Ed. note: To seek the help of the Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley, call the 24-hour hotline at 661-259-4357 (HELP). If you’d like to support the Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley, you can call 661-259-8175. 

The Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley relies on community support to open its doors for about 1,500 local men, women and children every year.

It operates two facilities — a shelter, which is part of a “network of safety” offering a safe place for spouses leaving their abusers; and a center offering classes, activities and counseling for Santa Clarita Valley families dealing with abuse.

For many women and men — about 2 percent to 5 percent of the shelter’s clients are men looking to leave an abusive relationship — the challenge is two-fold, said Linda Davies, executive director for the Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley.

The Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley recently held a fundraiser called A Fairy Berry Breakfast to support the shelter

“If they do decide to go into shelter,” Davies said, “they have to kind of leave their life behind — some women don’t want to do that. And some have to go into shelter.”

The goal of the shelter is to create a safe place where victims feel comfortable, safe and supported so they can help themselves during this traumatic time.

The local shelter works as part of a network helping abuse victims from Orange to Kern counties and everywhere in between, Davies said, other shelters are there for Santa Clarita Valley residents outside of the valley, if they need to get away.

The victims are leaving behind an often lengthy, if not troubled, relationship, and they’re required also to changes their lives as they know them.

In addition to help with temporary restraining orders, the center helps rebuild a victim’s self-esteem through community, Davies said.

Taking classes with other men and women who have been involved in an abusive relationship helps the participants spot “red flags” in relationships, as well as how the abuse can affect children.

For Anne Figueredo, 59, of Valencia, part of her story of survival had to do with realizing, “We’re better than this. This happened to us, but it does not define us, as women, as men — women can be abusers, too,” she said. “Awareness has to occur.”

When victims become survivors

Figueredo had no idea leaving “the darks areas” could be so difficult, after finding herself in an abusive relationship.

Struggling to keep her family together, she didn’t want to leave. For years, she endured abuse at the hands of her ex-husband because she wanted to keep her family together for her daughter.

Toward the end of her marriage, she would ask for permission to leave to go to church, and the former nurse remembers that’s how the argument might start.

It was soon followed by broken dishes and glasses, and then, inevitably, the rage and the fists would fly.

She minimized her fears, and tried to rationalize the behavior of her abuser, until she couldn’t any longer.

“I was in those dark areas,” she said, describing nearly three decades of physical abuse she endured before seeking and receiving help from local resources like the Domestic Violence Center of the Santa Clarita Valley.

Then, suddenly, for Figueredo, the words of a 93-year-old religious woman she had befriended took hold: “‘One abuse is too many, she said,’” Figueredo recalled. “‘One abuse to a child is one too many.’ We are created that no matter what your belief is, we should all enjoy our life.”

Despite the pain Figueredo had endured, her instinct, she says, told her to keep trying.

“As women, we tend to say we’ll stay in the relationship in hopes that the person will change,” she said. “I call it the cross you carry.”

For Natalie Coleman, 54, the nadir was when her spouse pointed a shotgun at her, and Coleman, who first got married as a teenager, worried for the safety of herself and their then-2-year-old child.

For many, it often takes a tragedy for a domestic violence victim to realize how imperative it is they seek help.

Unfortunately, many don’t seek that help for different reasons, and 5.3 million American women are victimized every year, according to statistics from A Better Way, a domestic violence center in Victorville.

For both Figueredo and Coleman, the idea they could make it on their own was intimidating, but they did it as a last resort.

Anne Figueredo, Linda Davies and Alex Urbina discuss domestic violence in the news after the video of former NFL running back Ray Rice hitting his then-fiance went viral.

“I made a decision that day  — I’m not going to endure this again,” Figueredo said of ending her marriage. “I was not a free person.”

The cycle of domestic violence

Domestic violence occurs in many different kinds of relationships, and it’s not limited to man-against-woman violence, although that makes up more than 85 percent of reported cases, according to statistics.

One of the biggest keys to ending the cycle of violence is education, Figueredo said, because many victims don’t realize how they not only put themselves in the dangerous situation, but also how they aren’t better off by sticking around.

For many who grow up in homes where there is abuse or violence, a chaotic, violent relationship can feel more “normal” than a healthy one, Coleman said.

“You want to be the person that makes everything OK,” said Coleman, who said sexual abuse she endured as a child damaged not only her self esteem, but her ability to identify a healthy relationship.

Coleman met her abusive spouse in high school, and as a 14-year-old, she saw troubling behavior in her boyfriend well before he became her husband. But that didn’t discourage her.

“That’s the position that you fill in your family — you’re always the peacemaker,” she said, “because you’re the person who makes that calm in a situation.”

Figueredo’s family left El Salvador after her father died there when she was young, during a very turbulent time, she said.

Because she didn’t grow up with a traditional nuclear family of man, woman and child in her home, it became important for her to provide that for her own family, at nearly any cost, she said.

“This is not a life,” Figueredo remembers saying to herself. “This is not the life I want.”

The story of survival

Once a man or woman enters the shelter, one of the first questions he or she is asked is if the Sheriff’s Department has been involved in the situation, Davies said.

An emergency protective order, which has a five-day window, is often sought to give the victim time to assess the situation, safety and next need to go forward.

Part of the services offered to those seeking help is the Domestic Abuse Self Help clinic, which offers guidance on all of the steps involved in leaving an abusive relationship, offered in a supportive environment by many who have been there before.

“They can come in here where they’re in a place and they feel cared for,” Davies said, adding the center offers yoga, meditation, classes and a counseling, in addition to legal help.

Coleman teaches a Windows Between Worlds class at the Domestic Violence Center, which uses art as a sort of therapeutic way to help others heal.

Center officials also teach a 16-week, court-ordered domestic violence class for abusers.

“Parenting classes are also important,” Davies said. “Domestic violence is a learned behavior,” Davies said. “Every batterer will tell you that they’ve been battered. But not every battered person chooses to batter.”