After The Quiet

After the Quiet

5.0 (2)
Personal Journals

After the Quiet is a reflective podcast about coercive control, emotional abuse, and the long aftermath of silence. Told carefully and without identifying details, it explores what control looks like from the inside—and what it means to reclaim voice, identity, and love after years of being unheard. This is not a story of blame, but of truth, resilience, and speaking when the quiet ends.

4d ago

The Last Photo With My Eldest Son

It was Thanksgiving weekend in October 2022. My family had gathered at my mom's house, and before my eldest son left, someone suggested we take a quick picture together at the front door. It was completely spontaneous. Just a mother and her son standing side by side. In the picture, he towers over me, and I can still see the little boy I raised inside the young man standing beside me. I had no idea it would become the last photograph I would have of just the two of us. Approximately one month later, our relationship would dramatically change. In Episode 106 of After the Quiet, I reflect on that ordinary Thanksgiving, the speed with which family relationships can change, and the complicated grief of looking back at a moment that only became significant in hindsight. I also talk about something that will be important as I move into the next part of my story: my son is not the villain. He was a teenager navigating complicated family circumstances, and the pain of what happened afterward does not erase the relationship we had before it. This episode explores family estrangement, parental alienation from my personal perspective, motherhood, grief, and the ordinary memories that can take on entirely new meaning after a relationship changes. Because before there was estrangement, there was a relationship. There were years of love, ordinary days, birthdays, car rides, school lunches and family holidays. And on one Thanksgiving weekend in October 2022, there was a mother standing beside her very tall son at a front door, believing there would always be another picture. New episodes of After the Quiet every Tuesday for now.
Sep 15

The Last Birthday Bash

Labour Day weekend had always meant one thing in my family: our annual birthday celebration for all the Virgos. In September 2022, we gathered at my mom’s house to celebrate my birthday, my sons’ birthdays, and several other family birthdays. We swam, laughed, celebrated, and took countless pictures. I had no idea it would be the last birthday I would ever celebrate with my sons. One photograph from that day has become especially precious—a picture of me with all three of my children. It isn’t a photo where I think I look particularly good, but today, I don’t notice any of that. I only see my kids standing beside me. And we look happy. In Episode 105 of After the Quiet, I reflect on family estrangement, parental alienation, the “lasts” we don’t recognize while we’re living them, and how photographs can become priceless reminders of the relationships and love that existed before everything changed. Because sometimes you don't know it's the last family vacation, the last birthday, the last hug, or the last photograph together until another one never comes.
Sep 10

The Summer I Thought We Were Getting Closer

The summer of 2022 gave me another reason to believe everything was going to be okay. My middle son called me constantly asking to go to the amusement park—we went 11 times that summer. Sometimes his siblings came, sometimes friends and cousins joined us, and every trip made me believe our relationship was getting stronger. My oldest was driving, working, and becoming more independent, while my daughter spent so much time at my house with her friends that I joked I had three daughters instead of one. From the outside, we looked connected. We were connected. That's what makes what happened next so difficult to understand. Then, at the end of the summer, my daughter was registered for dance. I walked into a familiar dance studio simply to buy her shoes, having no idea that this place would eventually become connected to both some of the greatest sadness—and greatest happiness—of my life. In Episode 104 of After the Quiet, I reflect on the difference between happy memories and false hope, the early stages of family estrangement, and the summer when I truly believed my relationships with my children were getting stronger. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
Sep 8

False Glimmer of Hope

In July 2022, after months of growing tension and distance, I took all three of my children on a week-long vacation to visit my extended family. For a little while, everything felt normal again. We took pontoon boat rides, spent time at a tiny beach, attempted paddle boarding, squeezed together into a little bunk house, laughed with family, and made memories. I came home believing that maybe we were going to be okay. I didn't know it would be the last family vacation I would ever take with all three of my children. In Episode 103 of After the Quiet, I reflect on another false glimmer of hope during the early stages of family estrangement and what I now understand as parental alienation. It's an episode about the lasts we don't recognize while we're living them—and the ordinary memories that become priceless when the next one never comes.
Sep 3

Big Steps Back

It didn't happen overnight. It happened in inches. By early 2022, getting my teenage sons to school during my parenting time had become such a struggle that I made a decision I would later regret: I told them they could decide when they wanted to stay with me. I thought removing the fight would protect our relationship. Instead, our everyday time together slowly began disappearing. Then, after simply checking on my sick son while his father was out of town, I received a call from the police. Suddenly, I was being told I could no longer step onto my ex-husband's property—even to help my children carry their belongings to the door. In Episode 102 of After the Quiet, I look back at the small changes that I now recognize as the beginning of parental alienation: fewer school nights, hidden rides home, increasing distance, shifting boundaries, and ordinary parenting moments becoming sources of conflict. At the time, each incident seemed explainable. Looking back, I can see a pattern forming.
Sep 1

Finding love after abuse

After separating in 2019, I had finally become comfortable being alone. Then, during COVID, a spontaneous $9.99 Tinder purchase led me to the man who would become my partner. My children welcomed him, our families blended easily, and for the first time in years, life felt genuinely happy. But beneath the amusement-park trips, skating nights, rides home from school, and new family memories, something was beginning to change. My ex started objecting to my partner's relationship with my sons, and slowly, my children began pulling away. In Episode 101 of After the Quiet, I share how finding love after an abusive marriage gave me hope for a new beginning—and how that happiness became another source of conflict after separation. What looked like a peaceful new chapter was about to become the beginning of a painful shift in my relationship with my children.
Aug 27

Calm Before The Storm: Co-Parenting

Can an abusive relationship ever seem peaceful again? In Episode 100 of After the Quiet, I reflect on a surprising chapter during the COVID-19 pandemic when the conflict between my ex-husband and me appeared to quiet down. We co-parented more peacefully, he showed unexpected concern for my health, invited me to Christmas dinner with our children, and for the first time since our separation, I believed we might truly build a healthy co-parenting relationship. I also share how his new relationship brought hope for a united front for our children and why this period left me believing the worst was finally behind us. This episode explores coercive control, post-separation abuse, co-parenting after divorce, emotional manipulation, and the confusing moments when calm can make you believe lasting change is possible.
Aug 25

The Family I Thought I’d Lost

What if one of your greatest fears after leaving an abusive relationship never comes true? In Episode 99 of After the Quiet, I share the emotional story of attending my former husband's grandfather's funeral and the unexpected support I received from the family I thought I had lost forever. As I navigated co-parenting challenges, grief, and continued post-separation abuse, I discovered that the people who had known me for 24 years could see through the lies. This episode explores coercive control, post-separation abuse, family relationships, grief, and the healing that comes from being truly seen and believed. If you've ever feared losing an entire family after leaving a relationship, this episode is a reminder that genuine relationships are built on years of shared love—not on someone else's version of the truth.

5

out of 5

2 Ratings

After the Quiet is a reflective podcast about coercive control, emotional abuse, and the long aftermath of silence. Told carefully and without identifying details, it explores what control looks like from the inside—and what it means to reclaim voice, identity, and love after years of being unheard. This is not a story of blame, but of truth, resilience, and speaking when the quiet ends.

Creator

After the Quiet
Years Active

2026
Episodes

106
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© After the Quiet
Show Website

After The Quiet