{"id":640061,"date":"2013-01-25T12:22:52","date_gmt":"2013-01-25T17:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=68031"},"modified":"2013-01-25T16:07:45","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T21:07:45","slug":"5-brave-personal-stories-of-domestic-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/640061","title":{"rendered":"5 brave personal stories of domestic abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>Leslie Morgan Steiner thought that she\u2019d found true love in her early 20s. Instead, she found herself married to a man who repeatedly pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave.html\">today\u2019s brave talk<\/a>, given at <a href=\"http:\/\/tedxrainier.com\/12\/\">TEDxRainier<\/a>, Steiner tells the story of how she &#8212; a Harvard-educated magazine editor turned businesswoman &#8212; fell into an abusive relationship. She seeks to answer the question people always ask about women who are being abused: Why does she stay?<\/p>\n<p>Steiner calls the phenomenon \u201ccrazy love.\u201d Like many other women and men experience each year, her relationship started with adoration, moved on to isolation, and culminated in extreme manipulation &#8212; and violence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs it turns out, I\u2019m a very typical domestic abuse victim \u2026 Domestic violence happens to everyone. All races, all religions, all income and education levels,\u201d says Steiner. \u201cWhy did I stay? The answer is easy. I didn\u2019t know he was abusing me. Even though he held those loaded guns to my head, pushed me downstairs, threatened to kill our dog, pulled the key out of the car ignition as I drove down the highway, poured coffee grinds on my head as I dressed for a job interview, I never once thought of myself as a battered wife. Instead, I was a very strong woman in love with a deeply troubled man and I was the only person on earth who could help him face his demons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To hear Steiner\u2019s terrifying story &#8212; and how she finally got out by going public and talking to everyone she could about what was happening behind closed doors &#8212; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/leslie_morgan_steiner_why_domestic_violence_victims_don_t_leave.html\">listen to this powerful talk<\/a>. And below, four more speakers brave enough to share their similar personal experiences and let others know they are not alone.<\/p>\n<p><span class='embed-youtube' style='text-align:center; display: block;'><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text\/html' width='586' height='360' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5QW_nsAjweE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;%23038;fs=1&#038;%23038;showsearch=0&#038;%23038;showinfo=1&#038;%23038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;%23038;wmode=transparent' frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Theresa Flores: Find a voice with soap<\/b><br \/>\nTheresa Flores was your average girl from the Michigan suburbs. And through a simple crush on a classmate, was manipulated into something very dark \u2014 human trafficking. In this talk from <a href=\"http:\/\/tedxcolumbus.com\/\">TEDxColumbus<\/a> 2011, she recalls how she became stuck in a cycle of abuse by men much older than her. And she shares how, years late, when returning to a motel where she had been abused, she had an idea \u2014 putting an 800 number for the National Human Trafficking Hotline on the bars of soap in the bathroom. She now gives this soap to motels for free in areas where trafficking is common, in hopes that girls like her will find it in the bathroom and call.<\/p>\n<p><span class='embed-youtube' style='text-align:center; display: block;'><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text\/html' width='586' height='360' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pf8CfUHIRBw?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;%23038;fs=1&#038;%23038;showsearch=0&#038;%23038;showinfo=1&#038;%23038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;%23038;wmode=transparent' frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Javier Espinoza: Turning pain into power<\/b><br \/>\nJavier Espinoza parents expressed nothing but tenderness and love to him. But in their dealings with each other, they fought terribly &#8212; and his father often beat his mother. In this talk from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tedxorangecoast.com\/events\/tedxorangecoast-women\/\">TEDxOrangeCoastWomen<\/a>, Espinoza shares just how angry he felt at his father. And how, eventually, he found a way to channel his emotions into a program called \u201cIn a Box,\u201d which provides women and kids in domestic violence shelters with the little things that they need.<\/p>\n<p><span class='embed-youtube' style='text-align:center; display: block;'><iframe class='youtube-player' type='text\/html' width='586' height='360' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/O7fLSGilcEY?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;%23038;fs=1&#038;%23038;showsearch=0&#038;%23038;showinfo=1&#038;%23038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;%23038;wmode=transparent' frameborder='0'><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Pamela Taylor: Creating a safe space for the empowerment of women<\/b><br \/>\nPamela Taylor is known as the co-founder of Dress for Success, the nonprofit which helps disadvantaged women build the skills they need to get jobs. In this talk, she shares why this is her passion &#8212; because she was abused for years herself. In this talk from <a href=\"http:\/\/tedxsanantonio.com\/\">TEDxSanAntonio<\/a>, she shares how she was attacked by her husband, often in public, and felt so disheartened that no one came to her aid.<\/p>\n<p><div class=\"embed-ted\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/embed.ted.com\/talks\/tony_porter_a_call_to_men.html\" width=\"586\" height=\"329\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><b>Tony Porter: A call to men<\/b><br \/>\nGrowing up, Tony Porter says that he got message loud and clear: that men are in charge &#8212; women are not &#8212; and that anger is the only emotion it\u2019s okay to express. At TEDWomen, Porter calls this \u201ctwisted,\u201d because how could it not lead to the disrespect, mistreatment and abuse of women? In this talk, Porter asks men to get out of this \u201cman box\u201d and boldly act in ways counter to what they\u2019ve been taught.<\/p>\n<p>  <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/gocomments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/68031\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.wordpress.com\/1.0\/comments\/tedconfblog.wordpress.com\/68031\/\" \/><\/a> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/stats.wordpress.com\/b.gif?host=blog.ted.com&#038;blog=14795620&#038;%23038;post=68031&#038;%23038;subd=tedconfblog&#038;%23038;ref=&#038;%23038;feed=1\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TEDBlog\/~4\/wG-AxpsA-rQ\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Leslie Morgan Steiner thought that she\u2019d found true love in her early 20s. Instead, she found herself married to a man who repeatedly pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her. In today\u2019s brave talk, given at TEDxRainier, Steiner tells the story of how she &#8212; a Harvard-educated magazine editor turned businesswoman [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7344,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-640061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7344"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640061\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}