What is this mission Ohio Connie is on?
Unable to help, I watched as my daughter became a victim of a man who professed to love her. I listened to her tell me about how wonderful he was one minute and how the next, the coffee table would be flying toward her head. I watched as she went to the emergency room after "falling" down the stairs and bruising her spleen. I listened as she told me "Mom, I love him" and "He's the kid's father after all and they need their father."
The first time she left and came to me with her 3 children in tow, I thought the nightmare was finally over. Now she was safe from her husband (and his mother...yes, his mother!) She stayed with me long enough to calm down, get financial help through the state, add her name to a waiting list for an apartment where the rent was based on a sliding scale. Then she went back.
Why? Because life was too boring with me.
That made me assume that she "wanted" the violence in her life. That was before I truly understood just why women do go back to their abusers.
It took her a number of years...and the birth of 2 more children, one a stillborn and the other born at 5 months and deceased at 8 months. Finally she left. She went into shelter, a shelter that was good for emergency care but not good for actually assisting the women in getting on with their lives.
She became a Certified Nursing Assistant and was able to support herself with help from the state. Her ex never has helped with the kids financially so she's had to live below the national poverty line, trying to keep her utilities on and her kids fed and clothed.
What happened to the ex? He went on to have more children with other women (2 that I know of) and not support them either. Both threw him out when he began abusing them physically.
So, to get back to my original question in the title of this post...my mission is to raise awareness of Domestic Violence...to let women who are involved in a dangerous or abusive relationship know there are ways out...to hopefully help them find resources and the courage to get on with their lives, without the abuser or the abuse...and to help friends and family of victims understand and even assist the abused woman.
My book A Love Sentence tells the story of how abuse escalates, what causes it, what options there are.
© 2007 Connie Roush All Rights Reserved.
The first time she left and came to me with her 3 children in tow, I thought the nightmare was finally over. Now she was safe from her husband (and his mother...yes, his mother!) She stayed with me long enough to calm down, get financial help through the state, add her name to a waiting list for an apartment where the rent was based on a sliding scale. Then she went back.
Why? Because life was too boring with me.
That made me assume that she "wanted" the violence in her life. That was before I truly understood just why women do go back to their abusers.
It took her a number of years...and the birth of 2 more children, one a stillborn and the other born at 5 months and deceased at 8 months. Finally she left. She went into shelter, a shelter that was good for emergency care but not good for actually assisting the women in getting on with their lives.
She became a Certified Nursing Assistant and was able to support herself with help from the state. Her ex never has helped with the kids financially so she's had to live below the national poverty line, trying to keep her utilities on and her kids fed and clothed.
What happened to the ex? He went on to have more children with other women (2 that I know of) and not support them either. Both threw him out when he began abusing them physically.
So, to get back to my original question in the title of this post...my mission is to raise awareness of Domestic Violence...to let women who are involved in a dangerous or abusive relationship know there are ways out...to hopefully help them find resources and the courage to get on with their lives, without the abuser or the abuse...and to help friends and family of victims understand and even assist the abused woman.
My book A Love Sentence tells the story of how abuse escalates, what causes it, what options there are.
© 2007 Connie Roush All Rights Reserved.
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