Domestic Abuse:
One Woman's Attempt to Break the Cycle
 
By Riddhi Sandil, Knox News Team
Progressive Women, June 2003
Dressed in sweats with her brown hair tied in a bun, Victoria seems to exude a quiet confidence. Looking at her face, though, it is plain to see that this 25-year-old has gone through a lot in her life. Her voice steady and her facial expression blank and on guard, Victoria is talking about being in an abusive relationship. Although it has been four years since this relationship ended, she still fears using her real name.
“Recovering from domestic violence is a grief process,” she says. “It’s similar to one where you have to die to know yourself better. For almost ten years of my life, I was made to believe that I wasn’t pretty enough, not smart enough,—simply not good enough—and it’s a long process to lose all of those convictions and start believing in yourself again.”
Simply put, Victoria was a victim of domestic abuse. It was through programs at Safe Harbor Family Crisis Center, where she now sits talking, that she began to gather the courage to leave that relationship and to find her way back to a healthier self.
Safe Harbor provides crisis intervention and long-term services. Its staff and volunteers will set up transportation from homes or locations where women are being abused. It also provides a host of other on-going services, including court advocacy, children’s programs, a child therapist, a crisis line, a free clothing room, and support groups for both children and adults.
It is not a residential home and is unavailable to provide victims with a place to stay overnight. But if victims need such a place, Center volunteers or staff members take them to an undisclosed location, either in Galesburg or in a neighboring county, where they might stay for the night. The safety of women and children is the Center’s prime concern.
Kathy Richardson, Safe Harbor’s director, reports that the number of cases of domestic abuse in Galesburg has been steady for the last three years. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for the rest of Illinois. According to state police records, there were 84,329 cases of domestic crimes reported in the state in 2000. In 2001, this number rose to 107,763, an increase of almost 30 percent. This rising trend in Illinois seems to hold true for the nation as well.
“I tend to believe that people are reporting more,” Richardson says. “People are freer to report it now. It’s not as shunned as it used to be and people are coming forward. I don’t believe that there are terribly more cases of abuse.”
One reason the reporting trend is holding steady in Galesburg, however, may be the existence of Safe Harbor itself and the fact that it has been a visible part of this community for more than 10 years. The Center has been providing services to women and children in Knox County since 1990. Since then it has helped many domestic violence victims overcome the stress and trauma related to such an event.
“Going through group and talking to the girls there made me put things into perspective,” Victoria says. “[Those who are abused] usually believe it’s their fault they are being abused. I was able to vent all my feeling in group. The most common advice people have for victims is ‘get out of it.’ But only when you go through an experience do you realize how difficult it is to get out.”
Victoria met her ex-boyfriend when she was just 15 years old. Like many teenagers, she says she was overwhelmed by romance, falling madly in love with 16-year-old Jake. Unaware that Jake had problems managing his anger, she became heavily involved with him, keeping their relationship a secret from her parents. “My father is a conservative Mexican with strong religious values,” she explains. “Jake was African-American and he didn’t do anything. I knew that he would never be accepted by my family.”
After only three weeks into the relationship,  Jake began to show violent tendencies. One afternoon Victoria spotted him in the Wal-Mart parking lot and parked her car to go speak to him. He was angry she had not told him that she was going out that day and as a punishment he pushed her. Then he dragged her into her car and pulled her hair.
“I was stunned, I didn’t even know how to react,” Victoria says. “The next day he apologized and said that he didn’t know what came over him. He also said that this was the last time he would ever lay his hands on me. And me, blind with my teenage notions of love, believed him.” A sad smile begins to cover her face.
Jake didn’t stop then. Even though their relationship continued, it soon was marred with his constant infidelity. Jake would cheat on Victoria and instead of being angry with him, she got angry with herself, thinking that she wasn’t good enough for him and she was the reason why he resorted to other women.
“Once I found that he was cheating with a woman from Knox College,” she says. “Instead of beating him up and getting angry with him, I went over to Knox to find the girl and punch her. I could not see that it was him I should be angry with and not her.”
That incident turned out to be just the first of many other times when Victoria was badly beaten up by Jake. He found her at a Knox party, where she had gone to find him, and he assumed that she was there with a college boy. “I ran to Seymour Hall,” she recalls, her voice momentarily faltering. “His cousin was a student at Knox and he lived there. Jake caught up with me near the mailroom. He threw me against the wall and then proceeded to choke me. He punched me till I couldn’t feel anything.” 
Fortunately a Knox security guard came by. Victoria told him that everything was fine, but then she ran into Seymour trying to escape from Jake. “He followed me to his cousin’s room and repeated the same words again. ‘I am sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I love you.’ And once again I forgave him.”
Trying to get out of the relationship, Victoria decided to go to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, but Jake followed her there and moved into her room with her. “He took over my life, telling me what to do, what to wear and who to see. But even that wasn’t good enough for him. Invariably I would do something wrong and that would give rise to another beating and then his standard apology,” says Victoria.
The worst time of her life came when Jake moved into her apartment during her sophomore year and wouldn’t allow her to leave without his permission. “From September to December I would be in that house,” she says. “It was up to him to let me go for classes and if I ever did sneak out, when I came back he would hit me up.”
In December 1996, Victoria’s parents decided that they had to intervene and they pulled her out of college. She went home to stay with her parents, but soon Jake was begging her to come back into his life. “He told me that he couldn’t live without me and I decided to give this another try,” she says.
The breaking point for Victoria came when Jake beat her when she was eight months pregnant with his child. “I was driving Jake to Peoria, so that he could ask his grandmother whether he could move in with her,” she recalls. “Jake was angry and we had an argument. Throughout the whole ride there he sat behind me, his fingers grasped around my neck. He made me drive on the back roads and didn’t allow me to use the highway. Whispering in my ear that he was going to kill me, he kept on punching my arms and hitting my head. I tried to pull into a driveway on a dirt road but he hit me even more.”
When they got to Peoria, Jake had Victoria stop the car first at his sister’s apartment. “He locked me in the car, but I knew that I needed help,” she says. “So I got out of the car and went up to his sister’s apartment. Jake was there, talking with his sister and mother. When he saw me enter, he grabbed my hair and shouted at me. He was angry that I hadn’t followed his instructions. He beat me even more. And as he continued to beat me, his sister left the room to go into her bedroom and his mother went to the bathroom.” 
Victoria moved back home after that incident. That’s when her mother decided to step in and contact Safe Harbor. She knew it was a center for victims of domestic abuse and she wanted to find out how to do what she could to help.
From outside, Safe Harbor Family Crisis Center looks like any other home on West Main Street. It is a big, white house, but on entering, something about it sparks a sense of security. Maybe it is the quiet surroundings or the motherly smile of the receptionist, but one knows there is a feeling of safety here.
Victoria started attending group sessions about six months after her mother first contacted the Center. That was in mid-1998. Since then, Victoria has given herself time to heal and realized that it would take awhile before she could lead a normal life. She also learned to identify ‘red flags,’ or signs to be wary of in potential partners, and to cope with her own feelings.
“After being a victim,” Victoria says, “I find that the abuse has given me a distrust of relationships. I am scared to put trust in people. But then again, now I know that if a man ever put his hand on me, it would be the last time he did so.”
Victoria now holds a full time job and cares for her four-year-old son. For the past two years she has been seeing a man and is happy in the relationship. She also continues to come to Safe Harbor for support.
Victoria says her life has changed. She can never go back to her old life, she maintains, and has now gained the confidence to continue living her new life, safely and securely. But it hasn’t been all that easy. She has to continuously struggle with the fear and insecurity that became a part of her life.
“The fear surfaces anytime, anywhere,” she says. “When I finally got out of the relationship and got a place on my own, I kept a knife underneath the couch that was next to my front door. On entering my apartment, I would first grab the knife and do a thorough check in every room, scared that I would find Jake hiding in my house.”
Getting used to a relationship also took time. Victoria had to start trusting herself and her partner. “Arguments are normal. They happen between any couple. Once my new boyfriend and I were arguing and he said something that reminded me of a fight with Jake,” she says. “Before I knew it, I was in the corner of my bedroom, with a pillow on my face. I reacted without thinking. My boyfriend just sat down on the bed in shock. He was ready to cry when he saw me so scared. He reassured me that he would never, ever lay a hand on me.” She says that the scars from her first relationship are not yet all healed.
When asked what advice she would give to women who are in a violent relationship, Victoria thinks before answering. “You can’t just say get out,” she sighs. “If it was that easy then women wouldn’t be in that situation. They need to arm themselves with the knowledge of what it is and why it happens. You have to know that your loved ones will be with you, but you are the only who can leave the situation. You shouldn’t be afraid to leave, you can get through it.”
 
 
        Riddhi Sandil, Class of 2003, is from Channai, India. She is a doctoral candidate in counseling psychology at the University of Iowa, specializing in issues of domestic violence. © Progressive Women, June 2003.
Calling Safe Harbor in Galesburg
According to Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics, a woman in the United States is assaulted every 15 seconds.  Some call the police but many in Galesburg also call the Safe Harbor hotline. “If the victims are in immediate danger or harm, they should certainly call the police before they call the hotline,” says Kathy Richardson, the center’s director. “That's what we always recommend. Don't waste your time calling Safe Harbor. [In these situations], you should dial 911 first. When the danger has been interrupted, then the victim can call us and let us know what going on. If there is fear and they need somewhere to be safe that night, then certainly call the hotline and we can make sure that they will be safe."
When victims call the hotline they are connected to volunteers who have been trained to deal with these situations. "You might get someone who is truly in crisis, they have just called 911 and are afraid. Sometimes you might get a call from someone who says, 'He [abuser] has just left to go to the liquor store to get a 12-pack and I need somewhere to go before he comes back. In these types of situations, the volunteer will tell the victim to go a particular location from where they can be picked up," Richardson explains.
If a victim wants to be transported to a safe place, there are a number of ways that they can get there. Sometimes volunteers will go and pick her up. In other instances, victims will call for directions and get to the shelter themselves. "If there is a situation where the victim has no transportation to get to the shelter and it is too risky for us to go there,” Richardson says, “we will call the police and they will provide transportation."
Sometimes people just call for information or because they are anxious and want to talk. Even though the center is closed on the weekends and holidays, the crisis hotline is available daily year round. Safe Harbor also acts as a referral service, guiding people either to social service agencies or other government organizations. It also does community education on domestic abuse. 
Since Safe Harbor is a non-profit organization, it relies heavily on community donations. In addition to money, people can give household items, food and clothing. Volunteers are welcome at the Center to help with office work. To be a crisis hotline volunteer, however, requires 40 hours of training by Center staff. By increasing awareness of abuse through public education, Safe Harbor hopes to combat community problems before they arise.
Safe Harbor Family Crisis Center is located at 1188 West Main Street, Galesburg, Ill., and is open Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The 24-hour- hotline number is 309-343-SAFE (7233).
 

Signs of Domestic Abuse

To help identify domestic violence, the following indicators are listed. Any single characteristic is not a sign of trouble, but several combined would be grounds for further investigation.

The abused woman:

  • Shows guilt, ambivalence, and fear over living conditions.
  • Feels isolated and untrusting of others, even though she may be involved in the community.
  • Is emotionally and economically dependent.
  •  Has a poor self-concept (this may not have been true BEFORE the relationship).
  •  Has observed other women in her family being abused or may have been abused as a child.
  • Feels angry, embarrassed, and ashamed.
  • Is fearful of being insane.
  • Has learned to feel helpless and feels powerless.
  • has unexplained injuries that may go untreated.

The abusive man:

  • shows extreme jealousy and wants to keep the woman isolated.
  • has an inability to cope with stress and shows a lack of impulse control. (This may not necessarily appear outside the home)
  • has a poor self-image and blames others for problems.
  • shows severe mood swings.
  • presents a history of personal and/or family discord; unemployment, cruelty to animals, abuse of alcohol or other substances, and other unexplained behavior.
  • may have a history of abuse in his own family and may have been abusive in courtship.

Adapted from the Women’s Rural Advocacy Programs. See http://www.letswrap.com/dvinfo/warning.htm for more information.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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