The Inspiring Story of Kim Carpenter

by- Amanda Hildreth

“Your story does not define you.”

Kim Carpenter, Abuse Refuge Org’s Norm Therapy® Manager and Norm Therapist®, tells us why she chose to practice Norm Therapy® in her inspiring story as an Abuse Survivor, and her desire to help others find their truth and normal.

Kim’s Background

Kim is a certified Transformational Life Coach, Usui Reiki Level 2 practitioner, and is a Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) certified human resources professional with over 25 years of experience in human relations. She is also a 4-time podcast guest speaker, sharing tips about recovering from Narcissistic Abuse. She specializes in life skills such as self-awareness, accountability and emotional intelligence.

Kim worked mostly in human relations before she became a Norm Therapy® Manager. In her last job, she was affectionately known as the morale leader because she created and implemented a training program that supported employees’ personal and professional development. In 2015, shetransferred out of her human resources role because the office environment wasn’t satisfying, and she felt a higher calling to help others get through what she had survived. Kim began to research Reiki and became a transformational life coach. She always knew that once she got her business up and running, she would give back to the cause. “ARO just sort of landed in my lap,” she said, and the rest is history.

Kim’s Story of Survival

Kim is invested in giving back to the cause because she has experienced abuse first hand. Kim’s abuse started at a very young age. Her parents divorced around the time she turned one, and her father quickly remarried. During her childhood, she lived with her father, stepmother, brother, and two step-siblings (Bialko, 2021). Shortly after her father received full custody of her and her brother, her father’s parents moved in with them. Kim’s earliest memories of her grandparents are from the time she started kindergarten, when the Sexual Abuse with her grandfather began. This abuse continued until she entered 6th grade, when she finally decided to stand up and refuse her abuser.

“I don’t know where that inner strength came from to stand up and say that, but I did.”

From that time, the relationship with her grandfather changed and became more manipulative.

Kim showed all the classic signs of Sexual Abuse in children, such as not wanting to undress in front of others for PE class, not playing with other children, and not talking about her abuse to anyone. It got to the point where she asked her grandfather to write notes so she didn’t have to participate in PE class. He began to manipulate her by telling her father about the notes, to purposefully get her in trouble. She didn’t feel like she could tell her father the truth of the situation and why she was asking for the notes.

About the time she stood up to her grandfather, she thought she would be safe sleeping through the night with the hall light on. However, she woke up one night to find her older stepbrother on her bed. He was in 9th grade at the time. He said he was trying to “practice” first and second base. At one point, her stepmother caught them, and slapped Kim on the cheek, hard. She was restricted from having any boy in her room. Her stepbrother was seen by her stepmother as the victim.

These random nightly visits continued until he was a senior in high school and she was in 9th grade. It stopped when her step brother got a serious girlfriend. One day, she was on the phone with a friend, and her stepmother was monitoring the call to make sure she wasn’t talking to any boys. Her stepbrother and his girlfriend walked behind Kim, and when he asked who she was talking to, she said, “I’m calling child services to report abuse.” His girlfriend looked mortified, and the abuse with him stopped from then on. However, he became a predator to Kim’s friends.

Kim and her best friend planned to go camping for Kim’s birthday for a weekend. They were leaving for the trip early on Saturday morning, so her friend stayed the night before.The night ended with Kim’s stepmother finding her best friend asleep in her stepbrother’s bed and kicking her out of the house. Her step brother was again seen as the victim, and Kim was never allowed to speak to her best friend again.

At the same time that the abuse was occurring with her stepbrother and grandfather, her stepmother was abusive, and her father did nothing to resolve it. Instead, he would support his wife. She constantly manipulated the truth about her stepbrother to her father, so she was punished by both of them.

She endured this abuse until one event, when her stepmother hit her with the wrong end of the belt and left a nickel-sized hole in her calf. Once her father came home, her stepmother told him Kim yelled at her, so he said she would be punished. Before he did, he noticed Kim’s leg and asked what happened, and Kim told the truth. Her father asked what she wanted to do, and she built up the courage to tell him she wanted to go live with her mother.

Just before her senior year of high school, she moved in with her mother and stepfather. She didn’t talk to her father or stepmother much after the move. She would see them only on occasion for family gatherings or holidays. Whenever she did, her stepbrother always had something negative to say about Kim, which perpetuated the perspective that everything was her fault.

Despite the years of abuse by her stepmother, grandfather, and stepbrother, Kim is living proof of the power of forgiveness. Once she ended the relationship with her narcissist stepmother, things became more clear to her, and she went through her spiritual journey of truly knowing and understanding the meaning of life. She reconnected with her dad and stepmother, but by that time her stepmother was in the late stages of dementia. Kim visited every few months to help her father care for her stepmother (Bialko, 2021) until Kim’s father passed away in January of 2022. Kim and her siblings placed her stepmother in a nursing home, where she later passed away in August of 2022.

Kim chose to never tell her father about what happened with her grandfather. Due to her father passing this past January, she now feels more comfortable speaking about what happened with her grandfather. “I feel more free to speak now,” she said.

Finding Her Own Ways to Heal

Kim would sit with a therapist who cried the whole time she was talking, and she felt bad about sharing her story. “I endured several months of meeting with a therapist, and I can’t say it helped me completely.” She ended the relationship with her therapist a few months later, and she encourages others, as a manager and Norm Therapist®, to find their unique path to healing.

As an alternative to sitting alone, Norm Therapy® is a support system to help others find the best mode of healing for themselves, their normal. Norm Therapy® brings to light many types of abuse that we can see that go beyond Physical Abuse and for those who are unable to access help.

Why Norm Therapy®?

Kim is a Norm Therapy® Pioneer from 2021, as instructed by Michael Gibson, Global Managing Director, Co-Founder of ARO, and the Creator of Norm Therapy®. Kim became an integral part of the training and development of Norm Therapy® and developed a series of NTIS training modules covering self-awareness and the diplomacy of assertiveness. She is making significant contributions to the NTIS Advanced Training Program, launching in 2023.

As a Survivor of Financial, Sexual, Child, Narcissistic, Psychological, Bullying, Workplace, and Spousal Abuse, Kim profoundly understands the importance of why Norm Therapy® is a much-needed “Hand Up” in the Abuse Care Community. She knows how it greatly impacts the lives of individuals who are seeking change for themselves and their situations by embracing the Three Tenets of Norm Therapy®: Clarity, Assessment, and Truth.

Kim truly feels a calling to help others heal from their abuse through Norm Therapy®, which plays an important role in challenging the beliefs of a Victim or Survivor. Kim wants to bring awareness to the 13 types of abuse and help others heal the way that she did.

The Inspiring Nurturer

When people tell Kim she is nurturing and inspiring, their words deeply touch her heart. Through everyday life, Kim gives to others what they need to hear. Most often, individuals are experiencing similar circumstances, and her inspiration and kind words are exactly what she needed when she endured her abuse. This cyclical effect returns to her in so many beautiful and unexpected ways.

Kim and her inspiring story teach us there is power in forgiveness, and we can become much more than our circumstances.

“Your story does not define you. I look at life like a book. You have all these chapters, experiences, traumas, challenges, strengths, and there may be some tougher chapters than others. When you come to the end, you look at all those chapters and you reflect on the character and see how they’ve grown and changed. We can reflect back on that growth, and to know we’ve closed that chapter. It’s always up to us to redefine our story.”

We at ARO are here to support you in your personal healing journey to complete well-being. We bring awareness and education to 13 different types of abuse including Narcissistic, Sexual, Physical, Psychological, Financial, Child, Self, Cyberbullying, Bullying, Spousal, Elderly, Isolation, and Workplace, and help others heal and find peace. Please support our efforts by going to GoARO.org to learn how you can make an impact on the Abuse Care Community.

Resources

Bialko, N. M. (2021, November 24). Catching butterflies.