Stories in a Womens World
[Music]
[Applause]
december 30th 2016.
after months of planning a
once-in-a-lifetime trip to iceland it’s
finally here it’s finally time to go on
flight 162 san francisco to reykjavik
a tall man boards behind you and offers
to put your carry-on bag in the overhead
bin you graciously thank him and relax
as you settle into seat 21h
this plane ride should be a time to
drift off to sleep and dream about
seeing the northern lights to wonder
what it’s going to feel like to soak in
the blue lagoon to go dog sledding for
the first time
only
you can’t because of the noise in the
background and no it’s not the roaring
of the jet engines it’s the loud voice
of the man sitting behind you who helped
you with your luggage he’s speaking to a
woman who’s incessantly sobbing
he’s spewing insults at her demeaning
her and the more she cries the harsher
they become
she can barely get out a word to respond
to him through her tears turn your brain
on he says in a mocking tone with the
laugh followed by
use your words
he changes the subject he tells her you
haven’t accomplished enough for a woman
who’s in her late 20s people aren’t
being honest with you when they
compliment you on your work they’re just
trying to be nice to you
i’m telling you this because i care
about you she keeps crying and he sounds
disgusted
look at you
you’ve never been my type
you’re ugly if you cared about me you
would want me to find someone i’m
attracted to she composes herself well
enough to ask the question you’ve
wondered all along
then why do you want to be with me she
says
every time i bring up breaking up you
tell me you don’t want to
he responds with i feel sorry for you
okay that’s why i’m with you because no
one else would want to date you because
i’m a nice person
this seems like a totally different man
than the one who put your suitcase away
you glance back just to be sure and yeah
it’s him
you brought your sound cancelling
headphones
easy solution you think you can just
tune them out
but even through them you hear his voice
don’t poke the bear he warns her
you look back and forth you mean this is
how he is when he hasn’t been poked
how could he be any worse
you look left you see a flight attendant
coming down the aisle you could pull her
aside tell them they’re being too loud
she could ask him to be quiet and that
would stop him
but as much as you try to ignore it your
gut tells you that this woman is in
danger
but then again she’s also a stranger so
it’s none of my business you think you
try to convince yourself to do nothing
but then
you hear it
she asks him
what can i do to fix myself
he thinks for a minute and says i don’t
know
kill yourself
she continues to cry and says
i’m so sorry
in a serious tone he follows up with
if you truly love me you want me to be
happy and maybe if you’re in heaven you
can help me find my soul mate and look
down and smile on our wedding day
this man is sick
there’s a napkin under your cocktail and
a pen in your purse you quickly scribble
a note but you can’t decide whether or
not to give it to her at least you’ll
have it down on paper you write
dear girlfriend
i know the lord had me overhear your
conversation to let you know that you
were a very beautiful young woman that
should have a man that makes you cry
with wonderful laughter not bullying
you are being abused and he will never
love you like you deserve
i’m very concerned about you and i’m
praying for you
run from him
get help and protection he doesn’t care
what you think or say or do
he is a very sick man and will make you
sick if you stay with him
please take this to heart and get help
fast
you decide to sign your name and write
down an email address that you rarely
use
towards the end of the flight the man
leaves his seat to go to the bathroom
this is your chance
you peek back through the seats and your
heart sinks
because you see it
you see her
she has a face now she’s someone’s
daughter or someone’s friend and she
needs help
he looked down at the note
what would you do
would you listen to your heart and pass
it to her thinking that the best case
scenario is that it helps her the worst
case scenario is that she chews you out
as you get off the plane
or would you let your head get the best
of you and fall back on that mindset
that has become so conditioned to focus
on our own problems not on those of a
stranger what would you do
what would you do if you knew that in
passing her that note
the woman sitting in the row behind you
would tell you that you’re the reason
she’s not six feet underground
and that she would thank you for saving
her life from the tedx stage
my name is laura owens and as you can
tell i wasn’t the hero in this story i
was the crying woman in c22h the
stranger nancy made the courageous
decision to hand me that note
in her mind she could have easily
justified keeping it to herself she
could have just said it was none of her
business but she saw me as an individual
as someone of value as a person that
somebody cared about and she made it her
business in that brief period of time
nancy saw him for who he was for how i
couldn’t see him
i felt like i was on a roller coaster
ride
we’d had a fairy tale start and then it
came down
fast
it seemed like overnight his charm and
compliments turned to criticism his
comments became more and more menacing
until finally
the verbal abuse became physical
the first thing he did once we landed in
iceland and got to the hotel was asked
me to pick a number not knowing why i
picked 40.
he said that was how many times he was
going to slap me
he did and then he choked me
the less oxygen i breathed in the more
he smiled
and for the first time in months he
praised me
good girl he said
my mind flashed on the note
he was truly sick and i was in danger i
begged him to stop and he stormed off i
thought he’d left the room so i went to
my backpack and i reread the note
i had no idea that he was standing
behind me
he told me to hand him the note he said
i knew she was listening all along she
doesn’t know what she’s talking about
his face was red with anger and a vein
popped out on his forehead he tore up
the note figured it would never be
brought up again but luckily i’d taken a
picture
even with all of that drama we made it
to dinner he abruptly left right before
the check came he said he needed to go
shoot footage for his instagram and told
me not to go find him he said he didn’t
want to be seen in photos or videos with
me because it would hurt his chances of
becoming insta-famous which was a big
goal for him he thought that if he
appeared to be alone he would appear
single and that would get him a lot of
female followers my heart was broken and
i had no sense of direction both
literally and figuratively i mean truly
i had no service and i was lost
i asked two people for help finding my
way back to the hotel but they didn’t
speak english
i stumbled around the streets of
reykjavik and the highest heels i owned
and in a sleeveless dress that was as
inappropriate as you could get for the
snowstorm i was in
the fireworks went off at midnight and i
could hear people in the distance
cheering i could feel their excitement
about the idea of a new year new hopes
new dreams new goals and then there was
me looking worse than ever after crying
for the better part of 24 hours
i slipped into an alley i was numb from
the blanket of hopelessness and
unworthiness i felt
the only wish i had for the year was to
redo my life and become a different
person since my boyfriend had convinced
me i was a failure and i couldn’t fix
myself but that wasn’t going to happen
the last thing i wanted to do was die
but he had convinced me that there
wasn’t a place for me on earth
he said that he didn’t want to end our
relationship but i couldn’t understand
why he didn’t want to when he treated me
like he hated me
he said that i brought it out of him
that it was my fault that he’d never
been violent before he met me
that i was responsible for his
transformation from the all-american boy
to american psycho but the thing is that
i had no idea no idea what i’d done
wrong i was the same person i was when
he met me i was giving i was kind i was
loyal i was supportive i looked the same
all of the qualities he said he liked so
much about me hadn’t changed i was so
confused and i felt so alone i knew i
couldn’t tell my family and friends what
had been going on i didn’t even think
they would believe me after our first
date i had proudly told them that i now
believed in love at first sight
i told them that i thought he was the
one and after seeing us together they
agreed
even when the relationship started to go
south he still acted like he adored me
in public he only abused me in private
and he had convinced me that i was the
problem but as much as i tried
i couldn’t figure out what my problem
was
as i sat in that alley just lost in my
thoughts
my mind flashed to that note from a
stranger that i’d been handed on the
plane
my fingers felt numb but i was able to
unlock my phone and open up the photos
of it for the first time in a long time
i felt like maybe i wasn’t crazy maybe
nancy saw something in him that i didn’t
maybe i needed to take a step back and
try to look at our relationship from the
perspective of an outsider from that of
a stranger
of how it looked to the world instead of
how it felt to me i weekly stood up and
wobbled back to the hotel
when i got to the room he was livid
maybe it was because he’d had too many
drinks or maybe his instagram post
hadn’t gotten the attention he thought
it would or maybe he was upset because
he didn’t know where i was and for a few
hours he’d lost his power over me
i hoped he was mad because he realized
that i’d taken nancy’s note to heart and
that i was now on to him
not surprisingly the rest of the trip
was a nightmare
it was impossible to enjoy the beautiful
surroundings when i knew that once we
got back to the hotel room i would be
abused
i thought constantly about nancy’s note
even after we left iceland and got back
to the united states
every time he said or did something
awful to me i took it less and less
personally i was finally able to admit
to myself that she was right he was
never gonna love me like i deserved
i knew that after what he’d done to me
he could never be the one but i didn’t
know how to leave towards the end of our
relationship he attempted to suffocate
me i remember exactly where i was when i
felt almost all of my spirit my soul
all of my fight dissipate
the feeling of his hand
on top of a pillow on top of my face
pressing all of his weight more than
twice mine into me in an effort to
silence me once and for all
i blacked out but i woke up
i was a different person when my eyes
opened
i tried to leave and he wouldn’t have it
he was following me around my
neighborhood he was banging on my door
at night telling me that he knew i was
home when i didn’t answer the door so i
had to do something that i never thought
i’d do
i called a dv group and i asked for help
within minutes i was connected with a
wonderful woman on the phone another
kind stranger who said that i was safe
she said that she believed me and that i
wasn’t alone she said that one day i
wouldn’t be embarrassed to call myself a
domestic violence victim and that i
would be proud to call myself a domestic
violence survivor
that woman connected me with more kind
strangers who owed me nothing but played
a huge part in saving my life
they helped me get a restraining order
against my ex-boyfriend which i still
have today and guess who wrote a witness
statement for me
nancy she was stunned that i reached out
to her but she was happy to help in any
way she could
stranger after stranger after stranger
kindness after kindness after kindness
this was the kind of world that i wanted
to live in i look back now and i wonder
what life would have looked like for my
family and friends if he’d succeeded in
taking mine nothing would have been
better for them as he’d convinced me
they would be my sister told me that i
would be the maid of honor at her
wedding when we were teenagers long
before she met the love of her life
she found him and got married this year
and i cried more than anyone else at the
ceremony because i was so happy to be
there to be alive to be with her
before my sister walked down the aisle
she said she couldn’t imagine anyone
else standing by her side on her big day
i said i’m only here because of nancy
she said because of a little note
and i think about what i would have
missed if she hadn’t written that note
i think about seeing my father actually
run in the pool in his first swimming
lesson after seeing his movement being
so affected by parkinson’s disease for
21 years my mom and i had endless
conversations about my relationship and
how nancy’s kindness had saved me
that was the catalyst for the podcast we
started together where people who
inspire us talk about their moments of
growth discomfort and change that led to
happy successful times that they never
thought were possible and after nearly
450 interviews i’ve learned that most
people say there was one person who
changed everything for them
their stranger their nancy i’ve often
wondered if i would have developed the
courage to leave on my own and realize
that even if i did it would have been
too late
one more time might have been too late
the difference between him being my
abuser and my murderer was this
that’s it
one more second of his fingers pressing
on my neck one more second without air
and i wouldn’t be here
for the first time in my life i had a
seizure then two then three my body was
run down it couldn’t have taken any more
abuse from him
i know i am only standing here because a
stranger told me i didn’t deserve it i
know that at some point in our lives
we’ve all been in a situation where
eavesdropping interrupting and
intervening things we were told to never
do could have changed the trajectory of
someone’s life we just don’t realize it
at the time how easy is it to turn our
heads away when we see someone in public
in distress
to pretend that we have more important
things to do than simply acknowledge
their existence
to bury ourselves and our smartphones
wasting our time airbrushing our
appearance to get more meaningless likes
today it’s easier than ever to be the
main character of our own story we can
move through the world immersed in our
technology seeing the rest of humanity
as just a backdrop for our own story
i’m the first to admit that i’m guilty
of that of thinking that i could take
control of the narrative of my life by
writing an instagram caption
of thinking that as long as it looked
like i was living the perfect life i was
for example i posted this throwback to
iceland shortly after arriving back in
the u.s which got comments like so
jealous and looks amazing now here’s
where i was when i actually posted it
in the hospital after my abuser and i
had a particularly rough night can you
imagine the reaction my friends would
have had if i posted my reality instead
of the one i portrayed online if i said
i need help
i’ve been in an abusive relationship i
need to figure out how to get myself out
of it and i want to know that one day
i’ll feel like my old self again what i
really needed was to find the courage to
leave him and to find myself
i needed love and support not followers
and likes maybe if i’d been honest i
could have helped someone
maybe someone would have seen that post
and i could have been someone stranger i
wished i’d been more courageous like
nancy so life ambled on and i continued
to portray myself as having it all
together
as someone who had never experienced
anything difficult in life before
for a long time it seemed easy then one
day it didn’t
the most traumatic chapter of my life
was the most private
if i didn’t tell the story for myself i
owed it to nancy
maybe people would be nicer to each
other if they realized the power that
their actions have
i didn’t need to post a sad story about
being a domestic violence victim
i needed to tell people that i was a
survivor because of a stranger but i
needed to find the courage to do so and
so of course i logged into pinterest to
search for inspirational quotes by my
icon renee brown it was like she was
speaking to me i got chills when i read
it when we denied the story it defines
us when we own the story we can write a
brave new ending that night
i told my story on facebook
i was done pretending to be perfect and
i decided that anyone who would look at
me as weak for telling it didn’t deserve
to be a part of my life
i was overwhelmed by the response
in a positive way
as one woman wrote pure love for a
stranger and another wrote angels are
everywhere we just need to be listening
when they talk to us each time that we
see the people around us as members of
humanity not as strangers we take a step
toward restoring hope for others we
become links in a chain of kindness i
didn’t know what at the time but the
purpose of my trip to iceland wasn’t to
save my relationship with my
ex-boyfriend like i thought it was
the purpose was to get nancy’s note and
to share with you the life-saving power
of kindness
why else would i have been sitting
behind her on flight 162 on december
30th
what if i’d picked the same flight the
day before the day after i thought that
the day of the flight was one of the
loneliest in my life but i was so wrong
it was the day that changed the entire
trajectory of my life
it led to the most fulfilling meaningful
friendships based on vulnerability and
kindness
it led to deeper relationships with
people i love and i’ve gotten to have
experiences i never would have gotten to
have if i’d stayed with him
all because of a brave note from a
stranger if you ever find yourself
sitting in a chair like her i hope
you’ll have the same courage she did
even if it’s uncomfortable to take a
step outside your comfort zone and say
something when your gut tells you
something’s off
it just might save a life
change a life or begin a life anew
you might feel like you’re crazy and it
may be way out of your comfort zone
but maybe
just maybe
you’ll help that person see the light at
the end of the tunnel
maybe you’ll end up being the stranger
they never knew they needed
thank you