TikTok to the rescue

Video app saved this mother from a toxic partner

Linda Loran, a single mother of three, quit an abusive relationship with the help of social media, reported DW. Now she tells her story on TikTok.

With her legs crossed, in beige kitten heels and suit trousers, Loran sits upright on a bar stool and smiles as she reads out some of the sexist hate comments under her TikTok videos: "You weigh 50 kilos and your bags weigh four times as much as your brain." The audience bursts out in laughter.

Loran is a guest at an edition of Monday Talks, a series of feminist talks held in a bar in Berlin's neighborhood of Neukölln. The evening is organised by TikTok activist Alina Kuhl; the four other speakers are TikTokers, too. The room is filled to capacity; people are squeezing into the aisles to listen to the women.

Just like in her TikTok videos, Loren talks about why so many people stay in unhappy and abusive relationships. In the videos, she also revisits painful episodes she went through with her ex-partner, earning her all kinds of reactions - including many hate comments.

Loran started sharing on TikTok three years ago the experiences of abuse and humiliation that she endured under her ex-partner, from sexual assault to physical violence. "I think more women should speak up about their experiences, because silence only protects the perpetrators," she points out.

Feeling like 'a single mom'

Sharing her story with DW a few hours before the feminist panel, Loran says she had big dreams in her youth: "I wanted to travel and have a career." But everything changed when she got pregnant at the age of 19, shortly before finishing high school.

"I did my A-levels with a baby," Loran says. Sleepless nights, then school the next morning: "I sat on the bed with my son at night and cried," remembers the now 31-year-old. She barely received any support from her partner and his family, nor from her strict, conservative family with whom she had little contact, having left home - where she was often beaten - at the age of 15.

Loran, who now has three children, explains that her ex-partner's abuse began gradually: "It started with trivial things, like the lack of support during the pregnancies and with the children." He accused her of working too much instead of taking care of the children, and he tried to control her financially. At some point, he started stealing money from her, hiding her wallet or her keys.

The physical violence began after the second pregnancy, when they argued: "Twisting arms, pushing, and so on," Loran remembers. He repeatedly had sex with her against her will: "There was no saying no," Loran says.

"And then there was the argument just before Christmas 2017," she recalls. Instead of showing up as planned at noon to help prepare for Christmas, he came back home at 9PM completely drunk, unable to walk, vomiting all over the house. Things exploded in the fight that followed.

Loran was pregnant with their third child, a daughter, but that didn't stop him from pushing her through the house. He spat at her, twisted her arms, choked her, insulted her and threatened to kill her. He then dragged her by one leg into the workroom, where he locked them both in and told Loran to take her own life. As if in a feverish dream, he then confessed his love for her, while the eldest son begged his father not to kill his mum.

The next day, Loran's abusive partner apparently couldn't remember anything. Desperate, Loran turned to his family. She told his mother what her son had done. "Her only reaction was to ask if I was having sex with him often enough," Loran says.

"There I was, at 25, pregnant with my third child, really wondering if it was my fault that my partner was being aggressive towards me," Loran says.

Social media support

She then found videos on YouTube of other single mothers with similar experiences. "These videos gave me courage," she says.

Loran made the decision to separate. She set herself a deadline: after parental leave. But fears lingered in the back of her mind - of being stigmatised as a single mother, of struggling to make ends meet, and of having her children grow up without a father.

"I grew up without a father myself and wanted to offer my children more stability, both in terms of family as well as financially," she says.

She had long felt isolated from her surroundings, Loran says. She only saw her friends once every few weeks. But she found support through like-minded people on social media.

A year and a half after she took her decision, she broke up, in 2019. In the following years, she started studying, initially with the support of her ex-partner.

She also began telling her story in videos on TikTok. Today, her TikTok channel has become another source of income alongside her job in a supermarket.

For Loran, TikTok is a place where you can tell your story and learn from others at the same time. It was only through TikTok that she became aware of the hurdles faced by other people, like women of colour. TikTok also showed her that she is not alone with her story.

Now Loran is sharing her experiences in a feminist panel talk in a bar in Berlin and can only laugh at the hate comments online. A woman in the audience asks if she has ever thought about quitting because of the intimidation on TikTok. Loran doesn't hesitate before answering: "If just one woman sees my content and manages to free herself from an abusive relationship, then I'll keep going."