Insight With Sylvia Maus 072124 Domestic Violence Part 2

"Addressing the continuing and horrifying issue of domestic violence; why woman stay; the impact on children and a series of podcasts that provide understanding and resources for and about victims."  https://randishouseofangels.org/

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hi, I am Sylvi You Moss, public affairs director at iHeartMedia and a
host of insight. And this ispart two of my conversation about the overwhelming
issues associated with domestic violence. Hereto continue our talker Nancy Chavez, founder
and executive director of Randy's House ofAngels, Sherry Peters, nationally recognized facilitator
in the children's mental health field,and doctor Ellen Smith, retired family doctor

(00:24):
and mental health facilitator. I wantto encourage anybody who's been a victim of
domestic violence, knows anyone who's avictim or wants to get some tremendous insight
into issue, to listen to thelast week's program by going to your favorite
podcast step and let me begin parttwo of this program by reminding our listeners
that domestic violence is physical, sexual, financial, and emotional abuse by one

(00:48):
person to another in order to inciminate, humiliate you, frighten you, and
get power and control over you.And I also want to add that children
grow up in a family where theyrepeatedly witness domestic violence really impacted by it.
After surviving domestic violence herself and losingher daughter Randy because her Randy's husband
murdered her twenty years ago. Wehave with us Nancy Chavez, who started

(01:12):
Randy's House of angel She also hadthe first support group in cumberlandulphin Perry Counties
for survivors of domestic violence. Thisis a really complex this issue, and
one of the major things that Nancyhas done is to realize the impact of
podcasts. And we're here to tellyou that her first season, rand was

(01:34):
it twenty twenty three. First ofall, where do we listen to your
podcast? Lancy? First of all, you can go on Randy's Houseofangels dot
org to get the list of thefirst season and also the upcoming list of
season two. I are you gonnago right on our website and tap on
that through YouTube and all the otherall kinds of media resources to listen to

(02:00):
our podcasts. Let me ask youthis and answer and the other lady that
you partnered with. I mean,you guys are this is such a diviningly
inspired situation here. What did youhope to accomplish when you started doing the
podcast? Well, my personal goalis education. You know, the more
education that you can provide and sharewith individuals, you know, I think

(02:24):
that that's the key, especially beinga victim, and so what I wanted
to do was to continue to lookat how we can reach parents and guardians
about the impact of domestic violence children. And so we initially had a wonderful
form where we had both doctor EllenSmith and also Sherry Peters facilitate. We

(02:46):
talked about trauma, we talked aboutresilience, and we included a ne audience.
More of the caseworkers. There weredoctors, there were mental health well
agents are resources, yeah, practitionersthere and I thought that was very very
interesting. But then our ultimate goalwas how do we reach the parents.

(03:09):
So individuals that are victims, youhave to look at their accessibility where they
are being victimized, whether the abuseris monitoring every movement, whether they're you
know, monitoring their phones. Dothey have the leisure at work to at
lunch to get access to the internet. So we felt that the podcast was

(03:30):
the best way to reach victims andin their privacy, and that's why we
began to look at, you know, looking at domestic violence, understanding domestic
violence, looking at different areas thatas a victim would be sensitive to.
This last series that we did waslooking at pet abuse, you know,

(03:52):
and sure, you know what happensto a pet when you know a child
loves that pet, the mother lovesthe pet, and then they have the
abuse. Are looking at how theycontinue to abuse the pets. Yeah,
we looked at our culture. I'mMexican Americans, So what happens in a
home where the secret stays there?Nothing is discussed outside the home. And

(04:14):
we had wonderful speakers talk about theirexperience being a victim and then also being
a child victim. You know,one of our speakers talked about witnessing their
mother being murdered. Oh can youimagine that? Oh God, and that
that's happening all the time. Andso that's the reason why the podcast was

(04:34):
our best resource so we can reacha larger audience, just like we're doing
here today on radio. I'd liketo ask anybody just jump in. You
were going to think that, Yeah, I wouldn't elaborate something that I'm just
so excited and proud about that.Nancy said, education. But specifically,
if you're we talked about specific thingsto do or say that are reasonable.

(04:55):
So if you have a child who'sin a in an early abusive relationships,
say teenagers, some specific wording togive to the parents to use, or
if you have a family member orfriend you just want to say, why
don't you leave? That's not helpful, now you are You're saying you wanted
the parents to listen so they cansay to their child, so the child

(05:16):
recognizes their own abusive relationship. That'swhat we need, and they have words
to use to ask the child withoutmaking the child defensive. Oh, that's
wonderful. How do you get thatinformation? We have? We've had wonderful
people on the podcast outlining, forinstance, what not to say what's wrong
with you? Or why don't youleave? And instead say, hey,

(05:39):
you know, I'm a little,for instance, about a teen I'm a
little concerned about your relationship with soand so. This is what I'm observing.
And start small and start when thewhen the young person is not all
worked up, or that the partner, you know, the boyfriend girlfriend is
not present. You said girlfriend.Did women abuse as badly as men do?

(06:00):
I'm not as frequent, but itdefinitely happens, and it can be
pretty so it can be just assevere. Yes. Wow, Well,
let me ask you this. Arethere certain questions you need to ask yourself
other than your children, if you'rebeing abused, as I said in the
beginning of the program last week,it's like, oh that was just one
time. Or I can love him, he'll get over it, we'll talk,
you know, all this stuff,which is a bunch of bologney,

(06:23):
but go ahead. Yeah. Oneof the nice things that I think we
did in the initial podcasts was tohave a couple of segments about healthy relationships
and how to recognize if you're ina healthy relationship, and then follow that
by how to recognize if you're ina not so healthy or an abusive relationship.

(06:44):
And we gave a bunch of resourcesthat are available on Randy's House of
Angel's website, which can be usedat various times to go back and revisit.
I thought I maybe was in ahealthy relationship, but now I'm not
so sure, and what do Ineed to be thinking about? And one
of the most important things was thatwhole idea of communication that Ellen was talking

(07:09):
about, the idea of whether ornot you can have a conversation about things,
or is there fear involved in evenbringing a topic up. So there's
many many things that folks can thinkabout and do some soul searching about whether

(07:30):
or not they are in an abusivesituation, and if so, learn more
about the resources that are available.Absolutely. Well, what if you have
a friend that you've noticed this isgoing on. I had somebody who told
me their friend of her said,Hey, you're forty five. You've been
going through this. How many yearsdo you want to be living this life
when you're fifty five? WHOA,that's what woke her up. But if

(07:53):
you do have someone that you loveyou see this going on, you can't
say that usual, why don't leave? Because that does nothing and it does
damage. But how do you helpthem? Yeah, and I'll go first,
and then maybe doctor Allen might pleaseadd to this. But we did
interview someone who gave a lot ofgreat suggestions about how to be helpful.

(08:16):
And one of the most important thingsis not to be judgmental, to be
accepting, to offer support, tolet that person know that you are there
if they want to talk, orif they want you, to provide some
kind of help in whatever way.That is. The important thing is not
to be judgmental, and not toassume that we as the friend have the

(08:41):
right answers. That's right. Weneed to listen and really offer as much
support as we possibly can, andI would completely agree, and also stick
with that person even if they don'tleave, that doesn't mean that the situation
got better. In most cases,just stick with them and with them if
you possibly can. And when theytell you awful stuff, listen and take

(09:07):
it in and acknowledge it, becauseyou don't want to not acknowledge it.
But you also don't want to tryto fix them, because I think all
of us know, regardless of domesticviolence or not, I don't want anybody
to fix me. I have enoughtrouble fixing myself, yep. And so
just remembering that when you are lookingat a domestic violence situation, and I
also think that when I have awhen I am a friend who has a

(09:28):
domestic violence situation, things can getpushed upwards emotionally because I may be saying,
well, this person might be killed, or this person may be hurt,
or this patient person might be anynumber of things, And so I'm
so afraid that I just want toram and answer down this, you know,

(09:50):
down things, Yes, what youjust said? Allan get afraid.
The threat is always there, andI would say, and I get a
lot of calls from victims from parentsand friends that want to inquire about the

(10:11):
next step what they should do,just because you know, everyone's on the
internet, and I would echo everythingthat you said, Sherry, and also
doctor Ellen Smith. You know,being a victim, we go back to
that whole secret and we go backto love. You have to really really

(10:31):
look at yourself inside, which isvery difficult because if you have multiple children,
you're holding a job, you're tryingto deal with him, you know,
you know, being the best wife, being the best mother, you
know, and just juggling everything.When you have time for yourself, and
then sometimes it dawns on you.Sometimes you'll watch a movie and you say,

(10:54):
well, that's me. But whena victim has the time and they
really look at themselves, they realizethat they're a victim. And to me,
that that's the the hallelujah, becauseyou're in denial the whole time.
You're accepted because everything in your lifeis except for the abuse, everything is

(11:18):
pretty good, pretty good, andso you have to really evaluate that.
And and I say it because Ilived through that, and a lot of
individuals don't even understand the different typesof abuse that we talked about earlier.
I think they don't want to.Well, they may, but but they
question it because when I get inquiriescalls from an individual, they go,

(11:41):
well, he yells at me,but not all the time, or another
one say, oh, he callsme uses the F word and the B
word, which I don't use thosewords. He calls me that, you
know, and but but only whenhe gets mad or when he drinks.
He's abusive. It's like excuses forthat person that's abusing you. And I

(12:01):
say to that individual, it's abuseno matter how you look at it,
and you have to admit that's happeningto you. You have everyone surrounding you,
your friends, your family, youcould have resources. But when you
finally say yeah, I am avictim and this is what I need to
do is probably the most important part. And you address all this on your

(12:26):
podcast too. I want to atthe first program, I wanted to ask
doctor Ellen about this. You've beenwere doctor for almost forty years, a
family doctor, and you know howthey have mandated reporting for sexual abusive children.
Is there mandating reporting when you suspectdomestic violence in a home, whether
it affects children or say a femalepatient, there is if there's a risk

(12:50):
to the person an imminent risk atrisk we are mandated to report, and
I'm thinking that Nancy might be evenmore knowledgeable about that. Is that something
you're knowledgeable about physicians? Yeah,yes, because I've talked to quite a
few physicians asking that. But it'snot at the top of the list.
They're aware of it, they've gotthey received training. Okay, it's very

(13:15):
interesting, but but you know,just all it depends upon what their workload
is. That's how that I leftthat conversation with them thinking like, Okay,
there are signs that are there.If a woman comes in and you
could see that she's really beat upand there's major issues with her physically,
yeah, you got to do something. You got to report that. But

(13:35):
then you also have the victim.The victim may say, oh no,
no, no, no, Idon't please don't do that. Please don't
check, you know, press charges, Please don't call the police, Please
don't do this. Sometimes when you'rea mandated but you can't. You don't
have a choice. Yeah, andI think the victims often have excuses.
We see not horrible bruising, butI've seen some bruising and people say,

(13:58):
oh, I just bumped myself forwhatever, and often with children. And
you know most little children have bruisknees, yes, but they won't have
broken arms unless you've got a prettygood reason. And again, lots of
little children break arms too. Idon't want to minimize that, but you
know certain types of fractures are morelikely to be abuse. And you know,
you just look at the whole picture. And when we report, we

(14:22):
report, and then the state takesover from there. We don't have any
say over whether the police are calledor anything. Well, as I said,
you are you've been a doctor allthose years. Have you seen this
a lot that you have had toreport? Because we do As I said
earlier, it's an epidemic or incentral all over the place, but again

(14:43):
in Central PA. Yes, I'veseen plenty of domestic violence, children,
babies, all the way up toolder people. It's not it's not exclusive
in anyone group, anyone ethnicity,any any racial It's just an epidemic every
day, no, every week,no, every month, no, a

(15:05):
couple of times a year. Iwould say, based on my experience,
that's awful. And this is anotherthing nance I wanted to talk to you
about. When you think about yearsago, we thought about domestic violence.
We thought always those poor people,police officers or abusers, and there are
everybody. There are loads of abusers. But all the research I showed it
saw our doctors, excuse me,people like that. People you would never

(15:28):
think politicians. Those are controlled.They're controlling our world, a lot of
them. It's not people who areuneducated. It is a wealthy people too,
and that's another reason for it tokeep it quiet, right, doctor,
and just anecdotally wealthy people. It'snot any less frequent. It's just
better covered up. Okay, Okay. In poverty, it's a little bit

(15:50):
harder to cover up such things.You wrote a wonderful book with another was
it one or two ladies who lostlost Christmas? Also, you had somebody
on your show, William killer Brew. Yes, talk about him. He
sounds I'll let Cherry talk about sheintroduced us to him. Yeah, William
is quite quite a wonderful person.In terms of his early experience. He

(16:21):
was only ten when he witnessed hismom being murdered by god boyfriend and her
boyfriend also murdered William's brother right infront of him and then turned the gun
on him. But William asked,please don't kill me, and instead,

(16:41):
uh, the boyfriend killed himself ratherthan killing William. As you can imagine,
this extreme trauma was just really awful, awful for him, and yet
through the years he had a wonderfulsupport system. He went through many,

(17:02):
many struggles, he went through wantingto kill himself, actually making an attempt,
getting all kinds of treatment, andhe actually when I interviewed him for
the podcast, he talked about aparticular social worker who was very helpful to
him and his healing and had hada huge influence over his life. And

(17:25):
in fact, he then later onin life, he decided to become a
social worker himself. So he whenI interviewed him, he was going through
the process he was going to becomea social worker. He was almost finished
with his master's degree, so hehad been asked to do all kinds of

(17:47):
international and national speaking. He wasinvolved and you can see the resources on
the on Nancy's Vaticinal website on thewebsite, and he wrote a book too
about his experience, which is absolutelyincredible. It's sort of like Nancy's book
that you learn so much about aperson from the story that they tell.

(18:14):
And William was pretty awesome, Nancy, tell us about your book, because
writing a book, you'd have toremember an awful lot of stuff. And
we talked about post traumatic stress andhow these are triggers that's set you off.
How'd you do that without having allthe kinds of issues with postraumatic stress

(18:34):
disorder. It was tough. Imean it's great to you know. I
wrote the outline for it, sharedit with a good friend of Mineland Shiner,
so let's write a book. Butthat's the easy part. It's all
the emotions that were attached for twoyears of writing this and that brings up

(18:55):
you know, PTSD, the trauma, and then then I started feeling really
good, which is the resilience partof it. I want to talk about
that, which you know, youbegin to believe in yourself. Oh you're
writing a book. That's that's great, and who ever think I would write
a book? But I did morefor the therapeutic end of it, to

(19:15):
know that I wanted people to knowthat, yeah, it was so tragic.
My daughter's loss is it's like awhole in my heart. But more
importantly, I wanted to give hopeto others where they've lost children, and
that what you can do to turnthat around. But it really takes a

(19:37):
lot of work from you internally externallybringing the right people to continue to surround
you. And I think that that'smy experience of working with doctor Ellen Smith.
It just understanding of resilience part ofit, and then at the same
time in understanding the impact of traumathat experience. So it's it's a good

(20:03):
exercise, that's all. I cantell you. What's the name of your
book? How do we get it? Well, the name of my book
is I'm just I just can't imaginemyself doing something like that if my child
was Keeping in mind, my bestfriendly in China, her children were also
stabbed. My daughter was twenty seventimes. Oh, so we named it
Stabbed in the Heart. Three murderedchildren, two resilient mothers. And it

(20:26):
really talks about our journey of movingforward and making a difference in other people's
life. How can you pick thatup? You can get it now,
I understand online. You can alsocall me because I do have a few
extra books, you know. Igive it to a lot of individuals that
I have learned in the different countiesthat surround me here. I give them

(20:52):
as a gift so they know thatthey're not forgotten, so that we can
develop a relationship of just that losinga child through domestic violence, which is
really sad, and that's one ofthe things that you talk about on your
podcast too. But now we're instarting season two, what are you going
to talk about and your podcast?Girls, and just jump in so we

(21:15):
have the whole idea as Nancy mentioned, the pet abuse, we have homelessness,
we have lgbt Q plus relationships,we have the cultural piece that Nancy
mentioned from victor, from victim toreen. You keep talking about resilience.

(21:36):
Let's talk about resilience. Anybody jumpin. The expert is doctor Allen Smith.
Resiliences the ability to bounce back fromadversity. It doesn't mean you'll be
the same, because when you talkabout situations like your daughter was murdered,
you're never the same, but youbut you bounce back and to some level,
that's your level. Some of itis in your control and some of

(22:00):
it is not, and you justkeep on going. And at first the
resilience is to get out of bedwith situation like that, and the second
might be and I'm just given anidea, it might be going back to
work. Maybe it's going back towork every day, maybe it's not.
It could be writing a book.Many different ways to be resilient and show

(22:23):
your resilience. And one of thethings about resilience that people don't tend to
think about is every single person isborn resilient, and every single person can
build their resilience. And many people, particularly those who have had domestic violence
because they've been brainwashed by someone tosay that they're worthless, But those folks

(22:47):
are very resilient. And I thinkspecifically about people who leave. I can't
imagine now hard that must be toleave a terrible situation, And so that's
resilience. And then people, youknow, go to the next step they've
left, now what. So that'swhat resilience is. One of the other
things we're talking about in season twois called it's episode four More Than a

(23:10):
Crush Understanding Teen Dating Violence. Sothat's really focusing on the teens because first
of all, that's what Randy's Houseof Angels is all about children. But
secondly, I think parents don't knowwhat to do with this, and teens
don't know what to do with it, and then we have the cyber violence
that you know the various things thatbullying, cyber bullying on the phones and

(23:33):
things like that. So that's that'sgoing to be a really good one.
You've got lots and lots of things. What are your plans you guys going
to continue this after season two?You have to we have fun doing it,
That's all I know. No matterwhat you do in life, you
always have to have fun. I'velearned that I have a great relationship with

(23:53):
doctor Eland Smith and Shoey Peters,and I've learned so much. I sit
there and listen to this speak.I'm in the studio with them, and
I learn that every that I'm notalone. I'm not just a victim.
I' or lost my daughter through murder, but I just know that I'm not

(24:14):
alone. There's so many individuals outthere that can share their experience. It's
sad. It's sad that we haveabuse taking place with children, with victims,
and it's just ongoing, and Ijust wish that we could stop the
cycle. Can people offer suggestions toyou folks do for podcasts? We'd love

(24:40):
that. We'd love for you togo on our website please and then also
once you view whether it's the seasonone, season two all the episodes.
Please take the survey. We'd loveto hear from you and the suggestions I
think is really important. We're veryfortunate to have a great relationship with Paul

(25:00):
Miller, and he is professor ofCentral Penn Coologize has given us, you
know, the guidance for recording.So I'm very thankful. But this has
been to me one of the bestventures in my life. Where isn't it
Randy's House of Angels? Let's yourwomen, It's virtual, It's Randy's House

(25:22):
of Angels dot org. So asI mentioned r A N D I S
H O U S E O FA n G E L S dot org
and we go to wherever the childrenare you also do I mean, I
knew what had happened to your daughterbecause we have a mutual friend. But

(25:42):
I was blown. I thought tomyself, Holy, don't it this lady's
really doing one heck of a jobwith your walk. Every year, tell
us about that? Is it?It triple around April or May right,
always the day before Mother's Day?Every year we this is you know,
we we celebrate, you know,an anniversary. You know, it's really

(26:06):
something I started the Randy's walk forhope and courage to build my credibility so
that people saw me as a resource, being a victim but also my daughter.
And then it has grown and youknow it really is. Money is
great and the funds that we raisesupport all the programs through Randy's House of

(26:27):
Angels to you know, for children. We provide all of our programs at
no cost to parents and guardians.And that's the key. You know,
when we have a wonderful I havea wonderful board of Randy's House of Angels,
but when they look at the victimand knowing that when you're being victimized
and you're in a shelter, perhapsyou just need every resource possible and you

(26:51):
certainly don't need to have a burdenof pain for programs to help the children.
And so that's why we provided atno cost. Mentioned this over again.
We go to where the kids are, so if you're in a county,
your county, we have resources therethrough the YWCA and Dauphin County yw

(27:11):
and other agencies that we work with. And you could see that I'm on
our website. So again, ifyou are out there and you want to
look at the impact of what's happeningin your home and its domestic violence,
and you're a victim and you knowthat you want to stop the cycle.
I would say, call us,contact me, And as I say on

(27:32):
this program many times, if youcan't get in touch with my guests,
call me. Email me Sylvia Mossat iHeartMedia dot com and it's m aus.
I'll get a hold of the personfor you. This is real important,
ladies. I can't even say thankyou, but I mean, God,
bless you. Keep going. It'swonderful what you do. We absolutely
need this. Nancy Chavez, thefounder and executive director of Randy's House of

(27:55):
Angels. Sherry Peters, nationally knownfacilitator in My Children's Mental health feed and
doctor Ellen Smith, retired family doctor, a mental health facilitator of excuse Me
facilitator. What have I learned?Well, domestic violence has been around,
not one hundred years, probably thousandsof years. It still is. However,

(28:15):
between all those years ago and now, there are all a lot of
people and resources that are gonna helpyou if you're a victim, and one
of them is starting with Nancy's Houseof Angels. And also you can become
resilient thanks for coming in. I'mSylvia Moss. Remember this airs on our
can I heart stations and you canalways find you on your favorite podcast.

(28:36):
Sepp, thank you so much forlistening. See you next week. O
Oh, Brad's buzzed. Oh yeah, yeah, he's starting with the woots
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(28:59):
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