Every minute in the United States, 20 people suffer physical violence at the hands of a loved one and over ten million Americans are physically and emotionally abused by the people they love and trust.
How do you get yourself or someone you love out of a toxic relationship? And how do you stay out?
Whitney Amann explained in this Healthy Living.
From the outside, Mary Mitchell seemed to have it all. Beautiful home, great job, loving relationship. But Mary felt like she was hiding behind a mask. Her seven-year marriage ended and when she started a new relationship, she found herself with a violent and abusive partner.
Mary said, “It’s easier to have a bruised heel or a broken bone heal than it is to un-hear things.”
Many women who have been impacted by domestic violence now work as advocates and one of those women is Janie Lacy.
She said, “My sister, Carmen, she was murdered at the age of 19 by the father of her two children.”
Janie turned her grief into action. She earned her master’s degree in counseling psychology and became a licensed therapist. Five years ago, she started the group woman redeemed for women with a history of toxic relationships.
Lacy counsels her clients with a 90-day detox from their troubled relationship. She says days 14 through 21 are when clients are most vulnerable and most likely to reach out to their former significant other.
She said, “If we could get them through those 90 days and subside those efforts then we can start reprogramming their brain.”
If a friend or loved one is in a toxic relationship, Lacy advises people to not back away, but be quietly present. Send a text saying thinking of you to let that person know that you are there and they can open up to you.
If you need help or want information for a friend, call the national domestic violence hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
To learn more about services,
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