A survivor of violence guides others to safety

By Valencia Jones

It was in the parking lot of a grocery store. That’s where I felt my life diverge, my life before and my life after, trapped and free. A simple trip to the store — something most people do without really thinking about it — had been for me a thing of terror. I’d nervously watch the clock. How long had I been gone? Long enough for him to question where I’d been? Would I get a beating or just a fusillade of hurtful words?

I gripped the shopping cart and felt the familiar stab of fear, looking at the clock and the long checkout line. C’mon, move. Move! Out in the parking lot, I threw everything into the car and got in. Then it suddenly dawned on me. There’s nobody at home, no one waiting. That life was over. In a car full of groceries, I sat and cried, just because I could take as long as I wanted, and because of everything that meant.

I met the man who would become my husband in 2006. He started talking to me at a gas station in Shreveport, Louisiana, about an hour and a half by car from my home in Monroe. He seemed nice. We exchanged numbers and would talk on the phone. Every couple of weeks, we would meet up while I was in Shreveport to see a specialist for a back injury I suffered working as a nursing assistant.

After a few months, he asked me to move in. I was a single mother of three in my late 20s, unable to work because of my injury. I wouldn’t have to worry about getting back to work or about money, he said. Within two years we married.

Looking back, I know now that’s when it started. The manipulation begins when they first approach you. They’re relentless at being everything you need, filling the gaps in whatever is missing in your life. You’re in financial trouble, you’re a single mom, you’re lonely. They try to be the answer to those things. They overwhelm you with nice gestures, dinners, flowers. But I didn’t know that then. He just seemed like everything I could have hoped for.

It’s small things at first. Ugly little comments, controlling behavior, once they feel comfortable and certain that they’ve got you. It’s hard to explain to friends and family. They wonder how anyone could stay and put up with such abuse. But like I said, it’s gradual and always followed by a barrage of apologies. I’m sorry I cussed at you. I’m sorry I threw something. I just got so angry because I care so much, I’m so passionate. And it’s fine again until the next time. And there is always a next time. Over my 15-year marriage, I would experience many types of abuse.

I know now that the categories of abuse people experience can include verbal and physical violence directed at you or harm or threats of harm to your children, pets, or property as a way to hurt and control you.

Experiences like mine are more common than you might think. One out of 3 women and 1 in 4 men will experience domestic violence. You might have experienced it or know someone who has. Maybe you saw the signs on someone else but didn’t know what you were looking at. You may have heard them say, “Oh, this bruise? I fell, I’m so clumsy.” Or perhaps they dodged invitations to a movie or dinner. “Sorry I can’t, I need to get home.”

My career as a counselor

Today, I work as a licensed professional counselor specializing in the treatment of people who experienced domestic violence or human trafficking as well as adults who were sexually abused as children. One case I’ll never forget. I was counseling a woman whose partner had beaten her into a coma and was continuing to stalk her. She managed to safely escape to another state. Later, another woman came for help. Her abuser, I would learn, was the same man. Here I was helping these women and all the while there was this perpetrator out there creating another victim. That’s how I, a domestic violence survivor, also began counseling abusers, ordered by courts to undergo treatment.

"Rotary lifted my self-esteem. It gave me a community of support and the courage to become a public speaker and advocate. It gave me my new start on life."

It might sound strange, but I feel a certain empathy for these men. Many of them were victims of horrific abuse as children. That was my ex-husband’s story. When he was 5 or 6, his dad would come home drunk and violent. Sometimes he’d hide out in the woods. He was hurt so he grew up hurting people.

I hear that over and over. While counseling a group of men, I asked one of them, “Why do you think you’re so angry that you want to hurt your wife?” “Well, I don’t know,” he said. “My dad was a monster, I guess. I guess that’s where I get it from.”

He shared that one time his father had beaten his mother so severely he thought she was dead. I looked at him, this man, now 36 years old, fresh out of prison, covered in tattoos, full of muscles. He was weeping and rocking back and forth like he did as a child hiding in a closet. I cried too. All I could see was the scared 6-year-old boy. The other men leaned in, giving their full attention. I said, “I’m so sorry somebody hurt you. You just said your dad was a monster. So why then did you become the monster of your house?” There were gasps in the room. Later that man returned to tell me he’d turned his life around, enlisted in the Navy, and was treating his family better.

It’s not easy for me. After all, these are representations of the man who abused me. When I first enter the room, they often react angrily to the sight of a woman as their counselor. But once they open up and become vulnerable, their healing can begin. Sometimes I share my story with them. After one such session, a few of the men offered me words of support, asking how anyone could want to hurt me. And I said, “You know what, that’s exactly how your wife feels.” My perspective as a survivor has a real impact on them.

From pain to healing

Of course my experience helps with counseling survivors too. Some even come to me specifically because I’m a survivor. I share in their pain, tears, and regrets, all of it. Then I remind them that they had the courage to get out. I always take time to celebrate their strength in taking this path to freedom.

Lots of therapists avoid this area of counseling because it’s so intense and improvements take time, sometimes years. It’s a long haul because, to start with, you have to unbrainwash patients. I know the choreography of that manipulation and control. I know the isolation, how your friends start to drift away after you’ve canceled on them so many times for fear of your abuser’s reaction to you being gone.

Over time, you no longer recognize yourself. You give up doing your hair or makeup or dressing nice. That would arouse suspicion. You flatten your personality, lest he suspect you of flirting with other people. Your conversations with others become bland and generic. Don’t get excited, don’t make eye contact. In my case, I started to feel like an NPC, one of the nonplayable characters that float by unnoticed in the background of the video games I like to play. I felt erased.

But here’s the thing: There is hope. There is help and healing. I know that too. It starts with careful planning. Simply leaving without a plan can put you in more danger. Around 75 percent of homicides related to domestic violence occur after separation. I studied advice from online videos. My plan started with building financial independence. I persuaded my husband to accept me getting a part-time job and had my pay deposited electronically to a secret bank account. My husband, a truck driver, was away for months, allowing me to work more. Eventually, I had saved enough to go back to school and completed a bachelor’s degree in psychology, then a master’s degree, allowing me to work as a counselor and earn more. Meantime, my three oldest children were safely independent. I just had to care for the two younger children I had with my husband.

Each person’s safety plan differs, and some are able to break away sooner than others. For me, that day came after years of planning; I packed up the house while my husband was away. When he learned I was gone and I told him I wanted a divorce, he laughed, calling it a phase. Threats followed. I moved again. But in the end our divorce was finalized. And there was that moment in the grocery store parking lot. I’ll never forget it.

Healing is a long journey. Through therapy, I learned to find myself again, to find my personality, decide how I want to dress or wear my hair. But one of the other first big things I did with my freedom was to join a Rotary club. Rotary was my first act of rebellion. A member of that club was on the board of a counseling center where I ran a free group for women who had experienced violence. He said he could tell I had a love for my community and asked me to join. He was the first person who really saw me. After some time, I shared my story with the club. Rotary lifted my self-esteem. It gave me a community of support and the courage to become a public speaker and advocate. It gave me my new start on life.

Now, every October, for Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I invite a few dozen of my clients or women from shelters to attend an event our club organizes to celebrate them with entertainment, dinner, cocktails, and door prizes. Sponsors donate money that we use to support women with counseling, transportation to safety, temporary shelter, personal items, moving trucks, living expenses, and more. The event, called Illuminate, ends with the women lighting paper lanterns. In the glow, we reflect in silence on how far we’ve all come.

Valencia Jones, the immediate past president of the Rotary Club of Riverbend-Shreveport, is the director of the Social Therapy Project. Learn more and get involved at socialtherapyproject.org.

This story originally appeared in the March 2026 issue of Rotary magazine.