Life on the other side of the violence

I Am happy. To me, there's nobody to tie me. (Macarena García, administrative assistant, 49 years old)

—In the recovery center, I realized who I am and what I want. I have grown up. (Kalinka, cook, 28 years old)

—I have a new husband, a radio program, and I have founded a women's association. But still I react with aggression (Dew, photographer, 41 years old)

—A little piece of me I am unable to find it. My life was broken. (Pepi Suarez, assistant geriatrics, 59 years)

—We reached 20,000 women. We are a network that helps other to break the silence (Ana Bella Estevez, activist in the Ana Bella Foundation, 45 years old)

here is the present of five lives. A minimum sample of the huge number of survivors of male violence. Four out of every five abused by their partner or former spouse (for 77.6%, according to the Macroencuesta of Violence against Women (2015) manage to escape the terror silent that has killed more than ETA (1.068 killed since 2001, according to the accounts of THE COUNTRY, prior to the official). As well speak of the past:

—I tried to strangle it in the floor of the kitchen. I oriné above. (Macarena, 23 years of abuse)

—Two times I could not exit to the street how I left the face (Dew, 11)

—gave Me a belt and I asked her for forgiveness. (Ana Bella, 11).

—I said that I was going to kill you. I heard him sharpening the knife. (Pepi, 5 years)

—he Shouted. I lowered the head, and said, okay, okay, I have guilt. (Kalinka, 3 years).

you Could pronounce phrases such as these almost three million women aged 16 years or over, who once have felt fear or been the victim of harassment, sexual or physical of their life partners or ex-partners, according to projections from the above-mentioned macroencuesta, which reveals that 15.5% of the residents in Spain has gone through this at some point.

The dark present to a future in which we will regain dignity and encouragement there is a long road and as diverse as what are all of those women, experts say. Say them.

Ana Bella, a survivor of male violence. oscar corral

“I departed from my family, I left the NGO in which I was. Came the insults. I justified it”. Dew, on the phone, he cries in a few moments. Not called Dew. “I thought that the problem was mine, that was something normal for couples to argue,” says Kalinka, also by the same pathway. “I find it difficult to acknowledge the violence, tolerate, minimize or blame. They will do anything to maintain and improve the relationship. It is what we call tactical grip. There is a lot of the blame for the socialization of gender, the myth of romantic love,” they say in unison and the professor of the University of Seville María José Cala and also psychologist and researcher María García. The research Regaining control of our lives. Of identity reconstruction and empowerment of women victims of gender-based violence led by Cala examined the liberating way of the eight survivors.

When women are covered, away from everyone, getting sick, veiled by sadness, but quiet, should come in your relief society and the environment. In that box, the detection, all mark a must. Miguel Lorente, a former Government delegate for gender Violence, calls for a universal screening in the health centres, as does the Comunidad Valenciana as from 2015, that has brought to the surface thousands of cases, because the battered went to the doctor more.

Talk for the first time. Is the milestone that indicate the women as the trigger of the recovery.

“If you see arisca, who changes his manner of dress, or more left, if you interact less with friends, you have to talk with her,” advises Pepi. Ana Bella travels through Spain giving talks at big companies. Also colleagues can help. “What is needed is that the people around you serve as a mirror, that helps to break the silence. The Betticket strength you already have you,” says the survivor (she rejects the term victim).

In the 23 years that lasted the terror, the threats against his family, forced sex, and painful, Macarena prepared many times the suitcases. A day Kalinka was convinced his partner was going to destroy. “There is a time that you know that the relationship can not continue”, hold Cala and Garcia, “and then deployed the tactics of survival”. Are invisible, are anesthetized, continue to play the aggressor, prepare the output. “I I realize, to be aware that things are not going to change if there is no rupture; even if the abuser promises to change, he will not,” says for its part the also a psychologist and expert in gender-based violence Laura Velasco, director of the Center for Comprehensive Care, Recovery and Reintegration of Abused Women (CARRMM), the Federation of Associations of Women Separated and Divorced (FAMSD), one of the most prestigious of Spain.

Dew wanted to leave. He had never spoken. He had told a companion of the match in which he is campaigning. Kalinka, the nuns that had taken him from young to be abandoned. Speaking for the first time. Is the milestone that indicate the women as the trigger of the recovery. The best advice. In the research conducted by Cala also reflected: “The recommendation I would give to other women is not reported. Is to break the silence”, they say.

Pepi Suarez, a survivor of male violence. paco bridges

“In parallel, work begins again to love yourself and that opens the door to detachment and empowerment, which are the other strategies,” note the researchers. A process not linear, with comings and goings, the to recover friends and family. “And where yours have to stay, can't get tired, leave them alone, because you come back with the abuser. Have to have patience”.

Macarena called the police when her husband grabbed her son, who wanted to defend it. When between blows and threats was crossed with the children, before their cries, something mutated inside of Dew, Kalinka and Ana Bella. “Feel the need and the obligation to defend them, and of providing an environment of life serene,” reads the research. The children work as a catalyst. Accelerate the output.

The 67% of abused women cut off the relationship. “The break is a critical time. Assessing a security plan is the first step,” says Wara Red, psychologist, CARRMM. “Are flooded with feelings of guilt, fear and helplessness”.

Ana Bella fled with their four children to another city, went on to denounce and ended up in a foster home. Pepi and Macarena called 112. Kalinka and Dew were admitted to the center that directs Velasco. Dew, who would wake up in the night screaming, was able to sleep on the pull for the first time.

Therapy. Is the word talisman of all. The thank you. The yearn for. Dew and Kalinka, within the CARRMM, coexisted, moreover, with a score of women and their children, who receive a “response that is comprehensive and multidisciplinary, but there are many that are waiting, laments the principal. “You first have to provide them with tools to stabilize and manage their symptoms, to deepen and to develop his history of violence. The final phase is the recovery and development of a project in the medium and long term in different areas of your life.” Women usually spend an average of 18 months. “Out of the violence with time, with a specific treatment, with high-skilled people,” says the veteran Ana María Pérez del Campo, president of the FAMSD, “is out learning to think, abandoning the myth of romantic love, that thought that I have to find a man who will make me happy. The happiness is shared. No one is going to the da”.

Kalinka, a survivor of male violence. mònica torres

a lack of resources. Another common claim. “You need money, housing, work and therapy to rebuild life,” says Ana Bella. In its foundation to support women with all of that. There he went to Macarena, and had no money for text books of their children. He stayed to help. "But all of the NGOS we are saturated. Apply 200 steps of the State Pact against Gender-based Violence, and that all who apply are perfectly trained," lamented the promoter of the foundation.

Miguel Lorente is pessimistic. “Yes, most go out being separated, but they come out wrong. It's like when you break a leg, you escayolan, but you don't go to the physio”. Believe that we suspend not only in detection, but in the protection, both to those who come forward to the police or to the judges as to those that do not.

All you have gone through the courts, with different luck. Dew, who reported ill-treatment and filed, and that he had to deliver the children to your former spouse by court order, retains a vivid memory of when I was in the reception centre. "Virtually all had problems in our judgments. Ana Maria said, 'do You realize? Denunciáis and all goes wrong. The reality is this'. That made me think a lot."

Years later, the Pepi does not have knives at home. Since I denounced it, her hands shake and just found a job. Recently, his ex has jumped the restraining order. If you are still here, he says, is thanks to the foundation, your family and your cat.

sometimes, Kalinka feels anxiety and invades the blackness of the memories. Was afraid of men for years. But now you are shooting next to someone with the face of a good boy.

Dew lost custody of the children. Believed that it is always on the defensive. Around, however, a partner, a job, projects. Is threaded in the society.

For a long time, Macarena could not endure that she stopped in the hair and the face. Or to have sex. Now imagine the side of a man.

But feel free, to board the life.