Transcript of abusive relationships: get help, get out

ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS: GET HELP, GET OUT!

TRANSCRIPT

Joanna- (voice over) A lot of kids think an abusive relationship is usually a guy hitting a girl and `just beating her. People don’t understand that a relationship abuse is emotional and psychological. And, you know, girls can abuse the guys just as much as a guy can abuse a girl.

Rae- Eighth grade year, I met a guy, and uh, at first it was okay, it was my first real boyfriend, or you know anything remotely like that. About 2 weeks into the relationship I would say…he became very controlling to what I wore. Too, if I was wearing a pair of shorts he would, you know, not talk to me for a day or so. My aunt lived down the street, and he would call there, how he got the number, I don’t know. But he would call there, and, you know, “Why didn’t you tell me you were going?” and, “What are you wearing?” and stuff like that. And he would have his brothers watch me.

Maria- I was fifteen years old when I got into the relationship. At first it was nice, he would act really nice with me. He understood me. I trusted him a lot. But then things changed. He would say that because he wanted me to respect him, he wouldn’t let me cut my hair. So he started putting me down so I wouldn’t feel that nobody could want me. Just only him. He didn’t want me to be around people, even my cousins, my friends. He would say that they were hoes, or that they were bitches, and that he didn’t want me to be around that kind of people.

Katie- We went out for, you know, about 6 weeks. He got controlling, he got, he put me down, you know, I felt bad about things. He’d yell at me for stupid things. He never actually hit me…it was just, the emotional abuse was just so hard, and I lost all my friends too.

Matt- It was actually sophomore year in high school um I had a friend of mine in the class who knew this girl, you know, and we all started talking, we all started being friends, and things just kind of went from there. And you know she’d say things like, “I don’t like your friends,” um she’d, she’d remind me of the bad things my friends would do, “This person did this,” you know, “They’re not really, not really that good of a friend, I don’t think.” Um so my old friends just kinda dropped out of the picture, and it was pretty much just her and me.

Jamie- My brother was in an abusive relationship. He started dating a girl who was in his grade. And at first, she was sweet, she was nice. I started to notice things about her. She would tell him to buy her these expensive jewelry, she got rings and necklaces and earrings. She would get extremely mad if girls were around him and she wasn’t. And when he did hang out with his friends that were girls, she had to be sitting on his lap, or having her arm around him, or kissing him. It took my brother a while I think to realize what was going on because... he loved her.

Joanna- It was out junior year, and um Sam had met this senior, and um it was really great at first because he was really outgoing, he was a cute guy and um you know we’d all, I mean it was one of those boyfriends where I could hang out with her too, and it would be totally fine. Like the last like 3 months of their relationship, he was getting a little weird, he wouldn’t really leave her alone, and he was always calling her, and um you know he was keeping her from her schoolwork at night.

Jamie- She alienated him from pretty much his entire life, from all of his friends, his family…

Matt- She’d say, “Well, you know, your mom and you really fight a lot, um. Does she really love you, you know?” “Do you really like being at home?” Just things like that, you know, to kinda get me out of the house, to make me spend time with her. It made me hate being home, um it made me hate my mom. We’d fight constantly, whenever I was home. I think my mom knew why, but she didn’t really say anything because she could kind of tell, you know, if she said something that it wasn’t going to change things, it was only going to make me even more mad at her

Jamie- His um, friends didn’t like her at all. They told him straight out that he needed to find somebody that treated him right.

Joanna- As things went on and I would watch their relationship, you know, I was kind of thinking, “Okay, this guy’s really not turning out too great,” and as her friend, I felt like I had to say something to her. Because, if I was getting into a relationship like that, where things were just going to get worse, and I didn’t see it coming, I’d definitely want my friends to tell me. So I did that with her.

Julie- His ex-girlfriend, I’d seen her at the store, and she told me to watch my sister because she was being abused when they were together. And I told her that, and she, I don’t know didn’t believe me. Didn’t care, didn’t want to listen to anything I had to say.

Sandy- I didn’t want to believe her because… I loved him and he would always tell me that she’s just trying to ruin our relationship.

Maria- My friends would often talk to me and tell me to leave him. My family didn’t like him either, especially my mom. She wouldn’t allow me be around him cause he was really disrespectful, and my mom would often see me crying on the phone.

Rae-…I wasn’t being physically hurt, so I didn’t think that that’s what I was dealing with. And even if I was, I had no clue on how to deal with it and how to make it go away.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Katie- And it got worse. Stuff got worse.

Maria- He would yell at me and call me names. He would call me a bitch, a hoe, a slut. That I was a dog. That I didn’t deserve to be treated well.

Rae- Our ninth-grade year, it was like we were fighting every single day. The very first day of school was the first time I had ever been hit by a guy in my whole, whole life. Like, just, I mean full fist, you know, punched me and, and I just stood there in shock, and everybody else around me just kept walking you know like it didn’t happen and they didn’t see.
At first it scared me, but I thought that I could deal with it, that I could handle it.

Sandy- Somebody told me that if he hit you once, then he’ll hit you again. He won’t stop hitting you.

Maria- He would slap me. He would punch me in my back. When he would hit me, I would feel that I was like a little ant, that I wasn’t worth nothing, that he was just using me, but then he would sweet-talk me It was basically a cycle that went through our relationship for 2 years.

Sandy- It just started with him choking me, and then um, he’d only do stuff when he was drunk…

Mike- My cousin was getting rowdy after drinking, and he was going after her with his fists, he was going after her and hitting…and he’s like “You guys get out,” and he started throwing stuff at us.

Sandy- At first he would say he was sorry but after awhile I’d like cry and then he’d be like, “Shut up you little bitch,” and stuff like that. Or, he would say that if I wouldn’t quit crying, he would hit me again.

Mike- Afterwards, I was, I kind of sat there and thought to myself, “What could I have done?” I really wish I could have done something.

Rae- Marcus wasn’t leaving me alone, and was, I mean, cornering me in hallways, where I mean, choking me to where my feet were off the ground and I couldn’t breathe.
My mom, I called her the day that he pushed me down the stairs. And told her, you know, “I need you to come get me.” I mean, I wasn’t badly hurt, but I mean I was a little shaken…she looked at me and she realized what I was in.

Maria- Twice, I tried to defend myself, but then um ended up worse. Emotionally, I felt really bad and I started feeling very depressed. I tried to commit suicide.

WHY NOT LEAVE?

Katie- There was a time when my mom overheard me on the telephone talking about how my boyfriend was very like, like emotionally abusive and she, she got from that conversation that he had hit me before so she told me that I wasn’t allowed to see him anymore. And I broke down, and I didn’t think I could live, you know, away from him and... I just didn’t think that there was any way since he meant, like, so much to me and stuff like that. When that happened, I didn’t talk to her for 3 days because I was so upset with her.

Rae- I couldn’t leave Marcus either because it was, you know…as much as I wanted to, a part of me didn’t want to. And it was impossible. It was like, he knew where I lived, knew what I did, classes, everything.

Sandy- I knew what he was doing was wrong, but I didn’t want to tell anybody because if I told somebody, then they’d probably tell other people, then everybody would know. Then he’d probably get mad at me, and I didn’t want him to leave me.

Maria- I didn’t listen to my friends or family members because I still wanted to be with him.

Rae- I tried to break up with him once, and he left school and supposedly borrowed a rope from somebody down the street from the school. Hung it from a tree where he was gonna hang himself. Physically came back to school, got me, and showed me this and told me, you know, “this is what I’m gonna do if you break up with me.” So, I mean, I had no choice but to stay in it.

Joanna- Sam, during the relationship, was extremely stressed out. I mean she was spending all her time with this guy, that wasn’t doing her any good… and she knew that she should do something, but doing it was the hard part. Eventually, it came to him crying and then threatening to cut himself. Sam, is, she’s like, really scared for him, and she doesn’t really want to go to her parents because they didn’t want her dating him in the first place.

Jaime- At one point, he tried to break up with her, and she went to the counselor, and she was crying, and she asked the counselor, you know, “Can I pull him out of class? I need to talk to him,” and the counselor told her, “No,” and she went and did it anyways by herself. She went up and pulled him out of class, and so he decided to go back out with her, because he couldn’t have her, you know, stalking him or pulling him out of classes. A lot of the time he would come to me and talk to me. I think he just wanted to vent and get it out because he couldn’t really tell his friends because they hated her, and they were telling him to break up with her and he couldn’t talk to my mom and dad, because they really had no idea what was going on. So he would come and tell me about it, but I couldn’t really give him advice back because he’d take it offensively.

WHEN DID YOU REALIZE?

Matt- we were in the relationship about a year, and then I kinda started to realize that everything wasn’t as it seemed. She’d been lying about a lot of things, um towards the end of the relationship some of her lies started to come unraveled, about her having cancer and being raped. And you know that really hurt obviously, I mean if someone’s gonna... someone you care about that much is going to lie about those things, you know, it hurts, you can’t even describe it, it just hurts so bad I remember, the day I found out, um, I got in my car, and I just put the pedal to the floor and just drove.

Katie- I was in health class, and the topic for that week or whatever was being in abusive relationships. And I remember watching a video about being, you know, in an abusive relationship. And I didn’t think that there was anything you know wrong with my relationship, but watching this video, brought that to my attention.

Matt- I heard about a local peer education group in my health class sophomore year. They came in and actually did skits about abusive relationships and I thought, “Hey cool, you know, I like acting, you know, and I’ll go up there.” We ended up doing a skit and it had to do with controlling girlfriends and, you know, I kinda realized, this is kinda like me, you know. I’m kinda the guy in the skit, um, that kinda opened my eyes too. But like, I said before, I didn’t want to be that guy, you know. I felt really stupid.

HOW DO YOU GET OUT?

Rae- The like last straw was when I got up to walk off the bus, I didn’t have to walk off, because Marcus, you know, decided to push me off the bus. Luckily, my step dad is in there in the truck waiting on me at the bus stop, and sees me, you know, come off the bus and everything like that. So, I mean, he’s like, furious. He went to, actually went to Marcus’ house and …well, as he’s doing this, my mom’s already like on the phone pressing charges and she’s like, “You’re not, I’m not backing down this time.”

Katie- There was like, a safety plan, that if I ever did break up with him what I would do, who I would tell, where I’d do it at, on the phone or in here or something. And um, that helped a lot because I did follow that and you know if I probably didn’t you know, things probably could’ve gotten worse.

Matt- She tried to hold on to um, me when I tried to break things off. She spread a lot of rumors and she went around telling people at school. Um. Telling people she knew around the area that I got her pregnant. Um, you know, it couldn’t have been true, you know, we never had sex. About two days later, um, an officer shows up at my doorstep with a restraining order, saying I’m stalking her, I’m doing this, this, and this, and I read the restraining order and it just killed me. It just painted this picture of me that wasn’t true…I found it hard for some people to, to believe me because I’m a guy. You know it’s... I hate to say it but there really is a double standard um, and, you know, its just hard, harder for guys to fight things like that because more people are more apt to listen to women and just take their side automatically.

WHO CAN HELP?

Joanna- The last time, um, that he called her, he had a gun with him and he started cocking it over the phone and that’s when she really came to me and she is like, “I really don’t know what to do. I mean, He’s gotta get help.” And I was like, okay, let’s figure this out. We gotta get more people involved. And she talked to her parents about it and, you know, she talked to Brian. She said, “I just, I can’t talk to you until you get help, because this is messing up my life, and I care about you, but you really need to get help. Eventually, though, things worked out, and they got a counselor.

Rae- The flyer on the bathroom wall, it was on there. And I realized that some of the things applied to me, so I came into the counselor’s office and signed up for the group.

Shannon- The reason we call the group “Expect Respect” is we want to teach the girls and… that are in our groups that violence in relationships is not a normal thing and that it’s really abnormal to be put down in a relationship.

Katie- Rae, she, um, had gone through the same thing and, you know, she… “There’s something wrong here,” you know, she told me. “There’s nothing…you need help here. This isn’t good, this isn’t healthy.” I agreed to join the group and, I mean, it has been so, like, great just to talk to everybody. I mean, there are girls in here who have gone through the same things that I’ve gone through.

Shannon- They really, uh, learn from each other, learn how to handle the same situation in different ways. They’re there throughout the week to support each other and a lot of the girls tell me that they look at each other throughout the week and give a thumbs up or even just make eye contact and that’s what gets them through that day until the next time we meet.

Katie- I am happy that I was in this group because I could not have done anything without it. And I wanna thank Rae for all of it because without her knowing about it, I wouldn’t have been in the group. Nothing would have got done and probably to this day I’d still be with him.

Maria- I didn’t want to listen and it made me cry because I didn’t want to leave him. But then it went through my head that I needed to finish high school and that I didn’t want to end up dead because I wanted to enjoy my life. I talked to the secretary of the Dean’s office and the assistant of the probation officer and some of… a teacher that I really trust and they made me go through it and to a counselor also. And after they made me do a list of what was good about him and what was bad about him, I realized that there was more bad things than good things about him. So, it’s when I realized that I had to end that relationship.

Sandy- I got pregnant when I was 13 and I had her, my baby, when I was fourteen. After she was born, he was always coming around and he wanted to get back together, but, like, when I thought back of what he did to me, I didn’t want to.

Matt- We ended up going to trail. Um, she never actually showed up, so I won by default. And, you know, today, I think back, “Would I have won if she had shown up?” I don’t know. It just shows, you know, the serious things people can do and people will do when it comes to relationships.

Rae- I ended up transferring schools. Less than a year later he, um, murdered his girlfriend in front of a lot of kids, like, witnessed her actually, you know, dying. I can’t imagine how they must feel ‘cause it tears me up and I wasn’t even there.

WHERE DO YOU GO FROM HERE?

Katie- When this all first started, the school didn’t do anything until when I actually went and, you know, signed up for a protective order. He did show up at school a lot after we had broken up and he would come here and try to talk to me and stuff like that, and that’s what I think, like, got the protective order on its way. You know, I didn’t want anything to do with him and I wanted to move on and I felt like if I didn’t get this protective order, I wasn’t gonna move on.

Maria- I’m still going through a process. It’s early, and it still hurts me. I don’t think it’s easy breaking up with somebody that you’ve been with and I think it’s gonna take a long time for me to recover because he did hurt me a lot.

Matt- I didn’t have a life, I had nothing for a year. And even today I’m still kinda dealing with things. You know, it’s hard for me in relationships to believe everything. It’s hard for me to trust people. It’s hard for me to make friends without going, could they be lying about this? Are they going to hurt me like she did?

Maria- My friends I used to have, I don’t talk to them a lot, but I’m trying to get, like, new friends, communicate with other people, um, people that really don’t know what I went through and… because it is embarrassing for me.

Matt- If you are unfortunate like I was and have had to deal with something like this, just be strong and try to move on. You know, it’s not going to be easy, it’s not going to happen overnight. But, you’ll get over it, you know, you’ll find people out there like you, who’ve had similar experiences. You’ll find new friends, you’ll get on with your life.

Maria- I won’t get into another relationship like that because it’s hurtful and I think I deserve better. I do hope to find somebody out there that does respect me and that’s gonna love me for who I am.

Mike- I would never have a reason to holler or hit a girl ‘cause I’m not, I’m not like that. I would never put a hand on a girl. A guy should never try to be, like, the boss of a relationship. You know, talk about it, then your relationship will go a lot farther, and it will be a lot happier for both, the guy and the girl.