Pat Lawrence
 Elizabeth
Crawford
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Elizabeth Crawford spends her days helping women manage the aftermath
of domestic violence. She says, “There are reasons women keep
making the same bad choices. It isn’t just bad luck.”
Elizabeth is the director and primary counselor for the Domestic Violence
Counseling Center, a non-profit, community based program funded in
part by New Covenant Missionary Baptist Church. “Our goal
is to help people permanently break the cycle of violence. But, it’s
a complex problem and there are no simple answers.”
Elizabeth says “When people gravitate toward unhealthy partners,
it’s usually associated with childhood trauma or abuse that
has not been resolved. They return to bad relationships, not
because it feels good, but because it feels familiar.”
She says, “The acceptance of abuse is related to self esteem
and feeling worthless is a natural consequence of poor self esteem.
When a woman feels that she does have worth, she will no longer believe
she deserves abuse. We talk about it. We help her think differently,
feel differently and behave differently. Thinking differently can
give her courage and strength.”
A domestic violence survivor herself, Elizabeth understands the near
overwhelming conflicts that women recovering from abusive relationships
can experience. “There are also a lot of symptoms that may remain
– depression, anxiety, or nightmares where the abuse is replayed
over and over. Many women have developed addictions and inappropriate
defense mechanisms to cope.”
At the Center, Elizabeth develops a treatment plan and helps them
set goals. “It may be getting a GED, or taking vocational training,
going to college, or getting a job.”
The women that enter the program are taking control of their lives.
Elizabeth says, “Many have experienced layers and layers of
abuse. Verbal, emotional, sexual, or physical abuse all have the same
affect. It’s all damaging.”
Elizabeth says for African American women, discrimination can be
one more layer of abuse. “Encouraging a woman to leave her abusive
husband and get a job may be an even bigger challenge when she is
African-American. Plus, African American women often have a double
dose of low self esteem as a result of racism.”
Most of the women who come for counseling are out of their abusive
situation, but suffering from the consequences. “Women
hold on hard to what they want to believe; they spend a lot of energy
changing how they think.”
Elizabeth brings a personal perspective to her counseling –
she was married to an abusive spouse for five years. “I thought
I could change him, that if he would just quit drinking, it would
stop.” A professional woman with a good job, she says,
“I wasn’t dependent on him for money and we had no children
together. I entered counseling to understand why I stayed.”
The experience resulted in the desire to help other women in the same
way. She went back for a Masters degree in Community health.
As a registered behavior therapist, she has spent the past ten years
helping other women work out the issues of why they are staying.
The other clinic counselor sees children of domestic violence situations.
Since they are concerned with physical as well as emotional help,
Elizabeth will sometimes arrange for clients to see a local physician
or receive treatment from the WVU Behavioral Medicine Department
Counseling is by appointment only, usually for an hour the same time
each week. Some people remain in the program 2-3 years.
“They stay until they finish what they need to accomplish.”
Elizabeth says, “We are doing something different here.
Shelter and legal advocacy were being addressed in our community,
but the long-term effects of abusive situations were not. Abusers
are quick to recognize women who don’t feel good about themselves
so a woman must change how she thinks about herself or she can easily
fall into another unhealthy relationship. We have to break the
cycle of violence.”
For more information, contact the Domestic Violence Center, Charleston,
304-342-7752.
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