Photo credits: Ohio University
Author’s note:
I interviewed Kelly Sundberg who is the author of Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival, which tells the story of how her marriage evolved into an abusive relationship, why she endured years of physical and emotional pain, and how she eventually freed herself from the relationship. This book is an incredibly harrowing, poetic, and ultimately redemptive tale of a survivor. Her story serves as an inspiration and story of hope for domestic violence survivors who feel unable to leave an abusive relationship or are struggling to recover from their traumatic experiences. The article provides a transcript of the interview for readers to learn from.
———
Jurisview Journal: Based on your experiences, how would you address the common misconception that those in violent relationships can simply leave the relationship?
Kelly Sundberg: I think that that kind of knowledge needs to be given out on a cultural level. When we look at these misconceptions about domestic violence, frequently, we're looking at individuals who say, oh, well, why didn't she leave? But this is not an individual issue, this is a systemic issue. I think the Johnny Depp and Amber Heard trial is an example of that because regardless of what you believe in regards to their relationship, there were rampant misconceptions out there about what domestic violence looks like and what a person in that situation, what kind of agency they have. In my own life, when I had individuals who asked me why I couldn't leave, it was very frustrating and I focused a lot on the individuals. And I've been out of my abusive marriage for 12 years now and in that time, I've been able to see that those people are just products of their environment, just like we're all products of our environment. It's just we have a problem as a country. We're not the only country that has this problem, but we need to be educated on a bigger scale.
Jurisview Journal: What do you think was the most valuable thing, idea, thought, or person that helped you the most on your road to recovery?
Kelly Sundberg: There was one most valuable person and that was my therapist. She was the first person who I told I was being abused, and she took me seriously right from the start. She didn't tell me what to do. She was really smart in that she let me rely on my own sense of self and my own agency. I think when we have people in these situations, it's really easy to think we can tell them what to do, but domestic violence, over time, erodes your sense of self. You start to not trust yourself and do not trust your own judgment, and when someone comes in and says, well, I know what you should do, that just contributes to that issue. So my therapist, Liz, at the time, didn't tell me to leave. She just kind of asked questions, and she told me that she trusted me to make the right decisions.
She really changed my life. I left my marriage, I think, probably a month or so after I started seeing her—that's how quick it was. But then beyond that, on a more kind of material level, I didn't make very much money. My ex-husband was the primary breadwinner, and I got a referral to West Virginia Legal Aid from the Domestic Violence Center in Morgantown, West Virginia, and I was able to get a divorce lawyer for free. That changed all of my circumstances because with her help, I was able to leave the state, and I was able to take my son, so having the free legal aid was it was priceless.
Jurisview Journal: What is something that set you back on your road to recovery and how did you overcome this obstacle?
Kelly Sundberg: I think the biggest setback I had when I was trying to overcome—and it's hard to say the word overcome because I wouldn't say I've overcome what I experienced even now—but my biggest setback was the people who were close to me who didn't take me seriously. For example, my father is a tender, kind, gentle man, but he kind of accused me of of exaggerating or being dramatic, which, I can be a dramatic person, but this was not a situation where that was happening. It was so painful because my ex-husband had gaslighted me for so many years, and then to have people I cared about seem like they didn't take me seriously made me start gaslighting myself. There were a lot of times when I would think maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought, maybe I just overreacted, maybe I caused it.
My father and I have a really good relationship now. In terms of how I overcame it, I think I just had to adopt an attitude of, honestly, kind of ruthlessly cutting people out of my life.
Jurisview Journal: In what ways has writing this memoir helped you?
Kelly Sundberg: Writing is not therapy, but I don't think that means that writing isn't therapeutic. It really depends on the person. For some people, they're writing themselves out of a wound and some people are writing themselves into a wound. For me, taking my story and putting it on the page had this kind of alchemical process of making it someone else's story, almost. I mean, it was my story, but turning it into a book felt like I was taking it outside of myself and kind of setting it aside. It didn't fix me, but it healed me in a lot of ways. I also think at the time when I was writing the memoir, I had a friend who's a trauma therapist and at the time she was doing exposure therapy, and she'd said to me, “You're really doing a kind of exposure therapy on yourself.”
There were nights when I would write and then I would lay on the floor and cry because it was so hard, but really leaning into those experiences and feeling them helped me process them, I think, so much faster than I would have otherwise. I see a lot of people who have survived domestic violence, and they really are never able to process those experiences, so for me to have that was a real gift.
Jurisview Journal: In what ways do you hope that your memoir could help other survivors?
Kelly Sundberg: I just hope that someone can read my memoir and feel better about themselves and realize that they weren't dumb, and they weren't making bad decisions. It was a process of coercion and manipulation and so many other factors. I have had people who've written to me and told me that they read my book and decided to leave their relationship, so I know that's something that's happened. Of course, my goal is to help people realize they need to get out of their relationships, but more than that, I really want to validate other survivors' experiences and let them know that they're not alone and that what happened to them was real.
———
To learn more, read Goodbye, Sweet Girl: A Story of Domestic Violence and Survival. I would like to give my sincerest thanks to Kelly Sundberg for partaking in this interview.
コメント