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Translator: Joseph Geni
Reviewer: Morton Bast
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I'm here today to talk about a disturbing question,
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which has an equally disturbing answer.
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My topic is the secrets of domestic violence,
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and the question I'm going to tackle
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is the one question everyone always asks:
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Why does she stay?
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Why would anyone stay with a man who beats her?
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I'm not a psychiatrist, a social worker
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or an expert in domestic violence.
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I'm just one woman with a story to tell.
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I was 22. I had just graduated from Harvard College.
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I had moved to New York City for my first job
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as a writer and editor at Seventeen magazine.
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I had my first apartment,
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my first little green American Express card,
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and I had a very big secret.
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My secret was that I had this gun
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loaded with hollow-point bullets pointed at my head
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by the man who I thought was my soulmate,
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many, many times.
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The man who I loved more than anybody on Earth
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held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me
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more times than I can even remember.
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I'm here to tell you the story of crazy love,
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a psychological trap disguised as love,
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one that millions of women and even a few men
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fall into every year.
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It may even be your story.
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I don't look like a typical domestic violence survivor.
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I have a B.A. in English from Harvard College,
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an MBA in marketing from Wharton Business School.
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I've spent most of my career working for Fortune 500 companies
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including Johnson & Johnson, Leo Burnett and The Washington Post.
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I've been married for almost 20 years to my second husband
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and we have three kids together.
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My dog is a black lab, and I drive a Honda Odyssey minivan.
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(Laughter)
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So my first message for you is that domestic violence
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happens to everyone --
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all races, all religions, all income and education levels.
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It's everywhere.
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And my second message is that everyone thinks
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domestic violence happens to women,
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that it's a women's issue.
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Not exactly.
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Over 85 percent of abusers are men, and domestic abuse
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happens only in intimate, interdependent, long-term relationships,
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in other words, in families,
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the last place we would want or expect to find violence,
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which is one reason domestic abuse is so confusing.
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I would have told you myself that I was the last person on Earth
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who would stay with a man who beats me,
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but in fact I was a very typical victim because of my age.
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I was 22, and in the United States,
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women ages 16 to 24 are three times as likely
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to be domestic violence victims
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as women of other ages,
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and over 500 women and girls this age
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are killed every year by abusive partners,
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boyfriends, and husbands in the United States.
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I was also a very typical victim because I knew nothing
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about domestic violence, its warning signs or its patterns.
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I met Conor on a cold, rainy January night.
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He sat next to me on the New York City subway,
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and he started chatting me up.
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He told me two things.
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One was that he, too, had just graduated from an Ivy League school,
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and that he worked at a very impressive Wall Street bank.
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But what made the biggest impression on me that first meeting
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was that he was smart and funny
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and he looked like a farm boy.
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He had these big cheeks, these big apple cheeks
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and this wheat-blond hair,
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and he seemed so sweet.
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One of the smartest things Conor did, from the very beginning,
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was to create the illusion that I was the dominant partner in the relationship.
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He did this especially at the beginning
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by idolizing me.
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We started dating, and he loved everything about me,
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that I was smart, that I'd gone to Harvard,
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that I was passionate about helping teenage girls, and my job.
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He wanted to know everything about my family
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and my childhood and my hopes and dreams.
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Conor believed in me, as a writer and a woman,
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in a way that no one else ever had.
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And he also created a magical atmosphere of trust between us
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by confessing his secret,
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which was that, as a very young boy starting at age four,
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he had been savagely and repeatedly physically abused
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by his stepfather,
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and the abuse had gotten so bad that he had had to drop out of school in eighth grade,
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even though he was very smart,
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and he'd spent almost 20 years rebuilding his life.
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Which is why that Ivy League degree
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and the Wall Street job and his bright shiny future
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meant so much to him.
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If you had told me
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that this smart, funny, sensitive man who adored me
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would one day dictate whether or not I wore makeup,
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how short my skirts were,
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where I lived, what jobs I took,
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who my friends were and where I spent Christmas,
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I would have laughed at you,
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because there was not a hint of violence or control
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or anger in Conor at the beginning.
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I didn't know that the first stage
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in any domestic violence relationship
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is to seduce and charm the victim.
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I also didn't know that the second step is to isolate the victim.
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Now, Conor did not come home one day and announce,
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"You know, hey, all this Romeo and Juliet stuff has been great,
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but I need to move into the next phase
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where I isolate you and I abuse you" — (Laughter) —
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"so I need to get you out of this apartment
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where the neighbors can hear you scream
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and out of this city where you have friends and family
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and coworkers who can see the bruises."
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Instead, Conor came home one Friday evening
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and he told me that he had quit his job that day,
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his dream job,
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and he said that he had quit his job because of me,
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because I had made him feel so safe and loved
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that he didn't need to prove himself on Wall Street anymore,
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and he just wanted to get out of the city
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and away from his abusive, dysfunctional family,
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and move to a tiny town in New England
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where he could start his life over with me by his side.
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Now, the last thing I wanted to do was leave New York,
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and my dream job,
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but I thought you made sacrifices for your soulmate,
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so I agreed, and I quit my job,
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and Conor and I left Manhattan together.
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I had no idea I was falling into crazy love,
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that I was walking headfirst into a carefully laid
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physical, financial and psychological trap.
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The next step in the domestic violence pattern
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is to introduce the threat of violence
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and see how she reacts.
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And here's where those guns come in.
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As soon as we moved to New England -- you know,
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that place where Connor was supposed to feel so safe --
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he bought three guns.
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He kept one in the glove compartment of our car.
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He kept one under the pillows on our bed,
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and the third one he kept in his pocket at all times.
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And he said that he needed those guns
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because of the trauma he'd experienced as a young boy.
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He needed them to feel protected.
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But those guns were really a message for me,
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and even though he hadn't raised a hand to me,
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my life was already in grave danger every minute of every day.
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Conor first physically attacked me
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five days before our wedding.
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It was 7 a.m. I still had on my nightgown.
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I was working on my computer trying to finish a freelance writing assignment,
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and I got frustrated,
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and Conor used my anger as an excuse
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to put both of his hands around my neck
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and to squeeze so tightly that I could not breathe or scream,
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and he used the chokehold
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to hit my head repeatedly against the wall.
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Five days later, the ten bruises on my neck had just faded,
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and I put on my mother's wedding dress,
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and I married him.
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Despite what had happened,
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I was sure we were going to live happily ever after,
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because I loved him, and he loved me so much.
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And he was very, very sorry.
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He had just been really stressed out by the wedding
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and by becoming a family with me.
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It was an isolated incident,
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and he was never going to hurt me again.
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It happened twice more on the honeymoon.
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The first time, I was driving to find a secret beach
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and I got lost,
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and he punched me in the side of my head so hard
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that the other side of my head repeatedly hit
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the driver's side window.
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And then a few days later, driving home from our honeymoon,
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he got frustrated by traffic,
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and he threw a cold Big Mac in my face.
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Conor proceeded to beat me once or twice a week
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for the next two and a half years of our marriage.
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I was mistaken in thinking that I was unique
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and alone in this situation.
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One in three American women
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experiences domestic violence or stalking at some point in her life,
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and the CDC reports that 15 million children
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are abused every year, 15 million.
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So actually, I was in very good company.
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Back to my question:
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Why did I stay?
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The answer is easy.
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I didn't know he was abusing me.
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Even though he held those loaded guns to my head,
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pushed me down stairs,
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threatened to kill our dog,
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pulled the key out of the car ignition as I drove down the highway,
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poured coffee grinds on my head
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as I dressed for a job interview,
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I never once thought of myself as a battered wife.
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Instead, I was a very strong woman
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in love with a deeply troubled man,
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and I was the only person on Earth
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who could help Conor face his demons.
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The other question everybody asks is,
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why doesn't she just leave?
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Why didn't I walk out? I could have left any time.
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To me, this is the saddest and most painful question that people ask,
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because we victims know something you usually don't:
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It's incredibly dangerous to leave an abuser.
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Because the final step in the domestic violence pattern
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is kill her.
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Over 70 percent of domestic violence murders
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happen after the victim has ended the relationship,
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after she's gotten out,
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because then the abuser has nothing left to lose.
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Other outcomes include long-term stalking,
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even after the abuser remarries;
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denial of financial resources;
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and manipulation of the family court system
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to terrify the victim and her children,
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who are regularly forced by family court judges
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to spend unsupervised time
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with the man who beat their mother.
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And still we ask, why doesn't she just leave?
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I was able to leave,
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because of one final, sadistic beating
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that broke through my denial.
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I realized that the man who I loved so much
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was going to kill me if I let him.
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So I broke the silence.
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I told everyone:
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the police, my neighbors,
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my friends and family, total strangers,
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and I'm here today because you all helped me.
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We tend to stereotype victims
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as grisly headlines,
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self-destructive women, damaged goods.
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The question, "Why does she stay?"
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is code for some people for, "It's her fault for staying,"
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as if victims intentionally choose to fall in love with men
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intent upon destroying us.
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But since publishing "Crazy Love,"
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I have heard hundreds of stories from men and women
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who also got out,
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who learned an invaluable life lesson from what happened,
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and who rebuilt lives -- joyous, happy lives --
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as employees, wives and mothers,
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lives completely free of violence, like me.
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Because it turns out that I'm actually a very typical domestic violence victim
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and a typical domestic violence survivor.
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I remarried a kind and gentle man,
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and we have those three kids.
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I have that black lab, and I have that minivan.
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What I will never have again,
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ever,
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is a loaded gun held to my head
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by someone who says that he loves me.
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Right now, maybe you're thinking,
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"Wow, this is fascinating,"
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or, "Wow, how stupid was she,"
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but this whole time, I've actually been talking about you.
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I promise you there are several people
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listening to me right now
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who are currently being abused
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or who were abused as children
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or who are abusers themselves.
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Abuse could be affecting your daughter,
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your sister, your best friend right now.
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I was able to end my own crazy love story
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by breaking the silence.
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I'm still breaking the silence today.
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It's my way of helping other victims,
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and it's my final request of you.
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Talk about what you heard here.
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Abuse thrives only in silence.
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You have the power to end domestic violence
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simply by shining a spotlight on it.
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We victims need everyone.
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We need every one of you to understand
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the secrets of domestic violence.
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Show abuse the light of day by talking about it
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with your children, your coworkers,
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your friends and family.
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Recast survivors as wonderful, lovable people
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with full futures.
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Recognize the early signs of violence
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and conscientiously intervene,
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deescalate it, show victims a safe way out.
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Together we can make our beds,
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our dinner tables and our families
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the safe and peaceful oases they should be.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
