New Directions

Since the start of this blog, one continuing theme has been about seeking direction and taking opportunity...even when the direction and opportunity seem daunting. I've also said that a big part of that comes from letting go of the idea that I must wait until I have it all figured out before I take action. Leap, and the net will appear, so to speak.

In the next two weeks, I will be packing up and heading across the country to start my career as a child abuse treatment specialist in Virginia. I will temporarily leave behind my own children so they may finish their school year. I am even driving solo cross country. Being in a car alone with my thoughts for two days is something I have never done...let alone live by myself for a few months. The concept is almost as foreign an idea as the concept of traveling to Cambodia. Yet, the leap feels right.

How do we know if one direction over the other is for the better? Well, we don't, I suppose. We can seek direction from family, friends, colleagues or religion. It is true that no man is an island and we make decisions based on responsibility and kinship with others. At the end of the day, however, it all comes down to finding the time to see what direction we turn internally.There is a line from a song, which I love: "One foot in and one foot back, but it don't pay to live like that."

And so it begins...

Domestic Violence: Why Doesn't She Just LEAVE????

"Why doesn't she just leave????" During my time as a therapist in a domestic violence shelter that was one of the more common questions I was asked by friends, family and co-workers of the victim. It was asked with agonizing frustration for the situation, and often, for the woman being abused. On a societal level, that frustration can turn into intolerance to the suffering: "If a woman is too dumb or lazy to leave her abuser then she gets what's coming to her" or "If she can't leave for her kids, then someone should take them away from her. She's an unfit mother." Notice how the criticism becomes much more harsh when the situation is depersonalized and the victim is nameless? These are all statements I have heard during my experience in DV work.


Is the question, though, unfair? I come from the camp that no question is unfair when real answers are being sought. Of course it is heart-wrenching to watch someone walk back to her abuser. Many times I've hung my head low in worry, self-reproach (could I have done more?) and down-right anger when a woman chooses to stay. Whenever ever I feel this way, I must remind myself why women stay. Hopefully, by reminding myself here with you today I'll also be able to answer the question for you.


Bottom line: leaving is a process, not an event. My friends at Transitions Global who work with survivors of sexual slavery talk about rescue being a process and not an event. Leaving an abuser is very much a self-rescue. Others can provide shelter, support and safety but it is the woman and her own sense of empowerment that will finally walk away. Indeed, 75% of women who experience abuse will leave their abuser. The nature of intimate partner violence, however, often makes that a prolonged departure. 


Anyone who asks why a woman doesn't simply leave is equating "leaving" with "safety." Unfortunately, this is not the case. Risk of homicide increases during the first two months after a woman leaves her abuser by as much as 75%. Simply put, threats of "I'll kill you if you leave me" are not idle threats. Even when the abuse does not result in murder, a full 70% of all injuries due to domestic violence occur AFTER a separation. Remember, a woman who has been abused has become skilled in her own survival. She can read a change in the air that most of us might never see. She has become acute in her observational skills which is directly related to her own ability to survive.


And it is not only her survival that she is ensuring. While on the surface it would appear that the only way to protect a child from harm is to remove him or her from the violent environment. Abusers often use children as tools in their system of abuse. Fathers who batter mothers are twice as likely to seek sole custody as non-abusive fathers. Even when women have successfully retained their children, they have been subject to financial abuse and isolation from friends and family which makes a successful departure often impossible. A full 50% of homeless women and children are on the streets because of violence in the home.


Among these statistics and facts, I have not even begun to account for the psychological toll that abuse takes on the victim. She has been forced to believe in her powerlessness, her worthlessness and her shame. When I meet with a woman for the very first time, I say to her: "I am so glad you are here. I am amazed at your strength to continue surviving. How do you do it?" In that, she can perhaps begin to see her story anew. She does have power and choice. If she chooses to stay, then who am I to take the power of that choice away from her? She understands better than I how to survive in her life in that moment. By honoring that choice, we have perhaps begun the process of her departure.

If you or someone you know needs help:

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence 

(for help anywhere in the country)

Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence 

(for help in Colorado)

Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence 

(for help in Boulder and Broomfield counties in Colorado)

Empowerment vs Rescue

I had several good, if brief, conversations with friends today that has woven an interesting tapestry of thoughts in my mind this evening. Virginia Woolf was able to construct an entire new way of writing by following her stream of consciousness. I'm setting the bar much lower for myself and am going to aim for expressing my thoughts without tripping over my own logic. The conversations were: A discussion on the nature of empowerment. A repartee on the cross section of humanity found in airport terminals as it pertain to the concept of survival of the fittest. And a rant about the Baptist missionaries accused of human trafficking in Haiti. It left me with questions. Who is in need of rescue and who is most capable of survival? Are the needy necessarily the weakest? Do they need (or even asking for) rescue or do they need empowerment? How do rescue and empowerment look different in action?

"Rescue" is a powerful word. As with anything that holds power, it can be misused. I look at all that I have seen coming out of Haiti the last few weeks--both in person and on the news. Truly, I have seen people in need of rescue. Anyone who saw the 5 year old boy pulled from the rubble eight days after the earthquake, arms stretched to the heavens, knows that he was in need of rescue. He was helpless. Without rescue he would not have survived. However, when we make a blanket statement that an entire people are in need of rescue, we make assumptions about our own superior instinct for survival and the others' helplessness. We steal their ability to claim empowerment. 

I believe this was the error in the missionaries' ideology when they traveled to Haiti to "rescue" children. While they are still only accused and nothing has been proven in a court of law, there seems to be strong evidence that they planned to find children (parentless or not) to save them from the ravages of Haiti. Clearly, the missionaries could not see the ravages a child would experience from being stripped away from family and community. The phrase "self-righteous" was used in my conversation about these missionaries today. It's a loaded term and so I'll take the plank out of my own eye first. I have been guilty of being self-righteous in my proclamation of who needs help and rescue. Sitting across from a client in pain, I sometimes fight the urge to say "Just do X, stop doing Y and you'll be fine." My job, I remind myself, is to help them use the tools to craft their own solution. When I allow that process to unfold, I'm always reassured when they crafted a solution or way of being that was more appropriate than my gut instinct of "STOP THAT!" That is the difference between "Rescue" and "Empowerment."

What a different story it would have been had those "missionaries" gone in like so many others there and asked "How can support you in getting your needs met" or "How can I advocate for you?" We assume...I have assumed...weakness where there is actually great strength. Who is the stronger, more powerful mother? The mother sitting in a tent tonight with her 6 children, rationing her own water so her children won't be thirsty or a mother, like myself, sitting in a suburban home with kids tucked into bunk beds. Our fortune as a nation does not ensure our survival any more than the misfortune of another denies their strength. I sat in a room with 83 Haitian children...none older than 12...every single one stronger in their survival than pampered, sheltered me. Survival of the fittest? They've got me beat. 

But truly that's not the message. It's not about who is stronger, weaker, self-righteous, or pitful. Empowerment is the process of not only recognizing our own strength, but identifying strength in others, each of us filling in the gaps where we need help. And what a weight off our shoulders to know we don't have to rescue everyone. We simply need to empower and, in turn, let others empower us. We lean in together and join our strengths. It's a synergy thing.