How a helping hand can make a difference
Tips to help navigate situations when you fear a loved one is being abused
Amy Cleary waited at the clinic to see a doctor. Her ribs were bruised, hurting. It was March 2016, and Cleary and her boyfriend had gotten into an argument the evening before that turned physical, and he slammed her face onto a couch.
The next morning, he hit her in the ribs to stop her from leaving.
For the five years they were together, Cleary had been thinking of leaving, but didn’t know what to do.
She didn’t talk to her friends or family because she was worried her boyfriend would hurt them.
She was isolated, and thought no one wanted to help.
“When you’re in an abusive situation, the person who’s abusing you will make you feel very, very, very small,” she said. “Everything that you feel, every gut instinct, it all goes away. You think that nobody is gonna help you, nobody wants to help you ... it’s this little voice just goes, ‘Nobody cares about you, nobody likes you.’ It’s never ending, and it doesn’t go away.”
It makes a big difference for an actual person to walk up to you, encourage you and point you in the direction of getting help, she says.
“Sometimes, somebody needs to step in and say, ‘Hey, you need help here. This is what I recommend you do because I care about you, and I’m gonna show you compassion,’ right?”
STEPPING IN
Cleary’s doctor was the first one who stepped in and offered the help she desperately needed.
After he checked her ribs that day seven years ago, the doctor asked her what had happened.
After that, he took some pictures of the bruise and gave Cleary the number of Iris Kirby House, which provides shelter and a safe haven for women and children who are experiencing domestic violence.
“The doctor told me that he had a daughter. If his daughter was in my situation, he would expect her to call,” she remembers.
Cleary felt like an elephant was off her chest.
She went to the shelter. The court signed off on her emergency protection order that night, and her boyfriend was escorted from the apartment the next morning.
The doctor saved her life that day, she says.
“If that doctor didn’t take the time to care about me and give me that information, I don’t know where I would be today,” she says.
HOW TO SHOW SUPPORT
At the P.E.I. Family Violence Prevention outreach services office, people drop by every day for appointments.
Gloria Dennis, the outreach co-ordinator, meets her clients there, assesses the situation and they figure out the next step together.
People need information to decide whether to stay in the relationship and to figure out what to do if they decide to leave.
They need to make plans for their children, find an affordable place to live or apply for financial support, she points out.
“If people don’t know where to turn, then they just stay where they are. They’re stuck,” Dennis says.
TAKES TIME
It’s not unusual that it takes some time for the clients to get back to Dennis after their first appointment and tell her they are ready to leave. In one case, a client took two years to get back to Dennis.
Those in an abusive relationship may be worried about finances and parenting. They may not want to leave their partners that they still love or a relationship they have invested in. They may not recognize some behaviours are not acceptable.
To encourage them to get help, the best thing to do is to inform them about their options and the services available to them.
Other than that, she says, people who want to help can only wait.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t be there and care for their loved ones, Dennis points out.
“The best way to be supportive is to just let somebody know that you’re there for them,” she says.
Let them know you’re available to talk, that you’re not going to judge them by the decisions they make and affirm what you hear, she said.
“You can still continue to offer support ... maybe that support is, you know, ‘if you ever need to take a break, you’re welcome to come and have a cup of tea with me.’ It can be something very simple. It’s about still offering to be there in a way that’s beneficial to them.”
FRIENDS AND FAMILY
Alexa Whynot of Bridgewater, N.S., tries her best to keep in contact and show support to her mother, Susan Oickle.
Her mom has been living alone in the house she used to share with her ex-commonlaw partner since they broke up.
Her mom’s partner pleaded guilty to assaulting Oickle in 2020 and was discharged on conditions.
Whynot said her mother refused to move in with her because she was worried her partner would take over the house. In the early days, all Whynot could do was to call in often and see if her mom was all right.
“It was very stressful because we all worried about her. She’s very stubborn, and she wanted to stay there against all of our wishes.”
One time, her mom was on the phone and didn’t respond to Whynot’s calls. After half an hour of failing to reach her, Whynot grabbed a stick and jumped into her car.
She drove as fast as she could to reach her mother’s house.
“I don’t remember 100 per cent because I was, you know, pretty panicked driving over, but I probably went to the darkest of places and thought the worst.”
Despite the stress, Whynot never stops keeping in touch with her mom. Whynot and her husband and children now see her mother almost every day, include Oickle in every family activity and offer to help with upkeep around her house, such as doing yard work.
She’s glad her mom is getting closer to her family and has started re-connecting some of her friends. Oickle has also started doing things she enjoys instead of feeling she needed to cater to everything her partner wanted, Whynot said.
“I was happy that she kind of became herself again and she became more independent,” she adds.
FINDING HOPE
Oickle is grateful her family and friends have been so supportive and that she’s been able to re-connect with them.
“I have a wonderful life and I had all the support in the world going through all of this,” she said. “I can look back on my life now, that I hadn’t realized (the relationship) wasn’t as good as I thought it was, had all these little things, and it was probably never going to go anywhere. The fact that it lasted as long as it did was a miracle.”
For Cleary, meanwhile, after the abusive relationship she was in ended, she met her fiance, who knows about her past and is supportive of her. She is now a full-time photographer and runs her own studio in St. John’s, N.L.
She hopes more people will reach out and help those being abused.
“If society had more people like that first family doctor I talked to, who recognized that I needed help, you know, there’d probably be more people getting out of tough situations,” she adds.