The Rant

In this episode, I talk about a wild week in Detroit, ADHD chaos, and the ongoing fight against the therapist who extorted me. It’s raw, honest, and a reminder that even when life’s on fire, you can still stay functional—and find a way to laugh through it.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

I’m back. Been traveling, eating steaks in Pittsburgh, and apparently walking straight into fever dreams—like the guy who asked me to help him “get Nicole out of the sewer.” (You can’t make this shit up.)

But this episode isn’t just about that. It’s about what happens when life gets insane, when your therapist turns out to be the abuser, and when you decide you’re not gonna let the people who broke you keep the last word.

It’s messy. It’s real. It’s me processing everything—from suing my former therapist, to finding moments of dark humor, to remembering that you don’t need to be perfectly healed to make an impact.

If you’ve ever been through hell and still found a way to laugh, you’ll get it.If you’ve ever felt like giving up but didn’t—you’re who I made this for.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

They'll tell you to trust the experts. They won't tell you those experts get paid more when you stay confused.

If you've ever walked out of a bank or an advisor's office feeling like you just got "handled," you probably did.

The financial industry thrives on one thing: your lack of clarity. The less you know, the more they control the terms. And if you're a survivor of abuse, trauma, toxic relationships, you're even more at risk. Why? Because the same patterns that kept you quiet in your personal life make you a dream client in theirs: compliant, trusting, and reluctant to challenge authority.

I know this game because I've played it from the inside. For years, I was in the corporate trenches managing portfolios, hitting the sales metrics that most advisors never touch. I've sat in those "strategy" meetings. I've heard the way we talk about "process" and "policy" when what we mean is: keep them dependent.

And I've also been on the receiving end. Targeted, micromanaged, and finally cut out for asking the very questions that clients should be asking every single day.

The Playbook They Don't Talk About

Confuse the terms, close the deal

In my world, they called it "The Process." It was supposedly the standard for how we communicated with clients. Except it was never clearly defined. The moment you asked for a step-by-step, the conversation shifted. Sometimes they'd even contradict their own earlier instructions. That vagueness wasn't an accident. It was a control lever. In client-facing finance, the same tactic plays out in fine print, ambiguous product names, and language that sounds helpful but is impossible to pin down.

Here's what the research exposes: Complex structured products cause average investors to lose money because they can't understand the underlying mechanics, hidden costs, and risk factors. These products are so complicated that investment professionals themselves struggle to evaluate them. That's not incompetence. That's the design.

Structured products are securities derived from a basket of securities, an index, a commodity, or a foreign currency. They have pre-set formulas for risk and return that are "very complex and well beyond the capabilities of most retail investors." Yet they're pushed on retirees saving for basic needs.

When brokers sell these without understanding them themselves, that's failure to conduct due diligence. When they concentrate your entire portfolio in them, that's unsuitable trading. When they don't explain the risks, that's misrepresentation. But here's what they call it internally: Tuesday.

Lock you in with penalties

For clients, that's CDs with early-withdrawal fees, annuities with surrender charges, or funds with hidden back-end loads. For me, it was the career version. A Form U-5 with language vague enough to cast doubt on my professionalism forever. In this industry, one strategically worded line can keep you from working again.

Let me break down the annuity scam. Senator Warren's investigation found "a widespread practice of offering financial advisors trips and other benefits for promoting certain annuities." We're talking about Caribbean cruises, $50,000+ cash bonuses, free weeks in Sydney. Your advisor isn't recommending that annuity because it's good for you. They're chasing vacation packages.

The numbers will make you sick. According to Morningstar, conflicted advice on fixed-indexed annuities alone costs savers $5 billion annually. That's five billion dollars drained from retirement accounts every year on just one product type. Annuity commissions range from 1% to 8% of the entire contract amount. Fixed-indexed annuities typically earn advisors between 6% and 8% commission.

Some advisors see commissions as high as 70% of the first year's premium on certain insurance products. After that, they receive 3% to 5% of the premium annually as long as the policy is active. You're not buying protection. You're funding someone's boat payment.

Sell you complexity you don't need

A plain index fund can often outperform the products you're sold, but a simple product doesn't justify the ongoing "expert" role. Inside the firm, that same mindset pushes policies that are impossible to master because once you do, you won't "need" their coaching anymore.

The average expense ratio of stock mutual funds was 1.03% in 2022. Index funds? As low as 0.05%. That 1% difference compounds over decades. An employee contributing $4,000 annually with a 6% return will have $291,000 at 65 with fees at 1.9%. Drop those fees to 0.6%? They'll have $390,000. That's $99,000 more money just by cutting out the bullshit fees.

And those 12b-1 fees hidden in your mutual funds? They can legally run up to 1% of the fund's assets annually. You're literally paying for them to market the fund to other people. You're funding their sales machine with your retirement money.

Financial Research Corporation studied what predicts fund performance. Their conclusion? Expense ratios were the single most reliable predictor, with low-cost funds delivering above-average performance in all periods examined. Higher cost doesn't equal better performance. It equals wealth transfer from you to them.

Exploit trust in the brand

Clients see a legacy institution and assume that logo equals loyalty. I saw it in reverse when I trusted my own leadership to clarify a compliance policy, followed their guidance to the letter, and months later that same policy was used to justify my termination. In both cases, trust is currency, and they're the ones cashing it in.

Financial advisors operating under the suitability standard only need to recommend products that are "suitable" based on your financial situation. The standard "does not require the advice to be in the client's best interest." They can legally recommend a product that pays them more as long as it won't completely destroy you.

Your advisor can legally choose the option that makes them richer instead of the one that makes you wealthier, as long as it won't completely ruin you. That's the standard. That's what passes for professional ethics in this industry.

Why Survivors Are Prime Targets

If you've survived abuse, you've been trained to avoid conflict even when you should speak up. You defer to authority, assuming they must know better. You hide confusion rather than risk looking unprepared.

For clients, that means you sign without pushing back. For employees like me, it means you accept "guidance" without questioning the gaps until it's too late.

I had a manager who would tell me there was "no limit" on a certain type of email outreach, that I just needed to adjust the wording. I did exactly that. Months later, those emails were labeled a compliance problem and cited as a termination reason. It's the same dynamic I've seen with clients: "You're fine, don't worry" right up until it's more profitable for you not to be fine.

The Department of Justice reports that five million elders are suspected victims of financial abuse each year. Annual losses range from $3 billion to $40 billion. The spread is so wide because most cases go unreported. Victims feel ashamed, especially when the perpetrator is someone they trust. Someone like their financial advisor.

The Fiduciary Deception

They parade around the word "fiduciary" like it means something. Like it's protection. It's not.

Broker-dealers supposedly must adhere to Regulation Best Interest. But insurance agents who sell annuities? They're typically not fiduciaries. They're held to the suitability standard, meaning their product recommendations must be suitable but not necessarily the best option available.

Your "financial advisor" might actually be an insurance salesperson in disguise, legally allowed to sell you expensive garbage as long as it's "suitable." Not optimal. Not even good. Just suitable.

Many advisors are dually registered. When selling investments, they might be a fiduciary. But the moment they switch to selling insurance products? Many only have fiduciary duty when acting in their "fee" capacity. This doesn't apply when selling products.

They literally switch standards mid-conversation. One minute they're legally required to act in your best interest, the next they're selling you a product that pays them 6% to 8% commission. And you have no idea the rules just changed.

The 401(k) Rollover Trap

When you leave a job, vultures circle. Americans rolled $779 billion to IRAs in 2022. That's nearly a trillion dollars in motion, and advisors are salivating.

Most financial advisors will recommend rolling funds out of your company retirement plan into an IRA they manage. But for most participants, large 401(k) plans have adequate investment options and charge low fees. Large employer plans typically have very low costs and well-designed menus. Since employers must act in plan participants' best interests, keeping assets in a 401(k) provides fiduciary protection not found in IRAs.

They're pushing you to move money that's probably better off where it is. Why? Because they can't touch it in your 401(k). Once it's in an IRA they manage, they're collecting 1% annually on your life savings. On a million dollars, that's $10,000 a year for doing what exactly?

Here's what should enrage you: About 28% of savers who rolled over their 401(k) funds into an IRA left the money sitting as cash for at least seven years. This mistake costs savers $172 billion per year collectively, or $130,000 per person by retirement age. They'll help you roll it over, then "forget" to invest it. Your retirement sits in cash while inflation destroys it. But they still collect their fee.

The Elder Exploitation Machine

Why seniors? Because older adults' vulnerability is twofold: potential loss of financial skills and judgment, and inability to detect and prevent exploitation. Dementia syndromes can have an onset lasting decades with mild symptoms emerging years before diagnosis. During this window, seniors are walking targets.

The reverse mortgage hustle is particularly vicious. They claim it's a way to "age in place." Reality: A reverse mortgage increases your debt and drains your equity. Interest is added to your balance every month. Your debt grows while your equity disappears.

American Advisors Group, the largest reverse mortgage lender, used inflated home estimates to lure consumers. They'd inflate your home value to get you in the door, then reality would hit during the actual appraisal. Financial advisors encourage seniors to take out reverse mortgages, then recommend investing that money in annuities that generate commissions. Double extraction: the reverse mortgage bleeds your home equity while the annuity locks up your cash with surrender charges.

The Hidden Fee Extraction System

12b-1 fees can charge up to 1% annually for "marketing and distribution." You're literally paying for them to market the fund to find more victims. These fees were created in 1980 under the theory that more investors would bring down costs through economies of scale. Four decades later? The funds that charge 12b-1 fees don't have lower costs. They just have higher profits.

Then there's double-dipping. When an advisor charges both a commission and a management fee on the same assets, that's double-dipping. FINRA has fined firms millions for this, but penalties are just a cost of doing business. One documented case showed customers being double-charged approximately $437,500 in excess fees. That's one firm that got caught.

Wrap fees supposedly simplify things by bundling costs into one fee, typically 1% to 3% of assets. But maximum annual fees can total 3%, with hidden execution costs adding another 0.5% or more. You're paying 3.5% annually for someone to put your money in index funds you could buy yourself for 0.05%.

"Revenue sharing" is where fund companies pay advisory firms to offer their products. Advisors claim they don't receive any payment and are "conflict-free." That's deception. The fees defray operations costs and compensation, allowing firms to pay advisors more. In partnerships, advisors directly enjoy the profits.

The Survivor's Checklist for Spotting Predatory Financial Advice

Before you sign, agree, or transfer a dime:

Ask exactly how they get paid. If it takes more than one sentence to answer, they're hiding something. If they use words like "it depends" or "various ways," walk out.

Find the exit terms. How much will it cost to leave in one month, one year, or three years? If they can't give you exact numbers immediately, it's a trap.

Request a one-page summary. If they can't give you one, they don't want you to have clarity. Complexity is camouflage for extraction.

Compare with a plain alternative. Could you get the same result with a simple savings or index product? The answer is almost always yes.

Bring a neutral third party. Someone who doesn't get paid either way. Watch how the advisor's demeanor changes when there's a witness.

Taking Back Control

Financial abuse isn't just what happens to people in toxic personal relationships. It happens every day in suits, in boardrooms, and in "trusted advisor" offices.

The leverage is always the same: keep you confused, keep you dependent, and keep the control.

I've been the one executing the playbook, and I've been the one crushed by it. That's why I can tell you this: the moment you refuse to tolerate confusion, the balance shifts. The moment you demand specifics and walk away when you don't get them, the power moves back to you.

They count on your shame. They count on your silence. They count on you believing you're too stupid to understand. You're not. The system is designed to make you feel that way.

Every question you ask disrupts their script. Every time you say "explain that again in plain English" you force them to reveal the con. Every time you bring someone with you, you cut their manipulation tactics in half.

This isn't about becoming a financial expert. It's about recognizing manipulation when you see it. And if you've survived abuse, you already have that radar. You just need to trust it again.

When you do that with your money, you're not just protecting your wallet. You're undoing the very patterns that made you a target in the first place. You're reclaiming your power, one question at a time, one "no" at a time, one walked-away meeting at a time.

The financial industry profits from your confusion and compliance. Your clarity and defiance are their kryptonite. Use them.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

Strong people are the best liars you’ll ever meet.

Not to others — to themselves.

We turn survival patterns into an identity. We perfect the mask until it feels like skin. And then we believe the very lies that keep us stuck.

Here are the five that will destroy you if you don’t catch them in time.

1. “I’m Fine.”

Translation: “I’m barely holding it together, but I can pass inspection.”

I’ve said “I’m fine” after betrayal, after loss, after nights where my chest felt like a vice.

It’s not strength. It’s camouflage. And the longer you wear it, the more it becomes who you think you are.

Reframe: Ditch “I’m fine.” Try “I’m at capacity” or “I’m not okay, but I’m here.” Truth is stronger than presentation.

2. “I Don’t Need Help.”

Translation: “If I let someone in, they’ll see the cracks.”

We turn self-reliance into a religion. We’d rather break in silence than risk someone thinking we’re fragile.

That’s not independence. It’s self-sabotage.

Reframe: Help isn’t weakness. It’s leverage. Strategic support lets you survive without burning everything else to the ground.

3. “I Can Handle Anything.”

Translation: “I’m about to take on more than any sane person should.”

I’ve used this one to pile my plate so high it collapsed — jobs, people, problems that weren’t even mine.

Carrying everything isn’t strength. It’s a refusal to choose.

Reframe: You can handle less. That’s not laziness — it’s precision. Save your capacity for the things that actually matter.

4. “If I Stop, I’ll Fall Apart.”

Translation: “I’m afraid of what I’ll feel if I’m not busy.”

Relentless motion is the easiest drug to get addicted to. I stayed in overdrive to outrun the thoughts I didn’t want to face.

But stillness isn’t the enemy. It’s the mirror you’ve been avoiding.

Reframe: Schedule one hour where nothing happens. No phone, no distractions. Let the quiet in and watch what it shows you.

5. “I Should Be Over This by Now.”

Translation: “I’ve decided there’s a deadline for healing, and I’m failing it.”

This one turns recovery into self-hate. You’re not over it because it mattered. And rushing it doesn’t erase it — it just shoves it underground.

Reframe: Forget the deadline. Notice what’s smaller now. That’s progress. The rest will take as long as it takes.

The Cost of Believing Your Own Lies

These lies make you unapproachable, exhausted, and disconnected.

Real strength isn’t gritting your teeth through it. Real strength is calling yourself out before the mask calcifies.

Ready to Stop Lying to Yourself and Start Moving?

Half of the reason strong people stay stuck is because we overthink every choice — we wait for “perfect,” we drown in options, and we mistake delay for strategy.

I built a simple system to break that cycle. It’s called The Decision Paralysis Cure — and it’s how you make any choice in under 5 minutes without second-guessing yourself for weeks.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

If this gave you clarity, peace, or just helped you feel a little less alone — and you want to support more work like this — you can leave a small tip here.

Buy Me a Coffee

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of Kill The Silence, I talk about two things I can’t stand — canker sores and people who run to the comments to poke holes in a survivor’s story.

I’ve been revisiting and tightening the story of my former therapist — how she used five years of trust, my ADHD diagnosis, and the worst year of my life to control me and take $126,000. She’s still practicing in Michigan. I’ve filed complaints, met with investigators, and even taken it to the police, but the system is slow.

While I wait, I’m not staying quiet. I’m here to tell the truth, not seek revenge, and to protect others from going through what I did. And if you’re in my comments talking shit? I like what I write more than I like you — and I’m not here to please you.

I also talk about why I’ve started pricing my digital products, the self-care I’m leaning into, and why survivors have the right to speak openly, even when the “proper channels” drag their feet.

This one’s about holding your ground, owning your story, and not letting anyone — online or off — shut you up.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

You don’t spot it when you’re in it.You call it help. You call it family. You call it therapy.

You only start calling it what it really is when the air hits your lungs for the first time in years.

The Hook They Bury the Deepest

Here’s the thing about covert abuse: you can’t measure it while it’s happening. There’s no bruise to show your friends. No broken bone to point to. The damage is in how your brain starts narrating the world to you — their voice inside your head telling you what’s safe, what’s dangerous, what’s true, what’s “all in your head.”

And if you’ve survived real hell, you’re even more vulnerable to it. Not because you’re weak — but because you’ve been trained to normalize pain, to work through it, to keep showing up.

Abuse wrapped in kindness is still abuse. It’s just harder to leave.

What It Looked Like in My Life

I’ve lived through the obvious abuse — the kind strangers would call abuse without hesitation. Childhood sexual abuse. Violence at home. Addiction.

But the one that almost killed me didn’t look like that.

It looked like a licensed mental health professional with degrees on the wall and a soft voice in her office. It looked like five years of therapy sessions where I bled my history onto her notebook, trusting her with the deepest wounds of my life.

It looked like her using my ADHD diagnosis like a roadmap for control. It looked like “unconventional support” that blurred into dependency. It looked like being told which people in my life were “dangerous” until my entire support system was gone and she was the only one left.

It looked like contracts disguised as protection, designed to keep me paying her and obeying her.

It looked like “I’m the only one who understands you” whispered right after she threatened to ruin my career.

The Red Flags I Didn’t See Until I Was Out

When you’re in it, you don’t see red flags. You see what they tell you to see.

Looking back now, here’s what stands out:

* Isolation disguised as care. “They’re toxic. They don’t understand you like I do.”

* Boundaries blurred until they didn’t exist. Home visits. Gifts. Trips together. All under the power dynamic of therapist–patient.

* Fear as currency. Threats of exposing my past, leveraging my grief, using her own child as emotional blackmail.

* Control over my reality. Who I talked to, where I went, how I spent my time.

* Financial entanglement. Contracts with payment schedules designed to dodge federal reporting, bleeding me dry.

If someone controls your choices, they control your life. That’s not support. That’s captivity.

Why Covert Abuse Works So Well

You can’t escape what you can’t name. And covert abuse works by keeping you just functional enough to question whether it’s abuse at all.

They give you moments of relief — a kind gesture, a compliment, a night you don’t feel under threat — so you doubt yourself. They spin elaborate justifications for every boundary they cross, often framed as “for your own good.”

And because you’ve already survived worse, your threshold for “unacceptable” is higher than most people can imagine.

The Day I Knew I Was Done

Leaving didn’t start with courage. It started with exhaustion.

One day I realized I was too tired to keep defending myself, too tired to keep justifying why I deserved to make my own choices. And something in me broke — not the part they’d been trying to break, but the part they’d underestimated.

I stopped asking for their version of events. I started writing down my own. Every receipt. Every text. Every transfer.

And when the dust cleared, I saw what it was: not a friendship, not help, not care. It was calculated exploitation — psychological, financial, and emotional.

If You’re In It Right Now

If your gut is screaming but your brain keeps saying “they’re just trying to help,” here’s what I wish someone had told me sooner:

* Support doesn’t require isolation. If they’re cutting you off from people who care about you, it’s not support.

* Boundaries go both ways. If they can cross yours whenever they want but you can’t cross theirs, that’s control.

* Fear is not a treatment plan. If you’re afraid of what they’ll do if you say no, you’re already in danger.

* You don’t need proof to leave. You don’t need them to admit it. You don’t need the perfect exit plan. You just need to start stepping away.

The Freedom You Don’t Know You’re Missing

When you get out, your body notices before your brain does. The tension in your shoulders eases. You start sleeping through the night. You realize you haven’t flinched at a notification in days.

Then your brain catches up.

You look back and think, How did I not see it? But that’s the wrong question. The right question is, How the hell did I survive it?

And the answer is: you already knew how. You’d been surviving long before they showed up.

One Thing That Helped Me Stop Second-Guessing

When you’ve lived in chaos long enough, even freedom can feel disorienting. Every choice feels loaded. Every decision feels like it might be the wrong one.

For me, one of the hardest parts after getting out was learning how to trust my own judgment again. I’d spent years having every choice questioned, overridden, or controlled.

That’s why I created a decision-making tool that strips away the noise and gets you to clarity fast — especially when your head is spinning and you can’t tell if you’re making the “right” move or just reacting to fear.

It’s the same process I wish I had back then — something to cut through the second-guessing and remind me I could act without apologizing for it later.

If you’re ready to start making decisions without feeling like you need permission, you can grab it here:

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.killthesilencemovement.com/subscribe

I was raised in fear.

Fear of hell. Fear of being wrong. Fear of people who thought, lived, or loved differently than I did.

And like most kids, I didn’t question it. I swallowed the poison and called it truth.

But at some point, life handed me a choice: keep pretending I believed it all or start asking the questions I was taught not to ask.

This episode is about that choice. The unlearning. The discomfort. The rewiring.It’s about what happens when you stop carrying other people’s beliefs and start thinking for yourself.

Inside This Episode:

* What it felt like to grow up in a hardcore Pentecostal environment

* How shame and fear shaped my worldview

* The cognitive dissonance that cracked everything open

* Why curiosity matters more than certainty

* Why politics, religion, and identity shouldn’t be used to divide us

* Why difference isn’t dangerous — it’s necessary

* What Kill The Silence is really being built for

I talk about betrayal, faith, ADHD, groupthink, boredom, and the power of questioning everything you were taught to never question.

My Hope For This Platform

I want Kill The Silence to be a place where people can show up exactly as they are.Not polished. Not perfect. Not pretending.

I want to feature stories from people who have been through hell and still showed up.I want this to become a space where vulnerability isn’t punished — it’s respected.

You don’t have to agree with me. You don’t have to vote like me, love like me, pray like me, or think like me.You just have to be willing to be real.

That’s it.

—Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

Kill The Silence isn’t a self-help podcast.It’s survival.It’s honesty.And it’s a little bit of chaos — the kind that makes healing feel human again.

See you in the episode. — Cody Taymore

Kill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe

Listen now.— Cody TaymoreKill The Silence

Get full access to Kill The Silence at killthesilenceofficial.substack.com/subscribe