Domestic Abuse Crisis

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Every gift counts and now every gift is doubled. trainapaster.com This podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Welcome once again to Man Talk Radio and the podcast, Roy, and it's good to see you today.

Good to see you, Will. I wasn't sure if you knew where they were. We were welcomed then too because it seemed you were almost paused there for a moment. I wasn't sure if you were going to finish that out or not. Oh, well, just because I'm not as fast as you.

Okay. But we are excited today, Roy, because there's this is a subject matter. I think that's sensitive to a lot will be sensitive to a lot of listeners that we have out there. You know, we have women audience and, you know, we are also speaking to the men as well. And so we're going to be talking about domestic abuse. And when you listen and hear some of the things that you are going to hear on today's show and next week's show, I trust that you really take these things to heart because these are things that has plagued both the Christian community and a non-Christian community alike.

And so it has no bounds with respect to where it dwells. So, Roy, if you want to introduce our guests. Well, we'd like to welcome Patty Sorrells with us today. Patty, it's so good to have you with us. It's good to be here.

Thanks for the invite. Why don't you, if you don't mind, for the sake of the audience, would you just introduce yourself, where home is and kind of what your current role is at the center? Yeah, so where home is. I was born in North Carolina, lived in Iowa a little bit, but North Carolina is really home for me. I've been in Kernersville for about 23 years now. And I am the executive director at Next Step Ministries, and that's also located in Kernersville. So I've been there for about a year and a half before that, about 15 years in women's ministry at First Christian Church.

So, and then family services of the Piedmont, Hickory Police Department before that, as victim services. So I've been doing this a while. Well, great, Patty. It's so good to have you here. Well, let's talk a little bit about your ministry work that you're currently in, because that's what we want to talk about as Will led us into. Folks, what we've asked Patty to join us because we know that abuse, domestic violence is a big issue, and it's not talked about as much probably as it should be talked about.

So we felt like this would be a great time coming out of COVID with all the people that have been homebound. And I'm sure, I don't know if you've got the numbers, but I'm assuming the numbers have probably gone up quite a bit over this last year, and maybe they haven't been reported due to people not getting out or having those conversations with others. But let's talk a little bit about what the ministry does, Patty, and some of the experiences you've seen and what's gone on through the ministry there.

Okay. Yeah, so we have a 24-hour crisis hotline. And on that hotline, they conduct danger and safety assessments. So we're looking to help people who are in imminent danger. When they come to us, they're looking for emergency shelter. We're not a transitional home, and we're not a homeless shelter. And we're not just a women's shelter. We are a DV shelter.

So it's for women who are coming out of extremely dangerous situations. And then, of course, in the shelter as they stay. We provide food, clothing, transportation. We start working on securing housing, helping them to put together some finances. Most of them come to us without money.

They've not been allowed to work, those kinds of things. We refer them into counseling where they need counseling. And we provide local resources for them. So whether that's looking for jobs or if it's support from churches, whatever it is that they're in need or what they want is what we try to help them with. We also have a victim advocate who works directly with law enforcement now. That's a position I created for us.

They've not had that before, and that position works with nonresidential clients, ladies who are not needing to be in shelter but who are still in DV situations, and then navigates them through the criminal justice system and the civil court system, walks them through the entire thing. And then, of course, we have our thrift store. In our thrift store, we take donations of gently used and used items, and we tell people, thank you for your donations, but we certainly need you to come shop because it's about our 45% of our revenue stream.

So the donations are important, but if we don't have shoppers, then we don't actually receive funding from the store. And what's the address of your store while we're on the counter? It is on Highway 66 in Kernersville. It's right across from the Dodge dealership.

So while you're shopping for your latest truck or your latest Jeep, go on over and go shopping at the thrift store. And that's right beside the Bojangles, right there? Kind of. It's a little further down, but yes. Okay, in the same vicinity. Okay, gotcha. So when you say DV, you're referring to domestic violence?

I am. Okay. So in your experience, Patty, what is probably the most common type of violence and domestic violence that you're seeing? You're dealing with a more severe situation, I guess, once they've come into housing situations.

You're putting them into protective custody, and I'm sure your centers know that's not publicized where it's located. All that's held back. What are the things that are going on in the women's lives? Most of these women are coming to you, do they have children? Do most of them have children? Is it a mix of single?

It's actually quite a bit of a mix. We have single women coming. We have women who have children.

And we have women who are in their 70s. Yes. Wow. Absolutely. Now, has that been pre, was that the case pre-COVID? That's been the case for the last 30 to 40 years of my career. Wow.

Yeah, it's not really changed a whole lot, to be quite honest with you. Wow. Well, let's take a step back. Okay. And I want to ask what, for the listeners' sake, what is domestic violence or abuse?

Great question. So most people think of domestic violence as these horrible things they see in the news where someone's been shot or murdered. Well, that's true. And last year, North Carolina had 61 homicides that were domestic violence homicides, just in North Carolina.

So most people think it's that. It is that, but it's so much more because physical abuse is just a portion of the abuse. Physical abuse oftentimes doesn't happen until she's no longer compliant or she attempts to leave.

So I do want to throw this in very quickly. So restate that again, Patty. Let's go back through that again.

Okay. So physical abuse is just a small portion of what abuse is. And the physical abuse oftentimes doesn't take place until she's no longer compliant to his will.

It's another person trying to control another person in every aspect, mentally, emotionally, physically, and unfortunately, spiritually. We know this happens in the body of Christ. And so what we know is as long as she's doing what he's telling her to do, it doesn't get physical. Oftentimes the first time it's physical for some women is when they are pregnant. And they do try to get them pregnant because guess what? Now we've got a connection for the rest of our lives.

So what happens for a woman when she does either goes to a pastor for help or she goes to police or she goes to a family friend or somebody and seeks help to try to leave or talks about leaving, or he finds that her behavior's changed and she's trying to leave her percentage. The percentage of her becoming a homicide victim go up 75 percent. That has not changed since I started doing this work way back when. Wow. That is incredible. That is absolutely. So people say, why does she stay?

There's this old movie called Sleeping with the Enemy. OK, she stayed because guess what? Then she could tell whether he was escalating and where in the cycle he was actually located.

Was he in the honeymoon stage, the tension building stage, or now the battering stage? And so as long as she could keep tabs on him, so to speak, so she could kind of know what the atmosphere of the climate was, then she could determine if that was the time for her to leave or to stay. So to me, it's it sounds like to that programs like this, like we're having with would help those who are in those abusive situations to get some understanding and knowledge behind these various levels in which their spouse or significant other boyfriend might be going through. So they could it could help them identify where they are and perhaps what they need to do. Sure.

Absolutely. That's right on target. There's two things that we do with our guests and clients that we work with, and that is to do a DV education with them and then to teach them the cycle of violence so they can always. And we can always say, you tell us where you are.

You tell us where she knows exactly where he is in his escalation. And I want to also say this. We have women who are abusers, too. We knew 20 years ago that paradigm shift was going to happen. And it has it's still predominantly, you know, the male that are abusers. But and I've worked with the abusers, too.

I worked with them for about four years. So I've seen that that side of things. But, you know, so we do that education. And a lot of times women don't know that they're victims. They don't want to call themselves that, especially in the body of Christ. There's a lot of pride in that and stigma.

And you're looked down upon by both men and women in the church if you in the middle of it. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And so we have what's called the power control wheel. And oftentimes I'll just push that on over to her and say, well, you just read it and you tell me if you think you're a victim. Well, they start falling apart immediately. And then they say, I think I'm a victim. Aren't I? And I have to always say, are you?

Because they need to be the ones to determine if they're. That's right. Yeah. So the levels are it's imperative that they know these things. I mean, it's real. It's the information. Education has been spot on for, again, decades.

We're just not getting where we need to educate people. So what is that? What does that, I guess, graph look like? What is the start of it? And what is the the the peak, if you will, the pinnacle of that abuse? What does it start out typically?

If you can tell us what that looks like. Sure. There's a folks that are listening.

They're saying, am I? Yeah, exactly. Sure. So I'm going to say this just as a part of it. If you go back to the Garden of Eden and you see how Satan operated, he was a charming spirit. So it oftentimes it comes across very charming. And the target oftentimes can be where women have been through something or they're vulnerable or they have low self-esteem or they've come out of a divorce or whatever.

And so they come from a family that, you know, they've had issues with. So that person's very charming. The abuser's charming. Oh, you're you're beautiful. You're my everything. You know, let me buy you diamonds. Let me do whatever.

I'll put you on a pedestal. And as soon as she starts to to navigate towards that, he starts sucking her in. He keeps her from family. He keeps her from working.

Maybe a driver's license if they're married now. Nowadays, that's changed. But it used to be he would make sure he got the ring on her finger and make sure that she was pregnant.

Then he owned her. And that's that's where it starts. So that's the beginning. That's the beginning. OK, well, and then what we want when we come back from break, we want to talk about the next step.

And then also, what are some of the identifying factors that may be so subtle that people don't recognize it? We'd like to help identify that. So, Patty, we're so glad you're here with us. And Will, it's as always great to see you. We'll be back in just a moment. All right. Come back.

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Call 336-885-1987. Welcome back, Patty. As we were going to break, we were just starting into what that what that transition looks like. So we just initially we're talking about it could be that someone who's who's got all the compliments there. You're basically befriending this person who's maybe having some wounds just coming out of divorce or who's low in self-esteem. So we know that that's maybe the hook that starts that process.

Gifts, acknowledgement, words of affirmation, all those things. So now what's the next step? So this the now the journey has begun. He or she will because we don't want to strictly say it's only the men, but he or she has started this journey. What's what typically would happen next? Well, typically they they kind of work on several things simultaneously.

One is isolation. If he can get her away from her support system and that includes her church support system. And it's usually, oh, don't do that here. I'll take you to dinner.

I really just want to be with you. And comes across as a romantic person. And this is just kind of one scenario. There's other ways that others do it. But, you know, and then the next thing you know, her support system starts dropping away.

Oftentimes they'll move them to another place so that she doesn't have that network, then have the network that starts doing things like following her, stalking her, putting her location now on phones, GPS, telling her what she can wear, who she can talk to on the phone. You know, just very, very controlling. And and that's one of the ones that's the most subtle where children have grown up in DV. So we know that it is a spiritual thing.

We always call the, you know, the generational curse and and the secular world calls it the generational code. We all recognize. And that's what's so interesting.

If you're not Christian or you are Christian, you can recognize it. OK. And so, you know, if they've grown up in domestic violence, those little girls oftentimes will continue to be a victim of something in their life because they've assumed that taken that on. And then young boys who've been abused might become a victim, but they're probably more likely to become an abuser because that's what relationships look like. That's what that's exactly right. Yeah. And so just it just continues the power and control.

It's it's even that same thing. And I'm going to throw in sexual abuse because that's a big part of the violence. But where where we've also worked with rape victims, it's never about having sex. It's about having control over another person. So you put that into a spiritual perspective and you think about who wants to control your soul and keep you from your God. It's that same concept.

And it works in that same pattern all the way. So you mentioned sexual abuse. Will and I talk quite often on the show about the impact and the collateral damage of the men's behavior or the lack of presence of the father or the lack of leadership from the husband. One of those facets is pornography that we talk about, too, because we know it's a struggle for men and women in today's time. And certainly the children are getting exposed to it a much, much higher level than ever in our history. What role do you think exposure in that arena and you mentioned sexual abuse, but what role do you think exposure in that arena has played into some of the violence that's being acted out on the ladies by the men?

So how long we got? Because I've been doing this a while, so I'll condense it. So let me start off with, again, from a spiritual perspective, because that's also where I come from, is that that is the most intimate abuse that can take place, because that part of a person's life is paralleled with the bride of Christ in the bridegroom. And that's if Satan can enter to the place of the most intimate place of worship and being and destroy that, he's got you. OK, so fast forward then to pornography.

How does it play a part? Not not every abuser has a pornography issue. But where they do, it's objectifying women. So now you guys know the work I've done. So when I was reading about some of the prisoners who were telling about what it was like to rape women, they saw her body parts and her sexuality as an objective thing, not a human thing.

They don't see her as a person. It is the same way in abuse. You are my piece of property. And then you can hear where that would come from years through centuries of Christianity, you know, saying, hey, you're my piece of property.

You behave like I tell you to be a woman. Keep your place kind of thing. And the fear of God if you don't do it. Right. So they they do that. But with pornography, it absolutely destroys the woman. And, you know, that that in and of itself is abusing the word of God. So, you know, when you take the scripture out of context. So that in and of itself is spiritual abusing, if you will.

Right. And so that that's very interesting, too, because, you know, the the abuser and I know you said you you've talked with the abuser. What is some of the maybe an example of someone or testimony that you have of someone? Well, let's let's take the one who is abused and then we'll take the abuser on maybe someone current or a story that you could share with her and the listening audience. Yeah.

And I'll do those very quickly, just because I want you to get the gist of it. Years ago, when I was really young, back in the nineteen hundreds, I keep coming to the nineteen hundreds that way back when in the 80s, in the first year that I was working in domestic violence and I had visited a woman in the hospital. She'd been beaten so badly that she had had to have surgery to remove her spleen. And she didn't want to talk to us because domestic violence was a term that people were just starting to hear. And there was a huge stigma. And Christians were particularly scared of of us because they thought we were feminists. And I am so not a feminist.

Let me just say that. And so I had a hard time kind of reaching her. I've left my information, but I was afraid to do that because if he found it, of course, you know, guess what happens when she gets home. And so I did get to talk with her one time and she said that she was getting counseling from her pastor and he advised her to do two things. And that was to pray harder for him and to love him to the Lord. Not a whole lot of instruction.

She did her best for two weeks and he cut her arm off at the shoulder. And so we give terrible you read the scripture, read your Bible more, pray harder, be more faithful, tithe more. Whatever it is that we guilt our our brothers and sisters into behaving better.

That's works. So anyway, I quit the field. I said my own brothers and sisters are killing each other. I can't handle this. It was shaking my world and not my faith in God because I didn't meet God in church at first.

So I had a relationship with God right away at 11. Fast forward to recently. We had a crisis call and the lady had been beaten. He'd punched her in the kidneys, a stomach kicked her in the head. Wouldn't go to the hospital. Wouldn't call law enforcement. Called our crisis line.

Was looking for a safe place to go while we were on the phone with her. He broke in and started assaulting her. We kept that phone line open. It got another phone called 911. And once KPD got there, they were able to stop him. But he was strangling her. So she would have been our next homicide statistic in North Carolina. Had we not been there and had and we love KPD, by the way, we work very closely with them. Those are that's a great department.

And so so that was one. And then one that's not a residential. She was able to get a job, but came to us and said, I have to get out, but I think I can do this on my own.

I don't need shelter. In six months time, she had a job. She had a car. She had a residence. She was getting financial assistance as far as education.

Dropped her credit score by 90 points and said it was the first time in her life that she felt safe, sane and happy. And so it gives you three different. Some is severe, some is not. And I've heard women say for years, I'd rather if he just hit me because I can recover from the bruises. I can't recover from the years of mental, you know, minimizing and damage and emotions. And they feel like they're damaged and can't have relationships, even though they desire to be in a good relationship with a man, because that's how God made us.

But they can't trust it. And and so sad. And that's something that I've seen what you what you just described, that when she attempts to find a relationship that is a God centered man who wants to do the right thing, she gets these flashbacks and and maybe even at times damages that relationship because now she sets up associations. So she sees something that he does and all of a sudden she get the flashback. And it's like, I wonder, is he like the one who I was with before? That type thing.

And so it's it's it's a very, very fine line and it's hard, very, very difficult for her to get back into that relationship. And as you mentioned, the trust factor. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's deception. And for some, it was a real slow, gradual thing.

And for others, they never saw it coming and just wham. Yeah. Yeah. So what's the youngest person that you've dealt with, Patty, as far as male or female? I would say teen dating violence. I mean, let's go. Wait, let's go where where it really starts. And it just develops. But I've seen it as young as 14, 15 years of age in relationships. Now, of course, children in domestic violence homes, you know, see it. But that's the other thing is, you know, we need to be reaching our young people and teaching them what is healthy, you know, relationships and what's not and what to look for. And to educate the parents because they're not paying attention either.

They don't even know what to look. Oh, but he's so sweet and such a nice young man. And he opens the doors for you while he's over here beating her up. And, you know, even even I think the church as a whole needs to understand, you know, some of these things that we're discussing today so they don't hinder the process of healing. You know, are we victimized? Exactly. Because we we have a tendency to sort of like regurgitate some of these things, you know, and we find out ourselves doing more damage because we simply don't understand the process on helping the the individual who was abused.

And they don't trust church. Exactly. Yeah. Especially if it's just been brushed under the rug.

Right. Of course, we're not going to trust. I guess we need to be very sensitive that as we were watching our brothers and sisters in church and out of church to look for the signals. But when we come back next week, Patty's going to join us again next week so we can continue this conversation.

We knew we wouldn't get it done in one program. So please join us next week for the part two of this series. And we're going to be focusing on the abuser. So men, listen up. We'll be back. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM talking and walking Christian men's ministry is building a community of men that are Christ followers with the desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk.