A Three Part Series
PART II — Inside the Machine: Conditioning, Grooming, and Coercive Control
By Sensible Sue
The first “massage” was only the beginning. In the years after, Lisa’s relationship with Epstein grew into something far more intricate than a predator and prey. She visited his Manhattan mansion. She went to his office. Some sessions were professional, other times not. Sometimes they talked for hours. Other times, she knew it would end in abuse. But the environment never felt entirely hostile: he maintained the guise of mentorship.
Over time, Lisa found herself conditioned. She would bring friends along to meet Epstein — not because she was forced, but because she believed that was what privileged young women did. She thought she was networking. She thought she was helping her career, helping her friends. She believed she was doing the “right thing” for people she cared about, because Epstein had framed this all as an elevated circle of opportunity.
The blueprint of grooming deepened. Repetition softened her resistance. Every time she returned, she told herself it would be different. When it wasn’t, she rationalized it — because he helped her career, because he made her feel special, because he held doors she still thought she needed. She believed her own narrative: that Epstein was not purely an abuser, but someone with power who could lift her up.
He used silence and secrecy as instruments of control. There was no public conversation about what really happened in those closed rooms. The very thing she was being groomed into — the act of bringing in trusted friends became part of the conditioning. She didn’t protest. In fact, she helped the system work. She helped the system work because the patterns of abuse were ever so subtle, making them undetectable and ultimately normalized.
Lisa’s internal world fractured. She lived with shame, confusion, and a warped sense that what she was doing was part of a legitimate career strategy. She couldn’t call the whole thing out because the way Epstein had built the relationship made her question her own judgment. He made her doubt what felt wrong and believe in what seemed glamorous.
But even as his appetite grew, more meetings, more men, more nights Lisa woke up wondering what she had agreed to, she stayed. Epstein had built a trap so deep that she didn’t know the walls were there until she was too far in. She was trapped.
Lisa had a crystal clear understanding that leaving Epstein’s world was never just about walking away. Next week, the third and final installment of this series will show how Lisa escaped; and also how she had to rebuild, heal, and confront the ways trauma followed her into her relationships. Join us here next week to see how Lisa’s story is a testament to therapy, survivor solidarity, and the painful work of reclaiming her own narrative.
