UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, December 9, 1993
3B
Abusive relationships are hard cycles for students to break
By Sarah Morrison Special to Kansan
Editor's note: Because of the sensitive nature of this story, some of the names have been changed.
When Stacy's boyfriend Chris smashed her in the face with his fist, shoved her down the stairs and punched her again, one thought kept racing through her mind.
"It hurt, but all I was thinking was I'm free, he has finally set me free," she said.
Two and a half years of emotional and verbal abuse finally had culminated in physical abuse, and Stacy knew she had to get out of the relationship.
"It is sad, but I always told him 'If you hit me, I will leave you.' The very fact that I ever felt compelled to say that to him was reason enough to leave him," she said. "I wanted to get away from him so many times, but until he actually hit me, I never could.
out even after the physical abuse starts."
"I am lucky. Many women don't get
Stacy never understood abused women and often would get frustrated when she heard about abused women who stayed with abusive men.
"Now I know how abused women feel," she said, "I used to look at them and just think, why don't they just leave? I thought abused women were just stupid or weak. But now I know better. Now I know what an abusive relationship is really like, and it is just not that simple."
Susan Hickman, a graduate teaching assistant at the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, said dating violence was something people were beginning to pay more attention to.
"I think it is far more common than people think," Hickman said. "People are beginning to realize that it is an issue."
Dating violence became an issue for Stacy when she moved home to
Wichita after her sophomore year at KU. That was when she started dating Chris.
"When I got back home, I felt terrible," she said. "I felt like such a loser. I had been a theater major at KU, but I was giving up on my dream of ever being an actress."
Stacy said the relationship didn't start out abusive, and when she first arrived, Chris had been kind and supportive.
"He always told me how smart I was and how beautiful I was," she said. "At first, it seemed like he really respected me."
But soon the respect turned to contempt, and the verbal abuse began.
"He would call me a stupid bitch, and say I had a high IQ, but no common sense," she said. "I just tried not to think of what was happening. Emotionally, I was dead. I just did not feel anything."
"I had invested all this time into this person and built him up to my family. It is hard to say, 'You are right, he is a
Then came the night when Chris hit her in the face. The couple had traveled to Emporia to visit her friends.
jerk. I've wasted the last two years of my life."
"He got really blitzed at a party," she said, "I took his car keys and arranged a ride home for him with one of my friends. Then I took a cab back to the hotel. When he got there, he was enraged that I had taken his keys. That was when he hit me."
Stacy said she never doubted what she had to do.
"It all became clear to me," she said,
"At first I was kind of in shock, but I knew what I had to do. Within a couple of days I broke up with him."
Stacy began to piece her life back together. The hardest part, she said, was calling all her old friends.
"I was so scared," she said, "I didn't know what they thought of me. But I got up the nerve and called them all. They were very happy to hear from me. They were happy to have me back."
Stacy has since moved back to Lawrence and enrolled at KU. She said she has not seen Chris since she left Wichita a year and a half ago.
"I talked to his mother once," she said. "She told me he was in therapy. I hope he learned something from me. I hope he gets help."
As for Stacy, she says she feels her recovery has been relatively fast, but she still has some healing to do.
"Ifeel like I did some hard time," she said. "I feel like I served two years in prison. I am still not completely healed, but I feel like I dug myself out of the mud pretty fast."
Stacy broke the cycle of abuse by breaking up with Chris.
Angie Reinking, of the Lawrence Shelter for Battered Women, said most women who were in abusive relationships needed support to help them get out.
"There are all kinds of personal options for getting support," she said.
Helpforvictims
Women who have been abuse victims can call these local agencies for help:
■ Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center 864-3552
■ Headquarters 841-2345
■ Lawrence Women's Transitional Care Services, Inc. 841-6887
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KANSAN
"That is one thing someone needs who's in an abusive relationship. Whether that be through a spiritual network they have, through friends, through a counseling center, through a crisis line, through family or wherever they can get that."
Stacy said breaking up with Chris was not the only step in her putting the relationship behind her.
"I broke the cycle," she said, "But I still have not forgiven him, I still don't feel safe. Until I forgive him, I can't completely let go."
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