C's Story

When interviewed, C was a 20-year-old college student.
She states that her father was an alcoholic who physically
abused her mother. Although he never hit C, her father
would threaten to kill her mother and would pull out a
gun in her presence. When her mother tried to hide the gun,
he would beat her.

C states that her home was never a happy house. She never
had friends over to the house because her father was drunk
a lot. She notes that her mother largely ignored her during
the battles. Instead C, at age seven, was comforting her mother.
C found a little respite at her grandmother's house because that
is where all her friends were at.

Eventually, her mother divorced her father. C visited her father
every summer and hated it. She doesn't speak to her father now,
because she doesn't like to deal with him.


How was C affected by growing up in a violent home?

C states that she has blackouts. When she hears an old song, She sometimes gets an eerie feeling or feels confused and gets scared. C contends that she has "apparently inherited the family pattern of picking chaotic partners." She has had a lot of emotional abuse from her boyfriend, though he never hit her.Eventually she realized her boyfriend was not capable of treating her the way she wanted and deserved. She decided she was missing out because her boyfriend didn't show her half of what she gave him. Realizing he did not know how to love, she broke up with him.

At the age of twenty, she feels that she has had a little too many sex partners. Believing that if she gave a man sex first, he would not take the time to get to know her and not be able to hurt her.She at one time had a sexual relationship with a woman. C thought that maybe with a woman there would be a strong emotional connection. She confided that she ultimately found her to be as cold as a man. She ended the relationship because it was not what she thought it would be. The relationship was lacking the love and trust and support she wanted.

Today, C is maturing nicely. She reports that she is now going to church more, and feels this has helped her. She is trying to find a connection with God. She also wants to help teens so that they don't have to go through the same thing she did.