"I verbally abused my husband, here's how I stopped" in the Washington Post
The article and video that cracked the door open and now here we are
In October 2018, I was working with my coach Heather about ideas I had about domestic violence. Specifically, these were messages I felt were not being researched, nor written about, and that really bugged me. It felt like half of the story was being left out, and people were suffering because of it.
Because I really wanted to help, I started to write, and do talks about this wherever people would have me. I was able to get a piece in the Washington Post, and I shot a video to let people know I’m available as a trainer and speaker on this topic. Not a lot of speaking opportunities have come about, other than the wonderful Women Talk organization which I absolutely treasured doing in Canmore, Alberta in spring of 2019. I think the topic is still just too challenging to be popular. Like I say in the opening lines of the video below… it’s a hard sell getting people to listen to a talk about abusiveness.
Nevertheless, these two things - the article and video - cracked the door open, and helped me understand how I could help shift popular perception of domestic violence. From there, I decided to go to graduate school to put more scientific rigour behind my ideas, and I kept writing. People write to me to tell me that they are having a hard time and want to stop being abusive; sometimes their significant others reach out. I share books and other tools that I know of and that are now here on this site.
That’s how we got here.
It’s still early days regarding the idea that perpetrators of abuse can change, but I’m grateful for every chance to spread the word, and if you know of an opportunity to do that, whether it’s a standard talk, or training, or something more creative and out of the box, I’m definitely looking for those, and would love to hear. For now, I thought I’d share the video and the article here so you can see where this whole thing started. Feel free to share.
Here’s the video:
And, here’s the piece from the Post.