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Times Record News
Category: Page 1
Published: 02/08/2004
Page: A1
Byline: Daniel Bartel
Editor's note: The names of abuse victims in
this article have been changed for their protection.
BURKBURNETT - Surrounded by the warmth of fireplace and
family, Sarah Archer, 42, is never far from the shadowed memory of her
abusive ex-husband.
There's no problem lifting up her armor to show the emotional
trauma inflicted. She recalls the horrific events of her past with ease.
Only the scars and memories remain now.
"I've been through it all - starvation, rape, neglect,
sleep deprivation, abduction" and all from the same man, she said.
Sarah endured an abusive marriage for nearly 10 years before
getting help. She credits the Wichita Falls-based First Step center with
saving her life.
"Those people are miracle workers," she said. "If
it wasn't for them, I probably would've died."
First Step Inc. is a community outreach center dedicated
to changing and redirecting lives of domestic violence and sexual assault
survivors, Janet Rivers, a First Step training coordinator, said.
Now in its 25th year, the center handles 11 counties in
North Texas. Abuse survivors get help from First Step's abuse shelter
and one-on-one counseling.
But before they can get help, abuse survivors must take
the initial steps to get away from the abuse.
The choice is theirs to make.
A dreary, gray-colored sky is enough to conjure the hurtful
past, Sarah said.
The setting outside her Burkburnett home reminds her of
the small house where she and her four children lived in the town of
Joshua, Texas, south of Fort Worth.
January chills were enough to snap bones.
There was no job because there was no car. There was no
money to pay for heating or electricity.
There was no food for the kids. For dinner, she fed them
peanut butter out of a jar. She didn't eat.
The phone had been ripped out of the wall, so there was
no way to call for help.
And her husband - he'd taken the money and the car to go
out drinking with friends.
Even if there were an outlet for help, she wouldn't have
taken it.
"I was too scared," Sarah said. "I felt embarrassed.
I couldn't call my mother because I thought it would be too much of a
burden."
As day disappeared into night, Sarah's husband would return
home drunk, rape her and then pass out, she said.
The next morning, the cycle began all over again.
Women seated at one of First Step's group sessions are causalities
of love derailed.
Their stories are thick with carnage. Some have been hit
across the face with metal chairs. Others have been tied up and raped,
their children forced to watch.
Group sessions bring out all the cuts and bruises.
It's not something easy to address in a social setting -
especially in the North Texas area where the "don't ask, don't tell" code
of Victorian conduct still reigns, said First Step board member Jeff
Pixler.
At First Step, counselors teach that abusers maintain control
through blunt force and manipulation. Abuse can either be physical or
emotional and mental or both, Sandy Boswell, a First Step family violence
counselor said.
For an abused wife, the choice is harsh: to stay is to endure
more abuse. To leave is to bear the burden of breaking up the family.
Keeping the family together is in the blood of most mothers,
Rivers said.
"Even if she leaves, the kids are caught in the middle
because they want to see their daddy," Rivers said.
Some women are conditioned by abuse to the point that they
don't know what's happening.
"Before group, I didn't know sleep deprivation was
abuse," Sarah said.
At first, he was charming, funny, intelligent - all the
qualities a woman looks for in a man.
It was 1982. Sarah was 18 and working as a waitress at the
Waffle House in Fort Worth.
He came from a prosperous background with parents who were
property owners and still married.
Before she knew it, she and the new guy were going together.
Shortly after that, she was married and pregnant.
And then the signs appeared. He began screening her calls,
pulling her away from friends, asking suspicious questions.
"Of course, stupid me, I thought, 'This guy really
cares about me,' " she said.
But as she would later discover, most abusers creep in and
stifle someone's breathing just enough to keep them alive.
"There
are two ways to kill someone - slowly or quickly," she
said. "That's what he was doing to me, killing me slowly. Toward
the end of it, I wanted to die."
He was routinely selling off things to pay for alcohol:
appliances, jewelry, TVs.
One Christmas, Sarah had saved up enough to purchase used
bicycles for the kids that he later stole and pawned for beer money.
In 1991, he unplugged the TV for the last time.
Sarah told her son, now 17, not to get used to watching
cartoons. Daddy needed the TV to buy beer, she said.
The ex-husband erupted, screaming that Sarah was teaching
the kids to disrespect him.
And that was it.
"I took the kids, a little money and my pride and went
to stay with my mother," she said.
First Step workers give abuse survivors all the tools they
need to make a new start.
But it's up to them to use those tools, shelter
manager Rebecca Venegas-Cavazos said.
"They make the decision about what they want to do," she
said. "It's theirs whatever they do."
Shelter survivors are mostly women, but there are always
a few men each year, Venegas-Cavazos said.
In a 10-room house, abuse survivors usually come with broken
spirits, looking for a friend, she said.
Shelter workers do special things for the women - inviting
hair stylists over, giving the women makeovers, treating them to bubble
baths and manicures.
Workers even coach women on how to succeed at job interviews.
Just a little bit of pampering goes a long way, Venegas-Cavazos
said. One shelter woman was so inspired by her own makeover that she
enrolled in college and became active in civic organizations, she said.
"When they look in the mirror, they see a different
person - someone with more respect and power," Venegas-Cavazos said. "It
gives me a rush to see that change."
Abuse counselors say it the loudest: if someone is stuck
with abuse, it's time to get out of it.
Greater awareness has caused more abuse survivors to take
action.
Attendance at the Wichita County shelter increased 20 percent
from 2002 to 2003, according to First Step.
Additionally, more county residents are reporting family
violence. Incidents have increased roughly 17 percent from 2000 to 2002,
according to the Texas Department of Safety Crime Information Bureau.
For abuse survivors, recovery is a never-ending process.
After the counseling and treatment, some choose to be volunteers and
devote their time to educating the community.
Though they may be done with the past, the past isn't done
with them.
Sarah said she becomes nauseated by the smell of paint fumes
and beer - the distinctive odors of her ex-husband.
Fellow victim Patricia Rushing - who for years endured sexual,
mental and physical abuse - said excessive trauma to her back makes it
difficult to put on panty hose.
She can't vacuum with her back to a closed
door nor can she tolerate the sound of something dropping into a trashcan.
"When I hear that, you have to pry me off the ceiling," she
said. "I'm a survivor, but these things haunt me every day."
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