The Women's Center

Success Stories

Why I support The Women’s Center, Inc.

 

As a child survivor of domestic violence I know how traumatic it can be to grow-up in a violent environment.  Most of my childhood memories are those of living in fear and isolation. My father was an alcoholic.  He would go on binges for days, sometimes weeks, depending on how long the money lasted, and when he finally returned home penniless, he was still drunk and very angry.  He would start in on my mother or siblings, whoever was closest to him at the time.  My siblings and I would hide, or pretend we were asleep when we heard his car pull into the driveway. This left my mother to face the abuse.  Most of the time he would just beat her, but often, I heard him rape her.  

 

I am one of five children.  I have two older brothers, an older sister and a younger bother that I took care of most of his life.  All of us moved out of the house as soon as we could get away.  But all of us took the trauma of the abuse right along with us. 

 

Although physical abuse hurts at the time, the emotional scars never heal.  For me those scars manifested themselves into low self-esteem, depression and anxiety.

 

As I became an adult I talked to my mother about the abuse she endured, and she really believed that she had no other options.  Where do you go with five children?  How do you feed and shelter them with no money?  Isn’t living in fear, better than living on the streets? Well, I can tell you, the answer is NO! 

 

When I learned about The Women’s Center, Inc. and the work they do, I wished that my mother would have known such places existed.  I wished that my siblings would have gotten the help they needed to cope with their trauma and that all of us would have known that someone did care about what was happening to us.

 

To all of you mothers that might be reading this and who are being abused by a man that claims to love you, seek help, not just for yourself, but your children.  Whether you realize it our not, they hear what is going on behind closed doors, they do witness the abuse, and it DOES have an impact on their physical and emotional wellbeing.  No child should have to live in fear.

 

And to anyone else who happens to read this, if you know that violence is going on in a home please call the police, talk to the mother and ask if you can help, and let the children know that you care about what is happening to them, you just might save a child

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