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The pandemic and domestic abuse/violence: Crises feeding off each other

It’s been called the pandemic within the pandemic.

Along with the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic producing trends going nearly straight up, charting numbers of cases, hospitalizations and deaths, the number of incidents of domestic abuse and violence is following suit across the country.

Police departments, shelters and advocates, reporting a spike in cases, note that the pandemic and the increase in spousal abuse and violence cannot be separated. And the East End and Shelter Island haven’t been spared the emotional misery and physical dangers.

Advocates for victims are also reporting newer forms of abuse, through social media and GPS tracking, and warned that the holiday season marks an annual period of increased suffering for many individuals and families.

According to the Shelter Island Police Department, officers made 39 calls relating to domestic abuse from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30 this year, compared with 13 for 2019 and 13 in 2018 for the same periods.

Statistics from the Police Department show that from Jan. 1 to May 18 this year, officers responded to 15 calls for domestic abuse; so, during the following six months, calls more than doubled.

What the police call “mental health transports” — some stemming from family abuse incidents —  to Stony Brook University Hospital numbered 20 from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30 this year, while the same transports for the previous two years were four each.

“The stressors of COVID-19 and its relationship to other community concerns are considerable,” Police Chief Jim Read has said. “In some of the cases it’s hard to draw a direct connection to COVID-19, but when you look at the totals for the year to date and compare them to prior years, it would be hard to deny that there is not some direct correlation.”

Shelter Island Town Social Worker Lucille Buergers has assisted individuals, she said, “with situations that were difficult, and maintained contact with them until there was some resolution.”

Ms. Buergers said those resolutions included: family intervention; obtaining orders of protection; pressing charges; helping people remove themselves from dangerous situations; referrals to shelters and other resources. 

“I’ve also offered emotional support and education about signs of abuse, intimidation, harassment, and other symptoms associated with abusive relationships,” she added.

The emotional toll produced by pandemic-related isolation led to an increased sense of feeling trapped and heightened tension within some relationships, Ms. Buergers said, revealing “to the victims even more insight into the toxic nature of certain behaviors and personality qualities that became increasingly more intolerable. The use of alcohol and other drugs played a part in the escalation of the abuse. Financial worries also added to the mix, since less money coming in has made things more difficult.”

An ominous quiet

In the spring, when the pandemic resulted in business and school shutdowns and office closures, the number of calls to the hotline dropped at The Retreat, an East-Hampton-based nonprofit that assists families throughout the East End who are experiencing abusive situations.

But it wasn’t a mystery why the 24-hour bilingual hotline went colder than normal. Kimberly Nichols, director of development for The Retreat, said it was because it was difficult for many women — and impossible for others — to make contact since they were literally “right next to their abusers” in the house all day and all night. 

The Retreat offers a host of services from relocating or giving shelter to women and children who need to flee abuse, to providing counseling services to the entire family, sometimes together and other times individually. It also offers legal advocacy services and prevention education.

After the spring cool-down of people seeking help, the numbers have risen since the economy opened up and victims of abuse could get out of the house, or their abusers were back at work.

Regina Mysliborski, who lives on Shelter Island and is the director of counseling at The Retreat, said that calls and referrals to the organization went up when women in need of help found ways to call. Cars in particular, she said, returned as places of privacy for a woman to make contact.

Unhappy holidays

And now, another grim headland is on the horizon for advocates with the Christmas season in full swing, Ms. Nichols said.

The University of Bristol’s Center for Gender and Violence (U.K.) has done research showing that domestic violence and abuse always spikes during holidays and vacations, when a family is together over longer periods of time.

“Things begin to settle down right before the holidays,” Ms. Nichols said, “It’s like, ‘Let’s make peace, let’s get through the holidays together.’ Then Christmas Eve and Christmas Day comes, expectations are higher than can be met, people are together more, and we see the hotline numbers go up.”

Vicki Cooper, The Retreat’s director of its six-bedroom, three-bathroom, 18-bed shelter, agreed. The shelter is often full of people of “every age, from infants to our oldest client, who was 76,” Ms. Cooper said. “It’s people of every religious and ethnic background.”

Last week there were several families at the shelter and two single people seeking relief from abusive situations, for a total of 10 residents. COVID-19 protocols are strictly enforced, Ms. Cooper said, including wearing masks in common areas, social distancing, and no singles are placed in the same bedroom. Children study remotely and are engaged in projects with social workers.

Ms. Mysliborski, the counseling director, noted that she and her colleagues’ work is all “client centered. Our goal is to educate, to help them understand the nuances of the situation, that they are not responsible for the situation. We focus on self-esteem, that there should be no shame attached, and how an abuser affects the way they think. We concentrate on building their strengths and offer parenting skills, how to set boundaries and support their children.”

Techology and abuse

Technology is a new frontier abusers are crossing, Ms. Mysliborski said. With social media it’s easy to sully a person’s reputation, and with some apps and GPS it’s a simple step to begin stalking someone. In many ways this is worse than looking over your shoulder to see if someone’s following you, she said, because it can happen at any time, even when you’re feeling safe at home, and it sometimes can be worse than being present with an abuser.

“A lot of times you can have a sense of something coming if you’re right across from an abuser, but with technology, you have no idea when it’s going to strike,” Ms. Mysliborski said.

The mental and emotional toll can be severe, altering victims’ mental states and lifestyles. According to Romeo Vitelli, Ph.D., who has studied the phenomena, “victims are far more likely to report depressive and [physical] symptoms, sleep problems, and generally lower well-being than non-victims. Victims are also far more likely to take defensive actions, such as taking time off from work or school, changing jobs or schools, and even moving away from family and friends to avoid contact with their stalker.”  

Ms. Mysliborski counsels those finding themselves in a cyber world of menace and threat “to shut down social media like Instagram and Facebook. You don’t have to keep a profile open. Be careful in changing, but get new phone numbers. And remember, you’re not responsible for these attacks.”

Multi-tiered approach

The Retreat does much more than the essential work of sheltering and protecting individuals and families from an immediate threat. Ms. Nichols pointed to the efforts The Retreat is engaged in to “find ways to allow people to access us, to engage them in other ways than just the hotline.”

The drop in calls for help in the spring because of people isolated with their abusers turned the organization toward new methods of communication, so a chat function was set up on the organization’s website. “It’s a way to reach out, even if you’re not ready to make a decision,” Ms. Nichols said.

Looking at the data from the communication, the staff found that “the only thing people have in common is that they’re surprised it is happening to them,” Ms. Nichols said, even when the national statistics find one in four women experience some form of domestic abuse.

Ms. Nichols began her career with The Retreat 10 years ago and in that time she’s seen a sea change of what the organization does for the community. “Then, it was all about crisis intervention and emergency service,” she said. “Today, half of our focus is on prevention, education in schools and colleges, working with businesses and legal advocates through the court system. It’s amazing, for example, what we can do with orders of protection.”

The latter action has been a singular success, Ms. Nichols said, with a 90% success rate in securing orders of protection from the courts. General attorney services have increased by about 20% over last year, she added, with lawyers working on cases involving child custody and support payments, getting eviction moratoriums and helping clients with unemployment benefits.

Over the past decade, there have been signs of hope that physical and emotional violence can be curbed. “Ten years ago, no one wanted to talk about this,” Ms. Nichols said. “It was all behind closed doors. But now, that’s not there as much, and people know it’s O.K. to talk about it.”

She mentioned high-profile celebrities who have discussed their own stories as also encouraging people to come forward.

“But it has not gone away,” Ms. Nichols said.

The Retreat’s 24-hour bilingual hotline: 631-329-2200. Website: theretreatinc.org/contact-us/

A survivor’s story: One woman’s ordeal with domestic abuse

“It starts slowly,” Southampton resident Nicole Behrens said. “It doesn’t happen overnight.”

Nicole Behrens (Courtesy Photo)

She was speaking about the domestic abuse and terror she suffered over a period of years. And the fact that her situation didn’t became absolutely clear to her, she said, “until the gun came out.”

The assistant vice president and senior financial adviser with Southampton’s The Gray Wealth Management Group said that, even after going to get an order of protection against her husband, she couldn’t quite believe what had happened to her.

“When I went into the lobby of family court,” she remembered, “I was telling myself, ‘No, I don’t belong here. I have a good career, a nice home, I drive a nice car, I have a close family.’”

Repeating what domestic abuse counselors say is a phrase almost all victims say, Ms. Behrens said, “I never thought it would happen to someone like me.”

Her years-long ordeal started with issues of nonviolent controlling by her boyfriend, who then became her husband, and escalated during an argument when articles of clothes were thrown at her.

One night, the true extent of her abuser’s rage emerged. It was before she was married to her husband and they were living with two male roommates. She was cooking spaghetti with one of them, having a good time, when her then-boyfriend came home drunk and went to their room to go to sleep.

“Later he came flying out of the bedroom and grabbed me by my clothes and dragged me into the bedroom and told me to lie down on the floor like a dog next to the bed and if I moved he’d kill me,” she said.

Then began a familiar process of making up, of begging for forgiveness and promises to never act that way again.

“Abusers spend a lot energy trying to get the right balance back,” Ms. Behrens said. “They become so sorry, so loving. It’s such a mind game. You don’t even know what’s happening. You feel guilty yourself.”

The abuse and violence often escalates, she added, when victims don’t accept the abusers apologies and excuses.

The final break was a terrifying Easter Sunday, 20 years ago, when they’d been married and had a three-year-old daughter. Her husband was screaming, so enraged he took a piece of outside furniture and broke it over their dog. He asked where the gun was, which Ms. Behrens had earlier removed from the house, so he got a shotgun he owned and began putting it together.

“I walked into the bedroom, and asked, ‘Are you going to kill me?’”

“No,” he replied.

“Are you going to kill yourself?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She remembers walking from the room as calmly as she could, picking up her daughter and going out the front door to get into the car and drive away. She immediately felt terrified hearing the click of the front door opening behind her.

Her husband was then next to her, telling her to get away from the car. He got in and drove off.

After calling her father and the police, she moved out.

Her father insisted she get an attorney, but she was worried about any advice about getting an order of protection. “I thought that would make him even angrier,” she said, but soon followed her attorney’s advice and went to court.

Grueling sessions began of telling her story multiple times, to court reporters, attorneys and judges. One day, sitting and waiting for a conference, she was approached by a woman who said, “Hi, I’m Wendy Russo from The Retreat,” and handed Ms. Behrens her card.

“I had no idea what The Retreat was,” she said. “I was upset and asked her why she had approached me.”

“I’m here for you,” Ms. Russo told her.

They started speaking and soon “I just began sobbing out years and years,” Ms. Behrens said.

After counseling and putting her life together for herself and her daughter, Ms. Behrens began volunteering at The Retreat to help others. She eventually was on the nonprofit’s Board of Directors, and served four years as president and four years as treasurer.

She still has the card that Ms. Russo presented to her in the lobby of the court 20 years ago, and keeps it with her.