Roundtable discussion focuses on abusers' view of domestic violence
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
At this year’s Trumbull County Domestic-Violence Roundtable, the organizers asked a different question: What is domestic violence from the perspective of the abuser?
Su-Qin Olmstead, a violence-prevention program coordinator for Greentree Counseling Center on Franklin Street Southeast, has spent the past eight years working with domestic-violence offenders, and she provided some insight based on her interactions.
Her answer was the same as the theme for this year’s program, which was attended by more than 200 people at DiVieste’s Banquet Hall: “Domestic violence works for me. Why should I stop? Why should I care?”
Olmstead said she was shocked early in her career when she would ask abusers to describe the most abusive behavior they had ever done to their partner and followed that up with, “Do you feel bad about what you did to her?”
In many of the examples Olmstead shared with the social workers, law-enforcement officers and others, the response was that abusing their partners got them what they wanted.
Here was an example:
“My girlfriend and I were in the bar. I caught her flirting back with another man. I smacked her face hard. She was dropped flat on the floor.”
Then Olmstead asked, “Do you feel bad about what you did to her?”
“Yes and no,” the abuser said. “When I saw her face all messed up, I felt bad, but she never flirted with another guy again, so smacking kind of works.”
Here was another:
“I came home one night. The sink was full of dirty dishes. I put her face against the kitchen cabinet and she passed out,” another man said.
“Do you feel bad about what you did to her?” Olmstead asked.
“What would you do if your spouse was a lazy bum?” he answered.
“Is your abuse working for you?” Olmstead asked.
“I would not call that as abuse. What do you think? I come home with a clean kitchen since,” he said.
Olmstead said the first time she heard a man give such answers, “I literally [had to] walk away. It’s very difficult.” She said she found the remarks “very offensive” and wanted to say to the man, “Don’t you realize that is wrong?”
But she realized that to understand the motivation of the abuser, she had to avoid reacting.
“My goal is to change behavior,” she said. “To understand what they are thinking, you really need to be unbiased and look into the abuser’s mind and we uncover something to change.”
Gabe Wildman, an assistant county prosecutor who handles the felony domestic-violence cases, said, “I don’t necessarily try to change them. I just try to put them in jail.”
“As you get your training, I hope you will think about these voices to help you know what to do,” Olmstead told the audience.
There were 11 presentations altogether, including one on why we should care about domestic violence, the voice of the female victim and others on sex trafficking and teens, creating healthy relationships and domestic violence on college campuses.
“We wanted to get the message out that this is a community problem,” Olmstead said. “The answer is to get involved. If you see something, call the police.”