When you leave a bad relationship there are repercussions. You would think that someone that has been abused would never abuse another human being. You would be wrong! Without proper therapy to help you get through the hurt and anger, many strike out and usually at the children. These people are different from their abusers in one major point though. They do not intentionally set out to hurt someone. In my experience, women that are abused, especially for an extended period of time, are so used to cowering that when they leave the abuse they don't know how to deal with their anger. They show their anger in the same way their abusers did without even thinking. This is how Violence Becomes a Legacy. Therapy is so important! It should be the first thing after safety that you should be looking into as a Survivor.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
I Am Coming Out
I am the author of most of these posts. I am a Domestic Violence Survivor. I know some people will not appreciate that statement but it doesn't make it any less the truth. I have dealt with many victims of abuse in my lifetime from my best friend to my mother. Many women out there are afraid to come forward and tell the stories that need to be told. I am not one of those women. I am posting my picture in order to make a stand. I refuse to be a victim!! I hope that others will step forward and say the same. Wear a purple ribbon and share the fight. That purple ribbon shows your support of victims and tells them you are a safe person to talk to. Keep a list of Domestic Violence Shelters in your area in your pocket for those that may come to you. Give out the phone numbers of people that can help. We need to get people talking, it is the only way.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Myth/Reality
That type of thing doesn't happen around here.
She must like it if she stays.
Some women like to stir up trouble.
Domestic violence is a subject engulfed with myths.
The reality is often quite different.
Myth: There are very few battered women in this country.
Reality: A woman is battered every 9 seconds in the U.S., and approximately 1,400 women are murdered by their spouses each year.
Myth: Domestic abuse only occurs in poor or minority families.
Reality: Domestic violence crosses all racial, imcome, and ethnic lines. The police in Norwalk, Connecticut, have the same number of wife abuse calls as the police in Harlem, New York, a city of comparable size.
Myth: Domestic abuse is just a slap, push, or punch - nothing serious.
Reality: 22% to 35% of women who visit emergency rooms are there for injuries related to abuse from a partner.
Myth: Men are battered just as much as women.
Reality: 95% of all assaults on spouses or ex-spouses are committed by men. Of 9,726 people calling for help in Louisiana in a year's time, 14 were men (.1%).
Myth: Leaving the relationship will end the violence.
Reality: A woman has a 75% greater chance of being murdered if she leaves.
This picture and story came from Beating Hearts: Stories of Domestic Violence
http://www.beatinghearts.net/
Friday, January 25, 2008
The Good Wife
He doesn't hit me very often, so I guess I'm not really abused. He does other things. Like when he polishes his gun for hunting, he'll point it at me and say, "One wrong move, Roberta...and pow!"
Or he'll pinch me, real hard, bad enough to leave a big bruise. When he's not happy with something, he won't say anything, but when he walks by me in the kitchen, he'll pinch the fire out of me.
The latest thing is I can't eat with him at supper. I'll fix his plate and serve it to him at the table, but I can't eat at the same time. He has a stool from the kitchen that he puts in the doorway, and I'm supposed to sit there until he finishes. If he needs something else, or if his tea glass is empty, I should jump up and take care of it. When he's through he just leaves. Then I can fix me a plate.
Am I a slave girl, or his wife?
This picture and story came from Beating Hearts: Stories of Domestic Violence
http://www.beatinghearts.net/
Stop The Violence By: Someone's Name
Empty and alone
Where could she go?
Who could she tell?
Was easier to stay
To accept defeat
Everyone told her
That's the way it should be.
They all looked away
and left her alone
they turned their heads
to any broken bones
They told her to be strong
for that was the plan
Her only goal
should be to please her man
She did her best
She gave it her all
When asked "What happened?"
She said
"Oh, Just a fall"
Years went by
she learned to adapt
she learned how not
to make him mad
She learned how to please
Just what to say
She learned to make sure
HE had a good day
Those looking on could not see?
Would not see?
The pain that was so deep inside of me
Was it easier to just look away?
Distance and time
closed for me
there was a hand that
could be reached
A hand with a face
from the past
A hand that only for a
short time would last
I held on to that hand
with all my might
I pulled myself up
I learned how to fight
A year has past
And now I see
just how wonderful
life should be
Written in celebration of my freedom
Dedicated to the face from the past,
(Someone's name)
http://www.mental-health-today.com/ptsd/domestic/stories.htm
An Anonymous Victims Story
My earliest memory of being beaten is from my father. I was around 11 years old. That also happens to be one of my earliest memories of my life. My father used to get mad at me, chase me all over the house to hit me with his belt. I will admit I was a trouble child. Not many kids could live with mental abuse from one parent and not be a trouble child. My mom drank very heavily. She would lose control and call me foul names, and degrade me. She never did it in front of others. I will give her credit for that. I can still smell the stink of moonshine as I cleaned up her vomit from the floor as my mom and dad slept. My dad never did drink. I guess you could say I got tired of it so I acted up. I would yell, scream, and break things. Then my dad would step in. My dad's form of punishment was at the end of a belt. I would be so embarrassed to go to school with all the bruises. I would be in gym class and there was no way they couldn't be seen. All the other kids would giggle and point at me. The teachers just ignored me. Back then they weren't obligated to report abuse.
I don't know when the abuse from both parents started. I can't remember but small bits and pieces before my eleventh birthday. But I do remember how mom would call me names when she was drunk and how dad would get mad and swing his belt at me like a mad man. It's funny but I don't even remember my other family members before then either. My brothers were never younger than eight years old and my other family members one day were just there. I might remember a family vacation briefly before then but not enough to tell about the experience. I just in the past year or so started caring for them like they are family.
Before I never really knew how I was supposed to care. No one in my parents home really cared about each other. I thought that was the way it was supposed to be. I was distant and withdrawn. But mostly I was afraid of them all. I thought they had to know what was going on and it was okay.
For years my mom screwed around on my dad. I knew it was happening, I don't remember when or how I knew but I knew. When I was eleven my mom took me with her to meet him. After that she took me every time. I was a good excuse for dad. He didn't think she'd take me if she was cheating. Her and her boyfriend used to buy me a bottle of wine and they would leave me alone in his trailer while they went into the bedroom and took care of business. This went on for years.
I do remember one time when I was about fifteen my mom got an abortion, she was pregnant by her boyfriend and not my dad, and I was supposed to get the mail and hide the bill from my dad. Well the bill came addressed to my dad so I didn't get it. Boy did I get it after that. My mom and my aunt were furious with me. I remember thinking, how was I suppose to know? I'm only a kid, why did I have to do it? I never understood how they could blame me.
I only remember bits and pieces until I turned 18. Mom and dad divorced soon after that. In a way I was glad they did, not for the reason everyone thought though. I was glad for my dad. He was a good man even though he hit me. Mom caused a lot of it. I think now that he was so mad at her and I the one that was always there for her and not him that he would explode on me. But I blamed him for not seeing what she was doing to me and for allowing it to happen. After all, she was always drunk, he was the one that was sober and should have seen it.
I married 4 days after I turned 18 and moved out of my parents' home. I of course married a worthless bum that didn't want to work and support me. I was pregnant one month after I married. Things went on like that. We lived with his parents and I did what I could to raise money. Then when my daughter was 8 months old I left him, moved back in with my mother and divorced him.
Things were okay for awhile. I met and started dating what would soon be my second husband. Mom still drank heavy and still degraded me every chance she got. I suppose I was her co-dependant. After I married my second husband things were perfect. We didn't have a lot of money but we were very happy. Then I got pregnant with my second child. I was about maybe 5 months pregnant when my husband's ex-wife took off with their son and fled to another state. She had heard we were going to take her to court to get custody because her boyfriend beat their son.
After that my husband was never the same. He started drinking very heavily, seeing other women, and treating me like shit. I was under my mom's degradation again, only this time it came from his mouth not hers. I started losing bits of my memory again I guess to protect myself. I don't remember a lot of the beatings but there were a lot of them. I use to cower in a corner as he kicked me trying to protect my stomach so I wouldn't loose my baby. He would punch, kick, pour beer over me and tell me how worthless I was and that no one would want me. I believed him for many years.
I guess I was lucky in that I never lost a child from the beatings or that he never broke anything. I never had to go to an emergency room and I wouldn't have. Who would believe me? I couldn't leave him, how could I make it on my own with 2 children? Who would ever want me? I was too scared to even try. He always told me I could never run or hide far enough to escape him. I believed him.
The beatings went on until our son was a year old. He moved to Arizona and I moved in with mom until I got on HUD and AFDC. I had started dating someone and found out I was about two months pregnant when my husband started calling me from Arizona. He wanted me to come out there and live. One day after I had told him I was pregnant he started yelling and screaming at me. I was so scared and upset. He was 3000 miles away and I was still scared. I miscarried that night.
He finally talked me into moving. I got onto a plane and lived there for several months. We stayed with his mom and stepdad. She and I didn't get along. He started to take us to a shelter to live while he stayed with his mom and found us a place to live. Well, we didn't stay, we got a motel room and the next day he rented us a place to live. I stayed there for several more months and the beatings kept on. I finally asked my dad to get me and the kids a plane ticket home.
He did and I was back again under my moms' control and mental abuse. My husband moved back a couple of months after that and I was back with him after he laid the sweet talk on heavily. In 1984 I was pregnant with my third child. I kept telling him I was pregnant and needed to see a doctor. He told me I was crazy, that I wasn't pregnant and only wanted to be pregnant. Even when he felt the baby move, he didn't believe me. He never let me see a doctor.
Several months before I was due I received a certified letter where he filed for a divorce in which it said I was not pregnant. I confronted him about it. He said he would drop the divorce. I believed him. Two months later he packed up and moved to Arizona. Three days after that I got the divorce papers in the mail. Two days after that I was back at mom's.
I finally got to go to a doctor. The one I saw at the emergency room when I started bleeding severely. I was placed on strict bed rest. I went to the ER several more times after that because of bleeding. Finally my doctor placed me in the hospital, told me he wanted to keep me there about two weeks, then do a c-section. My youngest son was born in October. He weighed five pounds when he was born. Four days later I took him home weighing only four pounds four ounces. He was so tiny.
One month after he was born his father came back and talked me into getting back together with him. Hell began again for another two years. I finally got the courage to leave him again. The beatings from him went on every week for a total in all of six years. I was one messed up lady. During this whole time my mother never let up. I think I was called everything but a black person. Can you imagine being eleven years old and hearing your mom call you a slut, whore, lazy, when you didn't even know what some of the words meant? I remember that during some of this time my mother worked at a fast food restaurant and they would call late at night because mom would be passed out and I would have to come and get her. So I would get her, take her home and put her to bed. While she screamed obscenities at me of course.
After I left my husband I went back to mom's and into hell again. I started drinking heavily. I married my third husband who drank a lot and later I found out he was into cocaine really bad. That went on for a few months. I left him and turned custody over to the two youngest ones' father and my daughter to my mother. Stupid move huh? But I didn't know what else to do. I joined the navy. I stayed in for four years and two months. I paid child support, saw the world and I learned that I was a good person. I learned how to take care of myself and others. I learned to stop drinking, to stop crying, and to stop being afraid. Most of all I learned to love, to love myself and others.
When I had two months left to get out I sweet talked the boys' dad into taking me back. I knew I wanted to get custody back and I would have to show the courts I could care for them. My mother had stopped drinking and was taking good care of my daughter and she decided she wanted to live with her father for a while and get to know him. I lived with him for a little over a year.
I got into college and was doing very well with my classes. The hell started right after I moved in. After about a year and a half I left him. I stayed in a motel with my sons for two nights, found us an apartment, and stayed in school. We lived there for two years before I moved out of state. I took him to court and got joint custody. My oldest son decided to stay with his dad and he had so much anger built up I couldn't control him. My youngest son and I have been together away from his dad for over four years now. He's happy and doing good in school. It took over a year of therapy for him to get where he's at now but it was worth it. I haven't regretted a day since.
This is only a very brief idea of what I went through. Most of my life is lost locked away somewhere in my head. I remember only short bursts of things before the age of eleven. My family members as far as I know didn't exist before then. They were only stories or pictures I had seen at one time or another. I think that's where some of my memories do come from: pictures I've seen and stories I've been told. After the age of eleven I only remember bits and pieces of my life. Once in awhile something will pop into my head or someone will talk about something I'll remember, but mostly I just smile and when they ask me if I remember I just say, I'm not sure or I don't know.
Only two members of my family know small bits and pieces of how my life was growing up. How can I tell them what I don't even know? I've had therapy and my counselor feels that it's better to let sleeping dogs lie along with my lost memories as long as I am happy and healthy with my life now. I agree to a point but I still wonder what I lost, bad or good. Sometimes I feel I would like to know what happened to make me lose those memories. She feels it would cause more harm than good. So I keep what I do remember to myself and go on with my life. It isn't the greatest life and I'm not wealthy but I am happy and I guess that's all that counts. Maybe one day I'll get my memories back or maybe I won't but I'm not going to dwell on it. I will go on and I will live a good life.
I miss my mom. She past away in February of 2000. The past four years we had grown very close. She was so giving even when I didn't want her to be. We could talk for hours. She had finally become the mother I had always hoped she would be when I was a young girl. I forgave my dad about three years ago and we are slowly working on getting close. I will admit he still scares me and I'm afraid to really talk to him. He apologized for not realizing what I went through. He still doesn't really know what I did go through. How could he? I don't remember a lot either.
I wrote this so that maybe another woman or child may read this. If I can get just one other person out of the hell of abuse it's worth it. Women need to know they can go on, they can live their lives without a man in it that beats them. Each child should know they don't have to go through what I did. They are special and shouldn't be beaten or called names all their lives. You don't have to live with abuse. When I went through it they didn't have shelters, the police couldn't do anything when a child called them because they were being beaten. Believe me I know I tried. I called the police on my parents at least twice but they didn't see it or others didn't see it so they could do nothing. They wouldn't even make the drive to make sure I was all right.
This isn't by far everything that happened to me and I remember a little more than I'm telling now but this is what is important. I just gave you a summary of things I remember. Don't live this way. Get out, get help, get strong!
This story was taken from Domestic Violence Personal Stories
http://www.mental-health-today.com/ptsd/domestic/stories.htm
Monday, January 21, 2008
Victims Of Violence
If you are a victim of violence in your home, there are some things you should be doing. These are for all victims, not just the ones with a plan to leave at this point. These are things that should be done in all situations of abuse.
These simple things can help in all situations relating to abuse, such as, custody cases, restraining orders, divorce proceedings and even arrest warrants.
First and foremost, keep a diary. Make sure you enter all mood changes, arguments, actual abuse and the dates. Make sure you give detailed descriptions of injuries. If you go to the hospital, write which hospital, the excuse you used for the injury, the names of the nurses and doctors that treated you. This diary could one day aid you more than you know. Be sure it is kept in the safest of places but easily accessible.
The second most important thing I can tell you to get is a camera. I wish every woman had a polaroid but that would be to much to ask. If you do have a polaroid, tape the pictures in the diary next to the description of injuries. If you do not a 35mm would be best. Take pictures of all injuries and keep the film in a safe place. If you ever need them all you need to do is get them developed. Make sure to mark the film containers by putting the months and years on a piece of paper inside the container. That way it is easier to match to diary entries later.
If you can, you should get a safety deposit box in order to keep film and important papers like a copy of the previous diaries, medical papers, a copy of your ID and social security card, birth certificates and shot records for children. If a safety deposit box is not possible, pack a shoe box or lock box, with these same items and leave with a neighbor, friend or family member. If you are concerned someone will open it, wrap it up like a present, I have found this usually keeps even the nosiest of people out of it.
Life is never easy, but it is unbelievably hard for a woman that has to hide everything from the person she is supposed to be able to trust. Make no mistake you can do without these things, but it makes things so much easier if you have them. Right now, you are probably thinking, how can I get all these things and hide them. My answer to you is, if your man hits you and you get up, instead of letting him keep you down, you can do anything!!!!!
