Free, confidential help is available for those in an abusive relationship. Residents of Montgomery County can call 800-773-2424; (for a shelter in the county, call 800-642-3150); in Berks County, 610-372-9540; and in Chester County, 888-711-6270; or click on this photo.
“I never really looked at it that way, but maybe I should,” said Kathleen (not her real name), a volunteer at the Women’s Center of Montgomery County, when asked whether her heart attack at age 28 could have been a blessing in disguise.
Because when the attack occurred, it caused her ex-husband and father to apologize for the way they had mistreated her – physically and verbally – for so many years before.
“It was a cleansing process for me, and I feel that if women can forgive, it’s easier to go on,” Kathleen says. “If you don’t forgive, there’s never real closure for you, because you keep asking yourself, ‘Was I a bad person?’ Having received those apologies, I was able to move forward.”
Sometimes, she adds, “a person’s home is like a war zone, and that can be worse than going into a literal battle. At least, then you know who the enemy is. Your home is supposed to conjure up images of love and trust, and domestic abuse can be a total betrayal and violation of that.”
In her mid-30s, Kathleen heard about the Women’s Center through a friend. She liked the services the Norristown PA-based center offered, including support for women with legal issues at the nearby Montgomery County Courthouse. A heavy college course schedule limits Kathleen’s ability to volunteer. She picks up hot-line calls from her home a few hours a week (talking with victims in crisis) and has spoken before small groups “to offer personal testimony about the need to get away from abusive situations,” she says.
In two more years she hopes to earn a master’s degree in social work and women’s studies at Temple University. Kathleen took the 45-hour domestic violence training course for volunteers. “When I talk to others about what I do, I don’t think of myself as a volunteer. I consider the work my passion because it involves my aspirations, my goals: to help stem the tide of domestic violence. “There are so many things you can do with a social work degree. Maybe, I can work at a shelter for women and their children who are in violent relationships.”
When she was a little girl, her father was very abusive, Kathleen says, and she used to think that this was normal. “One time, he hit me pretty bad, and I went upstairs and said to myself, ‘I’m never going to let this happen to others. No one’s going through what I went through.’”
Years passed before she could differentiate normal behavior from abuse. “As I grew up,” she says, “I saw other families, and bad behavior wasn’t normal anymore. It was like a light bulb went off in my head.”
Education, Kathleen contends, is an important component in the ongoing battle against domestic violence. “If I had been able to see some of the harmful behavior that goes into domestic abuse, I would have seen some of the symptoms of the overall problem and maybe taken steps to avoid it,” she says.
Unfortunately, she married an abusive man, and “what really got to me was the emotional abuse,” she recalls. “I was in South Carolina, and even though he had cut off my contact with other people, I always felt optimistic that things would get better. I thought when I became pregnant that he wouldn’t beat me anymore, because I was carrying his child.”
When Kathleen left her husband with her two boys and returned to the Philadelphia area, she entered a homeless shelter. “There was some counseling there, and I was on my own for a few years,” she recalls. She has had a long time to put her life back together. “To be fulfilled,” she says, “I feel women have to be participants in the world around them, beyond marriage and a family. They need opportunities to grow and impact their own lives, and have some sort of long-term commitment, just as men do.”
To help her put her experiences into perspective, Kathleen turns to poetry. “When I do get upset about something, I have to release it, so I write it down,” she says. “I want people to understand what it’s like going through certain situations. What I write seems to benefit other women who have experienced the same thing. Putting down the words helps me ease the pain.”
Free, confidential help is available for those in an abusive relationship. Residents of Montgomery County can call 800-773-2424; (for a shelter in the county, call 800-642-3150); in Berks County, 610-372-9540; and in Chester County, 888-711-6270.
Photo by Clipart.com
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