Moms on the Move with Linda Swain

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Brenda Thomas

Brenda Thomas escaped 15 years of abuse from her ex-husband to become a best-selling author.

Website(s):

http://www.womenagainstabuse.org/

Transcript From The Show

Brenda: He told me back in ’82 before we moved to North Carolina that if I ever wrote again he'd kill me. And I believed him. I was abused to that point. So I stopped writing.

But Brenda Thomas found a way to write again. And she is now, a best-selling author making appearances at Borders and across the country signing her third release, “The Velvet Rope”. Escaping an abusive marriage was not her only hurdle.

Linda: You published your first book yourself.

Brenda: Yes, I received 31 rejection letters and then after that I said you know what. I’m going to do this myself.

And with the two thousand dollars she borrowed from her brother, and editing help from a friend, she had the first thousand copies printed selling 5 at a time out of the trunk of her car.

Brenda: So I took myself on a 40-city tour and sold about 30,000 copies over 2 years and I got picked up by Simon and Schuster.

Linda: That’s a big one too.

Brenda: That was very big.

Linda: It must have been a hard thing to publish your own book and go out across the country and sell it yourself.

Brenda: It was but you know… I knew that if I wanted it bad enough and I was hungry enough I knew that I could make it happen.

And her experience as Assistant to Pro Basketball player Stephon Murbury was good training to do her own PR.

Brenda: So I got out there in front of the camera, handed out postcards, did whatever I needed to do

And what Brenda needed to do was make drastic changes in her personal life to fulfill her childhood dream.

Brenda: And I said I'm going to write my autobiography. But I had no idea and I had to be like in the 7th grade.

Linda: How did you go from 7th grade to drug addiction and an abusive marriage?

Brenda: I guess I always wanted to fit in. You were smoking joints, doing a little cocaine, and you don't think you'll ever get hooked in that either because as a teenager you always think you know better. Got on that path of getting high and being with my ex-husband and the first time he laid his hands on me he pushed me.

Linda: How did your marriage get to the point when your husband broke you’re your collarbone with a sledgehammer?

Brenda: WOW! I always say it's a combination of the drugs and the abuse. He had taken some drugs and got real crazy and he thought I was leaving him and he snapped. He broke down our neighbor's door and came after me.

Brenda: My daughter went through it with me, and one day when I saw my son hiding underneath his book bag I said it's time to go.

And for the sake of Kelisha and Kelvin, their parents did go to rehab. But they later divorced and after 17 years, Brenda remains drug free, writing books and baking cookies with her 3 grandchildren who always have a cheer for their Granny.

Linda: How do they react to what you are doing now?

Brenda: I think it makes them want to strive harder you know my daughters in school my sons in school

Linda: I was hearing from your mom that you’re the favorite Calvin is that true?

Linda: It took you 15 years to get out of your marriage how do you stop another woman from staying that long in a marriage?

Brenda: I tell her to get out as soon as she recognized it. If she even thinks that she’s abusive. If he’s crazy when he’s arguing. Sometimes women stay I know for the fear of leaving. That was part of it for me too, but it's better to leave and have that fear and deal with it than stay in that because you’re committing suicide. That means relocating whatever you have to do. It will work out it really will. I would've never thought deep in my abusive and addiction that I'd be where I'm at. Never. 4

Linda: How do you feel about yourself now and where you’re going?

Brenda: I see me walking down the red carpet with a movie deal, writing books, enjoying my family and maybe finding that lucky guy. If you want something bad enough and your hungry enough you’ll get it regardless of what it is you’ll get if you don’t get all the way there, you’ll get halfway there

Linda: I think you’re more than halfway.

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