Ending the Cycle of Abuse in Indian Country: Part 2 - An abuser's story

(In this four part series, the different facets of abuse in Indian Country are explored with resources for combating them all.)

By Alyssa Kelly

When domestic violence is mentioned, the thought naturally settles on the victims of abuse. However, the abuser is just as human as the next and is capable of recovery and rehabilitation. In this part of this series, Mike tells his story and his struggle to exorcise his demons as an abuser.

Mike's Story:
Mike was raised by a single parent who is his aunt, he refers to as his " mom." Throughout his childhood he witnessed women in his family being abused as well as men in his family abusing their spouses. "When I was a kid and I saw that happen, at first I was scared. Then it just happened more and more and I just got used of it," Mike says. Both of Mike's real parents were alcoholics and neither was consistently in his life.

One of Mike's earliest memories of domestic violence occurred at a party that his real mother was having at her trailer. All of the people partying had crowded around the windows and so he followed. Mike saw his uncle and his uncle's then girlfriend, fighting to the point of blood being shed all over. "It was really bloody and they still wouldn't stop. Their punches were cutting each other open!" Mike recalls. At one point Mike's uncle even threw her through a wall in his grandmother's house. "They fought all the time like that."

Mike recalls another time when his "mom" and her then boyfriend had gotten into an argument. Mike's mom went into a blind rage and ripped the beak of her boyfriend's hat off while he was wearing it. She began punching and hitting him to the point where he knew he had to get out. He ran out of their house and tried to leave in his pick-up truck. Mike recalls seeing his mom get into her vehicle and smashing his truck with her car to make him stay. "He got away and she followed him. She chased him into town. All I could do was sit at my grandma's house and cry."

Several years later Mike began his own family and on one night he lost control following a long night of drinking. "I guess sometimes people get confused between the past and the present. I was letting my past interfere with my present life," Mike recalls. After the incident had happened his girlfriend ran away from him, "I just wanted everything to be normal again and she was too scared to listen." Even speaking about it slightly, Mike became emotional.

To this day, he doesn't like to discuss what happened, but it resulted in Mike going to jail for domestic abuse. "That night, I sobered up and I didn't really remember anything. All I knew was that I was in jail and I did something really bad," Mike recalls. While in jail, Mike thought about the situation he was in and how he allowed it to happen. "I thought of stuff I didn't think of at home. I wasn't thinking about drinking, getting high, or being crazy. I thought of trying to cure myself mentally. I wasn't mad at her (his girlfriend.) I was just mad and I've been mad for a while, ever since my grandma died. She was the only person that understood everything. My dad and my real mom were both drunks. A kid drinks and loses control from not having a good mom or dad. I just wanted things to be normal. I guess sometimes normal really isn't normal."

Once released from jail, Mike dealt with a lot of scrutiny from a lot of people in the community and felt that he'd lost a lot of respect. Aside from judgments, Mike needed to find a way to use his newfound state of mind in his "old" environment. "Now when I get mad I think of my 'mom' or my grandma, someone who wouldn't want me to be being that way," Mike says. His view on women has changed as well, "Women are beautiful, they're smart, and they're strong to bring us into this world. They deserve to be treated right. My woman helped me see that. A woman can help a man in no way that a dad could. My 'mom' showed me how to work hard and that's why I worked so hard at changing my mental state."

Mike's girlfriend had the opposite life than he did growing up; she didn't live in a violent home. "When my woman told me her view of that night, I realized that she felt like I did when I was seeing abuse for the first time as a kid: really scared. I didn't want to make her feel like that ever. I felt bad for bringing my childhood into our home." Although he and his girlfriend did reunite, it was no easy task for the couple to mend the wounds that had been caused that night. "In a way I would say that in one night she didn't love me like she did before. She didn't trust me like she used to either," Mike says. Things didn't fully come to a functional state until a little over a year later. "We both had a lot of healing to do from that night, and it took a long time. I think because of that night, it caused even more problems in our relationship that we needed to get over."

To improve Mike's state, he did all he could to control his substance abuse problem and stopped hanging around with his negative and violent friends; he also gave up his violent music. "Now I focus on working to succeed for my family and positive friends." Mike has also focused on being independent. He found a job and he is saving to buy his own vehicle. "I would say the real inspiration for change was my baby girl. She is so innocent and I don't want her to have a childhood like mine. I don't want her to think that, that is normal or be beaten by a man," Mike says. Although Mike is making an attempt in overcoming his abusive behavior on his own, it is only the beginning of his journey. According to Science Direct, a person can only truly overcome their violent behavior through extensive professional counseling, which Mike has yet to be involved in.

Although abusive behavior in batterers is possible to overcome, it can be a life long struggle. According to studies conducted at the University of Western Ontario focused on finding the perception of batterers who succeed in changing their behavior, the studies found that "most participants had a general agreement of what helped them change and theories of abuse development and behavior change." The four factors that stood out as the most important to the men in changing were as following:
-Recognizing and taking responsibility for past abusive behavior:
  • This was achieved in treatment through discussions with group facilitators and listening to the experiences of other group members.
-Developing empathy for others, most specifically, for intimate partners :
  • In particular, participants came to understand how fear, intimidation and the cumulative effect of "controlling behaviors" had affected their relationships with intimate partners.
-Reducing dependency:
  • This issue included accepting sole responsibility to change abusive behavior, and that their intimate partners were autonomous beings with a right to feelings, to make decisions and to have privacy about those feelings and decisions.
-Improving skills for communicating needs, feelings and other difficult topics :
  • Most importantly:
  • Anger management
  • Conflict management and resolution
  • Learning how to listen to partners during difficult discussions
  • Learning how to share feelings and have intimate conversations

There is help for local Native men wanting to overcome their abusive behavior through the Tribal Mental Health Department. The Batter Intervention on Power and Control Group meets for 12 weeks, 2 hours daily. The group focuses on the batterers' control issues and personal abuse experiences. They also offer tribally specific information to the group members.

For more information on the group, contact Kim Azure at 745-436