Breaking the silence

Beatings, mind games, death threats, isolation. It's the type of physical and mental torture one would expect to find in a prisoner war camp like the Hanoi Hilton, not in an average Lenoir County home.

These types of abuses and others are all too common in local families - and others all around the state and the country - as a person who has pledged to love his or her partner instead uses every twisted method he or she can to control that person.

"In domestic violence it's about control," said Carolyn Fields, director of victim services for SAFE in Lenoir County. "They want to control all areas of their life."

Four local women shared how domestic violence has touched their lives Friday. Three of the women, who asked not to be identified for protection from their abusers, suffered years of emotional, physical and sexual abuse from husbands and boyfriends.

The fourth woman, Marsha Powell of Kinston, lost her sister to domestic violence 32 years ago and has written a booklet of poems and essays about it.

Powell's older sister, Barbara Elaine Chapman-Bermudez, died on June 20, 1976, at the age of 28. Barbara's husband eventually pleaded guilty to beating her to death.

Last year, Powell began researching the details of her sister's death and found the autopsy report that described each injury Barbara had suffered.

"I'll never forget that day," she said. "I wept like a baby. It was the most devastating thing I ever read in my life. This guy brutally killed my sister."

Powell also volunteers with SAFE, taking calls on the group's domestic violence hotline one night a week.

She gave the other three women encouragement as they gathered around a table in SAFE's offices on Friday.

"I do it not only for my sister, I do it for victims like you and anybody else who has been hurt," Powell told them.

Telling their stories

The three women, identified here by the pseudonyms of Annie, Ruth and Mary, have severed ties with their abusers - Annie's abuser, the father of one of her children, is currently in prison for raping and kidnapping her.

However, they still bear the physical and psychological scars, and there is always the risk that the abusers will find them.

"I've had guns put to my head; I've had knives put to my throat; I have been raped with my children lying next to me," Ruth said. "I've been beaten to the point that I miscarried. To go to the bathroom and see that process is devastating."

Ruth said her husband of 12 years physically abused her, stole her money and spent it on girlfriends, kept her from working and used their children as leverage to get her to stay.

"His goal is to put you in the street," Ruth said.

She got away from her husband four months ago, and has attended the empowerment classes SAFE offers abuse victims.

One tool of the classes is a series of wheel charts describing aspects of domestic violence and how to heal from it.

She recognized every type of abuse listed on the "power and control" chart, from "minimizing, denying and blaming," to "using economic abuse," to "using intimidation."

"The bruises go away, however, it is that mental . . . you know . . . it has affected my self-confidence; it has affected my self-esteem," she explained.

Mary, who had been listening while Annie and Ruth talked, spoke up next.

"If I'm in the house by myself, I can't go to bed without the light on," she said.

Mary had two husbands; each abused her during the nearly 20-year combined span of both marriages.

"He kept me secluded," she said of her first husband. "He didn't want me to have no friends. He'd do little stuff to start off with, a little bruise here, a little bruise there."

Mary and her husband acted like a happy couple in public; the abuse occurred behind closed doors.

"By the time the door slammed you know: uh oh, it's coming," she said.

Mary tried everything she could to make her husbands happy, but beatings would happen for the slightest reason, many of which did not make sense to her.

"It didn't have to make sense," Ruth replied. "What I found out was, what makes sense to us, people think is crazy."

She added: "You do what you have to do to make it to the next day, the next hour, the next minute."

Coming to the classes and seeing the charts showed Ruth that she was not the only one experiencing domestic violence.

"I was like, so excited when I got this," Ruth said of the charts. "Now I have proof that I was not crazy!"

Why don't they leave?

Mary told the group that people would often ask her why she did not just get up and leave.

"You could have left at any given time," they would tell her.

This is not the case. Abusers use any method they can to keep their victims close by, from threatening to take full custody of children - all three women had children with their abusers - to keeping control of all family finances, even blatant death threats.

"You have to realize, if it were that easy to leave then there would be no reason for me to have a job," Fields said.

She said victims who leave often have few means of supporting themselves. They have to find jobs and shelter, and that takes time.

"The system doesn't work really fast for them and some of them end up going back," Fields explained. "It's not an easy thing, to make that decision to leave, because there's so many things you have to do, so many things you have to think about."

Abusers also toy with their victim's mind by either denying the abuse happened or twisting events to make them feel responsible.

"He has never accepted responsibility for his actions," Ruth said of her husband. "It always was someone else's fault and that is scary."

What does the future hold?

Annie, Mary and Ruth managed to escape their abusers, but they are still fighting to heal scars created by years of physical and mental anguish.

Annie said victims will not leave until they make the conscious decision to walk away. It is something that does not happen because friends and family members beg them to leave, but because they make the decision themselves - Annie compared her decision to flipping on a light switch.

"I use the term, ‘when you get full of it,' " she explained. "Can't nobody tell you until you get tired of it. You're grandma can talk to you, you don't hear her."

It's a long road to recovery. Each woman has lasting physical disabilities, the result of repeated spinal injuries.

They must also deal with the psychological effects. The women hate to be alone in their houses, and are terrified of the dark. Oftentimes, a loud noise can trigger flashbacks.

Simply talking about the abuse can help the victims, because they learn about the many common elements of it. The women laughed Friday as they recalled similar experiences, humor being one of many coping tools.

"It's not always a laughing matter," Annie said. "At night, when the wind is blowing, it's a different story."

Annie keeps her head up, though.

"No, I ain't dragging," she said. "I might take pills at night, but I'm not going to let you see me dragging!"

The system works

Until recently, the criminal justice system has been stacked against domestic violence victims as abusers know exactly how to navigate it to avoid charges.

"They know how to intimidate just enough, not to go over the line," Ruth said.

The burden of proof is also on the victim; police officers have little recourse if there is no hard evidence of abuse.

"I don't fault the police one bit, they're just doing their jobs," Ruth explained.

Fields said domestic violence advocates, working with criminal justice and other agencies, have developed some legal tools to protect victims.

Victims no longer have to get a lawyer or pay for a protective order, and officers can arrest a suspected abuser if they see evidence and jail him or her for 48 hours, giving victims time to get away.

Clients of SAFE are referred to the Department of Social Services and other agencies. The Lenoir County Magistrate's Office and Lenoir Memorial Hospital also keep SAFE business cards on hand, Fields said.

"The fact that it's getting a lot better says we are starting to work together in all areas," she said. "

David Anderson can be reached at (252) 559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.