A survivor’s story
Published 1:12 pm Wednesday, October 5, 2005
By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
CASSOPOLIS - In hindsight, she can see a forewarning of emotional abuse.
But its evolution into physical abuse crept up so slowly that even four years into her marriage it surprised her.
Her first reaction was to question her own sanity and to flood her mind with self-doubt.
After all, wasn't she the only divorced person in her prominent family?
Her parents are married. Her grandparents. Aunts and uncles.
Not yet 30, this college-educated woman with a good job thought she was cracking up until Police Chief Tom Atkinson dialed the shelter, she told Tuesday night's Cass County Candlelight Vigil honoring victims of family violence.
She met a man she "loved very much." They married and had two children.