They say it that it is darkest before the dawn. Before hope, before truth, before healing, we enter the darkest and scariest times of our life. It is because of this belief that we have so many holidays during the longest nights of winter. But for many, the holidays can be just as harrowing an experience as the winter itself. Right before Thanksgiving, orders of protection increase in courthouses across the country. As people come together, families reunite, domestic violence increases.
For Lynda and Lupe – two leaders of Heartland Alliance’s Violence Recovery Services – this fact is well understood. Because of this, we recognize the month of October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
“We’re entering my busy season right now – and I’m working as hard as I can,” said Lynda, a 20-year veteran in the field. Before coming to Heartland Alliance, she worked in the first domestic violence courts in Chicago back in the eighties. It was a time when these institutions were still catching up to the very concept of domestic violence, and things like victim safety and healing were not exactly at the forefront in the minds of the status quo.
“Back then, security was so very different. One of the courts even shared space with a gun shop in the same building.”
Her very first case was an individual suffering from third degree burns all over her body. She was held captive for 3 days – and only when she told her partner she needed to pick up a check was she let free. When she made it to emergency services, skin was sloughing off her burns. She was hysterical.
“He went to jail for a while. He eventually got out. They got back together.”
Even still, Lynda keeps the hope. Even when budget cuts forced her original organization to shut down, Lynda continued her work in domestic violence with Heartland Alliance, where she’s been ever since.
She’s proud to say that she has never lost a victim. And even through her own problems (she’s powered through 2 heart attacks), she has never lost the passion for her work.
“I just want to help people heal. People don’t have to be victims – they can be survivors.”
Lupe’s experiences mirror Lynda’s beginnings. Starting as an intern in 2010, she recalls her initial steps into the field as “scary and heartbreaking”.
“I felt I could intervene in these problems. Let them know they have a voice. Many of these people blame themselves for their partner’s behaviors.”
It is that strange dichotomy that is the most difficult for our case managers. Domestic violence is more than one partner physically hitting the other. It is the emotional and psychological control – the power one has over another – that allows the violence to continue, to remain hidden, and to seem normal. People tell themselves, ‘Everything is fine’.
But there is hope. There is hope because of people like Lynda and Lupe and our VRS team, who continue to shed light on this violence. There is hope because Lynda spends her off time educating pastors and church leaders about the tell-tale signs and red flags of domestic violence. There is hope because people like Lynda and Lupe continue to learn and better themselves as counselors and healers. There is hope because Lupe is participating in an intensive 18-month training to become a registered child-parent psychotherapist by next summer. By working with children, she will be cutting the cycle of violence off at the source.
“My work with the little ones is really about regulating their feelings. Understanding that it is alright to feel the way they feel, but processing that in the right way.”
It’s that hope that allows for these women to continue – and it is an infectious hope. Even while state funding for programs like this are cut, you see people like Lynda educating communities. Even when people return to their abusive partners, Lupe continues helping them heal. When things look like they are dark and getting darker, we have champions fighting for healing, hope, and truth.
“We work with these people – not to make them distrust people or shy away from relationships, but to make stronger relationships.” Lupe said, “It is about being empowered and in control of your life, and then sharing that with others.”
