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Karen Cade / Start Over Queen 👑

@karencade_

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International Best Selling Author ✨
Co author #1 Start Over Voices Audible @sir.marco.robinson 📚
Helping single mums heal, rebuild & rise stronger 🤍💪🏼

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DAY 92 💜

One thing I’ve learnt through healing is this:

You can feel like a single mum even while married.

And for many years…that was me.

I know what it feels like to carry the mental load, emotional load, parenting load, household load, and still somehow keep smiling while slowly disappearing inside yourself.

From the outside our life looked stable.
Financially we were okay.
But emotionally?

I often felt alone.

I became so used to surviving, coping, fixing, managing, carrying, and holding everything together that I forgot what it felt like to actually be cared for too.

Then when I finally left…came the punishment.
The counter-parenting.
The blame.The isolation.
The financial fear.
The trying to rebuild while emotionally exhausted.

So many women will understand exactly what I mean when I say: sometimes leaving is only the beginning of the battle.

That is one of the reasons I wrote my chapter in Start Over Book 10.

Not to attack men. Not to create division. But to give language to the invisible emotional exhaustion so many women silently live with for years.

And also to give hope.

Because life can get better.

Today my children are adults. And for the first time in my life…I know what it feels like to be emotionally safe.

Today my home feels safe.

I have a husband now who cooks for me. Checks on me. Supports me emotionally. Makes me feel peaceful instead of anxious.

After years of surviving…I finally learnt what being cared for feels like.

That is partly why I now live here in Italy 🇮🇹💜

Not because life became perfect. But because I finally chose peace differently.

Children are a blessing 💜

Parenting should never become punishment 💫

Healing changed everything.

And if you are currently in the survival stage…please know this:

You are not weak. You are not failing. You are likely carrying far more than most people realise.

But you still deserve love.
Support.
Rest.
Peace.
Partnership.
Joy.
And a life that no longer feels heavy every single day.

What choice are you ready to make for a better life? 💫

#StartOverBook
#StartOverBookSeries
#HappyYouHappyBody
#GetFitWithKarenCade
#riseofthesinglemum
TogetherWeRise by @karencade_

DAY 84 💜

My children lived this too.

Inside the home and outside of it.

That’s why I cried yesterday.

Not just remembering how it felt for myself…but remembering what it must have felt like for them watching it.

One of the hardest things to admit is that they knew my biggest fear was becoming a single mum again.

And they used that fear to keep me stuck.

That’s what people don’t always understand about coercive control.

The person who claims to love you often knows exactly what hurts you most…what scares you…and what will keep you trying longer than you should.

For me, it was the fear of raising my children alone again.

So I stayed. Hoping things would improve. Hoping the person I first met would come back.

Instead, behind closed doors, I carried things alone that nearly broke me.

I made it look easy because I had children depending on me.

I still got up. Still worked. Still smiled. Still tried to create peace and stability around my children while internally carrying stress, fear, heartbreak, and exhaustion most people never saw.

That is what so many mothers are doing quietly every single day.

Surviving while pretending they are fine.

And children absorb far more than people realise.

That leaves scars.

But speaking out matters because silence protects abuse and speaking out protects the next woman and her children. 💜

What choice are you ready to make for a better life?

Credit original creator: @mindsetcore on TikTok

#StartOverBook
#StartOverBookSeries #HappyYouHappyBody #GetFitWithKarenCade #riseofthesinglemum by @karencade_

Day 54 🤍 An hour EU time premature Start Over Book 10 is here 📕💫✨

No one sees your vision the way you do.

They didn’t live what you lived.

They didn’t feel what you felt.

They didn’t carry what you carried.

But my children did.

⸻

These are the faces I made my decisions for.

Not opinions.

Not people who chose comfort over truth.

Not those who pretended my children didn’t exist to protect what was really going on.

My children.

⸻

Some people chose silence to protect the abuse.

I chose truth to protect my children.

And I’d make that choice every single time.

⸻

Because staying would have been easier…

But what would that have taught them?

That love is control?

That silence is strength?

That you stay, even when it breaks you?

No.

⸻

So I gave everything up…

except my children.

Not because I didn’t care…

But because I cared more than anything
about what they would grow up believing love looks like.

⸻

This chapter is for them.

So they never question what was real.

So they know what strength looks like.

So they understand that love should feel safe… honest… and free.

⸻

Not everyone will understand my choices.

They weren’t meant to.

Because this wasn’t their life to live…

It was ours.

And we lived it. 🤍

⸻

I promise you… the woman you’re becoming will thank you for this.

What choice are you ready to make for a better life?

@marcorobinsonnow
@siamusic

#StartOverBook #StartOverQueen #HappyYouHappyBody #GetFitWithKarenCade #riseofthesinglemum Book10ComingSoon StartOverJourney HealingOutLoud by @karencade_

THE LITTLE BOY WHO TRIED TO PROTECT HIS MUM GREW UP TO BECOME ONE OF THE HEROES IN HER START OVER STORY. 💜

And today he is 42.

How are you 42 already, my little boy? 🥹

Kieron, you came into my life when I was only 16. I was still growing up myself, and somehow we grew up together.

There were things you saw and heard as a child that you should never have had to carry.

You tried to protect me.

I remember telling you not to get involved not because you had done anything wrong, but because YOU were the child.

Protecting your mum should never have been your job.

And yet, as you grew up, you became so much more than my son.

You became the BEST big brother to your sisters.

You stepped up, looked out for them, supported them and gave them a steady male presence in their lives in ways you should never really have had to.

They have always known they have their big brother.

And so have I.

When I finally began writing a different ending for our family, you became one of the heroes in my Start Over story.

But here is the part that matters most:

You helped show me how to become the HERO of my own.

You reminded me what love, loyalty and protection looked like.

You gave me another reason to keep going.
Another reason to get stronger.

Another reason to believe there had to be something better for all of us.

And somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting to be rescued.

I rescued myself.

You were never meant to save me, Kieron.

But your love helped me remember that I was worth saving.

And now that little boy is a 42 year old man, a dad himself, with his own beautiful daughter.

From the 16 year old girl holding her baby boy…

to the woman standing beside the man you have become…

Being your mum is one of the greatest privileges of my life.

Happy 42nd birthday to my first baby, the BEST big brother, a wonderful dad, my son, and forever one of the HEROES in my story. ♥️

You helped me become the hero of mine.

Being your mum is the best part of me.

I loved you then.

I love you now.

And I will love you forever.

Your Mum xxxx

#RiseOfTheSingleMum
#StartOverQueen by @karencade_

Being a single mum TWICE OVER, I can say this with my whole chest:

I WOULD CHOOSE IT EVERY.

SINGLE.

TIME.

OVER THIS.

Over living in fear.

Over walking on eggshells.

Over being controlled, degraded or made to feel small.

Over my children growing up believing that was what love looked like.

I was once made to believe that leaving would mean I had nothing.

But I had my children.

And I had myself.

That was enough to start again. ❤️‍🩹

A smaller home with peace is better than a big home filled with fear.

One safe parent is better than children living in an environment where they are constantly absorbing tension, anxiety and abuse.

Starting over can be terrifying.

But sometimes starting over with very little feels safer than staying with someone who is destroying your peace and your children’s.

I know which one I would choose.

Every. Single. Time.

And I did. 💜

Those years of starting over, rebuilding and finding myself again have been some of the best years of my life.

If you are starting over too, follow me. I share the things I wish I had known when I was rebuilding my life. 🫂💟

#StartOverQueen
#RiseOfTheSingleMum
#SingleMum
#ChoosePeace #DomesticAbuseAwareness
StartOver
HealingJourney
BreakTheCycle by @karencade_

THE TABLES ARE TURNING… AND THIS IS WHAT HEALING OURSELVES CAN LOOK LIKE. ☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼

For generations, women were expected to tolerate, stay quiet, keep the peace and carry the consequences of other people’s behaviour.

We’re questioning that now.

We’re speaking.

We’re setting boundaries.

We’re educating our daughters AND our sons.

We’re refusing to normalise abuse, control and entitlement.

Call it the Age of Aquarius, call it awakening, call it progress whatever you call it…

Something is changing.

And this isn’t about fighting men.

It’s about understanding the whole picture.

It’s one of the reasons I wrote my Start Over chapter the way I did.

I wanted to include the children too because abuse does not happen in a vacuum.

I thought about my son Kieron and what it must have felt like for him growing up around things he should never have had to witness.

I wanted men to understand that they have a part to play too.

To look at their behaviour.

To understand the impact it can have.

To know that patterns can be challenged.

That accountability is possible.

That change is possible.

And I wanted women to know that what happened to them does not have to be the end of their story.

We can transform.

Pain into purpose.

Wounds into wisdom.

Dirt into stairs.

Survival into something that helps someone else.

That’s the alchemy. ✨

Not women against men.

People against abuse.

People against control.

People against silence.

People choosing safety, respect,

accountability and change.

The tables are turning because more of us are refusing to pass the pain on. 💜👑

WE ARE CHOOSING TO ALCHEMISE THE PAIN INSTEAD OF PASSING IT ON. ✨💜

If this message speaks to you, share it.

Share it for the woman still finding her voice.

For the child growing up around fear watch yesterday’s Monster short by @simonmeyer_director. Children notice more than we realise. 💜

For the man willing to look at his behaviour and choose differently watch my 18minute Halloween video on abuse.

Let’s raise a generation that knows love should feel safe.

If you believe healing can stop pain being passed down, follow me and leave a 💜.

LET’S HEAL THE WORLD TOGETHER. 🌍✨ by @karencade_

THIS is where I first met the wonderful @annsharpsteen from the US.

She was on her world book launching tour for How to Leave an Asshole, we were keynote speakers and I had just spoken in Newcastle about surviving and thriving after narcissistic abuse.

If you watched my video yesterday it was for this 1 day conference on surviving and thriving after abuse and turning what happened to me into something that could help others.

And if you want to know more about what I actually spoke about that day, have a look at my practice video too. It gives you a real glimpse into the story I was learning to stand up and tell.

I had no idea at the time that Ann would stand up and say these beautiful words about me after my talk.

She said I had inspired her long before we had even met through fitness, motivation and persistence and that things I had said had stayed with her.

What makes this even more special is that Ann actually writes about me in her book, in the section about fitness and movement as part of healing. 🥹💜

That means so much to me because exercise became such an important part of my own healing too.

If you need to know HOW TO LEAVE AN ASSHOLE aka a narcissist this book is an incredible practical guide. 📕🙌🏼

I believe it is now printed in THREE different languages Ann will have to correct me on that one! 😂 I definitely know it is available in English, and I believe Portuguese too.

I’ll leave the Amazon link in the comments for anyone who needs it. 💜

Sometimes you never really know who is watching, who is listening, or whose life you may be touching simply by sharing your own journey.

Meeting you, @snethabadhan who you can see in this video and all the other @survivingtheexnarc speakers was such a wonderful experience.

It’s one of those moments where I can confidently say that out of something awful that happened to us, we created something meaningful, powerful and ultimately better and connection .

THAT is alchemy. ✨

Taking what was meant to break you and turning it into something that helps somebody else.

Thank you, Ann. I will never forget this moment. 📕💜👑

#StartOverQueen
#RiseOfTheSingleMum
#SurvivorToThriver #HealingThroughMovement by @karencade_

THE MONSTER ISN’T ALWAYS UNDER THE BED.

Sometimes, the monster is living in the home.

I felt this deeply.

Not just because of my own lived experience, but because it took me straight back to what I spoke about yesterday in my video.

This is what abuse can feel like behind closed doors and what children are absorbing while it is happening around them.

Children are supposed to feel safest at home.

They should not be listening for footsteps, hearing the car pull into the driveway and knowing the atmosphere is about to change.

They should not be absorbing their mum’s anxiety while she waits for the “monster” to come home.

I know that feeling.

My ex would often come home drunk, and the atmosphere could change the moment he arrived.

And this is the part that hurts to admit:

If my own home wasn’t safe for me, how could it have been safe for my children?

Children notice the tension.

They notice when Mum becomes quieter.

They notice the waiting, the watching, the walking on eggshells.

They should never have to disappear into another room when shouting starts or feel more afraid of an angry man coming home than they are of the dark.

I had to dig deep and leave because my children were suffering too.

Yesterday I spoke for 18 minutes about surviving abuse, what it does behind closed doors, and why we have to stop assuming that a nice home, a smiling family or a charming partner means everything is okay.

Please go back and watch yesterday’s video.

It is longer than my usual content, but some conversations cannot be squeezed into a short video.

If one woman recognises her reality sooner…

If one child gets to grow up feeling safe…

If one person understands what may be happening behind someone else’s front door…

then it is worth speaking about.

The monster is not always outside.

Sometimes, they are living in your home. 💜

Thank you @parisshears_ for sharing this powerful video go follow and show love and support and @simonmeyer_director for creating work that brings such an important powerful message into the light. 🎥💜

#StartOverQueen
#RiseOfTheSingleMum
#DomesticAbuseAwareness
#ChildhoodTrauma
#CoerciveControl by @karencade_

WOULD YOU BELIEVE THIS WAS ONLY MY PRACTICE TALK? 🎤💜

AS PROMISED IN YESTERDAYS VIDEO.

19 JUNE 2019

For 18 minutes, I told the story of how I went from not understanding words like gaslighting, coercive control or narcissistic abuse…

to recognising the pattern, leaving, rebuilding my life and finding my voice.

For 23 years, I kept hoping things would change.

I thought the drinking was the problem.

I thought if I loved harder, tried harder and stayed longer, maybe the man I fell in love with would come back.

What I hadn’t understood was the cycle:

LOVE.

CRUELTY.

PROMISES.

HOPE.

RINSE AND REPEAT.

Eventually I realised:

HE WASN’T THE ONE I COULD CHANGE.

The change had to begin with me.

In this talk I share why I stayed, why leaving wasn’t simple, the night I was kicked out of my own bed after saying no to sex, and the words I held onto when I believed I might leave with nothing:

“I HAVE MY CHILDREN. I WILL NEVER HAVE NOTHING.”

Leaving wasn’t the end.

There was post-separation abuse, court, fear and starting again.

So I learned:

SHAKE IT OFF.
TAKE A STEP UP.

Fitness helped save me.

Running taught me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and the mindset that carried me through 26.2 miles helped carry me through my divorce and into a completely different life.

I went from being told I was stupid and incapable…

to marathon runner, becoming a fitness coach, bikini fitness competitor at 47, author, public speaker and now a NUMBER ONE BESTSELLING AUTHOR TWICE OVER. 👑💫

That is why I use my voice.

Because somebody listening may still be living inside the part I escaped from.

I STARTED OVER.

And I’m still growing.

I GET BETTER AS I GROW OLDER. 👑💜

Today, 31 October, is the last day of Domestic Abuse Awareness Month.

BUT AWARENESS MUST NOT END WHEN OCTOBER DOES.

💜 PLEASE SHARE.

💜 REPOST.

💜 SEND THIS TO SOMEONE WHO MAY NEED IT.

💜 FOLLOW ME for more on recognising abuse, leaving safely and starting over.

Women and children deserve to feel safe in their own homes. Not live with a monster behind closed doors. 💜

Stay safe. 💜

#StartOverQueen
#RiseOfTheSingleMum
#DomesticAbuseAwarene by @karencade_

AND FOR MY NEXT CHAPTER… 👑💜

I’ll help women like me get away from men like you for the rest of my life.

Because leaving abuse is rarely just about walking out of a door.

It can mean fear.

Children.

Money.

Housing.

Legal questions.

Trauma.

And trying to work out what happens next.

I have dedicated my life to helping women recognise abuse earlier, understand their options and know where to turn for support.

That is why the work I do has to be practical as well as empowering.

I’m building a network of support around this work, including legal guidance and a solicitor, because women need more than “just leave.”

They need information.

They need options.

They need people who understand.

They need professionals they can trust.

And they need support before they reach crisis point.

I know what it feels like to feel trapped.

I also know what it feels like to finally walk away.

And I’ve dedicated my life to making sure other women do not have to figure it all out alone.

This is not just content for me.

It’s purpose.

@legallynik I’m really looking forward to supporting you in November. 💜 I’m so aligned with the work you’re doing and passionate about helping women recognise abuse, understand their options and feel supported as they start over with their children again. 🫂👑

#StartOverQueen
#RiseOfTheSingleMum #DomesticAbuseAwareness #NarcissisticAbuse #WomenSupportingWomen by @karencade_

NOBODY TALKS ABOUT THIS…

Listen to me learning to trust my own voice.

What do YEARS of gaslighting do to your voice?

I found this video from 19 June 2019, practising a 20-minute talk for the Surviving the Ex Narcissistic Partner Conference in Newcastle.

Listening back hit me hard. 😭💜

A few years before this, I didn’t even know what the word narcissist meant.

Then I read the warning signs and remember thinking:

“How could they possibly know him so well?”

Of course, they didn’t.

I was recognising patterns I had lived with for years without having the language to explain them.

When you’ve spent years being told you’re stupid, wrong, confused or imagining things, you can start doubting your own memory, judgement and voice.

By the time you finally speak, you may already be terrified nobody will believe you.

Watching this now, I can hear myself trying to find my voice.

And yet I kept speaking.

Seven years later, I still am. 💜

I also found the full 20-minute practice talk.

Would you like me to share it?

And if you too are a survivor of narcissistic abuse, please show me in the comments.
You don’t have to share your story unless you want to.

For some of us, speaking about what happened can feel incredibly empowering and can become an important part of healing.

If words feel too much today, a simple 💜 is enough.

#StartOverQueen
#RiseOfTheSingleMum
#NarcissisticAbuse
#Gaslighting
#DomesticAbuse by @karencade_

PEOPLE SEE THE END RESULT.

They see the smile.

The sunrise.

The peace.

The confidence.

The woman who kept going.

What they don’t always see is the struggle it took to get there.

They don’t see the nights you cried alone.

The times you doubted yourself.

The moments you nearly gave up.

The battles you fought quietly while still showing up for everyone else.

People often meet you in the chapter where you are finally smiling again and assume the whole story looked like this.

It didn’t.

There were chapters I thought would break me.

There were times I had to rebuild myself piece by piece from nothing.

And there are still days when strength looks very different from what people imagine.

But I kept going.

Not because it was easy.

Not because I never struggled.

But because somewhere inside me, I refused to believe that the hardest chapters had to be the final ones.

So when you see someone smiling, thriving, starting again or finally living a life that feels peaceful…

Remember:

You are probably looking at the result of battles you know nothing about.

Be kind.

And if you are still somewhere in the messy middle of your own story, please don’t compare your struggle to somebody else’s sunrise. 🌅

Your sunrise may be coming too keep going I said this on my live this morning I just never gave up on my dream.

#StartOverQueen #RiseOfTheSingleMum #KeepGoing #StartingOver #HealingJourney by @karencade_