My Path to a New Life

Warning: this essay includes stories of abuse

One of my earliest memories is of me sitting in the back of our family’s Buick Skylark on our way to the hospital. Dad was driving, Mom was in the passenger seat. I was about four, sitting in the middle. My oldest sister was to my left, holding a washcloth to her head to staunch the bleeding. My second-oldest sister was to my right. Earlier, Dad had caught us playing on the “good” furniture — in his rage, he picked up the ottoman and hit the eldest in the head with it. A furniture tack was sticking out.

My dad had a temper. It wasn’t until my early twenties that my siblings and I named what had happened to us, and what was still happening to our younger siblings at home: child abuse. We were sitting in my apartment, after I had just escaped my abusive marriage, more for the safety of my young daughter than for my own.

I had escaped once before and had moved home, but had called a cab after two weeks to take me back to my husband — I felt that at least I had some autonomy within the abusive marriage. Not too long after I returned to him, I had to be rescued by the police who found my husband strangling me. They recommended that I apply for a restraining order. This time I left for good.

Years later, I was working in customer service for a company that was run by a man and his uncle. I had been promoted multiple times before a new leader took over the business. He created a toxic environment and turned the company I had hoped to retire from into a dysfunctional family. Even then, I stuck it out for four more years.

One of the salesmen, who had walked out soon after the takeover, mailed me a college catalog with a note suggesting I go back to school and finish my degree.

That note, coupled with the messages I was getting from therapy and workshops, helped me to see that the life I wanted was out there — but was on the other side of a ring of fire. The only way I would get to it was to take a leap of faith. The next day, I quit my job. I went to work for a temporary service, doing odd jobs to support myself and my daughter. I enrolled in school.

While attending school, I picked up a copy of Minnesota Women’s Press. In the back was an ad for an agency dedicated to preventing domestic violence. Cornerstone was looking for a volunteer to co-lead a support group for battered women. As I read the ad, it was like a light shone on it.

I had an epiphany, a voice that said: “This is why you went through what you did. You are meant to do this.”

I interviewed and was taken on as a volunteer. Several months later they posted a new position. Funded by a Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) grant, the person would divide their time between working with survivors in juvenile court, intervening when a minor child was arrested for domestic assault, and writing petitions for Orders for Protection in the women’s program. I was hired. The grant was based on the theory that children who grew up in violent homes acted out violently themselves.

I had finished my associate’s degree and was attending school at Metro State in the evenings to obtain my bachelor’s degree in social science. I was nearing graduation and wrote my senior paper in sociology about the juvenile justice program at Cornerstone. I was learning that most of the minors arrested for domestic violence had undiagnosed and untreated mental illness themselves. The stigma of mental illness keeps many people from getting the help they need. Yet if the courts are involved, they can order the youthful offenders to participate in treatment and therapy. My teacher submitted my paper to the Sociologists of Minnesota for their annual review, and I won first place.

I became involved with the Children’s Mental Health Collaborative and developed a support group for parents of violent children. After four wonderful, challenging years helping children and families survive domestic violence, the VAWA grant ran out and Cornerstone had to let me go.

My work in children’s mental health brought me to Saint David’s Child Development, where I worked for three years. I had remarried; my husband and I gave respite care to families with developmentally disabled children. We eventually started providing foster care for children who had been institutionalized for mental illness. My husband was the primary caregiver and I became a child support officer. I am now celebrating my 22nd year in this career. I have run for legislative office, six times. I haven’t won, but someone has to talk about the issues that incumbents in our area don’t.

The women in my support group were right. There was a new, purposeful life on the other side of that ring of fire.