Students participate in a game where they are asked to stack crimes from least to worst.

The turnout for the seminar was low, with more than half the auditorium left unfilled. Disappointing, said organizers, considering the topic is so important and common.

That topic was domestic violence.

Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behaviors used by one person intended to exert power and control over another.

Every year Peggy Joy Sullivan comes to the Woodbridge campus of Northern Virginia Community College to teach people about what constitutes domestic violence and what to do about it. Sullivan is the community outreach coordinator for ACTS/Turning Points Domestic Violence Program in Dumfries. She has trained police officers, magistrates, mediators, judges, social workers, school nurses, teachers and counselors.

After departing some basic information, she conducted an exercise with a volunteer from the audience, Nevin Cuff, whose children attended NOVA. She and Cuff stood facing one another with hands on hands. He pushed against her hands while she pushed back. You can’t accomplish things if all your energy is used against each other, said Sullivan. You have to make decisions and solve problems in a good, healthy style.

Some people, however, solve problems through violence.

According to Sullivan, when violence occurs in an intimate relationship, it’s difficult to set boundaries because it’s happening inside a personal space that the victim has let the abuser in to.

There are also different kinds of abuse, some relating to a person’s age such as elderly abuse.

Some abuse doesn’t even involve physically hitting a person; it can involve making threats to control someone or destroying personal possessions. Threats can be very effective, especially if children are involved, or an abuser knows what a person’s treasures are.

Cutting up a person’s clothes is another form of abuse. Clothes are very important to some people, they can be a part of a person’s identity — like an attorney who must always look professional and who cannot go to work without being sharply dressed.

There is a risk of abuse for people who are elderly or disabled because the victim might be less capable of leaving the situation. In these cases, an abuser might take away a person’s glasses, cane or prosthesis so they cannot go out. For the elderly or disabled, pets are often very important to their lives, but a spouse or caregiver might kill or harm their pet in order to hurt the victim.

Over her years of working with victims and counselors, Sullivan discovered that the signs of being suicidal are similar to the signs of being a domestic violence victim. Some of these signs include: loss of a loved one, divorce or separation, not showing up for appointments, termination of close relationships, failure to achieve personal goals, social isolation, family problems, injuries, humiliation in the presence of peers and a history of accidents.

“These are the signs of suicide… and they’re also of domestic violence,” said Sullivan.

In addition to discussing different scenarios surrounding domestic violence, Sullivan conducted an interactive exercise with yellow cards that depict levels of abuse like punching, threatening to take the children away, pushing to the ground, name calling, keying a car, mind games, tickling, destroying a photo album, blocking a person in a room and more. Sullivan had several volunteers try to order the cards from least violent to most violent.

No one could agree on the order.

One female audience member said it’s because the matter is subjective and it’s different for each person.

“Everyone has their own order,” said Sullivan. “And it changes as their life progresses.”

What is considered no big deal by one person may be considered far worse to another. Since significant others know what’s important to their victim, they can be strategic in deciding what to do.

Sullivan discussed what’s known as the bathing suit pattern. Some abusers are intentional about where they abuse the person, usually in a place on the body that’s almost always covered by clothes. A female victim is also not apt to reveal injuries in the bathing suit area.

Some red flags to watch for in a relationship include: blaming others for his or her own faults, cruelty to animals, inability to express emotions verbally, possessiveness, treating a partner like property and a disproportionate reaction to little things.

Sullivan said, “Many people come to our shelter and go back [to the abuse] many times, but they go back smarter.”

The average number of times victims go back to their abuser after leaving before they leave for good is seven, but it varies with every person, according to Sullivan.

She told the audience that when someone says they are experiencing violence at home, it’s important  to listen carefully and hear what that person has to say and then refer that person to someplace where help is available. If their first attempts at getting help fall through or make matters worse, they might not seek help again.

Brennan Smith, a liberal arts major, thought the seminar was very informative. “Most of the time when people are in abusive relationships, I feel that they don’t even know where to start to go. With these safe houses, they’re going to tell them what to do.”

“I came because personally I have been in an abusive relationship before, which isn’t common for [men],” confessed Smith. “It’s far past now but, in case I wanted to help my friends later, I wanted to make sure that I knew proper steps and places to seek the help for them.”

“I think it shocked people,” stated Melody Sanchez, an education major. “I was child of domestic violence. I didn’t think it’d be as real as it was at my house. I was glad that it was.”

Sanchez said that if a friend said she was being abused, she would let her know of places where she could get help and would share her own experience to make her friend feel comfortable confiding in her.

To contact ACTS/Turning Points, e-mail ACTS_TurningPoints@comcast.net or call 703-221-4460. The 24-hour domestic violence hotline is 703-221-4951.

By: KJ Mushung

Stay updated by liking us on Facebook or following us on Twitter.