Latest / Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh / Breaking Free from Denial: A Guide for Domestic Abuse Victims

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Breaking Free from Denial: A Guide for Domestic Abuse Victims · Chatting with The Experts with Paula Okonneh

0:03
Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Chatting
0:08
with the Experts where I speak with women professional, women,
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successful solopreneurs and entrepreneurs from Africa, from
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the Caribbean, and in the diaspora.
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These women share my mission, which is to educate, empower,
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and inspire women globally.
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Today, we are gonna be talking about Overcoming Denial- One of the Biggest
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Hurdles for Victims of Domestic Violence.
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My guest who will be joining me in a few minutes says that.
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Domestic violence
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is a never-ending epidemic
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and that it is crucial that there is an ongoing effort to inform,
0:58
support and educate the public on all aspects of this issue.
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Uplifting and inspiring others is one of her life's goal.
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But writing is her passion and she translates that passion into life stories.
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My guest says that she writes books, does presentations and public speaking
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to educate, to enlighten and empower others, suffering from broken spirits.
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She has presented to local groups and national organizations on subjects
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related to family history, domestic violence and mediation, and is a
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community Advisory Board member for The Emory/Grady Nia Project whose mission
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is to empower women who have had a history of adverse childhood experiences
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and also intimate partner violence.
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And with that, I want to welcome to the show, Pauline Mansfield.
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Thank you very much.
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I'm honored to be here, Paula.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for coming on to them to talk about something
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that, you know, it's global.
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Domestic violence.
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Oh my word, so I know off camera, we talked about how many times
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domestic violence victims do not recognize signs of abuse?
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What do you mean by that?
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Denial.
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It's such a huge word that we don't really think about.
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I wanna share a short story.
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I'll keep it short about how I found out how much in denial I was.
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I had lived with a man who was very controlling, with growing
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abuse through the years and I just thought I could fix it.
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You know, I gave every excuse that everybody else has given who finds
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themselves in this situation, and I just took it day by day by day.
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I was an employee advocate at a hospital, and my job was to help employees be better
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employees no matter what it involved.
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And many times employees brought their issues into the
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hospital, into the workplace.
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You couldn't park it in the parking lot and go to work.
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Mm-hmm.
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You brought it right on in and I saw some very horrible things related to domestic
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violence and somehow I separated that from what I was dealing with totally.
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They sent me to a training to improve my resource skills,
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to refer people to places.
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If they had to go to a shelter, if they had to leave the job for a short time,
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how to go on leave, et cetera, et cetera.
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As I was sitting in that seminar, taking notes, you know, wonderful
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to learn something new, the person who was presenting started with,
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these are the signs of abuse.
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They started listing them one by one, and I was writing, listening, writing
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number one, number two, number three, and as I wrote, a light went on and
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I'm thinking, oh my God, this is me!
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There were probably 10 to 12 things listed.
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I was every single one, and I just, tears came to my eyes.
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I think, oh my God, I'm a victim of abuse.
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I'd never given it a name.
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For me, it didn't need a name.
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People always saw me as a very strong woman.
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I saw myself as a strong woman.
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I was educated.
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I was bringing in the bacon.
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You know, I just had confidence about my job, but there was a deficit somewhere,
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denial of what was really happening to me.
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And that was my introduction to Pauline, you have a problem.
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Not only a problem, you have a huge problem that needs to be fixed.
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And that's where the journey started for me.
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So they gave a list of things we needed to do, we needed to tell employees to do,
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to get started on the journey to safety, to freedom.
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And that's where it began for me in recognizing denial.
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Wow.
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Wow.
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I see your passion.
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And I know this isn't easy, this isn't easy for anyone in that situation.
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No.
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How do you overcome that denial?
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How do you separate yourself from, you know, what is happening and
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what you are telling yourself?
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Yes.
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First is knowing that you're in trouble.
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And once you recognize that, the second thing I learned in that
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seminar, you have to have a plan.
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And the plan may be a short-term plan or it may be a long-term plan.
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Everybody's situation is different.
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You know, I was a working woman, I had a car, I had money in the bank, so I was
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in much better position than someone who depends solely on their mate for bread.
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My children were pretty much grown.
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Mm-hmm.
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And many people have babies, they have pets, they have
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no car, they have no family.
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So it depends on the situation.
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What situation are you in?
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And some are far worse than mine, but I had a very difficult time getting out.
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It was like busting out of prison.
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Mm-hmm.
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And yet you said you had all these things, but it was difficult.
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Tell us about that.
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Why was it difficult?
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What made it difficult?
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'cause I know that's, sorry, go ahead.
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I don't wanna...
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oh, that's right.
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It was difficult because I had given over my control to somebody else.
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Hmm.
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And anyone who does that, loses themselves totally.
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Mm-hmm.
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And for some reason, I allowed that.
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I'm still as here all of decades later.
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I'm still asking myself, who was that person who allowed that?
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I don't even know.
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She's dead now.
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She's gone.
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She's gone.
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But you have to decide how much you love yourself.
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Paula.
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I think it boils down to that.
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Do you love yourself enough to bring your own joy?
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I was letting someone else dictate every piece of my life, every single piece,
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and so we have to become empowered.
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I think that's number one.
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And again, how we get there is different for every single person.
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I mean, there have to be sisters who mentor other sisters who have to be a
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listening ear for sisters to hear what they need, whether it's advice, whether
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it's financial support, whether it's a hide away for a moment, whatever it is.
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So the journey is a difficult one.
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I think that's why this problem, it's taking so long to go away.
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It seems to get worse.
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I mean, the statistics are horrible.
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So, I hope I answered your question.
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I kinda went on a little down a rabbit hole, but that I tell you,
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Paula, when I started talking about it, that's what happens.
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I don't think you went down a rabbit hole.
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I mean, you lived it and you rose above it.
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I did.
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And as you said, that person.
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Who gave away control to the other person is no longer here.
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So you are talking from having been there.
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Yes.
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So when you go down, when you, what you say is going down a rabbit hole,
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it's just that you going back down the ol' road that you had been on that
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I traveled
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Traveled along.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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But I think we need to talk a bit more about it because
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there are people who are there.
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And sometimes can't see any way out.
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Correct.
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And I was one of them.
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But as I said, I learned from that seminar I was sitting in
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that you have to have a plan.
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When I realized I had to map it out, every little detail I had to make
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an extra set of keys for my car.
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For my house, so that I had, if I had to make a quick getaway, I was ready.
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I had to tell somebody.
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In all those years I was suffering through.
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I never told a soul.
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I'm a pretty private person and many people like me are ashamed of the mess
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that's going on behind closed doors.
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You don't want people to know that.
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And certainly not on your job, but when this happened to me, it
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happened at a very critical time.
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The law had just been passed under what became our President Biden.
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He was in the Senate at the time a law was passed.
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The Domestic Violence Act, to protect women who were going through this
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and all the laws had been laid out so neatly for me in a package with
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a bow, and all the services I needed were there and they're still there.
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Thank God that provided not only counseling, it provided
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sheltering, it provided education.
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It provided all the things that people needed to make that first step.
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And there is a domestic violence, and I'm gonna give this number a couple of times.
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Okay.
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As we talk.
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And if you mind.
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Not at all.
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I'd like to just say what it is.
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It's the National Domestic Violence Hotline and it is,
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it is a link to surviving.
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It's a link to freedom.
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And that number is (180) 799-7233
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7 2 3 3. 800.
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Yes.
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(180) 799-7233 That number connects people with someone to
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talk to, and sometimes Paula, it starts with a conversation.
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Yes.
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People have to know there's a listening ear on the other side.
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You have to be able to pour out your heart to tell what your situation is.
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Where can I go?
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What can I do?
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Who can I turn to?
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So the plan includes knowing your resources.
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Important, and I'm gonna drop this number in the chat.
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Thank you.
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So knowing your resources.
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Okay, go ahead.
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Yes.
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Once you know your resources, you have to be brave enough to take that
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first step, whether that's picking up the telephone to call that hotline
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or picking up the phone to call your sister, your mother, your sister friend.
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People usually wait too long to do that.
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I didn't tell a soul.
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Not my mother,
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not my friends.
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Nobody knew.
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They knew he was a little crazy,
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but you know, he was just that crazy person she's married to.
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But they didn't know the inner workings of what I was dealing with.
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Lemme just ask a very quick question.
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I think you answered it actually.
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You said you felt ashamed.
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Yes.
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Even though I was in denial, you know, that seems very schizophrenic.
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What I'm saying, I'm in denial.
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But on the other hand, I'm embarrassed by something that's kind of crazy in itself.
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But I, you know, you know when something is wrong, you have an
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inner voice that tells you whatever's wrong in your life, you know?
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Mm-hmm.
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You know what it is.
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You know, and secrets are dangerous.
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Mm-hmm.
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And I was keeping a really bad secret, and I had brothers.
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Oh, I, they didn't know.
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No one knew.
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Your children?
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Did they see?
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Was it openly?
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They had already?
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They lived it.
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As I, Paula, I didn't tell you this when we first met and started talking.
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You won't believe this and you might turn off the camera when I tell you this.
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I stayed for 30 years.
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Wow.
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Yeah.
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I did.
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An intelligent woman.
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The Intelligent woman.
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I was.
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Mm-hmm.
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You still are.
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Thank you.
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And still are.
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It was a continuously transforming thing.
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30 years is a long time.
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Yes.
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I lived in several different places.
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My life changed several different times.
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I had several different jobs, knew several different sets of people,
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lived several different kinds of lives.
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So each time, you know, each time you make a change, you
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think, okay, this will be better.
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Yeah, I've heard that.
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Yes.
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And so I just kept saying it's okay.
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Okay.
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It's okay.
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I did tell you my children were grown.
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I remember telling you that and you seem surprised when I tell you when I left and
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I'm glad in one sense because dragging through children through such a travesty
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is just double and triply painful.
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Yeah.
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I mean, it's a sin to take children through any kind of painful things that
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they witness, but that's what I did.
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That was my journey.
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And that some things I regret, but many, I didn't.
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Looking back on it, I had a lot of lessons to learn, a lot of growing up to do.
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I had to find out who Pauline was, introduce myself to
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her, hug her and enjoy her.
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I chose to do it after 50.
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The after 50, but it has given me such a beautiful life on this side.
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I guess I had to learn a whole lot of things in order for me to
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really enjoy this time in my life.
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Yeah.
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So, one thing that stands out is that you got out and you learnt to love Pauline.
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You learnt to love yourself.
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You learnt to hug yourself and know that Pauline is wonderfully and
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marvelously made, and she has a purpose.
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Yes, and the other thing I learned, Paula, was how strong I am.
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I never knew.
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Or I never acknowledged it.
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Mm-hmm.
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And I was reading through the book that I read, I haven't read it myself in a long
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time, and I was reading some of the...
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which things that for me at the time were outlandish, like fighting back.
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Mm-hmm.
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You have to fight back and I didn't know how to fight.
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You have to be trained to fight and it was people who I finally
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told who helped me to fight.
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They helped me by saying, Pauline, girl, you're a strong woman, you need to go in
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there, put those dukes up and get it done.
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Oh, you know, my mother used to say to my daughter who was very shy as
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a little girl, you need to put a stick in your back and straighten up.
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So people taught me how to put a stick in my back and say, you know what?
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Not only am I smart, but I'm also strong.
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And so when I read parts in here and I'm thinking, oh God I'd forgotten that.
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I almost wanted to say, go Pauline.
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I mean, it was interesting looking back at it and seeing that I didn't
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even recognize my own strength.
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You know, as you said something that's crucial is when you
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opened up and told people.
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Yes.
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That people began to affirm you.
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Yes.
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And you began to see yourself from their eyes and not from the eyes of your abusive
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partner who had possibly, I don't know the detail, who had probably told you
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all things that were not uplifting in any which way that you began to believe.
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That's exactly right.
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Yes.
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And put downs probably.
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There was physical abuse, but probably the most damaging part in my life was
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the mental abuse, the emotional abuse.
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It can wear down the side of a mountain.
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It can take a person's esteem totally away.
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When you hear long enough that you're stupid, you're ugly.
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It's like Celie in The Color Purple.
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That was so real to me when I saw that.
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Mm-hmm.
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I had a mister
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and he just talked to me just like I was
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trash, and I bought that.
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Mm-hmm.
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I can't believe that I bought that, but I did.
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Words are powerful.
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Words are powerful.
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Okay.
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So one question I have for you though that I hope you can share
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with others, and I know you can not.
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I help.
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How can women, because we're talking about women, know when
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to leave this abusive situation?
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I'm glad you asked me that because this was a good reading day.
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I happened to turn to a page that said words of advice.
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This is right on time.
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It says, the feeling you have in your gut is really God, we must be still to
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hear the message that God is sending.
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Don't fight the feeling of discernment.
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It will keep you from derailing and putting you back on the same dark path
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you just worked so hard to get off of.
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So you have to, all of us have a feeling when something just ain't right.
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Mm-hmm.
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You just feel it, and we have to believe that feeling and act on it,
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especially in a situation like this.
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Believe your feeling in the sense that you are in this abusive relationship.
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Yes.
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You know something is wrong.
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Yes.
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You know it.
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You know it.
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You know it.
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Correct.
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Don't brush it off.
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Don't dismiss it.
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Oh, that'll change.
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That'll change.
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It escalates in domestic violence.
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What starts with words then becomes action.
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It might be just a shove tomorrow.
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Next week, it may be a slap.
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Slap.
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Mm-hmm.
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The following week it may be even worse.
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Mm-hmm.
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And I have personally known people who are no longer here.
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Yeah.
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Because they were victims of abuse.
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And if I would like to tell a quick story related to that.
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As I said, I worked in a hospital and I hired a young lady who came
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to our hospital from North Carolina.
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She was very quiet, stayed to herself, always seemed timid.
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And then she came to me as an advocate, something work related, and I was an
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advocate that drew people in by, you know, getting them to relax and talk to me.
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And when we began to talk, I realized she had left an abusive situation.
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Left in the dead of night.
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No shoes in her pajamas.
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Oh my word.
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Came to Atlanta, started her life all over again.
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Had been in Atlanta
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maybe three or four years, I knew her.
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All that time, she was fighting to get a legal divorce.
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Got the divorce.
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She went back to get things.
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And while she was getting those things with a police officer there, her
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ex-husband grabbed the police officer's gun, killed The police officer,
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killed the girl, killed himself.
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Oh my God.
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That was one of the most painful
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news I had ever received because she had gotten to be a friend.
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Oh my God.
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So you have to measure how dangerous your situation is as well.
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People are on short fuses, especially these days, and anything can happen,
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you know?
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Mm-hmm.
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I think sometimes people feel that those of us who talk about it
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overstate it, over-exaggerate it.
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It's not an over-exaggeration.
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It takes two seconds for a situation to change.
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One, one second, and you, again, it's that gut thing.
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You have to know when you are in trouble sometimes you have to know when to
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pick up the phone and call the police.
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Also people who hear it must be brave enough to pick up the phone.
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If you hear something through the wall from the next door neighbor.
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You have to be brave enough to pick up the phone and call the police.
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Yeah.
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I would.
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I never did that, but I had somebody who called for me once, and I cannot
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measure how much I appreciate that because her taking the time to make the call,
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put a little bit more strength in me.
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So it takes an accumulation of strength.
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You know, it's like people in that tug of war kind of game.
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You know, the more people you have on your side pulling, the
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more successful you will be.
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Yes.
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And like in your case, you said somebody called, that made you feel someone cared.
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It did.
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Someone cared.
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And it was a surprise to me who the person was.
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So you never know.
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I just about to say that.
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So you never know.
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You never know.
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So you never know, Pauline,
26:41
because we wanna give the audience chance to talk with you, and we also
26:48
know that people who haven't joined us can listen to this online, YouTube or
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wherever else they listen to podcasts, whether they're on audio or YouTube.
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How can people get in touch with you?
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Because what you are talking about, as we said, it's real,
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it's not an isolated case.
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It's not limited to women in the United States, it's not limited
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to women in North America.
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It's global.
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Yeah.
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So wherever you are, these things are worth noting.
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Absolutely.
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If someone can get in touch with you, you may be the person
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that they need to talk with.
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Yes.
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What are your contact information?
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Well, they can contact you by email, which is my full name at Gmail, Pauline,
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P-A-U-L-I-N-E-M-A-N-S-F-I-E-L-D@gmail.com.
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That's the most direct way that people can reach me.
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Okay.
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They just need some basic information or sometimes people need to purge.
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Purging is good.
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You know, it's allowing people an opportunity to just throw up.
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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So I welcome that.
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And there's also a number that (180) 799-7233 For those of you
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in the United States, that's National Domestic Violence Hotline.
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Hotline.
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Correct.
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Thank you.
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I can get in touch with wow.
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Sombering, but realistic conversation.
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Yes.
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And so for those of you who have just listened to Pauline Mansfield,
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if you'd like to be a guest on chatting with the experts, you
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can reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com.
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I am also on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh.
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My Instagram handle is chat_experts _podcast.
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I'm on Facebook as chatting with the experts or on the Paula Okonneh.
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And as you heard, Pauline mentioned about YouTube.
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We are on YouTube, I have a YouTube channel.
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You can reach out to me there because these stories or these resources or this
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information needs to be shared because Pauline, like all other women and the few
29:23
men who join me every week, our mission is to educate, inspire, and empower women.
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And that's just what you did, Pauline.
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Thank you.
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You did all those three, so thank you.
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Thank you.
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Well thank you.
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And now we... you are welcome.
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And now we'll open up the floor to those who have joined us in the audience so
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they can ask you questions and even learn or get even more resources or themselves
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if they're in that situation or anyone else who they know that can be helped.
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Thank you.