A lifetime of abuse and nowhere to turn

After a lifetime of abuse and afraid of dying, Janine remembers only too well that moment in her life at the bottom of the very deep, very dark pit of hopelessness.

“What’s going to happen to me? All I had to go to were these drug houses and use again and possibly die, but you know at that point a big part of me wanted to die,” said Janine, whose real name is not being used for fear of physical harm. “I was at the point where I was just done, done with everything, emotionally, mentally. I’d lost my son and everything. I got my girlfriend to take me to the hospital because I was literally scared for my life, I was suicidal, I was too scared to be alone.”

For the now 37-year-old woman and mother, her first traumatic event came at a very early age and was a forerunner of what her life was to become in an abusive family environment.

“My brother was raping my sister and I grabbed a knife and I was going to stab my brother but he stopped. I was about six and she was 10 and he was 14,” she recalled. “It was at home and I don’t know where my mother was. I didn’t understand but all I knew was my sister was screaming for help.

“My father died when I was two and after that my mom protected me so it never happened to me until after she died when I was nine.”

That was when the problems within the extended family living on the Penticton Indian Reserve became so much worse.

One of her most vivid memories was one day at her home shortly after her mother’s death.

“All I was told was ‘your mom’s dead,’ they (family) were in there giving my mom’s stuff away and burning it,” said Janine. “I went in the room and took the one little stuffy that my mom loved. I stole it and I was trying to hide it, that’s what I was told, ‘you stole this’ but I was trying to keep that something I knew my mom loved. I was turned around and looked at and told that I stole. I remember thinking how can I steal something that’s my mom’s? In my head they were stealing my mom from me.

Nobody taught me how to grieve, at such young age I didn’t understand what death was, I didn’t have that comfort of moving through those feelings in a healthy way. I learned very quickly that if I showed anger people would just leave me alone.”

And from there her life further deteriorated as she and her siblings went from family member to family member, Janine eventually winding up at her grandparents where she was sexually abused by her grandfather and other relatives.

After two years she could no longer stand it and went to officials at the school she was attending. Janine is now on a healing journey but still fighting many demons along the way.

Eventually the grandfather and some of the cousins were charged and she had to go through the court proceedings, sitting on the stand and recounting what had happened. After the court proceedings and not being allowed to contact family members, she and her brother and sister went to foster homes, Janine eventually winding up in a group home where her problems continued.

After living in “the hills” and going to a small community school, moving to the city centre was a huge cultural shock for her.

“I was smack dab in the middle of Penticton, I didn’t know where anything was or anybody and my mental state was more like nine than 11,” she said. “I was the youngest one there and they were all the way up to 19.

I later saw it as the kids that nobody wanted, not good staff and that’s when I had my first joint and my first drink and after that I pretty much drank and got high every day.

“I needed to keep going to harder drugs to keep getting that high and that numbness. To this day I’ve done every drug you can do from IV to smoking to sniffing, you name it, I’ve done it.”

After several years she moved in with the father of her son which also turned into a physically abusive relationship, and in the past, using being her only escape.

“With the drugs and alcohol comes black outs, not knowing what happened. I was with a houseful of men and I was in the room naked and I can’t find my clothes, jumping out the window to get away, but that was the norm for me,” said Janine. “I remember the fear.He (boyfriend) broke me down to the point where I was scared sh—-less. I would literally be hiding in the house because I knew he was going to hurt me if he found me.

“In my head I was still this five-year-old little girl who was pissing my pants because I was scared to to go to the bathroom and yet I was 36 years old standing there and my pants were wet because I wet myself. It’s hard … yeah.”

The relationship ended when: “I woke up to a steel toed boot to the head and being whipped by some sort of cord.”

With nowhere to go and addiction controlling her life, she went back to the streets, leaving her son, who was six at the time, behind, knowing he would at least have a roof over his head and food, the basics she couldn’t provide.

Then, in January of this year she overdosed on heroin but was saved and that was when things began to change for the better.

After many attempts over the years she and her son were able to get into the South Okanagan Women in Need Society (SOWINS) transition house.

Because caring for her son meant so much to her she did something she could never remember doing before.

“That was trusting the (SOWINS) staff.That was one of the hugest steps I made, was allowing myself to trust. I never gave anybody that chance, that trust,” said Janine who has now been sober for over 100 days and counting. “I have counselling and a psychiatrist and it’s all about focusing on me and healing and realizing I can do it for myself again.

“I don’t want to die. Today I’m happy but I do have daily struggles and there are days when my feelings get too much and my coping mechanism is to use, so it’s that daily struggle to live with myself. I need to be sure that I’m OK and I’m learning new ways to deal with those and move through them.”

Janine and her son are currently in a Williams Lake culturally-based, 10-week family program before returning to Penticton and SOWINS.

“I need to focus on myself doing what I need to do for me and my son,” she said. “I don’t want what happened to me to happen to him. I want my child to grow up knowing he is important, not how I grew up. I don’t want to grow up like my family so I will do whatever it takes.”

Walk to End Abuse

Sadly, Janine’s life story is not an isolated one.

“She is like many of the clients that we see, what we call negative transgenerational pattern, so really when we look at it, it is dysfunction that is passed from generation to generation,” said Lindsay Bysterveld, a registered clinical counsellor at the South Okanagan Women in Need Society (SOWINS) who is working with Janine. “When that happens we’re often raised in environments that teach us unhealthy coping skills as well as unhealthy boundaries and it leads us to make unhealthy choices in life.

“So for her, given the environment she was brought into and raised into, subsequently created with her own family, it’s not an uncommon thing. In order to break that cycle we need to address it and really work on self development.”

And just as there was in Janine’s case violence is always prevalent.

The situation being so bad now in Canada every six days a woman dies as a result of domestic violence.

For Bysterveld, who is SOWINS counselling services co-ordinator, not having the resources to help all of those women and children is the toughest part of the job.

“Honestly, it’s so unfortunate we wish that we had more money, we wish we had more space. It’s something that we definitely struggle with as an organization,” said Bysterveld. “This (violence against women) is very real here, I think we are not as attuned to it in our community as maybe we should be.

“I think there’s a lot of people who kind of turn a blind eye if you don’t get involved it’s not happening kind of a thing which is unfortunate.”

Help includes the SOWINS transition house (36 people) and two safe houses provided by people in the community for varied-length stays. As well they help about 10 women a month with rent supplements.

At Easter, alone there were 17 kids staying at the transition house.

In spite of those resources, in 2016 they had to turn away 1,483 women and children. There is a waiting list of nearly four people for each vacancy that comes up.

To continue its life-saving work locally and eventually expand that care regime, SOWINS is holding a Walk to End Abuse fundraiser Sunday, June 3 at Rotary Park. The event aims to raise $50,000 while raising awareness to the serious issue of violence and abuse in the community.

“The need is immense and the impact on the lives of the women and children we can help is lifesaving and life-changing,” said Mary-Jo Rusu, SOWINS communications co-ordinator. “Local donations and participation in the Walk to End Abuse will help us continue to provide the essential safety, shelter and support needed for women and children experiencing abuse in our community.”

To register or to learn more go to sowins.com/walk.

Penticton Western News