.

[0:15:04] Brianne Davis: So first you learned in boundaries in your career before your relationship.

[0:15:11] Carly: Which I understand that in a lot of ways, just because there are more clear boundaries in a profession, I believe, right, it's like, okay, no, we're not here to flirt. Like, I'm here too. We're here to work through what you're working through and hopefully get your marriage to work. Something like that. Anyway. But I bring all that up because when COVID hits, there was a few different things. My ex husband lost his in the airline industry, the airline industry went under, he lost his job, and he really spiraled into a pretty significant depression. Then he had an accident. He actually had a really bad accident and injured to his hand. It ended up amputating one of a finger in our backyard. So I say all this because during that same time so with COVID I'm starting to work full time. I am. He's unemployed. I am taking care of the kids as well. He's injured his hand.

[0:16:16] Carly: He had to have three surgeries on the hand, so he cannot help at all with our children. And then the last straw was he was going to change careers again. And I was like, I'm drowning here. I can't support you through another career change. I'm growing the practice, doing all this stuff. I can't do that. To which he was very hurt and angry and whatever. And at that point, I just said, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I need a separation. I can't do this anymore.

[0:16:53] Brianne Davis: You were tapped out. You were tapped out. You were mentally, emotionally depleted.

[0:16:59] Carly: I was, and I had given everything. And the last thing is that I had just given birth to our youngest a year before, or sorry, about six months before. I'm sorry about six months before. She would not take a bottle, so I'm having her transported back and forth up to my office while I'm working full time, breastfeeding, pumping, doing the whole it was just brutal. It was brutal.

[0:17:27] Brianne Davis: Breastfeeding is brutal, brutal.

[0:17:31] Carly: And it was kind of my third, so I was very familiar with but it was just the logistics of it were so hard. So anyways, I said, I want a separation. I want the separation. So essentially what had happened is about two weeks after we separated inside of our house at that time, because he didn't have a job, and I needed help with the kids wherever I could get some support, whatever. So we just did that. And a client who I had worked with for about a year and a half had started giving me probably the month before. Clients can read energy, by the way. I'm just going to share that because they just can. Right. You're in a room with another person that you talk to often. So this client had inquired, is everything okay? What's going on? We had worked together for about a year and a half. This client is married and had given off kind of this flirty vibe that I had shut down a few different times. Absolutely not.

[0:18:31] Carly: Yeah, and that's not what we're here for. This client had inquired, hey, is everything okay? You seem a little off. And I just didn't give any details. I just said, yeah, I'm just going through a lot personally. There's been a lot going on, and that's about as many details as I usually give, honestly, just to sort of truncate this. They were very persistent and well, and I had sorry, I should say, I had told this client, I said, you know, I think our work is really coming to a close right now. I think at the very least, we should take a break, and we can pick it back up later if you guys are needing some more. I was working with him individually to theoretically sustain the marriage.

[0:19:14] Brianne Davis: Yes.

[0:19:15] Carly: To which he said, no, I don't want to break. He said, I enjoy coming here. This is kind of my outlet, if you will, and you're one of my best friends, which I said, no, I'm not. Oh, no.

[0:19:26] Brianne Davis: Red flag. Red, black, red flag.

[0:19:29] Carly: Exactly. I said, no, I'm not your best friend. I said, I'm flattered, in a sense, just to know that you feel a connection. I said, but that's not what this is. So he said, Well, I think I'll start spiraling backwards if we didn't meet. And I said, okay, we can do this for a couple more months, and then we can just go from there. Okay, mistake number one.

[0:19:50] Brianne Davis: Mistake number one not trusting your instinct to know.

[0:19:53] Carly: It was not trusting my instinct yet. And twice I had mentioned this, closing our work, and at this point, I had started to become internally, not externally, really, like what's the word? Just, I think, impressed. Right? That this person this is a person very successful, very well known in the community, was even, like, having those feelings or thoughts towards me. It was flattering.

[0:20:22] Brianne Davis: Right?

[0:20:22] Carly: And if you're flattering, your marriage is.

[0:20:24] Brianne Davis: Dissolving, and you, oh, my gosh, there's this wound you have to heal, right? Any relationship that ends, there's a wound, so you hadn't healed. And then this guy that is probably attractive, really? That's flattering. I get it.

[0:20:47] Carly: Anyways, we cut meetings, and he had mentioned a few sessions later, he was like, Sometimes I just think it'd be helpful if I could call you in between session and check in about a few things. And I was like, no, I'm not okay with that. I said, first of all, I think that would really be very difficult for your wife, that you're just calling up another female, even if it is a professional. I said, And I don't want any red flags raised with her coming after me. It's very sensitive in the field of betrayal.

[0:21:15] Brianne Davis: Right. Well, you can get your license and stuff taken away.

[0:21:19] Carly: Yeah, sure. And I'm another female, right, that the partners are talking to. So I never met with the wife or anything at all. That wasn't something she was interested in. But nonetheless, I just told him that, no, I'm not okay with that. So about two weeks later, this person calls me from another number sorry, text me from another number. And I think at that point, I was just, like, shocked and really flattered and intrigued, but also terrified I'm going to use all of those words altogether. And I texted back, oh, I didn't text back. No, I did not text back. I called because I didn't know who had access to what.

[0:22:09] Brianne Davis: Yeah.

[0:22:10] Carly: And I said, what are you doing, and Where is your wife? Like, what is going on? And he was like, Well, I know you don't just like me as a friend. And I said no. I said, I think the story is you don't like me just as a friend. So we got into this conversation, and he said he essentially just begged me. He was like, can you give this a chance? I want to make you the happiest woman in the world. I know how special you are. I think you're incredible. You're smart, you've got an amazing career in practice, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the flattery, all the love bombing. Just name it what it is.

[0:22:46] Brianne Davis: First of all, tip number three, he didn't respect your boundaries and called you on a numbered number. Tip number four, he loved bombed you while he was married. There we go. There's all the tips so far.

[0:22:56] Carly: There's all the tips. That's right. We're ready to move down. But here's the thing, right? It's like, at this point, I was in such self deprivation that this was all very hard for me to resist, even when I was, oh, it is absolutely.

[0:23:13] Brianne Davis: That flattery, that high, that feeling wanted. Especially after being in a marriage that didn't wasn't healthy. You're like anything. You're, like thirsty for water.

[0:23:27] Carly: Exactly. I love that you said that, because I have three close friends who all use the same analogy, like, thirsty people will drink dirty water. I was like, so true. So true. So essentially, he said, look, can you just think about this? And I was like, there's nothing to think about. I said, this is my license. This is my life. I said, I can't do this. And so at that point, he started spiraling. And so like, well, I'm going to kill myself then, because I can't not have you in my life.

[0:24:02] Brianne Davis: Tip number five, if someone's going to kill themselves over you, run.

[0:24:08] Carly: It's true. Although that was a huge trigger point for me, honestly. He was like, and everyone will know because you're my therapist. And so it was going to make it sort of like it was insinuated, right? But it was going to be this very public thing because of me. And this is somebody who has connections, I mean, with everybody. I didn't want to say later on in the story, I didn't call the local police. I called the city police because he's connected. So that being said is I panicked, and I was like and he was like, Just give it just give it 30 days. And I was like, fine. I will give it 30 days.

[0:24:52] Brianne Davis: You said fine.

[0:24:54] Carly: I did.

[0:24:54] Brianne Davis: You were taken hostage already?

[0:24:57] Carly: Yeah. What are you signing the lease for?

[0:24:59] Brianne Davis: 30 days.

[0:25:00] Carly: Well said. Thank you.

[0:25:02] Brianne Davis: You know what I mean?

[0:25:03] Carly: Yes.

[0:25:04] Brianne Davis: The insanity of that, I was terrified at this point.

[0:25:08] Carly: It was sheer terror. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat. I actually went home and told my husband, who I was separated from at the time. I was like, look, this person has started pursuing me. I'm just not a secrets holder. I'm just not. I was like, so I said, I don't know where this is going. I said, But I'm not going to be lying about these things. So anyways, let's just fast forward. Almost the same scenario happened with my first boyfriend where this person ended up sexually forcing himself on me as well.

[0:25:53] Brianne Davis: Someone you dated took advantage of you?

[0:25:56] Carly: Yeah, well, if you can call it a dating I would say it's sort of like Stockholm syndrome, but totally.

[0:26:02] Brianne Davis: You got held hostage. Let's just say, like he was threatening suicide, your license was going to be taken away, he could have made up lies, all that stuff. And you were being held hostage and he took sexual advantage of you.

[0:26:13] Carly: He did. And I again told him, I was like, I'm not even there yet. I don't even know you in that way. I'm not there.

[0:26:22] Brianne Davis: And where did that happen? Can you even say where that happened?

[0:26:26] Carly: Yeah, I had gone away for a weekend to the beach in this area and he asked if he could drive down because it was just me. And I said, yeah, let me think about it. And so I said, yeah, that's fine. So we met up actually, like in this public place anyways. And so we met up in a public place and we were just talking and it was chill. And then we ended up this was again, not what you want to do, but we ended up going back to my room. It was freezing and raining and so we ended up going back to my room and it was a big suite, so we're just sitting on the couch area. And I was really intentional about all of that too, honestly. And then I can't really remember parts of it. I disassociated pretty bad and I kept having some flashbacks. I had several flashbacks during that time. So he did. He forced himself on me. And I have such a hard time saying no, which is just sort of my trauma reactivity there.

[0:27:38] Brianne Davis: Well, you freeze, probably.

[0:27:40] Carly: I do.

[0:27:40] Brianne Davis: Even if you don't say no and you freeze, you are being taken advantage of. Yes, you'd have to say no for it not but you actually don't. That's still sexual assault. I just want to make that clear for anybody listening.

[0:27:56] Carly: No, I like that. I appreciate that. Yeah, I was physically shaking, physically shaking. And it was just full on compliance mode. And this person had already I mean, I didn't have a no with this person. So that happened and that was a real turning point to where, again, it triggered this like, I've got to make this work because I'm going to lose my entire life. He's going to destroy everything. Yeah, I saw this entire other side of this person. It's important to note this is sociopathic and narcissistic behavior. This isn't just somebody who is your typical sex addict. So I just want to clarify, there's a big difference, but of course not all these things are known until you're in these places reflecting, until you're showing their true self. But essentially this goes on, right? For a year and a half. Wow.

[0:28:59] Brianne Davis: And I tried a long time.

[0:29:02] Carly: I tried to leave numerous times, tried to leave numerous times, but I was, like, tracked, sometimes followed by different people. And it was just the whole thing. I did try to love him, to survive him. I did. There were attractive things about him and good things about him.

[0:29:25] Brianne Davis: Was he still married?

[0:29:27] Carly: Oh, yeah.

[0:29:28] Brianne Davis: So you were even a secret in that?

[0:29:30] Carly: Absolutely. I was completely secret. He refused. He could not leave the marriage until he knew that I was all in because he's terrified. And he was straightforward about this. I'm terrified of being alone. I cannot be alone. He's terrified of it. And he was like, you don't understand what happens to me when I'm alone. And of course, in my mind of being, yeah, I do know what happens to you.

[0:29:51] Brianne Davis: Kid number six, if someone can't be alone, abort mission.

[0:29:56] Carly: Right? There you go. So, yes, this whole time, and I kept telling him, I was like, she's going to find out. Everything in the dark, comes into the light. And let's be clear that this wife, rightfully so, had trackers on all of his vehicles. This is somebody with multiple trackers. Cell phone tracked his cell phone, had everything stained. He's calling me and connecting me with a secret phone this whole time. And he's living there, and they are separated in their house as well, and they have been for a long time, but he's living there because he can't leave her unless he knows everything's okay with me. Well, I'm not giving him any indication that I'm sticking around because I'm continuing to try to avoid this whole thing, but it was just continual threats of, I will tell my wife, she'll come after me. And she does have a history. She'll come after you, she'll come after your license. I will destroy your life. I will get your kids taken away from you here. I'm in the middle of a divorce, too, at the same time, so there's a lot of I know we're running.

[0:31:00] Brianne Davis: Out of time, but how did you get out of it? I'm just like, on pins and needles. How did you happen to get out of it?

[0:31:07] Carly: Well, what I did was I secretly planned to admit to trauma treatment. I knew I needed to go to treatment and get out. And despite the bullet, I already had a restraining order on him at this time, which he was complying with as long as I didn't leave him. But all threats were still at bay. He's like, I'll post pictures of you all over the internet. I'll do whatever. So I essentially had to make a secret plan with my best friend. She booked the tickets, and I did all the treatment planning, and I did it all in secret from a different device. And then one morning, actually, unfortunately, it was ironically. On his birthday.

[0:31:55] Brianne Davis: Happy birthday.

[0:31:57] Carly: I woke up and I left and I was gone for a couple of months. Wow. And there was a little bit of contact had after. When I came back, this was really different. It wasn't anything like that. And that was it. That was it, essentially. I don't really know what happened. I fully believe that God just rescued me from that situation. And he got distracted or something by somebody else. Once. I was just unattainable. I mean, I just was gone.

[0:32:26] Brianne Davis: You just cut it all off. You just pretty much just disappeared to save yourself.

[0:32:32] Carly: Yeah.

[0:32:32] Brianne Davis: That's what I tell people. I work with this one client. I'm like, disappear. You can disappear. You can go, you can go. You can get out of this. You can get away from this abusive person. Wow.

[0:32:46] Carly: If it's bad enough.

[0:32:47] Brianne Davis: So if you're stuck, disappear, it's okay.

[0:32:50] Carly: Yeah.

[0:32:51] Brianne Davis: Because a lot of people think that's weak, just so you know. And I don't think it's weak.

[0:32:55] Carly: Well, I'm back in the same area. My practice is what it is. I didn't even get to get to this part. But she did find out about the phone and about me and so my license no, the board was very supportive, actually, because I just told them the whole truth. And I had evidence and all this, you know, text. And I had I told them the whole truth of the situation to which they were very gracious of an understanding of because, honestly, I should have had my license revoked. That's just the reality of the situation. But I did not. I don't have any restrictions on my license. And I see that as just the grace of God.

[0:33:32] Brianne Davis: And also your authenticity of the truth. Do you see what I'm saying? There's accountability and saying, yes, these are the things that happen. Here's how it happened. Did I have a part in it? Yes.

[0:33:44] Carly: And I told them all of that. I did.

[0:33:47] Brianne Davis: I think that is the saving grace of you, I just have to say, because there's this part of you that's really authentic in the real and the raw and the struggle with yourself and with others.

[0:34:00] Carly: Yeah, thank you for that. I appreciate that. I do believe that the truth sets us free. I do.

[0:34:06] Brianne Davis: It does. Oh my God. We're running out of town and we could literally talk forever, but is there anything else that the listeners you think need to hear or something that you really learned from this experience? I know we only have a couple of minutes left.

[0:34:19] Carly: Yeah, it's okay. I just hope that some people can maybe connect with some of the details. It's a crazy story. So not all the details, but bits and pieces right. That you can connect with. I still work program. I am in a twelve step recovery program for sex and love addiction. And I work program and I've learned so much through this, just about even what I want in my own relationships. Personally and professionally, yes, but more so personally. And that everything has a silver lining. All tragedies. I've grown so much from this and I have such a just heart in general for people going through this. But you don't have to stay in that. You do not have to stay in that. No matter what.

[0:35:03] Brianne Davis: No matter what. Thank you so much for coming on Secret Life. I'm so grateful for your story.

[0:35:09] Carly: Yeah, thank you for having me.

[0:35:10] Brianne Davis: And if you want to be on the show, please email me at secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. Until next time.

Thanks again for listening to the show. Please subscribe rate share or send me a note to secretlifepodcast@icloud.com. And if you'd like to check out my book, head over to secretlifenovel.com or Amazon to pick up a copy for yourself or someone you love. Thanks again. See you soon.

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