Domestic Abuse: Nothing will change until you change it
Domestic Abuse: Nothing will change until you change it By Robyn H. Jimenez, Contributing Writer February 11, 2008 Part II DALLAS (Special to the NNPA from the Dallas Examiner) - About 74 percent of all Texas residents have either experienced domestic violence themselves or have a family member or friend who has. Almost half of all Texans have reported having personally experienced some form of domestic abuse, whether it was physical, verbal, sexual or emotional. "I didn't leave because I didn't know how. When you're growing up, your mother teaches you how to cook, how to be a good wife and mother. No one ever teaches you what to do if your husband starts beating you. I thought that a good wife was suppose to stay and make everything alright," said Angel, a survivor of an abusive marriage. In the film Portrait of Abuse, several women were interviewed and discussed their personal stories. One woman in the film, Meredith, said that she thought it was something she was doing wrong. She thought it was her fault and she would have to fix it. After all, she wasn't a quitter and she wanted a 60-year marriage like her parents had. Plus, she took vows and 'through thick and thin' meant through thick and thin. Another woman, Kay, said that her husband was not violent often. And each time he would apologize and say it wouldn't happen again and she would try to convince herself that he didn't mean to do it and it wouldn't happen again. Each time, he told her that it would be the last time. But it continued to happen until she left. Domestic violence destroys the family and can be passed on from generation to generation, according to the film, Portrait of Abuse. "If you kick a dog enough, it won't bite and it won't bark anymore. My father slapped me until I stopped crying. He broke my spirit," said Shirley, a survivor of domestic rape. While some abused children grow up and enter into relationships where they are abused by their domestic partner, others may grow up to be the abuser. "We grew up pretty similar. A lot of fighting, a lot of drugs, alcohol. So we definitely shared a common bond there. I tried to avoid the conflict, seeing how it made unhappy times growing up as a kid," said Richard, a 35-year-old domestic abuser. He mentioned that his parents divorced before he was 5-years-old, both parents ended up in yet another abusive relationship. "It's not a choice I want in my life. I want my wife to be my wife 'til the day I die...I remember hitting her and I remember being handcuffed, the two most embarrassing moments of my life. I got arrested, spent 14 hours in jail. Never been in trouble with the law. I didn't know what my marital status was. 'Did I lose my family' is the biggest thing to me. What happens to my family? It's what my life is about now, is my family." Richard was court-ordered to attend counseling classes to stop domestic violence after he was released. When he first began counseling, it was difficult for him to view himself as an abuser. He thought "Do I really belong here?" Jamie Corona, Clinical Counselor at the Batterer Intervention Program, said, "Most batters tend to minimize things. They tend to think 'well, it was a one time thing' or 'she made me angry,' 'I didn't hit her that hard,' 'I didn't mean to do that.'" Corona said that they generally use excuses that start with "I only..." or "It was just..." to indicate that it isn't as bad as it sounds. He said that some of them may even believe that is the case. According to the film's researchers, men resort to violence when they feel powerless and out of control of things around them. If they were abused as children, they learned to express themselves through violence or to gain control through force. "For me personally, just my feelings and communication were the biggest challenge in my relationship, which lead to a lot of arguments. And without learning how to share them, I would have been in that same old rut," Richard said. He has now been married for almost three years. Children who witness violence at home display emotional and behavioral problems, such as: withdrawal, low self-esteem, nightmares and aggression against peers, family and property, according to the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence. "When the bad outweighs the good and when their children are affected, that's so classic. In fact, so many women would say, 'I could see it was affecting my children... I could see that my children were watching this," said Sara Ivey, the film's director and producer. She said that there are two ways to be abused. One is to watch it and the other is to have it done to you. "It's almost worse , because, I mean the worse thing is to see someone you love... My sister was in the fourth grade and I was in third. My father, because she getting notes home from the teacher, in one night he taught her the multiplication tables. And I can still, to this day, here the screams of her agony in my mind and I thought she would die, and I was in my bed paralyzed, because if I did anything, I'd be dead too. And the next day, she had been bruised from her waist down to her knees, black and blue... and a black eye. And she could not sit down at school. And you sit there as a child and you see this. And you're so helpless," Shirley said. While many parents leave when they notice their children being affected, many may stay because they think it is better for the child or children. On a recent Dr. Phil Show, Dr. Phil said that it was much better for a child to come from a broken home, then for a child to live in a broken home. Shirley was one of many North Texas residents who stayed at a shelter with her son for a brief period. After a while, she began to notice a gradual change in her son. She talked about how her son use to be afraid to ask permission to put ketchup on his French fries when they went out to eat, because his father use to "bop" him. He also stuttered, she said, so his father couldn't understand him. But now, he puts ketchup on his French fries without the fear of being hit. He plays like a "normal" child and has even stopped stuttering. In 2006, the Texas Health and Human Service Commission reported that 12,356 adults sought refuge at a domestic violence shelter, in Texas alone. But the real victims were the 16,968 children that came through the shelters. Collin County is currently in the process of setting up a Family Justice Center. The center will house complete accommodations for battered victims. This would include, not only an emergency shelter, transitional and long term housing, but it will also include a social worker, clothing, food, food stamps, Medicaid and job support. Ivey says that many times when women leave their abusive husbands, they are not always able to obtain transportation to the various offices that offer these service now. Placing all of these services in one location will allow the women to get all of the service they need to get up on their feet. However, according to Ivey, many rural areas don't even have standard shelters, leaving those women with no safety net. "In the last 25 years we've done a better job in providing some kind of safety, but we have a long way to go." The film's researchers say that there are many things that can be done to combat this epidemic. "The first thing we've got to do is talk about it, as we've done with breast cancer, as we've done with a lot of things that are socially important to our health, said Mark McGovern, the film's executive producer. "We've got to get to the point where people can sit around the table and say 'Hey, you know what's going on in my family?' and 'I need help with..., I'd like to talk to..." Then that raises awareness. That starts to raise the bar. One of the benefits of that is, by bringing it into awareness and social conscious; you start to shift the tables on abusers, because, now it's in a dialogue. Now it becomes part of the social landscape of 'hey, that's not right.' Only 10 percent of primary care physicians routinely screen for domestic violence. Ivey stated that for years the medical profession has screened for hypertension, for diabetes and for substance abuse. She said that it is now time for screening for domestic violence to become just as routine, whether the patient is seeing a primary care physician, obstetrician/gynecologist or the emergency room. In fact, she states, there are some women who don't have the resources to visit a primary care physician and will use the emergency room for non-emergency care. "The worse case of abuse that I had was a lady that came in with a fractured arm. What had happened was that her significant other had basically broken her arm," Herschel Brown, M.D. at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, describes on the film, the worse case of abuse he noticed with one of his patience. Brown said that although her significant other was the one that broke it during a heat of rage and she was in a lot of pain, she did not initially want to admit that he had done it. "We have a lot of women in these relationships that don't want to tell that they are being abused because they are afraid, because they have no where to go or no one that's going to help them and they'll be out there by themselves," Brown continued. As domestic abuse becomes a more common part of the conversation, medical care and law enforcement personnel become more aware of their responsibility to help people that are in domestic violent situations, such as mandatory screening. "I think that we can save lives. And I think that if we try to make this more of an issue and put it more on the forefront and let women know, and educating out communities about domestic violence, I think it would really help to prevent it and help to decrease the prevalence of it," said Brown. The Center for the Advancement of Women reported in Progress & Perils: New Agenda for Women, that 92 percent of women say reducing domestic violence and sexual assault should be at the top of any formal efforts taken on behalf of women today. "We have to name the problem and give it voice...very loudly. And say, 'Stop! No more!' And until we have our healthcare system waking up to the fact that we need to look at prevention and root cause, it's incredibly important that we start opening our eyes and asking the questions," said gynecologist, Margaret Christensen, M.D. There are currently several local and national government and private organizations that are taking a closer look at the issue of domestic abuse, now that people are becoming more aware of the fact that it is not "their problem," it's our problem. The film's website list several recourses for individuals and families that are seeking refuge from domestic violence. And though fear of the unknown may prompt many to stay, the filmmakers hope that fear of what will happen if things don't change will drive many to take those first steps to get help and seek safety. Looking back, Shirley remembers how safe she felt, after she left her husband. "I can remember it was Christmas time and the dream that I had for that Christmas was, I wanted peace. And my son and I got out of the shelter right before Christmas Eve and stayed with a friend from college." Then on Christmas Eve, when her friend left, Shirley and her son celebrated Christmas with just the two of them. After putting her son to bed that evening, she went to lie down and she thought, "I got my wish." For more information on domestic abuse, visit portraitofabuse.com. For information on assistance for anyone in an abusive relationship, call The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or visit www.ndvh.org. http://www.louisianaweekly.com/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20080211o