Confronting the Reality of Abuse

Choice Hotels gets you more of what you value. Here's a little tune to help you remember. Same drive, different day Don't you wish you were getting away? pack your bags and come on through Texas, Ohio, Alaska, we're up there too. Comfort in. It's calling your name. Save on the stain. Oh, and free waffles are yours to claim. Well, I hope you like my little song book direct at chysotels dot com Teenens share everything. That may include the bacteria that can cause meningococcal disease known as meningitis. Even if your teen's been vaccinated in the past, they could still be missing meningitis vaccinations Ask your teens's doctor or visit meningitis. com today, sponsored by GSK My partner would Doo Health for this episode, and I want to tell you why Fty six percent of Due Health members showed signs of hidden cardiovascular risk after doing their blood test. forty six percent And you know what? they had absolutely no idea, no symptoms, no big dramatic warning. And look, I get why people put this stuff off because results can feel really scary. You know, you think What if I find out something I can't unknow But finding things early can change everything and that's what's great about what Dr. Rongand has done with Doo Health. This app gives you something clear enough to question Understand then act on It checks your blood three times a year, including lots of things many of us have never even been tested for. and then it explains your body is telling you clearly and calmly and then gives you a weekly plan with an in app coach So you know what to do next. More worry It's a way forward Go to dohealth d. co slash begin again and use code begin again to lock in early access pricing Giseelle Pellico became known publicly in twenty twenty four when she waived her right to anonymity in the sexual assault case that shocked France and the world to the core. Today she joins me to share her story what it means to be betrayed by the person you trusted most, why she chose to speak publicly and how she found strength even in the darkest chapter of her life and how she began again This episode does include details of Chiseelle's case, parts of which may be difficult for some of you, so please watch with care. This conversation was recorded in both French and English. On YouTube you can choose how to watch using the language options below. This is part one of her story Madame Pelicu Merciouud Veneri I'm on podcast Begin again I'm now going to speak in English And I would love to explain to you the reason that I started this podcast and it was Basically to help people and Live a life facilitated P death So to get your life in order so that you can die happy and I can't think of somebody who embodies a journey that will help people do that more than you and So thank you so much for coming to share your journey with us and how you have begun again, and I'm so grateful to you for being here. My first question is about Monsieur Pelicou and how How your love affair started Well our love affair began. We were nineteen years old. We were a couple of kids because nineteen at the time was very young in the seventies. He was an electrician, but my cousins who taken over his father's business And then we fell in love. I think we just fell madly in love And we started to talk together. And then I realized that in his personal life, he wasn't terribly happy. He had a tyrannical, hitarian father I'd had tough adolescence. I lost my mother when I was very young, my father remarried, my stepmother wasn't particularly nice. so we fell in love and we thought we'd save one another. That's what was interesting to realise that we really believed in it and we really wanted to build together. We got married in April seventy three. Everything seemed to go very well. We set up with very little But we were so happy, you know Shanana Sort song. It was really like that. We loved one another, we were happy and had David in seventy four. so we carried on being happy. There were no shadows and it was very surprising when you know the end of the story I didn't see this perverted man. I didn't see this man who was manipulative, I didn't see any of that and I didn't think he was like that at the time. I think he was really sincere and we really loved one another. And then in ' eighty six Th thingsings were going well but there were slight concerns as far as his professional path. Luckily, I had a job where I was earning pretty well. So I was really the main breadwinner, but then he started selling, but I felt it was chaotic I felt that he was more fragile than me and I felt that I was really leading things. but I didn't let him feel that I tried to establish harmony for everything to go well between us. and that's what happened. I always had the positive side in my life. He always saw the glass being half empty and I saw it being half full. and I feel that he had a negative side. I always try to encourage him And maybe There was, how can I say it? notot this depression within him because you can't say it was depression, but he just didn't feel right. In other words, he wasn't able to obtain what he wanted in his professional life So Monsieur Pico started to drug and you in twenty eleven. Can you tell me what was your life with him and your family like at that time Everything seemed to go well. Of course we did have a chaotic moments. He had health problems, financial problems, we had coual problems, but I felt that we'd overcome all that. I felt that we hadd got out of it even stronger. But of course he already had that perversion within him that I'd never seen. and nobody ever saw it. neither our friends or our children. How could you imagine something that's unthinkable? You can't imagine that the man with whom you share or lie for so many years, is capable of chemically drugging you. It was impossible. I think he was able to hide it all He knew exactly how to operate and it was a kind of manipulation. You have to be very intelligent to do everything he did. It's difficult to comprehend how A man can be so unbelievably manipulative and my heart breaks for you because you loved him and trusted him so much You felt guilty. about accusing him of something that he was actually doing. Can you tell me about that night Yes, One morning I was getting ready for the day. And I was getting dressed and I put the trousers on that I had worn the night before. and I saw there was some stranger stains and I try to think what had I done the night before? And I have no recollection. And then I start asking myself questions because I have a very good memory. I always remember what I would do ten days before. and I thought that was strange. She was in the garden. just working in the garden and I said to him, well, I just S Dume because that was his nickname and Dume You're not draggving me, are you? And I don't know why I said that at that moment Was my brain unconsciously alerting me? But I don't have the answer to that question And then he had a really surrealistic reaction. He said, Can you imagine what you're saying to me? That's really not possible. And he started crying and I could see in his tears, tears of my father when my mother was dying. I realized that he was wounded. I was harming him, hurting him. And I said, I don't know why I said that Please forgive me. So I felt culpable for having said that to him when in fact I was actually really discovering precisely What was going on? that was the truth. but I didn't know it at that point Discovering no, possibly it was unconscious at that moment and we don't talk about it again. I ask forgiveness and we don't talk about it again. When did the story of him being accosted at the supermarket for taking the photographs up women's skirts. When did you find out about that? O the time When he admitted to me, that he'd was caught in a supermarket, he had to tell me the truth. Because the sub Lieutenant Perre was going to call me. So he didn't have a choice. In twenty ten, he had the same kind of behaviour, but I was never informed that in fact he was caught in the supermarket in Sen Maran and he had a fine of a hundred euros, but nobody warned me about that particular story. And we lost teny. Absolutely. I only was going to learn in january twenty twenty three the fact that there was this fine of a hundred euros and they took his DNA I was not informed of anything. Can you imagine if twenty twenty Sulen had had the same reaction, I'm sure that I wouldn't be here in front of you today witnessing. They could have just said, Oh, well, he's a man who's sixty eight, his wife isn't there. Let's drop it. They decided no, let's just go and find out. And that's where they saw all the computer equipment And it took time for them to find the proof on his laptop, on his phone. And I learnnt that second of november twenty twenty because I was called in October. I was with my children because I was looking after my grandchildren. they said, mr. Mrs. Pidicou, has Mr. Pidicou told you what happened in Garmontire? And I said yes And I said to them, lookook, I don't know what happened in his head because after all, he's never behaved in that way before. I don't understand it. So they said, OkayK, are you free on the second of November? And please come with your husband. And I said, off course, and I can come even before. But they hadn't finished investigating. They said, No, come on the second of November with your husband. and on the second of November I was discovered prerecisely what had happened and for me that was really a T tootal tsunami in my head, a defigration. I didn't realize It's only at that moment that I really was starting to realize it was appalling Madame Beticooy, I read about your childhood and your upbringing and It seemed even though you had that terrible tragedy with your mother Dying so young You had a family life was No more U But I feel like you were so unprepared emotionally for that moment at the police station when they called you into that room alone Do you mind? I know you've done this so many times, but just describing the feeling when you saw the first photograph went through your mind, your heart, your body when you saw that I was only able to look at three photographs and I couldn't go any further because I wasn't recognizing myself on the photographs, but Sub Lieutenant Perre said, Look, I'm going to show you things that are not going to make you happy. and so I wasn't able to talk anymore and my mouth became very dry. I asked for a glass of water. I didn't know what was going on I couldn't imagine what they're going to reveal. And when I saw the first photograph, I saw a man next to me and I thought, I don't know that man and I don't recognise that woman at all. becausecause she was so disguised I saw a woman who was almost dead in her bed and disguised. They weren't my underwear you know withnders which I don't wear. And I said, No, that's not me on the second photograph. I carry on saying, No, that's not me. I know I don't know this man. And then the subendant said, look, we in fact carried out an investigation. It's your room. there are your bedside tables. And I think my brain kind of stopped. I disassociated, and it was too much for me. It didn' take me time. It took me a lot of time to realise It took me five or six hours because when I went home, they accompanied me and they asked me to call a friend because they didn't want me to stay on my own. Be after all there were fifty three individuals who hadn't yet been arrested and they said to me, you're in danger at home. You mustn't stay on your own. The friend came. and in fact they took my hair, samples my hair and they took some more samples of my hair to really check and then they could see all the drugs that were in my hair. and they particularly asked me when I went home, everything was messed up. I couldn't even recognize my house because in fact they'd searched to tried to find the medication. and they didn't find the medication and they said, lookook, try to find the drugs but it was like sort trying to find a needle in a haystack and I didn't know where he'd hiddenide searched in the house in our cupboard where we kept pharmacy products. and the next day once again he was in fact in custody and there he admitted where he'd hidden the medication And of course I would never have found it myself because it was hidden in fact in a garage in a tennis socer and there one could find the boxes of Temistat, which with a renewable prescription and there was a little bottle I can't remember what it was. It was just to make my body relax. and so they discovered his whole stratageem and he'd actually orchestrated everything And it really does make you freeze up. I mean just think that I' spent all these days breakfast, lunch and dinner. He had no pity, had no compassion. Knowing that I had these moments of absence which were regular, I consulted a neurologist who didn't understand anything. who think they thought was just anxious who thought that possibly I had the beginning of Alzheimer's. and so really went under radars. Why? Because they weren't trained. You can't possibly en visage with a woman who's accompanied by her husband who's been drugged by him. It's impossible because after all, drugs are in nightclubs in a bar, but not in the family home. No And really it's a tool of violence and it's absolutely happen has to be unveiled In the morning, I used to wake up. There were some symptoms. I had gynecological problems. I had these absences and I thought that it was my mother's illness, possibly that it was also going through But That's what's complicated to sayve the quarter I mean, I saw the women lawyers for the defense say, Oh, but madam How come you didn't realize anything with your body was talking. Yes, it was talking, but there was no explanation because the medical courps didn't discover anything. I saw my daughter's gynecologist and before Christmas I had a problem and my daughter took me to a gynecologist and she carried out a scan of my ovaries and he said, No, you've got nothing. you've just got a slight infection on your uterus, which is and I'll give you some medications. But in fact, afterwards, I had in fact four STDs. And at that point I had to have some very strong medication. And you've got to alert, you've got to denounce because after all, I don't want other women to undergo what I live through. They must always go and consult and they've got to dare talk. they've got to dare denounce because often people feel shame until you keep to silence and you don't want to unveil who you are It's shame it's carried by the victim, but it shouldn't be that way r at all. It's got to be the other way around. and they've got to have a courage to realize that they're not culpable for anything. Those victims must not feel culpable. They've got to be able to speak because then in that way they can in fact repair themselves. Any woman that has been using these drugs that make you completely black out will be so grateful to you for explaining Please. What that is like, so thank you. You have done a very brave thing I would like to come back to you talking about to the lawyers and to in the court about N. knowing anything that happened to you and How insulting It is when you've been through something like that people to not believe you What was it like to have people not believe you