Running for Our Lives: The Murder I Designed Before I Could Drive (Episode 82A - Part 1)

In this powerful first installment of a special two-part series (Episode 82A), I break my silence about witnessing domestic violence as a child and the desperate measures my sisters and I contemplated at ages 12, 10, and 7. When my mother finally gathered the courage to escape her abusive boyfriend, we fled Minneapolis with nothing but backpacks—leaving behind our home, possessions, and everything familiar.

The physical escape was just the beginning of our journey. What followed were months of instability, makeshift accommodations, and psychological trauma that remained unspoken for years. This episode reveals the invisible wounds carried by children in violent households and the shocking lengths to which desperate children may go to protect their loved ones.

My story serves as both warning and hope—a wake-up call to those trapped in abusive relationships, especially when children are involved, and a testament that healing and healthy love are possible on the other side of trauma. Join us for Episode 82B, where a trauma therapist provides professional insight into the impacts and healing journey discussed in this deeply personal account.

Next, listen to part 2, Episode 82B - Running For Our Lives: The Response

If you need help, please click below.

https://www.fatimabey.com/Other-Help

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to MindShift Power Podcast
• 1:06 Escaping Domestic Violence in Minneapolis
• 3:45 Living in Motels and Extreme Poverty
• 4:37 Childhood Trauma from Witnessing Abuse
• 6:18 Planning Murder at Age 12
• 9:05 Message to Teenage Girls in Abusive Relationships
• 10:24 Hope After Escaping Domestic Violence
• 16:14 Episode Closing and Part Two Preview

Transcript

Fatima Bey: 0:01

Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast, the only international podcast focused on teens, connecting young voices and perspectives from around the world. Get ready to explore the issues that matter to today's youth and shape tomorrow's world. I'm your host, fatima Bey, the MindShifter, and welcome everyone. Today's going to be a little bit different. I'm pretty sure you saw the title of this episode. I'm going to do something I've never done before. I'm going to tell my story. I've never done this publicly and I'm going to be really raw and blunt, the same thing I expect from everyone else.

Fatima Bey: 0:42

So I was born in Minneapolis, minneapolis, minnesota. Currently live in upstate New York, and when I moved to from Minneapolis to upstate New York when I was about 12 years old and I'm about to tell you why people ask me all the time oh, what brought you to New York? My response is usually, oh, family. Because I'm not going to tell them the real, full story. But you're about to hear it now.

Fatima Bey: 1:06

So back in Minneapolis, my mother had a boyfriend that used to beat her. He used to beat her pretty bad. She ended up in the hospital a couple of times and one day my mother had a moment of realization. She realized he's going to kill me or my kids. So she decided it was time to escape. We had a house in Minneapolis not an apartment, not something you could just leave a whole house with a mortgage, a nice house with a yard and a blackberry tree and lilac bush and all that good stuff and we left it all behind. She decided we needed to abandon everything and escape. So we did. We escaped with only what we could carry on our backs. One morning I woke up getting ready to go for school. My mother's like grab some clothes, grab you know, grab this, grab that. And I literally filled a backpack full of whatever I could carry on my back and it's all, that's all we could take. So I literally had to leave every single thing I knew, every single thing I had behind. We all did my Aunt Lizzie she's not my biological aunt, but everybody calls her Aunt Lizzie and she was our savior. That day my mother called her and said this is a situation we need to get out. Can you help us? And Lizzie did. She drove us to the Greyhound station. We drove, she drove us to the Greyhound station and we were hiding in the back seat because we didn't want anybody to know that we were going. We don't want anybody that knows him to report back to him that we were going, we were escaping and we got on a Greyhound bus. We came to upstate New York. Finally, it took a couple of days to. You know, it takes a couple of days by bus to get from the Midwest to to over here on the East.

Fatima Bey: 2:58

For the most part, when we got here we stayed with my grant. We stayed with my grandmother, but we only stayed with her for about two weeks because she had a very small one-bedroom apartment and that was kind of a lot of people. Now I have two younger sisters, so it was the three of us and my mother, and that's it. And the one thing I want you to understand is my mother literally had not one single human being outside of Aunt Lizzie, who really did all that she could for us. She had not one single human being that she could rely on, depend on and call upon. So she was doing this all by herself, outside of the help she got from Aunt Lizzie and my grandmother. For a couple of weeks After that she was surprisingly able to find a job real quick because she was determined.

Fatima Bey: 3:38

She was able to find a job and then we moved out into a motel and I mean like the hooker type, not one of these nice hotels, what we would call a hooker type, but that's the best that you could do. So we moved into this hotel and we ended up staying there for nine months. That was never the plan. But you know, when you're paying that much, you're paying a weekly rate and you're paying all this money. It's hard to get out of that loop Because everything you're making, all this money, it's hard to get out of that loop because everything you're going is going back. Everything you're making is going back into paying. Many of you understand everything you're making is going back into paying, just your survival. So we were there for about nine months roughly. Finally, my mother was finally able to get an apartment after nine months. But when we moved in we had no furniture. We slept on the floor. We used to stuff clothes in the pillowcases so that we could have a pillow. That's how poor we were.

Fatima Bey: 4:30

What I want to talk to you about today was the trauma that comes from being a child of domestic violence. He never hit me, but being a child of a mother who's constantly beaten, I'm letting you know right now. It messes you up Don't want to use the word permanent because that's not true, but it does mess you up in a great way, a big way. So for years and I'm only giving you the summary right now because I'm trying to keep this podcast episode within a certain timeframe but for many years, for many years, I would relive the trauma from hearing her getting beaten, hearing the screams and the banging on the wall, waking up and hearing it when it wasn't happening. I akin it to a rape victim. No, I wasn't raped, but the trauma on this in this context is the same. You're reliving a traumatic moment. Someone who was raped and sees the house they were raped in relives that moment. When they see that house, I wake up and hear a bang that has nothing to do with anything and it brings me back to that moment. It was many, many, many years Now, mind you, I was 12 years old, I wasn't into my 20s. Until I could actually talk about it Barely came out of my mouth before then. It took a long time for me to actually be able to really talk about it, because it was traumatic. It was so it ran so deep.

Fatima Bey: 5:59

Now that I've explained that, let me take you back to Minneapolis for a moment. I am 12 years old, my sisters are probably 10 and 8. I really don't remember, but roughly maybe 10 and 7, roughly around there at the time I'm the oldest. Before we left, we were planning his murder. You heard me right, I didn't mince my words. We were at 12, 10, and seven or eight. We were planning his murder. Let me explain what I mean. I was the ringleader, obviously, because I'm the oldest, and me and my sisters were getting together, even though we're sisters. So of course we fought here and there, but we were still a tight unit and, trust me, this is still true to this day. Me and my sisters get together and we decide something's happening, it's going to happen, and it's going to happen with precision. And then we well planned out, well thought out and thoroughly analyzed because that's how we are. So at 12 years old, we were planning his murder. And what I want you to know and I'm saying this as a full grown adult when I look back at it, I realized, oh, it would have happened. We would have absolutely killed that little bitch. Absolutely, he would have been absolutely dead. Now, imagine what would have happened if we had done that. I'm very grateful that my mother left when she did because she was protecting us in more ways than one. Now, my mother did not know this at the time. I only told her this, like maybe last year or the year before. I said, oh yeah, we were planning his murder and knowing what I know now, it would have happened because we would have stuck with it, because we had had enough, and we were at the point where we were tired of being scared. We were just going to kill you and I want you to know that, because that is a big deal.

Fatima Bey: 7:47

Sometimes we think children are ineffective by what happens around them. That is never freaking true. I mean, that is never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever true. We are affected by everything around us, everything you allow in your household. It affects us. We may not say something, we might not understand how it's affecting us until we get old enough, mature enough and, honestly, that has nothing to do with age. That has to do with maturity and those two are not the same thing. It affects us.

Fatima Bey: 8:19

It affected me. I could not talk about it for years. You've heard me talk about before how I had low self-esteem most of my life. This was not the only reason why, but this was definitely a part of it. Not only that, but I had a different experience than my younger sisters because I was much older. I had much more understanding of the world around me than they did. I remember a lot more than they did.

Fatima Bey: 8:39

I know because we've talked about it a lot, lot more, and the reason I'm sharing the story with you and this is I went through a lot of tears just to prepare for this episode. That's why I'm able to talk about it now, without the tears, because they happened before the microphone got turned on. But the tears actually weren't for me. They were for you teenage girl who's in an abusive relationship right now, because this is probably your future. If you don't get the fuck out right now, this is your future. You're going to have kids that have been drawn and led to murder because you kept them in an abusive relationship. You needed to keep that man, that so-called man who was abusing you. Don't turn your child into a murderer by staying in a situation that you shouldn't be in. You might be a teenage girl right now. You're not even pregnant yet by this little bitch, and that's what they are. By the way, when you hear me say little bitch.

Fatima Bey: 9:34

I'm not talking about women ever. I'm always talking about these little boys in men's bodies who beat women because they're little bitches. They're not men. Let me make that clear Now. If you're a teenage girl, get out. You're in an abusive relationship. You know I'm right. You know I'm talking to you right now and you're listening. You know it's you. I want you to know what your future looks like. Your future looks like you visiting your kids in jail because they murdered the little bitch you stayed with. Get out now. In a minute I'm gonna give you some hope about getting out. Mothers who are in these and I'm talking to mothers right now. Yes, it happens to men, but I'm not talking to them right now. I'm talking to the mothers because those are the ones I know and can relate to, the mothers who are in these abusive relationships right now. And you're listening to me right now.

Fatima Bey: 10:21

I know you don't love yourself enough to leave and you make every excuse in the world to stay, or maybe you're just too scared to leave, because sometimes there's a reason to be scared. That's what the situation was with my mother. It wasn't that she wanted to stay with this loser. She wanted to get out, but he was actually dangerous. There were some real reasons why we had to escape. I didn't understand all that at the time. I understand that now that we've had conversations many years later. But maybe you feel like you can't get out. I promise you you actually can. There are plenty of us around that will help you to get out.

Fatima Bey: 10:57

But, mothers, if you don't love yourself enough to get out, love your children enough to get out, because they're victims too. We are victims too. Because they're victims too, we are victims too. The memories, the trauma from watching you or listening to you get beaten is not of none effect. It affects us. And then you wonder why they're violent. You wonder why they're skipping school, why they seem to self-sabotage. It's because of all the shit they're watching. It's affecting them too. Love them enough to get out.

Fatima Bey: 11:27

Don't turn your child into the next six o'clock news murderer, because I promise you that would have been me Now had I done that. Imagine the extra trauma I would have incurred on myself by committing that murder which I was totally unaware of at the time, of course, because I was 12. Imagine that. Imagine the trauma I would have inflicted on my little sisters by having them participate in it. I didn't have to make them because we were a team. We were a team, but imagine how our lives would have turned out if we had stayed, if she didn't get out when she did. Imagine that.

Fatima Bey: 12:01

Now I want you to turn around and replace my story with your kids. Imagine visiting your son, your daughter, in jail because they killed that motherfucker, because they couldn't take it anymore. See, even the kids who you think won't push the envelope won't budge, the kids that you think are scared, the kids that you think won't do anything, they'll be the very ones that'll pick up a knife and stab his ass 45 times in a row and you can't even see him for all the blood. Yes, I'm being that graphic. I want you to see that, that trauma in your head right now. What I just said. It's much better than the real trauma of visiting them in jail and having their entire lives ruined because they wanted to protect you, because they couldn't take it anymore. We all have our breaking points and I was a scared little girl, but I was getting past that. I was getting past the point of being a scared little girl to a pissed off murderer. Don't push your kids to that edge. Get the fuck out. Get out for your kid's sake.

Fatima Bey: 13:01

Now I want to tell you something else. I want to give you a little hope. I know I'm telling you to get out and it seems hopeless, but trust me, there's somebody around who wants to help you. There's so many people that want to help people like you. I know them, I see them, I talk to them. I'm one of them. I want you to know that there's hope them. I'm one of them. I want you to know that there's hope.

Fatima Bey: 13:25

My mother is now married to a phenomenal husband. She's married to a great man full of integrity, and we all love him. We consider him our second father. When he introduces us, he doesn't call me his stepdaughter, he just calls me his daughter, and Father's Day is all about him. He's a wonderful man.

Fatima Bey: 13:40

My point in saying that to you ladies is, when you finally decide to get out, you free yourself up for a real man instead of the loser, instead of the little bitch who can't do anything but beat a woman because he doesn't have a dick. There's hope for you and I'm letting you know there's hope for you. My mother is not special. She's a beautiful person, but she doesn't have superpowers. She's no better than the rest of you. If she can do it, so can you. You just have to get out first.

Fatima Bey: 14:11

Now you understand why domestic violence is one of the topics that I'm so passionate about, and the first thing I think of is the children, because I was one. Do you know what it's like to grow up unsafe? I do, to never feel safe in your home. I know that when you don't feel safe, it's hard to feel like you're worth anything. Fyi, when you don't feel safe, it dramatically affects your thoughts, your thought, life, how you think and therefore how you conduct yourself in other parts of life. Your kids don't feel safe when they're in that situation. I'm not saying this to beat you down. I'm saying this to give you a reality check so you get the hell out for your kid's sake, and letting you know from a child of it what it does.

Fatima Bey: 14:51

And it was man for a while if there was somebody walking down the street hitting his girlfriend, it took every ounce in me not to murder him. I'm not kidding. I remember telling my stepfather one day after you know, before they got married and they were dating, we were all living together. I don't know what I said to my stepfather. But I said something to the effect of you put your hands on her and I will kill you. And he was a police officer, by the way, but I don't care Now, I didn't use that. I don't remember what I said to him and I don't think I used that phrase, but I remember he got upset because I was coming at him like that. Well gee, why was I coming at him like that? Because I was determined that that was never going to happen to my mother again. I was determined that that is not happening this time, because I will kill you first. I was already there. Now I soon calmed down because I came to realize that this was a good man and he cared for my mother.

Fatima Bey: 15:40

He absolutely adores my mother and she has so much respect for him. It's beautiful. In fact, if I ever get married, I hope I have a relationship like theirs, like for real. It's wonderful to watch. No, they're not perfect. They have their little spats here and there, but overall their love and respect for each other is so beautiful. But she wouldn't have been available for that if she had stayed with that piece of crap she was with.

Fatima Bey: 16:00

And, ladies, you need to take the garbage out. You need to take the garbage out too. You're worth it, but more importantly or just as importantly, your kids are worth it. We matter, we matter. You're really messing up their mental health when you stay in that situation, like really badly.

Fatima Bey: 16:18

So I wanted to say all of that today because I just want to see you win. I want to see women get out, and that's why I'm so determined in all that I do. A lot of what I do focuses on young women, and this is a big issue with a lot of young women, not just in America, but across the world. This is part one of this episode and there is a part two. So stay tuned, take a breather, because I know this was heavy, and listen to part two, because that's going to be just as impactful, but in a different way. And thank you for listening. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow or subscribe to MindShift Power Podcast on any of our worldwide platforms so you, too, can be a part of the conversation that's changing young lives everywhere, and always remember there's power in shifting your thinking.