Teaching children who experience trauma at a young age about healthy relationships and coping skills may be one way to prevent them from committing intimate partner abuse as an adult.
“We know that children who witness violence – not only witness violence but maybe are victims of violence – carry that trauma around with them,” said Paula Kelley-Wall, executive director of the Crisis Center of Central New Hampshire.
Kelley-Wall said helping individuals to address trauma at a young age could significantly decrease cases of domestic violence – and even instances of substance abuse. Studies show significant links between childhood trauma and addiction, another major issue facing the state, Kelley-Wall said.
“We’re putting a lot of money into the opioid crisis, and rightfully so, but we need to match that when we’re thinking about trauma and domestic violence and sexual violence,” Kelley-Wall said. “A lot of that self-medication, a lot of that addiction is a result of untreated trauma. If we could fundamentally address the trauma, then maybe we wouldn’t continue to create this addiction cycle that we’re seeing.”
Scott Hampton, the clinical psychologist and founder of Ending the Violence in Dover, said 50 percent of the abusers he sees also struggle with addiction – but he cautioned addiction doesn’t cause abuse; to abuse someone else is a choice, he said.
Hampton and Kelley-Wall were part of a panel of experts, along with Concord police Officer Laura Spaulding, at a community discussion domestic violence at the Woman’s Club in Concord on Tuesday night. The forum was the conclusion to the Monitor’s four-day series “Fighting Back,” by reporter Alyssa Dandrea.
Hampton, who teaches a batterers intervention class, said pervasive misconceptions about domestic abuse are one reason the crime is still kept in the shadows. He said one of the major myths is that that anger causes people to emotionally abuse and beat their partners.
“What it actually is, is people feeling out of control in their own lives, and rather than saying, ‘I need to take responsibility for my own happiness and welfare, I’m going to take it out on someone else,’ ” Hampton said. “It’s far from an issue of just someone losing their temper.”
Hampton said women and men in abusive relationships are conditioned by their abusers into a complex cycle of control that makes it very difficult to leave their violent partner – or to speak openly about what they are going through.
“One guy in one of my classes said, ‘I don’t have an anger management problem, I have an anger management solution,’ ” Hampton said. “What he meant was, it’s a tool, it’s a tactic. He said, ‘If I get angry, if she knows that I’m angry, she’ll do what I want her to.’ For them it’s not, ‘I lost control of my anger.’ It’s ‘No, I’m actually in control of my anger in an attempt to be in control of her.’ ”
Spaulding, who specializes in domestic violence with the Concord Police Department, said a lot of victims she works with make excuses for their abusers.
Victims will often blame themselves for the abuse or say it never would have happened if alcohol wasn’t involved. Experts say alcohol is not a cause of abuse but a magnifier.
“I say, ‘Listen, if he goes to a bar, and he’s sitting on a stool, and the guy next to him is being a complete jerk, and makes him very angry and he’s been drinking, does he punch that guy?’ ” Spaulding said. “They say, ‘No, he’s never punched another person I know of, not at a bar, not at anywhere else,’ ” she said. “I say, ‘Then there you go, he shouldn’t be punching you either.”
Domestic disputes are some of the most common calls local police departments face, but its still being underreported, Spaulding said.
A few audience members asked the panelists what they should do if they see someone they think might be being abused by a partner.
Kelley-Wall said that sometimes giving a victim a business card or pamphlet can be dangerous because an abuser could find it. She said the crisis center makes pens with their hotline on them that she leaves around town, which are less noticeable.
Kelley-Wall said the major action people can take is just letting people know they are supported.
“Just telling them you believe them, and that it’s not their fault, that’s the hugest thing,” she said.