The first part of the two-part documentary mini-series directed by Amy Berg debuts on HBO Max on Tuesday night.

Billboard/March 15, 2022

By Gil Kaufman

Evan Rachel Wood appeared on The Daily Show on Monday night (March 14) to talk about the 16-year journey she took to confronting her alleged abuser and the reason she hopes her new two-part documentary, Phoenix Rising, could help other people who feel trapped in a cycle of abuse come forward and speak their truth.

“I don’t believe that he will stop until he is stopped,” she said of Marilyn Manson, her former fiancé, who she claims in the film methodically groomed her when she 18 and isolated her before allegedly subjecting the Westworld star to ritualistic abuse. “And sometimes the greatest act of love is stopping that person from hurting themselves or hurting anybody else.”

The nearly three-hour mini-series, directed and produced by acclaimed Oscar-nominated filmmaker Amy Berg (best known for her Catholic church sex abuse film Deliver Us From Evil and the sex abuse in Hollywood doc An Open Secret), premieres on HBO Max tonight (March 15). The first part chronicles Wood’s rise in Hollywood as a 13-year-old star-in-the-making and her chance meeting with Manson (born Brian Warner) at a party when she was 18. In the film she describes how that evening turned into a years-long relationship and engagement with the decades-older rocker that she claims included vicious sexual, physical and emotional abuse, including alleged anti-Semitic taunts and threats against the actress, who is Jewish; Manson has repeatedly denied the allegations and earlier this month sued Wood for defamation over the accusations, which the suit claimed is part of an “organized attack.”

Wood explained why she thinks it took 16 years for her to open up about her alleged abuse at the hands of Manson, who has also been accused of similar acts by a number of other women, which he has also denied. “You’re running, you’re trying to forget it happened, and then, of course, it catches up with you and I couldn’t run from it,” Wood said, explaining that she threw herself into therapy after years of vowing to “take it to my grave” over her fears about making her experience public. “I was that afraid of retaliation, I just did not feel safe and I felt very alone. I thought I was the only one.”

The latter sentiment is one she’s said is common among survivors of abuse, another reason she decided to share her story. After testifying in front of Congress for the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights in 2018, Wood said she thought she had said all there was to say, though at the time she did not publicly reveal her alleged abuser. But when people began emerging online with similar stories, with “very specific details,” she said she recognized as things you could not know unless you’d stood toe-to-toe with your abuser, she knew she had to break her silence.

“I knew it was real, and that’s when it changed,” she told Noah, adding that the film also tackles Manson’s own self-reported history of childhood trauma because, “I do believe in accountability and healing and reform and I think there is a time and a space for that.” Without going to the root of violence in the home, Wood said, we cannot see that “violence begets violence.”

“There are people who can stop the cycle and there are people, like Brian,” she said, naming Manson for the first and only time using his birth name more than half-way into the interview. “That don’t want help. And he’s had every opportunity. He’s had so many people try. And he has refused it every time.”

Wood also noted that the statute of limitations on sexual abuse was one-to-three years when she started advocating for the Phoenix Act in California — though she said it often takes 7-10 years to “process, understand and heal” from trauma — a time frame she described as “nothing” to a survivor still trying to come to terms with the physical, mental and emotional impact of abuse.

She pointed out that she spent a total of four years with “him” (presumably Manson), someone she called expert at “brainwashing” and isolation, comparing that time to being in a cult. “When you’re in it, you can’t see the forest through the trees, up is down, down is up. It’s you two against the world and it is a secret that nobody will ever be able to understand,” she said. “And you gotta to break free of that illusion, and it takes time.”

Miki Garcia was a Playmate and head of promotions from 1973 to 1982

Independent, UK/January 25, 2022

By Clémence Michallon

A former Playmate has denounced the “cult-like atmosphere” she says Hugh Hefner cultivated around him.

Miki Garcia was a Playmate and head of promotions from 1973 to 1982. She’s one of the participants in Secrets of Playboy, a new documentary about Hefner and Playboy set to start airing on A&E.

The documentary series features several former members of Hefner’s entourage, reflecting and sharing their accounts of the culture they say Hefner created at the Playboy mansion starting in the Seventies.

“It was cult-like,” Garcia says at one point. “The women had been groomed and led to believe they were part of this family. And he really did believe he owned these women.”

She adds: “We had Playmates that overdosed. There were Playmates that committed suicide.”

Garcia says she thought about writing a book, because she thought “maybe all of this stuff would go away” if she did.

“Hefner even sent someone to buy me off,” she says. “When you get someone that powerful to be that fearful, anything could happen. Anything. I had a bodyguard. I was that afraid.”

Through a mix of interviews and archival footage, Secrets of Playboy , a 10-hour documentary series, will explore “how the Playboy machine was a powerful force that, at its worst, manipulated women in a toxic environment, silencing their voices, pitting them against one another, and opening the door to sexual predators”, according to A&E.

Ahead of the documentary’s release, the PLBY Group, the company behind the magazine and its related properties, issued an open letter seeking to separate the current Playboy magazine from Hefner, who died in 2017 aged 91.

“We want to reach out to you in light of the forthcoming A&E docuseries that we understand will recount allegations of abhorrent actions by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner and others,” the statement reads in part.

“First and foremost, we want to say: we trust and validate women and their stories, and we strongly support the individuals who have come forward to share their experiences. As a brand with sex positivity at its core, we believe safety, security and accountability are paramount, and anything less is inexcusable.”

It adds: “As you know, the Hefner family is no longer associated with Playboy, and today’s Playboy is not Hugh Hefner’s Playboy.”

“Please join us in doing the most important thing we can do right now — listen,” the statement goes on. “It is critically important that we listen as these women share their stories and that we continue to fight harassment and discrimination in all its forms, support healing and education, redefine tired and sexist definitions of beauty and advocate for inclusivity across gender, sexuality, race, age, ability, and zip codes.”

Secrets of Playboy started airing with a two-hour premiere on A&E on Monday (24 January) at 9pm ET/PT. The programme will also be available on demand and to stream on aetv.com and on the A&E app. New episodes will keep airing on Mondays until the finale on 21 March.

Irish Examiner/January 22, 2021

By Liz Dunphy and Brion Hoban

A landmark sentencing, in a case tried under relatively new domestic abuse legislation, is “a shot across the bows to all abusers,” a leading domestic abuse charity has said.

Daniel Kane, 52, was convicted of coercively controlling and repeatedly assaulting his former partner during a domestic reign of terror in which he sliced her skin with a pizza cutter, fractured multiple bones, attacked her after surgery, burned her foot and stamped on her head.

Kane was sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in prison, with two years suspended.

He is the first person to be convicted of coercive control by a jury following a trial.

The successive attacks and demeaning verbal and psychological abuse “sucked the life and soul of confidence” out of his victim and shattered her sense of self-worth.

She became “meek and submissive” and said in her victim impact statement that she “might be dead or in a vegetative state” if doctors and gardaí had not intervened to get her away from Kane.

But Kane’s sentence tells abusers “very clearly that they can no longer control, stalk, assault, isolate or degrade a woman with impunity,” Mary McDermott, CEO of domestic abuse charity, Safe Ireland, said.

“What was once secret and privatised, is now public. In Ireland, the coercion and assault of any human being is a crime.

“Living in a ‘lockdown time’ we are gaining ever greater understandings of these household traumas and imprisonment.

Women’s Aid, a frontline organisation that supported the victim in this case, also welcomed the sentencing.

Sarah Benson, chief executive of Women’s Aid said:

“It is a pattern of multiple manipulative behaviours used by one party to wear down, isolate and completely control another.

“Today’s sentencing sends out a strong signal to domestic abusers. Coercive control is a serious crime and it will be treated as such by the gardaí and the courts.”

January 19, 2021

By Louise McEvoy

Lockdown provides the perfect opportunity for young people to re-evaluate their relationships and take potentially life-changing steps to cut toxic ties with people.

This is according to Stevenage mum Marilyn Hawes, the founder of Freedom of Abuse, who is dedicated to protecting children from abuse in all its forms, through outreach work which includes visiting schools to give talks.

Marilyn is encouraging teenagers to use the space and distance from their friends, girlfriends or boyfriends during lockdown to think carefully about whether those relationships are healthy or not.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Marilyn trialled a course at two Stevenage secondary schools – Nobel and Marriotts – called Beauty or the Beast, which compared toxic relationships with healthy ones.

She said: “There is so much emphasis in schools about healthy relationships, but young people need to understand a toxic relationship so they can make an informed decision. They don’t understand coercive control, gaslighting or love bombing, for instance.”

Coercive control is an act – or a pattern of acts – of assault, threats, humiliation or intimidation that is used to harm, punish or frighten. Gaslighting is a form of psychological abuse where a person makes someone question their sanity, perception of reality, or memories. Love bombing is the practice of showering a person with excessive affection and attention in order to gain control or significantly influence their behaviour.

Marilyn said: “It need not be a romantic relationship – some friendships can be toxic. It’s not about gender or sexuality.
“Our evaluations showed young people felt their PSHE – personal, social, health and economic – education was too focused on healthy relationships. If a youngster is living in a domestic abuse situation, the toxicity becomes normal and is the most repeated abuse later in life. Contrary to this, if a child lives in a happy, balanced home environment, how can they compare a toxic one?

“Following the course, we received many disclosures of teens experiencing issues, and also those who were alerted and made aware of peers they could support.

“We also explain that anyone who is a domestic abuser needs help. Fundamentally, there are deep-seated issues, many of which will go back to their own childhood trauma.”

Steve Morley, assistant headteacher and head of safeguarding at Nobel, said a number of parents, as well as students, made disclosures about domestic abuse as a result of Marilyn’s course.

Lesley Tether, assistant headteacher and head of safeguarding at Marriotts, added: “We have worked closely with Marilyn to educate our students regarding important safeguarding issues. With Years 10 to 13, Marilyn has covered controlling relationships, dating violence and, importantly, the red flags to be aware of. We had a number of disclosures following these talks, and the course has helped open the discussion to an otherwise taboo subject. Marilyn also has extensive knowledge on grooming, the dark web and criminal exploitation. In the current climate these talks are essential to any school.”

Marilyn said: “What is concerning is young people’s lack of knowledge regarding coercive control. It is easy to confuse possessiveness and jealousy with caring and being protective. During lockdown is a great opportunity – giving personal space – to review who is in your life and whether they should be.

“Are you with someone who makes you feel you are wrong? Someone who easily sulks and keeps it up for days? Someone possessive and jealous?

“Leaving it in the hope things will settle down gives a message you are OK with it, and in reality things will just become worse, so you feel trapped. Discuss it with the person and watch their reaction. If they refuse to hear what you are saying then just walk away – amputate them from your life rather than let them drag you down.”

NBC News/February 9, 2018

By Elizabeth Chuck

The White House staff secretary who resigned following allegations of domestic abuse has put a spotlight on “incredibly common” patterns of violence against partners, experts say.

The allegations surfaced Tuesday against Rob Porter, an influential senior aide in the Trump administration, from two ex-wives: Jennifer Willoughby and Colbie Holderness. Both told DailyMail.com that Porter was verbally and physically abusive, with the abuse beginning on their honeymoons. They confirmed their account of their allegations to NBC News.

Porter has denied the allegations as “simply false” and “outrageous.”

“I have been transparent and truthful about these vile claims, but I will not further engage publicly with a coordinated smear campaign,” Porter said. Some in the White House were quick to jump to his defense.

Regardless, experts say the case brings attention to how misunderstood domestic violence is, and shows how hard it is for women to speak out against a spouse.

While domestic violence can begin at any point in a relationship, it’s a “very common story that it’s only after the couple are married that the violence, or certainly the more severe physical violence, begins,” said Kiersten Stewart, director of public policy at Futures Without Violence, a national nonprofit dedicated to ending violence against women and children. She added that sometimes the abuser has been emotionally controlling or verbally abusive before then.

“There’s no one trajectory of violence, but that is not uncommon at all,” Stewart said.

Victims also feel less inclined to leave once they’re in a long-term, committed relationship, said Cindy Southworth, the executive vice president of National Network to End Domestic Violence.

“You’re not as likely to walk away because you’re already invested. You’re on your honeymoon,” Southworth said.

Porter’s ex-wives have not alleged abusive behavior prior to their honeymoons. In a blog post, Willoughby said Porter cursed at her on their honeymoon and a month later “physically prevented me from leaving the house.” She also described Porter allegedly punching glass in front of her and yanking her out of the shower to yell at her, all the while presenting a wholesome public persona.

“Everyone loved him. People commented all the time how lucky I was. Strangers complimented him to me every time we went out. But in my home, the abuse was insidious. The threats were personal. The terror was real. And yet I stayed,” she wrote.

The experts say a dual personae is often seen in abusers, and makes the victim less believable when she comes forward.

“That’s incredibly common and, sadly, why abusers often get away with it for so long,” Stewart said. “It’s one of the things that women who are victims struggle with the most. They’re often just not believed. So often, people say, why doesn’t she just leave or try to get help? She often does. But people don’t believe her.”

Domestic violence is alarmingly common: One in four women will experience severe physical violence from a partner at some point in her lifetime, according to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. But experts fear it’s misunderstood.

“I do think that we struggle with the perception that we solved domestic violence, that this is a problem of the past, or that certain groups of people struggle with it, and that’s not true at all,” Stewart said.

In reality, according to Southworth of National Network to End Domestic Violence, “It cuts across every education and income level, race, class — you name it.”

Domestic violence isn’t only physical, although many people, including victims themselves, mistakenly believe it to be, Southworth said. Victims often dismiss other abusive tactics, such as a husband forbidding his wife from seeing her family or friends, that predicate any physical violence.

“There are other subtle things happening, and because they’re so subtle, they’re not so obvious,” she said.

And domestic abuse isn’t an anger problem, even though it sometimes appears like one.

“Instead, it’s this deep-ingrained belief that ‘I’m entitled to do this to you because I own you,'” Southworth said.

BBC News/January 17, 2018

When two women wrote about how they had been “gaslighted” – made to question their sanity by an abusive partner – many readers, male and female, got in touch to share similar experiences. Here, three of them explain how they were left feeling utterly isolated.

I moved from southern England to a small Scottish village to be with the love of my life, a handsome and charming man who made me feel more alive and special than I ever thought possible.

Just before I moved, a friend said he thought my boyfriend wouldn’t be happy until he had me living in the middle of nowhere, far away from anyone and all to himself. At the time I laughed it off but it turned out it couldn’t have been more true.

At first he was completely attentive. He worked away as a lorry driver but he called every morning, throughout the day and last thing at night. I thought this was really nice of him but I started to notice he was really ratty if I missed a call because I was in the bathroom or in a shop. He became more and more short-tempered when I told him I had begun to make friends, causing us to have arguments on the phone.

One day, after he had left for work, a woman from the village asked if I would like to go round to her house for some wine. I had a really nice evening. When I got home, my mobile had several missed calls and many text messages. I had left it behind and not thought about it. The text messages started off asking why I wasn’t answering the phone, and descended into calling me all sorts of horrible names, accusing me of being out with other men and so on. I couldn’t believe what I was reading – this had come out of nowhere. I sent him a text explaining where I had been. He immediately called and shouted at me for 10 minutes, not letting me speak.

These arguments would make me feel terrible and he would blame me for not being able to concentrate or sleep because he was worrying about me, and therefore a danger on the road. But then he would send lavish flowers and I would feel grateful he wasn’t angry with me any longer. I lived in a constant state of confusion and worry, never knowing what I had done to make him angry, and worried in case he had an accident.

Another time, when he was home, I was walking up the lane to our house when the farmer who owned the land stopped by. We leaned over the farm gate and had a long chat, looking out at the beautiful view. When I went into the house my boyfriend was sitting in a chair, staring at me. He kept denying there was something wrong, but he wouldn’t speak to me and kept glaring. Eventually he said he knew what had been going on all this time – I was making a fool of him and having an affair with the farmer! I couldn’t believe my ears, but he wouldn’t listen to me.

I soon stopped visiting my friends in the village. I didn’t dare go out in the evenings because he would call the house phone to check where I was. He didn’t like me going out to work either, so I was pretty much stuck at home in the middle of nowhere. In some ways it was a relief because I didn’t have to pretend to people that all was well.

I spent the next nine years walking on eggshells, never knowing if I was doing the right thing or the wrong thing in his eyes. His ultimate punishment was to attempt suicide. He did this more than once after an argument, which completely destroyed my confidence in myself. I was a confident, independent person when we met, and by the time he eventually left me I was a shell.

He would also try to make me think I had gone mad by claiming I had said things that I knew I hadn’t.

Silly things, like I’d make spaghetti Bolognese and he’d accuse me of adding carrots just to upset him, even though I followed the same recipe every time. Or he would say I hadn’t cleaned a room when I had, and would clean it all over again.

Taken individually, those incidents seem stupid and trivial but he would be so convincing that I would start to question myself. I actually thought there was something wrong with my memory.

I couldn’t argue any more. I couldn’t get my brain to think of a good response because his arguments were completely irrational. It was easier to just agree. I became a quiet, dull person – a shadow of my former self.

What is gaslighting?

• The term comes from a 1938 stage play Gas Light in which a husband attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane – when he dims the gas lights, he insists she’s imagining it

• It is one tactic of coercive and controlling behaviour that aims to make a victim doubt themselves, their perception of events and even their own sanity, with devastating consequences, says Katie Ghose, chief executive of Women’s Aid

• Techniques include calling into question the victim’s memory of an incident, trivialising a victim’s thoughts or feelings, accusing the victim of lying or making things up, denying things like promises that have been made, and mocking the victim for their “misconceptions”

• Some of the signs to watch out for include: feeling confused, continually apologising to your partner, having trouble making simple decisions, and withholding information from friends and family so you don’t have to make excuses for your partner

• Am I in an abusive relationship?

I didn’t really look like myself either – he didn’t like me going to get a haircut because I had a male hairdresser, so I started cutting my own hair. I stopped wearing make-up or high heels. If I wore nice clothes, I was “dressing up” for somebody. I had to think about everything I did.

Before, I was confident, I was always happy, always laughing. If I laughed at something on TV, he would get angry – he thought I was laughing at him.

I trained myself not to be happy. Friends of mine have said, “How on Earth do you do that?” But it’s the only way to cope. If you don’t let yourself be happy, you can’t get too hurt or upset by what’s happening to you. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, looking back.

I made two failed attempts to leave. But mostly I felt like I’d made my bed with this person, and I had given up too much to be with him. I hoped it would all turn around and it would be OK – but it never was. It’s a bit like a dog that isn’t treated well – it stays loyal to the person that feeds him.

The day he told me we were splitting up I thought I had won the lottery but a few months later, he decided he wanted to get back together. When I refused, he tried to lure me back to the house. That was really quite scary. He was on a mission – if he couldn’t have me, then nobody could. I was afraid he was going to kill us both.

I spent about three years hiding from him, constantly moving house. I completely disappeared.

What I didn’t realise was that it would take years for me to get back to being myself and repair the damage he did to me.

I will never forgive him and I’m telling my story so that hopefully it might help somebody else.

Caroline, UK

Irish Eaminer/July 12, 2015

The man whose ex-partner accused him of punching her in the face in a viral video this week, has admitted that he did use violence against her.

In an interview published today, Francis Usanga said: “I lost the head and basically pushed her straight in the face. I shoved her in the face. It was a real forceful shove in the face. I connected with her face.

“I didn’t use a fist. I didn’t use a fist to punch her you know, because if I think I used a fist to punch her, even though she was severely damaged, I think her face would have been…”
He then cuts off, before adding: “It was uncalled for, I don’t condone it.

“It was very hard. I pushed her really hard in the face. It was so quick that it would have been the strongest part of my hand, it was with an open hand.

“It was more of a push, a real hard push. It was pretty violent and there’s no excuse at all and I’m extremely sorry for that.”

Usanga added in the interview with the Sunday World newspaper: “No man should hit a woman. It was a situation where I was in the wrong”.

In the video uploaded this week to facebook and YouTube, Emma Murphy had a visible black eye, which she claimed was caused when her now-ex partner Usanga hit her. She describes finding out he had been cheating on her with a woman who is now pregnant.

When she went to confront him, she says he hit her in the face.

The powerful video has been viewed almost six million times, has attracted international attention and has generated thousands of likes and comments, with many praising Ms Murphy’s courage in coming forward.

Speaking to 98FM this week, Ms Murphy said that she has filed a report against Usanga to the Gardaí.

In the emotional interview, she also said she still has feelings for him but that she will never go back to him as filming the video gave her closure.

“At the moment I still have feelings for him and I still love him… when somebody hits you, you just don’t stop loving them,” she said.

She said she had posted the Facebook video to raise awareness of physical and mental abuse because she strongly believed no man should hit a woman. She said the other reason was to make certain that she would never go back to Usanga.

She said posting the video had nothing to do with revenge on her Usanga. “(I did this) for me…Enough was enough. Hitting a woman is wrong. Full stop,” she said.

“The main reason to post the video was I would always have chased him (previously). I knew by posting that video that that was that. That was the nail in the coffin. By posting that video I knew there was no going back…That was it for us.”

She said she had given him a number of chances in the past. Explaining why she took him back on those occasions, she said:”I felt weak…I loved him.”

She has two young children with Usanga.

She said domestic abuse can be very complicated, and explained: “He was the love of my life (and) I still love him. When someone hits you, you don’t just stop loving them…You don’t just wake up one morning and have no feelings for him.”

She said the worst aspect of the three-year relationship was that she lost confidence, friends and some family who did not want her to be with him after he told her her insecurities would eat her up. She described this as “mental torture”

New York Times/January 17, 2007

New York — Joel Steinberg, the disbarred lawyer who served 17 years in prison for killing his illegally adopted daughter, must pay $15 million to the girl’s birth mother, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The appeals court affirmed a lower court decision to award Michele Launders $5 million for 6-year-old Lisa Steinberg’s pain and suffering, $5 million for pain and suffering ”as a battered child” and $5 million in punitive damages.

Joel Steinberg argued the award was excessive and should be reduced because Lisa died relatively quickly, after ”at most eight hours of pain and suffering.”

”We disagree, and in simply so stating acknowledge that sometimes words fail even those who use the language to render judgments on a daily basis,” the court wrote.

Steinberg got Lisa as a days-old infant from Launders, at the time an unwed teen, who paid him $500 in legal fees to arrange an adoption. Instead, Steinberg took the baby home to Hedda Nussbaum, his live-in companion.

After Lisa’s death at Steinberg’s hands on November 1987, Launders filed wrongful-death lawsuits against Steinberg, Nussbaum and New York City the following year. The action against Nussbaum was settled. The city settled with Launders in 1999 for $985,000 while admitting no wrongdoing.

Steinberg, 65, was released from prison in June 2004 and is on parole until 2012. Launders’ lawyer, Wayne J. Schaefer, said he does not believe Steinberg has any significant assets.

Register-Guard (Eugene, OR)/November 14, 2004
By Matt Cooper

Three women from different places, different jobs, different backgrounds.

They have two things in common: They were beaten, and despite the danger of leaving a violent partner, they got out.

The women don’t know each other, but when they talk about domestic violence, they speak with the same voice.

All three said they were “brainwashed,” that the physical and emotional abuse left them believing that they deserved it, that they were the ones at fault, not the abuser.

All three lost their identity and their independence – so completely, in some instances, that they couldn’t order for themselves in a restaurant or figure out how to spend a Saturday.

All three came to accept that they can’t change someone else, that they can only change themselves.

The women also echoed one another in recalling what it took to get out.

First you have to find yourself, they said. Then you have to back your words up with action. You have to believe that you deserve better.

The women share one more thing: Today, all three are happy and healthy.

JeriAnn learned to endure the hitting, the kicking, the choking, the verbal and emotional abuse.

But the reddish-blue bruises across her little girl’s thigh – the size and shape of a man’s handprint – pushed her over the top.

I have to get myself out of this, she said to herself. I have to get my children out of this.

It was 1987, in a small town near Portland.

JeriAnn had been married for seven years. She was the mother of two curly-haired girls, 5 and 3 years old; a boy would come later.

Her husband wasn’t abusive at first, just controlling. But over the years, the control turned into black eyes and split lips – weekly attacks that she accepted, because she thought she had done something wrong to provoke them.

A vicious fight one night ended with JeriAnn at a friend’s. When she returned home in the morning, she checked on her 5-year-old, who had stayed in the house with her husband.

The girl pulled back her plaid skirt and showed the bruises; she had been struck for asking her father why he couldn’t stop drinking.

“I just started crying,” JeriAnn said. “I realized this wasn’t just affecting me. This was affecting my kids. I decided at that time, I’m out.”

Through a Christian support group, JeriAnn devoured material on codependency, coming to realize that the abuse had replaced her identity – her sense of self – with blind obedience to her husband.

She confronted her pain in excruciating counseling sessions – “like peeling your skin off from the inside out,” she said – and a new woman eventually emerged.

“I decided I didn’t have to have a man in my life,” JeriAnn said. “Being a single mom felt pretty darn good.”

For the first time, she started backing up her words with action.

She called her county’s victims’ assistance program and learned what the law could do to protect her. She received a restraining order and began the divorce process; when he violated the order she called the police. She got a guard dog and a handgun.

She wanted answers to her questions about divorce, domestic violence, personal safety. The more she shared, the more people offered to help.

He fought her for two years, stalking her while he also delayed or missed court dates; he sent her notes that read, “I love you.” But as the divorce played out in 1990, he started another relationship and moved on.

JeriAnn, of west Eugene, is 45 now. She’s an elementary school secretary who relishes working with kids and parents, especially the troubled ones. She is strong but affectionate, with a calm, confident gaze to match her propensity for giving hugs.

In December, she’ll celebrate 13 years of marriage to a man who treats her like a queen. He’s her best friend; he writes poems and hides them for her to find later.

Her younger daughter is a college student studying to become a nurse. The son is a student and athlete at Willamette High School.

And the 5-year-old? She’s 22 now, recently married to a good man, JeriAnn said.

Sometimes she has to pinch herself.

“My normal life to me is a pretty good dream,” she said. “It was gut-scratching hell to climb out of the hole. I’m lucky I made it out. It’s so good now, sometimes I forget the past.”

Desiree found salvation at a New Age bookstore in a small California town.

At 17, she had been an independent thinker, a strong student who challenged the deferential roles relegated to women in her branch of the Baptist faith. She peppered her Sunday school teachers with questions that made them squirm.

Marriage changed her. She married at 23, to a man she’d dated in high school – the first man she’d ever dated, the first she’d ever kissed.

There were ominous signs, but she missed them: He burned with anger if she so much as talked to another man, but she mistook it for love.

“When he got really jealous and upset, I thought to myself that he must really love me if he can’t stand for another man to look at me or talk to me,” Desiree said.

During 10 years of marriage, the abuse escalated. He was careful not to blacken her eyes or knock out her teeth – unmistakable clues for the world to see – instead throwing her against a wall or smothering her with a pillow until she started to black out.

He was a real estate broker, a wealthy man respected in their community. She was just his appendage. The independent thinker had been systematically beaten down, replaced by a woman who thought that if she just remained quiet, everything would be OK.

But the bookstore shouted at Desiree to speak up.

She walked in one day in the early 1990s, and quickly found that she was in her element among the incense and crystals.

Desiree eventually left her cashier’s job to work at the bookstore. She read feminist writers Gloria Steinem and Mary Anne Williamson, Ginny Nicarthy’s “Getting Free,” and books on Wicca, a religion that promotes, in part, male-female balance.

She realized that she had done nothing to provoke the abuse, but it was up to her to stop it.

She stopped hovering over her husband, stopped asking permission. She took to a quiet corner of the house and read to herself. She developed her own friends, ones who valued her for who she was.

“It reaffirmed that I actually had a self to share with people – that I was a living, thinking person with something to offer,” Desiree said.

He stranded her at a friend’s one night in 1993 and that was it: She moved out the next day and divorced him within nine months.

Today Desiree, 42, wears a pentacle – a five-pointed star – around her neck. It’s a Wiccan symbol, one that represents natural and spiritual harmony, and her second husband respects it just as he respects her.

They have a 6-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son, and they live in a cozy, forested McKenzie Bridge home with more dogs, cats and chickens than can be easily counted.

When not running her child care business, Desiree draws, paints and reads.

The bitter memories, a decade old now, still make her eyes well up. But nothing more.

“My life is infinitely better,” Desiree said. “Everybody has challenges and struggles, but there’s no comparison between now and then. I only wish that I had known what the future held for me – how much better it would get.”

When he tucked the rifle under her chin and told her that she was going to die, calmness washed over Debbie.

“I had accepted it,” she said. “The fear actually dissipates.”

Instead, her husband jerked the barrel up, throwing her head back as he discharged a round over her face.

She had married him at 19, and they lived in Nevada around 1985. He was a mountain man, strong and deep, and she had loved his passion. He said he needed her for his very existence.

But it wasn’t healthy, Debbie said. His drinking was an embarrassment for her, and when the physical abuse started, she thought she was the only woman in the world experiencing it.

She used to watch cars motor down the road – she saw the happy couples inside, and she thought to herself how lucky the women were not to have to worry about being beaten tonight.

She had left before, but his threats to harm her mother and sister always brought her back.

Either I’m going to die or he’s going to die, Debbie thought to herself, and she contemplated killing him.

The rifle blast ended it. Debbie was gone in two days, her resolve galvanized by a rediscovered spirituality.

She planned it all out. She needed a 30-minute head start before he would realize she was gone, lest he tear up and down the highways in search of her.

She warned her friends and family to say nothing, then took off, ultimately arriving at an old friend’s in Junction City, a friend that he didn’t know. She left no note, no phone number, no way whatsoever to find her.

Debbie was 25, and she owned the world. She started doing the things she wanted to do: She made her own friends, she chatted up her neighbors, and she bought a house, fixing it up and renting out a room, all on a waitress’ salary.

And she learned a lesson.

“If I dated a guy who seemed in any way controlling – in any way – I would just get rid of him so fast it would make your head spin,” said Debbie, who did just that on one occasion.

Today, at 44 and living in Eugene, Debbie works for the Eugene School District. She’s an active parent and an engaged political volunteer. She feels a deep responsibility to help others.

Debbie has been married for 16 years, and she has a 15-year-old son by her second husband. Both, she believes, are rewards for the change she made.

Her husband respects their political differences and her occasional long hours as a volunteer and a helper in their son’s school. He honored her need to design – and redesign – the two-story farmhouse that they built together.

Most important, perhaps, he respects her need to be alone. Debbie likes to go to the coast, where she sits on the beach with her dog, Jack, and writes about her feelings.

“You have to have some self-worth in order to be able to leave,” Debbie said. “You need to say, `Hey, I’m worth something, I deserve better.’ When I think about my life before, it seems like a different lifetime. It really makes me appreciate what I have.

“Now I feel like I’m one of those people that I looked at in the car and wished I was.”

Suffering Abuse

The state can’t say exactly how many women in Oregon have been abused by a partner, because not all women report it.

But in a telephone survey taken in 2001-02, one in 10 women between the ages of 20 and 55 said they’d been physically or sexually assaulted in the preceding five years – 85,000 women, according to the Department of Human Services.

Thirteen percent of those women were knocked unconscious or suffered broken bones, chipped teeth or other serious injuries.