Healing from Domestic Violence and Making a Difference with Your Story.

Okay, Gina, welcome to the Healing as Possible hot seat breakthrough session. You've got a special treat for the audience today. We're doing this a little bit different than just a traditional breakthrough coaching. Tell us what, why you're here and what you'd like out of this session.

I am here because I have learned that healing is possible. And for me, healing is an ongoing process. I think that given what I've experienced in my life and what I've been healing through, it could be an inspiration for someone else who might be in the middle of a dark day, who then can say, I remember Gina's story. She could live through that and heal. I can too.

So for those that don't know me, I'm Rebecca Silence. And the purpose of these hot seat sessions is to scratch the surface, to start building momentum with a brave soul who, who is willing to break through heartbreak, heartache, trauma, whatever, emotionally has been blocking them towards having a more inspired life. So with that being said, we're not going to solve everything in a 30 minute hot seat session, but we can begin to build momentum. So, Gina, why is it important to you that your story inspires other people? How would that be healing for you to have your story be inspire? I want to just ask you that before you begin to share.

Yeah. I think for me, finding a silver lining in this, after this tragedy is something that was critical to my healing. And there are a couple of ways that I've tried to do that in my life, and this is one of them. Telling my story is part of that process.

Yeah. And your story involves domestic violence. And it's Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Educate us. Let's let you have the floor and share your story.

So my story is. It's my sister's story as well. She was in a marriage for 18 years and had four children. My sister Kristen, and we lived in the same town. We were very close, two years apart. So there's myself. And my sister was two years younger and my brother was two years, is two years younger than her. And I watched her in her marriage, I watched her struggle. I watched her have to live with violent outbursts. Not physical abuse, but certainly emotional abuse. And it's something that my family witnessed and then just tried to, I don't want to say turn a blind eye, but tried to help her appease so that she could navigate daily life. But what happened was she was in this marriage and on many occasions thought that she would perhaps be better off divorced. She had four children. And finally, after years and years of her stating that she'd like to be separated and him saying, please don't leave me. I'll be alone. I can't live without you. You and the kids are all I have. She learned that he was having an affair. And I think I know that that was the catalyst for her to begin separation procedures. And then after a couple of months of living separately, September 28, 2009, she had two court appearances and one was involving my nephew who had already gone to live with my brother in California because he lived in an unhealthy environment and he needed a little more stability. And then the second court proceeding was to have Joe removed legally from the home. A court document stating he wasn't allowed to walk in whenever he wanted. And, and I believe there were some financial custodial outlines in that document as well. And my sister went to court that morning and she called me and I didn't answer her call because I didn't hear her for the first appearance. And she was getting very concerned about being in the room with Joe and his stability. And then I went to work and she had a second court appearance and I, she didn't want me to come because she was afraid it would rile him up. And so she finished the court proceeding and I spoke with her at about, I don't know, two o' clock, and she was heading home and she wanted to buy concert tickets for her youngest who was 8 at the time. Her children were then 15, my nephew was 18 and the three kids at home were 15, 12 and 8. And she wanted to buy her 8 year old tickets to see Kiss. And so she went home to get him off the bus. And from the time that I last spoke with her, between then and when jerk got off the bus, Joe came into the house and. And he killed her and he killed himself. My 8 year old nephew found them and ran to a neighbor who then called the authorities. And I was at home, I had a friend here, my two kids were 5 and 6 at the time. And I got a call from my cousin who happened to be working for the ambulance company that was called to the scene. And she said, gina, what's going on with your sister? And I said, well, she had court appearance this morning for the separation and she said, no, Gina, there's police tape around the house. So I didn't know what happened. I called my husband, my friend and I took our kids to another friend and she drove me to the scene. And in the car ride over, my cousin called again and she just said bad, it's really Bad. And I. I was hoping she wasn't dead, but I probably figured that that was the case. I got out of the car. The whole street was blocked. And I just remember running in my bare feet in the rain down the road, and I saw my husband. He had already arrived, And I. He just looked at me and shook his head. So I knew. I knew at that moment that he had killed her. Although it took a while to really understand all of the details. He stabbed her 17 times, and then he stabbed himself. He was alive for a short while. I think he. He died once he arrived at the hospital, but their son found them both in the house. And I just remember sitting in my dad's car. My father was there with his wife, just thinking, this can't be real. This can't be real. This isn't happening in my life. I have a normal life. This doesn't happen. It happens in movies. It doesn't happen to us. And then I had to go to my mom's house and tell her what happened. So what followed was her kids immediately came, and they moved in with my husband, Steve, and my two kids, and they live with us from there on. And as the days unfolded, I just. It's. A lot of it is fog. I cried a lot. We had visitors in the house just for days and days, and people coming and people grieving together. And it took a lot of processing, and it was months and months before, really, I would say, the fog lifted. Gina.

And this isn't the first time you've shared this story, but what's happening today as you're sharing the story? What are you feeling? What do you want people to know about healing, about domestic violence?

So part of my healing process, you know, it's. I think, of the grieving process and the stages of grief that I can now identify that I was going through for months and for years. And then there's part of the healing process. And in my mind, they're a little bit separate. But after a couple of years and really getting back on my feet, well, actually, it was maybe three months after my sickness sister died. I knew the woman who was running our local domestic violence service agency, and I said, please meet with me. I need to understand more. How did I miss this? How did I not know that this was going to go so bad? And that started my learning process and really diving into domestic violence and what the needs were in our community, how myself and my family could potentially help other families, other victims, other sisters who might see signs, who might be able to intervene in A way that I didn't understand, intervene in at that time. So my research and my learning process started early, but I took a pause. And then a few years later, once the kids were getting older, I had more time to really step back and say, okay, now we can start to try to do something that makes a difference in somebody else's life and makes a difference in our community. Because I will tell you, it's my sister's story, it's my story, her kids story, my family's story. But this is a community story. And people were impacted. First responders, friends, coworkers, people that knew our family when we were children, people that interacted with my sister when her kids were. She was a hockey mom and a cheerleading coach. The impact was far reaching. So I experienced tragedy, but the entire community did too. And I knew that something had to shift. And part of healing for me was finding a way to make a difference, save another family, to better our community. And from that, we went down this road of starting a nonprofit, and it's called Kristen's fund. And in 2017, we held our first annual fundraiser. And in three years, we raised about $300,000. And we've been able to focus our grants on providing domestic violence education and prevention efforts, to fund efforts and to help educate kids about healthy relationships. So we have. What we have done is the community. The event itself had a lot of community support and publicity. So not only were we able to raise money, we were able to raise a lot of awareness here. And I have anecdotally heard stories that have made me realize that we have made a difference in people's lives. People that maybe weren't healing from their domestic violence experience as a victim. People who have needed the services at an agency or a shelter that we've been able to provide funding for. I have people sometimes call me and tell me their story or ask me advice when they have a friend or a family member who is in a domestic violence situation. And I've been able to share what I learned with people who can hopefully then turn around and help their loved ones.

Jeanne, I just want to acknowledge your strength. It's more than courage you took. Tragedy doesn't even seem to be a word that does this justice. You took a crisis and turned it into an opportunity to serve. You care more about the world of your immediate family in a way that is teaching them this is bigger than us. This is about the community, too. And I've heard details about how first responders were impacted from you that there's no Words. How committed to service were you before your sister's death? Because now you're an integrative, holistic coach, devoted since I've known you, which, which is a few years now, your life, to learning how to lead and serve. And what was your relationship to service before you lost your sister?

I don't know that I had a relationship with service. I, you know, we would attend charity events or do things like that, but I didn't have a specific way that I was called to serve until this happened. And I knew it was somehow working within the world of domestic violence, domestic violence prevention, domestic violence education. It took a couple of different paths from the beginning. My brother in law also was a police officer. So the first path that we took, that I took was to try to make changes within the world of officer involved domestic violence and specifically within his police department. It was not an uncommon occurrence. And, you know, the learning curve that I had and really recognizing the frequency that something like that happens was shocking to me. I think that this police department and all of our law enforcement in our county and the surrounding counties have definitely made a lot of progress in the way that they respond to officer involved situations and, and domestic violence situations in general. And I think they, maybe they were forced to respond better because of that. But I do believe that people's lives have been changed and made better because of our community's education after this tragedy.

And your courage to lead. I mean, you weren't forced, right, to do better as a result of this, but it's almost like you were unwilling not to. The communities followed your lead.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember when I met with Natalie, she was the executive director at our ywca and it was months later, and I said, we have to do something. What do we do? What do I do? What do I do? And she said, gina, slow down. You have five kids at home. Take care of the kids, take care of yourself. When the time is right, we'll regroup. And you know, I. We would meet and meet and I'd say, is it time yet? Is it time yet? And finally, finally it was time. And I knew it was the right time. And how did you know? I think, I think part of grief for me, the denial stage was staying busy all the time and raising the kids and doing things and trying to act normal. And so I went through that for a long time. And then once the kids were starting to get older and things normalized in my life and I had more time to take a breath, it wasn't a response like I have to do it now because I have to busy myself. I'm in a stage of grief. I'm in denial. So let me do something and be busy. It was more of an understanding that this was something I was being called to do versus something I had to do right away because it was my immediate response and I had to deal with my grief by doing. Was more of a calling then.

Wow. What else do you want? The healing is possible, community to know. And I'd love it if you could give us some education while we have you with us.

Sure. In terms of domestic violence and things that I've learned. Domestic violence, Violence.

In terms of healing, I mean, you have taken hell and literally walked through it.

Yeah, Yeah. I remember I was on the phone with a friend. She was a friend of my sisters, and she's a friend of mine now, and she works on our Christmas fund committee. And she lost one. One of her. She was one of three triplets, and she lost her sister to cancer. And I remember this was about six months after Kristin died, being on the phone with her, and she said to me, gina, I promise it gets easier. And I said, jill, how can that be? I cannot even imagine this getting any easier. But she was right, and it did. I think that grief time does help heal grief, but it doesn't just happen. I did a lot of work to help it happen. I did a lot of work with a therapist immediately following my sister's death to understand how to blend our family, how our grief was manifesting in our family dynamic. And that was a big learning curve, understanding that my husband and I weren't really fighting about a old pair of golf shoes that I threw out. It really was our grief that was just, you know, finding ways to make its way into our daily lives that I did not recognize. So we had the help of a great therapist. And then I found Rebecca at a point in my life where things were settling down, and I started to think, ok, now it is time for me. What do I want to do with my career? But what I learned is this grief, this healing, it will always be here. So grief I used to think of as this enemy that I wanted to keep at bay and keep it away. You were here. You. You infiltrated my life. Now go. I don't want to see you anymore. I don't want you in my daily life. And so I pushed it away. And what I've learned is that grief, I guess I can think of grief in terms of. I don't want to say constant companion. I don't walk around day to day being sad. I have a happy, very fulfilled life, but it's always there. So I'm not afraid of it anymore. I've learned to live with it and let it be part of my life when it's. I don't want to say appropriate, but when it feels right and not be afraid of it. And that came with time, that came with work, that came through my work with Rebecca and my work at Legacy Training International. It was a deep dive into my own healing. And I know now that it's something that will just be a constant in my life.

That's so powerful, what you're saying. My. My heart is just with you. What about domestic violence education and our final.

In our final education, I learned that when you're that close, you tend to rationalize, make it normal, appease. We probably should have been very much more concerned the day of Kristin's court appearance. One of the things that I learned is that there are three huge red flags when someone has already a tendency to be abusive or, you know, in many cases, much more physically violent than what my sister ever experienced. Divorce, loss of a job which Joe had. Two of those had occurred in his life in the weeks prior to, and I can't remember the third. Those are huge red flags. And those are times when, if someone is in any sort of abusive relationship and that person loses control, that's when you should definitely take more precautions. And in general, I think if you or someone you love is in a situation that just doesn't feel right, do some research. There's a lot of good information out there. Understanding what a victim needs first and foremost is critical because the tendency is to say, just leave him. Get. Get away. Why are you doing this to yourself? You're compounding the issue by making the victim feel like they're doing something wrong when the abuser is already doing that all the time. So I guess the best advice I could give to somebody is if you feel like something's not right in your own relationship with someone you love, there are a lot of good resources out there, but definitely stay safe and do some research and find out what the red flags are, what the signs are that you're in an abusive relationship, a lot of times people don't even recognize it.

If you have one specific tip for someone in the situation of domestic violence and one specific tip for someone who loves someone in a domestic violence situation, it's 2020, so I can't imagine statistics going down around domestic violence this year. Could you just give us a specific.

If someone believes they are in an abusive relationship, find a way to get support, whether it be from friends or family or oftentimes an abuser will seclude the person that they're abusing and they find they don't have anyone to turn to. There is a domestic violence service provider in every county. At least I know here there are named providers in our counties. There are huge wealth of resources and I didn't know that as a sister I could call the hotline. I thought that was if you're in an immediate emergency situation, you call the hotline. But the hotline is there to get information, to get resources, to get tips. They'll listen even if you're a loved one of somebody who's experiencing that. There's a national hotline, there are local, there are state hotlines, there are local hotlines and they're a good, great resource.

Would you be willing to post some of those hotlines in the chat?

Oh, sure.

For us. I just think this is invaluable information and again, your strength. Gina, thank you for joining us today and opening your heart and your story to all of us. Are there any final thoughts or words that you feel are important to share?

I guess what I want people to know is that you can live through tragedy and have a good life and have a great life. I have learned that gratitude and appreciating what I have on a daily basis makes a world of difference. And I've learned to just appreciate my family, my friends, my support system, my life in a way that I never would have before.

And three big things I took away from your share. Share is serve. Give yourself space to heal your way.

Yes.

Stay supported and educated.

Yes. Yes.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you. And you'll post some resources for us in the chat. For those watching, feel free to post in the chat your takeaways, your your questions. Let's acknowledge Gina in the chat what an amazing woman and powerful leader she is. Thank you all and we'll be back next week for another breakthrough session.

Thanks. Bye.

Thank you.