Hitting Close To Home Breaking Free Even With Friends And Support, It’s Not Easy To End Twisted Cycle Of Abuse

FOR THE RECORD; (February 13, 1995): Carolyn Morrison, director of the YWCA’s Alternatives to Domestic Violence Program, was a victim of domestic violence herself many years ago in a prior relationship. That point was unclear in a story on domestic violence in Sunday’s newspaper.

Mitzi Judd knows all about going back for more abuse.

She has three ex-husbands. Two beat her up.

It took more than a decade of doubling as a punching bag before the Spokane woman finally broke free of the abuse. She can’t count the number of times she stormed out of her violent home only to return - often before her eyes had dried.

Like Judd, most domestic violence victims return again and again to the scene of the crime.

It typically takes from four to seven tries before they leave for good, studies show. Each time, the victim tests her ability to make it on her own. If it doesn’t feel right, she’ll give up freedom and return home.

When Judd recalls her years of abuse - the bruises and broken bones - she does so matter-of-factly, as if she’s telling a story she read somewhere.

But her dark brown eyes squeeze out heavy globs of tears when she talks about the lingering emotional pain. She fans her face with her hands as if that will stop the tears.

“There is nothing that’s worse than being hurt by someone you love, someone who was going to take care of you forever,” Judd says. “You can never get over that. I don’t think you can.”

In Spokane County last year, 260 women sought shelter from abusive loved ones through the YWCA’s Alternatives to Domestic Violence Program. More than half were beaten at least once a week, reports show.

For most, the abuse lasted at least a year, says program director Carolyn Morrison. She blames the victims’ reluctance to leave abusers on the twisted cycle of domestic violence - a journey through fear, false hope, control and denial.

“We don’t want to believe that the man we sleep with, bear children with and love could be capable of the homicidal tendencies that many of them are,” says Morrison, a domestic violence victim herself. “Because of that, women tend to discount what he might do to them. They should never, ever do that.”

While men are sometimes domestic violence victims, nine out of 10 are women, studies show. Every time one of those women returns to her abuser, her friends and family become more frustrated and may isolate her further, Morrison says.

“Her relatives get disgusted and finally say, `Forget you,”’ she says. “Of course, this is all hunky-dory with her batterer because he just wants to isolate her anyway.”

Judd cringes when she remembers her own feeble first efforts to escape two abusive husbands. She is grateful friends never gave up on her.

“They always let me in and they always watched me go. It was like a revolving door of support,” Judd says, cupping her hands around a coffee mug in her South Hill kitchen.

“They’d say, `Come in, stay the night, leave him, leave him, leave him,” and I’d say, `No, no, it’s going to be OK, he didn’t mean it …”’

Judd, 42, always hoped things would change and she could live a normal life with the man who beat her. Mostly, though, she blamed herself. Even after nearly eight years on her own, Judd still fights off pangs of guilt.

“I was relationship-addicted,” she says. “I was co-dependent. I know I did things that didn’t make it any better.”

There are many reasons why a victim may remain with her batterer: financial dependence, low self-esteem, false hopes that the abuser will change and a desperate desire to keep the family together, Morrison says. The victim may also blame herself or believe she has no place else to go.

The “honeymoon period” that usually follows an explosive fight also can keep a victim tangled up in the cycle. In a violent marriage, getting a little love and attention once in awhile may actually make getting beaten seem worth it, Judd says.

“It’s conditioning,” she says. “You know when you get through (the beatings), something good is going to be waiting for you.”

Judd’s first abusive marriage lasted six years and ended when she and her husband agreed they couldn’t live together. They had two children.

Except for her friends, Judd was going it alone. She didn’t seek counseling and had never been to a shelter.

The emotional trauma of being a victim haunted her next marriage, which was nonviolent, and wound up contributing to its break-up after six years. Two more children had been brought into the picture.

Judd escaped a second violent husband after three years, and gives her kids most of the credit for that. By then, she had five.

She remembers sitting in her kitchen one day eight years ago and wondering if her sons would abuse the women in their lives, or if her daughters would ever allow someone to hurt them.

“I realized all of the sudden that if they didn’t have an example of a healthy situation, what chance did they have?” Judd says.

Unlike many victims, Judd had the money to break away from her batterer because she was a part-time hairdresser. She divorced her husband and opened her own savings account. Four years later, she finally sought counseling at the YWCA and brought her children to some sessions. They still go.

Last fall, she bought a house, installed a new vinyl floor in her kitchen and remodeled a sun room. She works out of her home so she can spend more time with her children.

“If I had known way back then all the help that was available for me and the support I’d get once I really asked for it, I’d have left (the violence) long ago,” she says.

“Imagine where I’d be then.”

MEMO: This sidebar ran with story: HISTORY OF VIOLENCE A 1993-94 survey of 782 Idaho domestic violence victims found: Nearly half said they had been in previous violent relationships. Two-fifths said their parents were physically violent toward each other. More than a third said they were sexually abused as children. SOURCE: Idaho Council on Domestic Violence