More Than Our Story
Danielle Patrice
Danielle shares her incredible story of survival as a mother, victim, and victim-defendant of domestic violence. Since her escape she has become a champion for victims and victim-defenders – advocating for them, and leading the charge for those that have lost their own voice and agency. Danielle reminds them they are not alone, giving them strength through solidarity and the knowledge that there are people, organizations and resources available who can and will support them. She also wrote and published the book Neuroscience: The Ecosystem of Domestic Violence, which investigates the dynamic of domestic violence from a scientific perspective, and further explores the impact of domestic violence through the lens of society.
Highlights
You know, looking back on it and thinking about my own past, people say the signs were there, weren't the signs there? But you know, you won’t know who a person is until they reveal themselves, and that's over time.
Then that story changed the narrative. So it was almost like what I saw was not what I saw... And I just will say this, I was naive at that point.
He said, now I can do whatever I want to you because you'll be my wife. And at that point I had my first child, my son was like five months. I did not know how to go through with it. I didn't know how to get out of it. I didn't know what to do, because at this point I wasn't talking to anybody hardly.
This was everything I’d never wanted... Little girls think about how their weddings would be and have this whole picture in their mind... That picture did not include not having my mother there. That picture did not include having the terms and conditions the way it was.
I remember him headbutting me and having a knot on my head and being scared to go outside because I didn't want nobody seeing how I looked, not contacting the police.
And so because of all the commotion between me and [him], [he] ended up getting a restraining order against me, and for four days I didn’t know where my son was. I had no idea what was happening.
These are things I did not know at the time. Then one of the people at the court, who I feel is one of my heroes... said, "you didn't fight for yourself". I didn't know how to fight at that point... I met Sue and she was a trailblazer for me because I saw how she maneuvered, how she moved... because she knew what to do. She worked in the court in the domestic violence division... She ended up saying, you need to counteract it. I ended up filing a restraining order against him, and what it did it made things even in a sense... It also put me in a position to fight back for my son.
I wanted my marriage. I wanted it to work. I wanted him to get the help he needed. I wanted to make sure my children had their father. I wanted to have my husband. I wanted my traditional nuclear family. I wanted things to work out. The thing was, I didn’t feel like I had the support that was needed for me to have that, and I definitely didn't feel protected in all of this.
Where is the concern for the family as a whole? Where is the concern for my well-being, my children’s well-being? Who is dealing with this? And it was a lot of frustrations, a lot of feeling hopeless, feeling powerless, and also feeling unheard and revictimized because even with the courts, I didn't feel heard. I didn't feel like people were listening and taking the time to listen to what I have to say. And it felt like he knew how to talk. He knew how to carry himself in court. He knew how to be charismatic and still tried to attack me in the court.
It was a incident that's always stuck out to me... we were arguing and fighting, and he had a knife to my neck. And you know the thing was that having... to be calm because I don't know what's going to happen... where I'm concerned for my well-being and concerned for my future - if he's going to kill me.
I ended up getting taken to the station, and... the person who was there said to the police officers that there was no butcher knife. And so they allowed him to get the restraining order against me. They allowed him to get my children, allowed him to have the apartment, because whoever files the restraining order first gets everything. And I had to make good with my family and make good with other people, because at the end of the day, I needed help to get out of it... It just felt like I was being bounced around and trying to, having to survive in all of this.
At this point I'm sitting down on the couch. My younger son is sitting next to me... and he's just doing this movement like he's about to choke me and kill me. And my son is staring at him and then he says, "I can't do it because he's watching me". And at that moment I said, I don't care if I have to crawl out of this marriage. I'm done. And if I couldn't do it for myself... I damn sure am going to do it for my children.
That was five years ago. You know, the thing is that even though I've had my divorce, I have my restraining order, the healing process is never-ending. It's never over because it's still not only healing for myself, it's healing for my children as well. Now understanding myself... understanding what I went through.
[Neuroscience: The Ecosystem of Domestic Violence] It started off with the question of understanding the dynamic between victims and abusers and what that led to was doing countless hours of research. Scientific literature review, constantly contacting different people from all walks of life: police officers, wardens, psychologists, sociologists and children... to understanding their impact - whether direct or indirect - with domestic violence. And then putting a little bit of my story in as well for people to understand and to bring everything together.
So what it is with domestic violence, it's deeper than the victim and abuser. It's a whole ecosystem. It's a whole lot of layers of why a victim is unable to leave, why a abuser does what they did, and it starts with the brain. And it's deep enough so it's not just the brain, but also extends to the emotions and actions. It extends to how different institutions handle domestic violence... How even people impact you... family members, friends, your work environment, the people around you in church. Same thing with higher education... and even how laws are made. How entertainment shapes us and through how we've looked at everything on a societal level. It's a very intricate book on the details on how it shapes all of us and that we're all interconnected one way or another.
There's not a lot of help. There's not a lot of resources. So whatever resources you need, whatever help you need that is out here and available, you have to go seek it. Go get it now. Make sure that you are able to document and have all the proven picture because the one thing that you have to understand as a victim and as a victim-defendant is that you have to over-prove - you have to over-prove that there was a history. You have to over-prove that there was abuse... and you have to over-document... that you're in this situation.
Don't think that it's going to get better because it's not. You cannot change a person that does not want to be changed.
We're always considered weak. Historically women didn't have rights. Women had to protest to get rights. Women had to fight to get their names on bank accounts, their names on credit cards, to fight for jobs and equal opportunities... It's always been an imbalance especially with women. There's always been dominance, there's always been oppression... But the thing is... with victim-defenders... they ended up fighting back and then being charged for it... They're in a whole category by themselves because they're not even considered victims... they don't look like a victim because victims are supposed to be weak.
But we mistake the fact that because children - all they have to do is go to school - [that their] life's not that bad. Children also deal with it because it's complicating the foundation of their childhood and that carries into adulthood... I think that if we start to listen to children and actually take them seriously as younger human beings, younger individuals, as they grow into their own autonomy, then I think that it would be a better situation for them, for not only for adults, but for them too.
I think what's missing here is empathy. You're not putting yourself in that person's shoes. You're not walking in their shoes... you don’t sympathize with them. What would you do if that happened to you? If that was your child? What resources are you going to fight for?
[Abusers] should be held accountable, because this is the home of the person that has destroyed his own family, destroyed his household, and not only criminally, and he is getting away with it. He's also financially getting away with it. Where is the accountability for this person? So I think the biggest thing I feel with the legal system, especially mental health professionals, scientists - all of these people that are understand how the body, the brain, these types of profiles - they need to be in a room with the legal system, they need to be in a room with the politicians who create the laws.
I want this book [to be] a love letter for victims and victim-defendants, to say that I know how much you have struggled. I know how much you have fought, and I am with you every step of the way. And if you couldn't speak your truth, you couldn't speak your voice, this is your voice right here. This book is a book I wish I had and I wish we all had going through this. For families who have lost their loved ones to domestic violence, who still don't understand what happened, I'm hoping that this book gives you at least some form of understanding or some solace... This is the opportunity to put a stop to it, to understand the mindset of an abuser, to understand what [victims] have to go through, what victim-defendants feel like when they fight back only to be revictimized again... Maybe you can step into their shoes and understand what this is like, and for society to finally take a stand and to stop this domestic violence... to change the laws and to evolve as humanity to understand that is a serious matter... So that's what I'm hoping for, is to change that, and shift the narrative of what is happening to victims and what is happening in domestic violence as a whole and as a cause.
Neuroscience: The Ecosystem of Domestic Violence
In this book, author Danielle Patrice, discusses the dynamic of domestic violence from a scientific perspective, and further explores the impact of domestic violence through the lens of society.
She navigates the discussion of domestic violence with scientific research, interviews from individuals of all walks of life who are directly or indirectly impacted by domestic violence while discussing her own testimony as a domestic violence survivor herself.
For all of the questions that you may have, this book will provide some of the answers that you are looking for, and give the information you’d never thought you needed to know! May this book give you the answers to help you understand the damage of domestic violence!
Daniel
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