Today we’d like to introduce you to Karen DeArmond Gardner.
Hi Karen, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
How do you tell the story of how you got here? The story of a young woman who planned on moving to Chicago after spending the summer in California with her family. The year was 1974, I was 20 years old when an high school friend introduced me to a guy, the best friend of her sister’s husband. He was in the last few months of serving in the Marines, he was fun, always joking, the life of the party and everyone loved him.
We dated since I had nothing else planned for the summer, what I didn’t know, couldn’t know is that he had other plans. He decided I was the one so he pursued me. For the first time ever I was special, he saw in me what no other guy had. Within two and half months we were married.
I know.
In that two and half months he was attentive, listening to me, asking questions as if he wanted to know me. What I couldn’t know, what I didn’t know was that he just wanted to know my secrets, my boundaries, and what I refused to put up with, not because he cared about me or wanted to know me. He was gathering intelligence to use against in the future, so he would know where to attack me, to expose me.
Once the knot was tied and what I couldn’t see was the beginning of isolation, of attacking me through words, shunning, and jokes. In 1974, no one talked about red flags or abuse. He didn’t hit me so I thought it was just hard getting to know each other, of trying to be a wife, not knowing that he constantly moved the line so I would try harder.
After six months he moved us back to where he grew up, 1500 miles from my family, to a place where I knew no one, had no one but him. We seemed like the perfect couple, affectionate with each other, as close as two people could be. Only behind closed doors life slowly became a nightmare that would take years for me to see.
He cheated and told me I need to go to the doctor for a shot. Instead of being angry with him, I comforted him. Looking back I’m wondering what was wrong with me. The pattern changed and shifted through the years, the lines kept moving as I attempted to keep up. Not knowing its was impossible to keep up.
We had good times, times when we laughed and loved. Only the good times were just a cover, a reprieve, an illusion for the dark times. It became the pattern of walking on eggshells until you unwittingly stepped on the landmine that he could use as a reason to attack, to punish, to make you feel worthless.
He wasn’t the guy who beat you up once a week. He used his words, his jokes, his silence, the smirk to keep you jumping through his hoops. It’s not that he didn’t use his fists, he did, but rarely, it wasn’t his go to when he punished, which as a side note, thought was his job. He actually thought it was his job to punish me for his behavior.
Kids came along, life move along, years passed as I disappeared. When I stopped fighting back to just not care, to just trying to survive. In my mind divorce wasn’t an option, it would have meant I failed, which sounds crazy now. After the kids had grown and moved out I started plotting how to leave.
I would tell myself, if the does xyz, then I’ll leave. He’d do xyz and abc, I’d freeze and stay. It became my pattern. A pattern of confidence then fear. Fear so strong and ingrained that it would consume me. I knew what he was capable of. Did I leave out the part that he was law enforcement, where he was trained how to subdue, interrogate, to hide behind the badge?
I am often asked, why didn’t you call the police. Because he was the police. All our friends were police.
After thirty years of control, threats, jokes, isolation, emotional, verbal, financial, psychological abuse, to finally seeing the man I married as a horrible human, of him finally showing me that I meant nothing to him, if it wasn’t about him, it wasn’t important. When I realized other people liked me, wanted to know me, who promoted me in my job, who thought I was amazing — and this man didn’t, was the day I was done. I knew there was nothing he could say or do that would change my mind.
Though it would take six months for me to actually leave. I was done. Yet insidious fear would keep me frozen. Until December of 2004 when my mom came to visit and we planned and plotted my escape from hell. D Day was the day after Christmas. I was 51 years old when I escaped and started over. I moved to Texas, waited six months to meet the residency requirement to file for divorce.
When I moved to Texas, where my siblings and mom move to a few months earlier, 30 years of secrets spilled out, once I started talking I couldn’t stop. There was a part of me that thought it wasn’t that bad, yet the looks on the faces of my siblings and mom told me it was so much worse.
At 51 I started a new job and built a career for almost 12 years. At 56 I met a guy, an amazing guy, Just so you know dating in your 50s isn’t like riding a bike. It is terrifying. I’d been single for 5 years, with man-hated tattooed on my forehead. A warning for any man who might be interested. Tom stepped over my walls, he was kind, safe, and gentle giant. He didn’t flatter or push my boundaries, he wanted to know me for me. He knew the baggage I carried and he didn’t run away. I was wary, he was patient. He showed me what love looked like.
At 68 I wrote a book, not a memoir, a book to help women heal, to know that what happed to them, to us, didn’t have to define us for the rest of our life. That living, actual living was possible, though not easy. Yet so worth it. In 2024 I became a certified Advocate, then in 2025 I became a Pastoral Trauma Coach with Mountain City Christian Counseling. I sit with women in their pain, to be a witness to their stories, answer their questions as they wonder, is this abuse? If they should leave, will it get better, will he change, maybe he’s just wounded, maybe he can’t help himself.
I speak truth into their pain, show them compassion, tenderness, and kindness and sometimes the harsh truth about the abuser and their marriage. I sit with women in the wreckage and burn down every lie that told them to stay. I post on social media uncovering abusers and their tactics.
My life didn’t end at 51, it just started. Now I’m 72 and doing what I love, living my best life. Though getting here was hard work, to heal, to face truth, to sit in my own pain, to continue to heal as I help others heal.
There may be some of you reading this, thinking I would NEVER allow someone to abuse me. I want you to know I said the same thing. Domestic abuse can happed to anyone. Abusers are masters at covering up the red flags so you can’t see them until it’s too late. Domestic abuse / coercive control is in every nation, whether you’re rich or poor, educated or uneducated, white collar or blue collar or no collar at all. No one is immune.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Starting over had its own challenges, I had no idea who I was, I carried shame like a shroud and fear like invisible shackles. When I didn’t know I could heal and realized that when people knew my story they looked at me as if I was this poor, weak, and disgusting woman. So, I buried my pain, pretended to be more confident that I was. I built a wall of strength and a know-it-all attitude to keep anyone from seeing the ugliness inside me. I shut down my emotions and became a robot. In my mid-fifties I discovered I could heal, and yet even that was terrifying.
Discovering who am I really, getting older, feeling as though my youth was stolen from me, wasted on him. While he could just walk away while I had to clean up the wreckage. So unfair.
Until 2019, after I submitted my book proposal to the publisher, it felt like I was dropped kicked into grief.
For eight months I swam in the ocean of all the emotions I’d buried. It was the most beautiful and painful time of my life. And it’s when I really started to live, to not be ashamed of my story, but to use it to give help to women that wasn’t available to me when I escaped.
In the last year so many memories from those 30 years have popped into my mind. I’m a spectator in my own movie, watching moments and seeing what was really happening. Which in some ways has been good and it’s also caused this righteous anger to rise up in me. And allowing myself to process through all the emotions.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I specialize in domestic abuse / coercive control. I’ve studied and learned the behaviors of abusers so I can advocate for women who believe they played a part in the abuse.
As a Pastoral Trauma Coach with Mountain City Christian Counseling, I meet women where they are by offering a listening ear, by acknowledging their suffering and pain. Giving them permission to be angry, even with God, especially with God. I sometimes challenge bad theology that has keep women in their place. I meet them with kindness and truth about who they are and who the abuser is.
I also take crisis calls, where I often talk to a woman once, validate what she experienced or is experiencing. Give her a place to say what she can’t say to anyone else.
What sets me apart from others? That is hard for me to answer, maybe it’s because my story resonates with them, I share enough of my story in my book so they can see their own story in my book. I’ve posted on Facebook and Instagram for years with not much of a following which has worked for me as I write for the ‘one’ not the masses. Of course I want to reach the masses. Why? Because each number represents a woman who may discover her marriage really isn’t hard, it’s abusive. That she may know she’s not alone and that there is hope.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
Pursue healing as if it’s a treasure buried in a field. Face the pain, discover who you are and do whatever you want. Go back to school, get a degree, start a business, get the job you want.
The company I worked for would have paid for my education, only I didn’t think I could work and study at the same time. I was barely surviving, I couldn’t see all the options available to me. When I left there were very few resources, now, there are so many resources to help women when they choose to leave. It’s why I do what I do. You have everything you need to thrive inside you. It’s never too late to start over.
If you think you can’t. Do it anyway.
Pricing:
- $100 per hour for coaching.
- $0 for 1 hour crisis call
Contact Info:
- Website: https://anotheronefree.com / https://www.mountaincitychristiancounseling.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/karendearmondgardner/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anotheronefree
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MountainCityCC
