April 17, 2004

Tonya's Training

I didn't post anything about my last training because it was mostly group exercises about diversity. Today however, we had a couple women share their stories and then we talked about life at the shelter. WARNING.....graphic material in the extended entry.

Listening to women talk about their experiences with domestic violence makes me very thankful that I'm with someone who would never abuse me in any way or any children, if we ever have them. After listening to them, I felt lucky that my safety with Will is never in question and it made me appreciate him more. It's a sad world we live in when you want to thank your partner for not beating you. But, for so many woman (1 out of 3 worldwide) thats a part of their life.

The first speaker discussed her childhood...which is a little too similar to mine... so I'm not going to discuss that. The second woman talked about 2 relationships that she was involved in where she was abused. I'm not going to go into all of it, it would take too long. Her first husband tried to control where she was at all times by doing stuff like hiding her car keys. It esculated. One night she went out to celebrate her friends birthday. When she got home, he was angry. As she was getting ready for bed, he came up behind her and slammed her head into the countertop. It knocked her unconscious. She came out of it the next day. He had left her alone with her daughter who was applying cold papertowls to her face. Her entire head was swollen, she couldn't open her eyes very much, she couldn't move her head. He refused to let her go to the doctor because he was afraid he'd get reported. It took her 4 months to recover. She was working and trying to save up money to leave him. A year and a half later the same thing happens. She goes out with a friend, this time the friend comes back to her house. The friend and her children are outside, she goes inside and he attacks her. The friend comes in the house, pulls the man off her and gets her and her child out of the house and takes her to the hospital. Her jaw had to be wired shut, most of her teeth had fallen out, she had several broken ribs, and a broken arm. She went to the police the day she was released to file charges and when she walked in they all knew her name. Her husband had gone in the night before, brought all the cops coffee and donuts and told them that "things had gotten a little out of hand." They told her he was really sorry and that it wouldn't happen again and that she should go home. She said no, she wanted to press charges. So they took photographs of her and 3 months later the D.A. called saying that they weren't going to press charges because they didn't want to "waste taxpayers dollars." This was 1983.

Her second relationship was in the late 80's. She didn't go into this one as much.....we were running out of time. She just gave as an example of what her husband would do. She said she woke up one night and he was sitting in a chair staring at her with a butcher knife in his hand. He sat there for three hours and then just got up and walked away.

It was hard not to cry during todays training and at one point I couldn't hold it in any longer and a couple tears escaped......I wasn't the only one.

We then talked about the shelter and the programs there. They do couseling both group and alone. They also work with the children with different types of therapy. Its only a 4-6 week program so they just begin the process of healing. The woman are transfered out to longer shelters and unfortunatly, some go back to the abuser.

Posted by Tonya at April 17, 2004 2:26 PM | TrackBack