FREED FROM VIOLENCE
About three decades ago, Sandy found herself in the throes of a disintegrating marriage with a high-level Bay Area tech executive, as the outside world saw her living a bucolic life in Woodside.
She first dismissed his angry outbursts as manifestations of his job pressures, but the outbursts morphed into insults and threats against her and her children.
She once ducked a punch so powerful that his fist pulverized the drywall near her head. Eventually, she moved out and the couple reached an agreement that allowed him to spend more time with their 5-year- old son.
Then one day on a nondescript weekend, her estranged husband fatally shot their son then killed himself, leaving a note that expressed a wish to be buried with their son.
“I thought I was finally safe, and then I had to live with all this, and then take care of my (surviving) kids,” said Sandy, who did not want her last name used, fearing for her safety and that of her children as the company where her husband worked is well-known and thriving.
Through the entire ordeal, Sandy said she never considered herself or her family to be suffering from domestic violence.
“When you don’t have a physical component, you keep trying to figure out what’s wrong and try to fix it,” she said.
Some 26 years later, she discovered Womensv — a small group in Los Altos that made her completely reframe what she endured, and identify it as domestic violence.
“I had moved on, but I was still broken. Being able to identify these things really made a difference,” she said.