October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  Please read Susan Proctor's story of survival below and share it with all the faith leaders you know.  Her story shares how her congregation, which once was part of the problem, became part of her healing.  It will make us all think how we, in the faith community, are proactively addressing the issue of domestic violence.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND THE FAITH COMMUNITY
--Susan Proctor

It wouldn't take but one time for me!" Have you ever heard that? Ever said it?  I've likely said it myself,
before I became one of those who stayed. Why do they stay? It's the overriding question regarding domestic violence.

 A big part of staying in an abusive situation is financial. Leaving takes money. Children take money.
Money in the family does not mean you have access to it. If you have nothing in your own name, no cash and no family to go to, how far are you going to get? A woman is in the most danger when she leaves because she has threatened his control.

Women stay in and participate in abusive situations because we spend so much of the first years trying to work harder, faster, smarter to become the wife he wants. We are fixers & pleasers - it's our job...and we are good at it!  We can walk on egg shells and never make a sound. We teach kids to play quietly when Daddy comes home.

Abusers isolate their victims to control them. In shame, you isolate yourself. What goes on in your
house does not make for lively chitchat around the mah jong table or at the Sisterhood luncheon. So you hide it. Abuse - emotional as well as physical - grinds you down to nothing. He tells you it's your fault - you make him do it and eventually you believe him. He tells you that you're too fat or you're too skinny, too ugly - just look at yourself- no one else would ever want you. He tells you that you could never support yourself. He tells you that you have nothing, you are nothing, without him. And you believe him. He brings flowers and tells you he's sorry - he just doesn't know what gets into him and he promises it will never happen again. And because you need to, you believe that, too. Without outside support, without a measuring rod, this craziness becomes your normal. 

One of my earliest memories of that sharp hurt of being chastised like an unruly child was just weeks after our wedding. My husband was away at army reserves- our first separation.  I had been to a new little boutique and bought an outfit - a black and white sleeveless linen dress with a bright yellow jacket bound in black braid. I felt so grown up and sophisticated in it. When he called that night I excitedly told him about the purchase and like the new bride I was, added - I can't wait for you to see me in it.  He was silent. Then in a quiet & measured voice said - You bought a dress without discussing with me?  What did it cost, Susan? (He asked this even though I worked and had my own money.) Then the rage came - calling me names that I won't repeat - saying I was MARRIED now & a wife does not go out and spend money without discussing it with her husband. Well, I had.  I not only bought the dress, I bought little yellow Pappagalo shoes, too but I was able to return them before he came home. I learned to ask permission to keep the peace.

The control soon extended to personal items, pantyhose, cosmetics, even groceries. When I needed something- he took me shopping. He had me try on things he chose & bought what he wanted me to have.  He drew a diagram of how I should arrange and maintain the pantry and the cabinets & checked them daily. He was a 'teaser' which meant he made fun of me in front of friends, then gave me a squeeze or a playful punch & said - I'm just teasing with you  - can't you take a joke?
 
The first time he hit me was on Wednesday night before our wedding on Sunday. I went to my rabbi
Thursday morning to cancel the wedding. He told me we were both nervous and stressed. We were getting married Sunday!  I revered my rabbi and so I went on down to the temple Sunday and got married. If I could tell young women one thing it would be,  "Trust your own voice early on."  I knew that morning - but I let myself be convinced that my instinct must be wrong; my thinking, faulty.

As is often the case, children become the catalyst that prompts leaving. Mine were 3 and 4 when I left. I knew if I stayed somebody would die.  I knew they could not grow up with this insanity being their normal. In the 70s there were no programs for women, no pro-bono legal help, no help to finish school - to find a job - nothing.  I got out with my life and my children. I had to have him removed from the house because I had no family & the children and I had no where to go.

We were an up & coming young couple at temple Beth El.  We were senior youth group directors. I sang in the choir, was active in Sisterhood. He was in Brotherhood. We went on the temple Wildacres retreat with couple friends, belonged to a gourmet supper club and attended the Cadillac Ball - the temple's most prestigious fundraiser. Even so, after my divorce, I was not embraced by the Jewish community. I no longer fit the profile. My presence threatened their illusions. Domestic violence was not part of an acceptable Jewish identity. It was assumed that because of the family, I had 'done well' in the divorce. The truth was I had nothing. He never even supported
his children. 

There came a time not long after the separation I became so terrified of what I had done.  Knowing full well I could not support my children, in my craziness, it became clear to me that I was the reason even the grandparents would not help the children - because the money the children needed had to filter through me.  All there was left for me to do was to remove myself and the wealthy grandparents would surely not let my children starve.  This reasoning made perfect sense to me. I had held onto my mother's valium after her death - blue pills - 10 mg. as opposed to the more common yellow 5mg ones. It was not hard to get a prescription for myself with my mother's death and a separation coming one on top of the other. This was when he was still seeing the children.   So I planned
for a weekend when they would be with him. I wrote them a letter & took all the pills with a glass of straight bourbon. It rained. He came back for the children's rain coats. I was taken to the hospital; stomach pumped and went back to work Monday. No help. No counseling.

The psychiatrist I was ordered to see, as is the case with attempted suicides, knew me, thought well
of me having worked closely with me through numerous volunteer projects.  I called him & asked
about fees - it was $80/hr.  I couldn't turn it in to my insurance because I was afraid of losing my job. I said that I felt incurring that debt would create more stress than good.  He agreed that I was probably right.  He added if I ever felt suicidal again, I might want to call somebody.  No alternative plan, no other resource. I was simply dismissed.  I later learned that 85% of women who make suicide attempts are victims of domestic violence. An equally high percentage of female inmates are imprisoned because they committed violence against their abusers.
  
Not so surprisingly, it was the practice of Torah study that eventually pulled me out of that mire. I had
been part of a group that studied weekly for over 8 years with Rabbi Gerber.  One day some 20 years
later & seemingly out of the blue, I heard his voice in my head saying, "Hillel taught that it is a sin to
separate yourself from the community."  I went straight to the phone & called Woman Reach and said I don't know if I might have anything worth offering another woman but I would like to come in and discuss it. I became a peer counselor.  As I began to feel like I was contributing, I also began to put my life back together & to again seek a temple home.
 
It was the outreach of just one person who opened that door & welcomed me to Temple Beth-El.  I had gotten a second reminder letter regarding my annual commitment.  I returned the form with a letter in which I apologized for being late - but admitted I had been purposely putting it off because I would not be renewing my membership. I was forced to admit I simply could not afford to be Jewish. Arthur Kramer, our then executive director, responded by sending me an envelope with a membership card in it that read 'Full Membership' is extended to Susan Proctor, a member in good standing.  That Yom Kippur Rabbi Schindler preached her first sermon on ethical wills and I knew I was home. 
     
The place I have today in temple and the place Temple Beth-El has in my heart is the most precious
thing in my life. But it has been hard-won. I have fought to make a place for myself. I have attended more services than I care to remember and sat alone, stood in Oneg alone and went home alone. I just kept coming back and coming back and coming back....In a caring community, when you are not there, you are missed and someone picks up the phone and says,  "Hope you weren't there last night because you had a better offer - we missed you!"  And you invite them to meet you for coffee. I make a point of doing that in every committee I serve on, to every absent Kabalat Shabbat regular, because I know what one phone call would have meant to me. 
     
Even today, as comfortable as I am in temple, I still use energy masking - 'pretending normal' - it's part & parcel of the abuse package. I participate but know all the while that I'm different - that I go home not to a safe and loving family but to a house that is falling down around me & it is only a matter of time before I lose. As a matter of fact, that deadline is looming. Women are one husband away from poverty.

I left my marriage more than 25 years ago. From then until today, I have never spoken of it.  I speak of it now only because I was asked -because it is time and because if sharing a little bit of my experience helps another woman to not suffer in silence, it will have been worth the considerable discomfort it is obviously causing me!  In the years I lived with abuse and even in the years following, I never named it abuse. I never identified myself as a victim of domestic violence. And I never grieved.  We must name it. You cannot bring about change until you call it what it is and tell the truth about it.  And you must grieve it. Dr. Rachael Naomi Remen writes in My Grandfather's
Blessing, Every loss demands that we choose life again.  We need to grieve in order to do this.  The pain we have not grieved over will always stand between us and life.

You don't have to have bruises or broken bones to be a victim of domestic violence. Surface wounds are easy to cure; even bones mend. But emotional scars, deep spiritual wounds are dangerous. Injuries where the heart and brain are affected - those injuries can be fatal.

Time alone does not heal all wounds. There are moments still when the sight of a bar mitzvah family on the bima or a particular melody will suddenly cause unexpected waves of jealousy and grief to wash over me.

These are the steps to healing:  we must name it, we must tell the truth, and we must let this community surrounding us become for us a healing community.  Come to a healing service and light a candle - together our candles bring light to darkness.  And we must take back our power by taking action - by becoming visible and vocal, by speaking out in our faith institutions, by supporting the clothesline, which like the aids quilt, travels the country bearing thousands of tee-shirts with the names of victims who died at the hands of their abusers. 
     
Our healing will only be effective if it is sufficiently powerful to reach & heal the deepest spiritual trauma. Most of us are unable to generate such powerful medicine on our own. As Jews we draw our individual life force from the Jewish collective. As Christians, we draw our life force form the Christian collective, as Muslims, we draw our life force from the Muslim collective. We need our faith institutions to embrace us in safety.  It is only thus that our open wounds will begin to feel the precious balm of healing. May it be God's will.

Note:  This is the first time Susan has shared her story publicly.  Thank you for your chutzpah, Susan.  Her story is from the Jewish Community, but, unfortunately, it is too familiar across all faith
traditions.