When Love Hurts: Intimate Partner Violence

In this powerful and deeply important episode of Finding Your Voice, I’m joined by Elizabeth Eastlund, MSW, with extensive experience working with survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV).

Together, we break down what intimate partner violence really is beyond the stereotypes and misconceptions, and why it so often goes unseen. Elizabeth shares her on the ground experience from the field, offering clarity around common warning signs, patterns of control, and the emotional complexities that make these relationships so difficult to leave.

We also spend time talking about something many people struggle with: how to support someone you love who may be in an abusive relationship. What helps? 

This episode is honest, educational, and grounded in care. Whether you’re a clinician, a loved one, or someone seeking understanding, this conversation aims to raise awareness, reduce stigma, and remind listeners that support and safety begin with listening.

If you’ve ever wondered how to recognize IPV or how to be a safe presence for someone navigating it, this is a conversation you don’t want to miss.

National Domestic Violence Hotline

https://www.thehotline.org/

California Partnership to End Domestic Violence

https://www.cpedv.org/find-help/

Finding Your Voice Instagram 

https://www.instagram.com/findingyourvoicepodcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, I'm Jason Carrasco, and welcome to Finding Your Voice. I'm a licensed marriage family and child therapist and a lifelong student of human resilience. For years, I've sat with people and some of their hardest moments, moments that have challenged their identity, their spirit, and sometimes their will to keep going. One thing I've learned is that human beings can survive the unthinkable. And with support, a person's pain can become great purpose. This podcast is a home for stories about mental health, human rights, and the courage it takes to move through darkness and toward healing. And these episodes you'll hear from survivors, clinicians, and everyday people who are brave enough to speak honestly and bold enough to use their voice. You deserve hope, you deserve healing, and you deserve to be heard. Welcome to Finding Your Voice. Let's get started. All right. Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to another episode of Finding Your Voice. Very, very happy to be here today, and I want to thank you for all being here, for taking the time out of your lives to listen to this episode. I'm really excited about the guest that we have on today. Her name is Elizabeth Eastland. She was a licensed clinical social worker for 16 years, and she also has her master's in social work as well. She has a very amazing resume. I'm going to let her talk about a little bit. And the topic that we have today, I think, is something that is extremely important. I want to bring some awareness to. And also, if maybe you know somebody that is out there that's struggling, or you yourself, hopefully this podcast can help you feel a little bit less alone. So the topic today that we're talking about is intimate partner violence. And again, here is Elizabeth Eastland. So Elizabeth, would you would you like me to call you Elizabeth? Or how yeah. Okay. All right. So if you can, because I I would love to people to hear the experience that you have. Would you please talk a little bit about your background and what you've done in your career and kind of where you're at now?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Sure. Yeah. So I have been a social worker for nearly 30 years. I have been in the social justice, social welfare work for 30 years, starting off in HIV and AIDS in my internships, and ended up working in Skid Row right out of graduate school. So that was quite an experience, being able to see each and every social issue. They're all on Skid Row, you know, from drugs and alcohol to mental health to intimate partner violence to, well, homelessness, right? First and foremost. But I went there because I was interested in supporting folks who are living with HIV and AIDS. And I was able to help support the very first building for permanent housing building for people living with HIV to try and get them off the streets of Skid Row. From there, I went to do my clinical work in an HIV clinic in Long Beach, St. Mary's Medical Center. And after getting my clinical hours, I started working at Rainbow Services, which is a domestic violence organization that provides shelter and support services to anyone experiencing domestic violence, intimate partner violence. And so my experience is kind of within those populations, HIV and AIDS, homelessness, women, intimate partner violence, queer rights, all the good stuff. So I've what I've noticed is that there is commonalities and trauma across all the populations, right? Often we see folks who are struggling with substance use and mental health have had adverse childhood experiences very at a very young age. Folks who are experiencing intimate partner violence may have witnessed it as children. So we do see a lot of commonalities amongst the different populations that I've served. And so I've done on the ground work, listening to people who are in the thick of it, right? Folks who are suffering with substance use, suffering with intimate partner violence, with mental health issues. And I've done director program work, running a shelter, running programs. And I finally ended Rainbow Services. My last seven years there was as executive director. And as you can imagine, after the pandemic, I burnt out fabulously and decided it was time to focus on myself and to take some time for myself to really look at how I can build up my own strength again for this type of work because it takes a lot, especially as an executive director. I'd say all of it, right? Social workers in general give a lot of themselves, but that position as executive director took a lot, especially during a pandemic. And so the past few years, I've been really fortunate to work as a consultant with a group at the national level to provide trauma-informed support to organizations and communities who are addressing homelessness and intimate partner violence, continue to do trauma work. And I support a local Los Angeles coalition, the Domestic Violence Homeless Services Coalition, which I helped. I'm one of the founding members. We got together in 2017 in an effort to ensure that survivors were being addressed in any clans to end homelessness in Los Angeles City and County. So that's kind of where I've been. Yeah. So what you got for me?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Wow. Wow. That is that is amazing. I mean, first, I just really want to acknowledge the emotional weight of the work, you know, that you've done. You you've talked about that a little bit, and that's why it seems like obviously you've transitioned now to a role you're consulting and still very important work and determining what your future is going to look like. But with all of the programs that you've worked with, with the populations that you discussed, from the homelessness to HIV, domestic violence, a lot, a lot of weight comes with that work. So first off, I just want to say thank you for the work that you did do and the service that you provided, you know, to all the people out there. Yeah, absolutely. Now, help help me clarify something. Domestic violence, intimate partner violence. What is the what's the difference?

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So sure. So domestic violence, people will may group family violence of any type under domestic violence. So violence between siblings, violence between parent and child, like it's more of a catch-all, whereas intimate partner violence is very specific. It is between two intimate partners, and it kind of takes that family aspect out of it. Okay. Um, so anyone who is in an intimate partnership may identify with intimate partner violence versus domestic violence.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Makes complete sense. All right. Thank you. Yeah, for clarifying that. What what do you think maybe are some of the most misunderstood aspects of intimate partner violence, or or you can talk about domestic violence, the broader term? What do you think are some of the most misunderstood aspects of why people are apart and choose to stay in these types of relationships? Because I think sometimes you hear a lot of people with a lot of curiosity about that, and even themselves, right? Wondering why I am staying in this relationship. What are some of your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, well, it's messy, right? First of all, asking why do survivors stay is the wrong question. The question needs to be, why does someone harm someone they love? So we've been for ever since the beginning of time putting blame on the victims, on the survivors, saying, Why do they why don't they just leave? It's not so easy. What's misunderstood is relationships are complex. And to just, if you imagine walking out your door right now with just whatever you have on your person and having to go find a new place to live, that is really complicated to do. Even for those of us that have the financial means to do so, it's very costly to change households, right? And so to think about just up and leaving takes a long time, I think, to really get in a place of believing enough in yourself to either ask for help or to make that move. Every person who came to our shelter when I was working in the domestic violence field, I saw as courageous. As humans, we're not used to asking for help. We don't like asking for help or admitting we're in a vulnerable place. So folks who do, I see them as courageous and as brave. So I think what's misunderstood is how complex it is to actually leave a relationship that once there was love, right? These relationships tend to start in love. Even if they're complex and messy from the beginning, there's something that brings these two people together into a partnership.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Yeah, that makes that makes complete sense. And then, like you're saying, to have to all of a sudden, like you said, imagine you have to just with whatever you have on your person, get up, walk out the door, and basically start a whole new life, maybe even a whole new career, live in a new city, possibly. Try to get a new emotional support system. That would be extremely, extremely challenging and scary to have to, to have to do that. What do you think are some of the most with maybe people that you've worked with or from just your knowledge, what do you think maybe is some of the long-term, how does the long-term exposure, right, to domestic violence or intimate partner violence, how does that affect somebody psychologically? What are kind of some of the things you see the most?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah, I would say post-traumatic stress disorder. If someone is has long-term exposure to intimate partner violence, I'm gonna assume that they probably have exposure to violence on other levels as well. Rarely do we see people coming into shelter or domestic violence, intimate partner violence services who have just had one episode of violence, right? And when we're talking physical violence, that there has likely been a long period of time of other types of violence, emotional, verbal, although it's psychological, before it gets to physical violence. So that could be years, you know, and people question themselves. The long-term aspect is people question their own decision-making process because it's like, well, I decided to be in this relationship. Look how badly this went. So then they start questioning their self-worth. They start believing everything the person who's harming them is saying to them about them. And so that can be extremely harmful and can lead to severe psychological distress in the form of post-traumatic stress disorder. I think women are often misdiagnosed with personality disorders when it might be trauma related. So that is something that I think clinicians need to be aware of is to really do trauma histories with folks to understand where they're coming from, especially if we're looking at potentially diagnosing someone with like a personality disorder.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Right. Is there any type of research that or numbers, statistics that you've learned or that you have that let's say show that people who have been who come from certain types of backgrounds, who come from certain types of, you know, maybe abuse from when they were a child, like they're more likely to enter a relationship where they may suffer from domestic violence. Is that do any of those numbers kind of correlate?

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah, I mean, definitely if we've been exposed to violence before, that sets us up to for potential future, you know, exposure. Though you got to think about the fact that there's so many kids who grew up in violent homes who never become violent, who never become victims. So it's hard to say or to put a number on it. I would say it just sets us up for potential ongoing abuse if we've been witness to intimate partner violence as children. Like you think about the adverse childhood experiences study from the 90s. One of them was watching your mother be violently abused. You know, like that it's a huge effect on children to watch a parent be violently abused. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And I'm wondering about like the children as well, too. You know, when a children is seeing their parent being abused, of course, the the impact on them and and what they're going through, that must make it even extremely challenging and more complex for the victims to heal because they're trying to heal from their own abuse and then also they're trying to heal from their child having to have witnessed and and seen some of this.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

Right. Yeah. Children make things even more complex and even more messy, right? In in a necessary way that a lot of the survivors I worked with at Rainbow Services, when they came to shelter, it was often the children that caused them to make the decision to leave. They would say, you know, it didn't matter if I was being abused, but once I realized how my kids were being affected, I knew I had to leave. And also when we go, if we go back to the question on what's misunderstood about what why people don't just leave immediately, you got kids involved. There are legal aspects that survivors need to think about before just taking children out of the home. Right. So again, just really complex. But as far as kids go, you know, as humans, we are resilient. It's there's a lot of different factors that will relate to whether or not a kid goes on to become abusive or be in an abusive relationship. And it's hard to say like this amount of people want to harm others. We just don't know. And plus, we don't study those who harm, right? We study those who are harmed. And so until we kind of shift that narrative back to putting the responsibility on people who harm, I'm not sure we'll ever have those numbers, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

Yeah, that would be interesting though. That would be very interesting to get into that much more.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Did you have you ever looked at Jackson Katz's work? He talks a lot about the language we use. So we talk about how many women were abused instead of how many people abused women. Right. If you talk about women who were abused and you're putting the emphasis on the women being abused, like the survivor, what is why doesn't she leave? We're putting the responsibility on the survivor. We're asking the wrong questions.

unknown 15:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah. So we're kind of what what do you call it? What's the word? We're kind of, you know, when you make people who are fleeing the heart. No, but we're just, we're just, here we go. We're just feeding the stigma almost like it's the victim's fault in a way with that type of language, right? Saying that they were abused, as you know what I mean? We're we're kind of feeding that in a sense, as opposed to, like you said, flipping it around and putting it on the perpetrators of the language of being the abuser and putting it in that context. So I think that in itself, for so people to kind of shift their lens a little bit and kind of look at it that way, can maybe I think look at it in a much healthier, healthier way, as this is not this person's fault, right? That is suffering from this abuser. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

You know, it's similar to like seeing domestic violence as a woman's movement issue.

unknown 16:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:28

It's an everybody issue. It's an everybody issue, but because women are impacted by the violence differently from men, especially financially, then it it's almost like because we're affected differently, then it there are the interventions around how we help people are different.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

When you were at Rainbow Services, of course, kind of in in general, I mean, obviously there's a lot of confidentiality, HIPAA, everything like that. But kind of in general, what's one kind of story that stuck with you maybe kind of the most or kind of I got so many. Still yeah, I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure you have a lot because you saw a lot of people there, but I don't know if there's I mean, I'm sorry for putting you on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

There is one story, like well, there's several, but there is this one kid, he must have been like 13 or 14 when he first came to our emergency shelter, and he was so angry. He was so angry every weekend watching his fellow shelter mates go off to see their parent, the one who had, you know, was causing the harm, and he couldn't go see his. Because his parent who had caused the harm was so incredibly violent, it was not safe. And so they stayed with us at Rainbow Services for a long time. They moved towards our transitional housing. They were with us for over a year, I think. But during that time, you know, with the trauma-informed care lens, instead of continuing to see this kid's behavior as defiant or violent or all the things we label adolescent boys with, we saw his leadership potential.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

We saw how he instigated certain things. And then we use that for good, right? We talked to him about how he tends to influence others and how we could use that for good. And within after a certain amount of time, he really turned things around, where he became more helpful, not just to his mom, but to actual staff, where he was really leading. And I believe towards the end, I was told that he said that he can't wait to grow up and make money so he can support Rainbow financially. And it just like warmed my heart. And it really was an exercise because I would get calls weekly from staff. So-and-so is acting up again. You know, it's like, okay, well, let's look at this. And it was a great way to really utilize aspects of trauma-informed care to shift our thinking away from behavioral interventions with this kid to thinking more expansively about his behavior. It's understandable he would get angry because he couldn't didn't really understand why he couldn't go see his parent. You know? And so, yeah, that that's one that stuck with me.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Yeah. And it would make sense that due to that confusion, due to the confusion and fear that that would result in anger being the natural first emotion he would feel and he would express. Yeah. You know, because as as we know, especially with children, they don't know how to have that emotional identification and emotional regulation. So he can't learn how to identify the feelings he's he really has. So it's very like you said, it's very natural for that anger to come out initially, right? As his expression and as his, you know, probably really fear, confusion, all of those other things.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

And I think some of the confusion was intimate partner violence was so apparent in his cultural familial background, like even uncles and other people in the family. Like he grew up witnessing not just within his family of origin, but his extended family. So he was confused. Like, why did we have to leave? Like this is just normal, right? Isn't this just normal? So it's also an unlearning. We help people on their way to on their healing journey, but for kids, it's a lot of unlearning cultural norms that may not be as healthy, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

As we thought they were. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

In terms of at Rainbow Services or with other maybe programs that you saw, were there was there a certain population that you had more clients, you know, with that population, say the Latina population or African American. What was kind of what were the numbers a little bit in general?

SPEAKER_01 20:55

For Rainbow Services, and they're located in San Pedro, California, because all of the staff spoke Spanish, we had a high number of Latinas coming to our shelters. Yeah. And we were one of the first shelters to really adopt trauma-informed care. So we would get a lot of cases that other shelters would not.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Amazing. Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit? Just trauma-informed care to help in cases people that may be hearing that for the first time?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah, trauma-informed care is just a shift in our service provision from kind of a power over approach, like I'm the expert, you're the hurt person that needs my help, to a power with approach. I may have expertise in a certain area, but you're the expert in your own life. And we're going to work in partnership together, power with, to get you on your healing journey, right? So a lot of examination of practices and policies within organizations that might be re-traumatizing for people, such. You know, there used to be a practice where we would take people's cell phones away.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

You know, they have curfew, they have to be back to the shelter by a certain time. All of these things were recreating that power and control wheel.

unknown 22:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

And then that rainbow, as director of programs, I did a lot of evaluation and we'd hold focus groups with the residents, with third parties to really get just unbiased kind of feedback about our programs. And one of the things that stuck with me during one of those sessions was, you know, that I didn't come here to continue being abused.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

And that that really helped my efforts to try to say this trauma-informed care is absolutely necessary. We cannot continue re-traumatizing folks with our policies just because it makes our lives easier. Like we're here to work, right? We get paid to be here. We're working with folks who are in a real messy, complex, complicated situation and time in their lives, you know, and but we're here every day. So we can't become complacent to this situation. We need to treat everyone as an individual. The way in which they experience trauma is going to be different than the last person we served. So really trying to do individual approaches within the framework of being transparent and the peer support and mutuality, collaborating, that power with collaborating and empowering folks to understand what their options are. Even if all those options suck, there might be so many options, right? So yeah, the trauma-informed care in California, in the domestic violence field, started in the early 2000s as the state of California really focused on ensuring that folks with disabilities or queer community, people with substance use issues and struggling with mental health challenges were being served by shelters funded by the state. Because what we were seeing was a lot of folks were being assessed out and saying we can't help you because we don't have that kind of expert. But for shelters, it's like we're housing folks. We are creating a safe place to house folks while they get started on that healing journey. We don't need to be the end-all be-all for people. We need to be a safe place for folks.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Is it effective in terms of most treatment for them to be housed as well, too? I would imagine so.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Oh, well, housed, yes. And to look at, I mean, we could do a whole session on housing homelessness and it's partner violence or gender-based violence. Though, yeah, I mean, it's really hard to start your healing journey if you're still thinking about where you're sleeping tonight. Shifting No, I don't I will say I don't know that all survivors need shelter. I think some survivors are able to identify maybe other places to stay or may have the financial means to be able to support a move. Though the people who go to shelters that are funded nonprofit organizations, they don't have those means. The financial means, they don't have friends or family to stay with that are safe. So yeah, the shelter organizations tend to see folks that don't have those options.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

In terms of the clinicians that were working there, right, with this population, what were some of the some of the things that they kind of needed the most support with in working with this population? Like in terms of whether it's interventions, whether it's trauma-informed care training, certain modalities of therapy, what did I'm sure there was a lot of trainings that, of course, that they received. Clinicians always receive training, right? And they need them for their continuing education units. But for this population, like somebody maybe coming in there for the first time, what did a clinician kind of need to be trained in the most?

SPEAKER_01 25:58

I think trauma theory, like the thing about Judith Herman, trauma and recovery, like that is kind of the foundation of all trauma work for me anyway. Like I really see that as a model, though, in terms of types of interventions, or just in general, what do folks need to know?

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Okay, so types of interventions. At Rainbow, we had a lot of more, we didn't have a lot of licensed therapists. We had some MSWs, we always had, and we did a lot of training on things like beyond trauma. Then there is this one substance use and intimate partner violence model, seeking safety.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Oh, yes, seeking safety.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

So beyond trauma, seeking safety, the trauma focused CBT that we know is really works well with with kids and adolescents, I think also works well with survivors, being able to rewire how we think about experiences is so helpful. So EMDR. Though we didn't really, you know, we weren't on that level to offer that at at Rainbow, the EMDR. But I think for the clinicians listening, if the there are certain things they want to brush up on, those would be the interventions I would look into.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

So kind of shifting the focus a little bit in terms of red flags and warning signs, and this isn't just for somebody that's in a domestic violent relationship, but also maybe even family members or friends as well. What are maybe some of the early warning signs that people often make?

SPEAKER_01 27:32

I think that isolation is a big one. You know, like when you first get into a relationship, there's an inherent kind of wanting to just be with that person, right? That lasts for a couple of months, but eventually you open up and you get to meet each other's friends and family, and you start sharing your I think in in some violent relationships, it never is like that. It's isolated from the beginning. Like, I just want to be with you, you know. And so in the beginning, if that's a new relationship, that could be kind of flattering, right? Like, oh, they just want to spend all their time with. But for me, that would be a warning sign. Like, oh, they don't want to meet your family? Why don't they want to meet your family and friends? Like, what are their family and friends like? So that would be a warning sign. Like if they they are hesitant to meet your family and friends or to introduce you to their family and friends, I would say that's one. I think the kind of I think about walking on eggshells. You know, we all have times in our relationships where there's conflict or where a partner's not feeling their best. So you you adjust. But if it's always walking on eggshells, if you're always having to change in some aspect because of your partner's mood, then that might be a warning sign.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

How about for so, like you said, and and that's something I've heard before a lot too, isolation, because the abuser will often want to close that circle of kind of support that you have around you so that they can kind of take that dominance or or kind of that control in the relationship. Is that a little bit accurate with what they want to do? And they want to, like, let's say, and they want to close that circle more because let's say your friends do start noticing and start saying, Well, I'm noticing some things about Jeff. So they don't want you around those friends that are saying, I'm starting to know some things about Jeff, right? And starting to give you some some of the things that even maybe they're observing as well, too. So I think that's definitely definitely a big one as well. What are some things that some family and friends should maybe try to do if they have a loved one or they know somebody that is they think in a relationship that is kind of becoming unhealthy and where they might be starting to experience intimate partner violence?

SPEAKER_01 29:54

Yeah, I think one of the first things that comes to mind is don't allow them to isolate. That you're noticing that you're not seeing someone as often as you used to, maybe just be direct and ask them about that. Start brushing up yourself on how to support some a loved one in a violent relationship. And I think just the biggest thing is don't lose contact because that is the tactic of the person who's causing harm is to isolate. And so when folks are up front about this person has caused me harm, I think it's really important to remain as neutral as possible. Right. And it's hard as humans, because we love being judgy, and I will be the first to say that. We want to get them out of that relationship. We want to get them to safety, they may not be ready to being as neutral as we possibly can. Because by far, I think a lot of people may stay in relationships and get through it. And I'm not saying the most violent ones, the most violent ones obviously need more intervention. But I think there's a lot of intimate partner violence that happens that we never talk about. And then people just go on and live their lives. Though if we can talk about it, and if someone discloses, hey, my partner's harmed me, to try and remain neutral, try and provide information about what they can do. Hey, have you thought about maybe getting some of your personal documents together? I can hold them for you in case you ever do decide to leave. Like follow your friend or family member's lead on where they are in their process. When you think about the stages of change, it takes a lot of time before people actually get into that action stage, you know? So there's a lot of contemplation happening before they make that decision. You all we can all be good partners in that, good friends and family members, and trying to be as supportive without enabling, right? And definitely don't put yourself in harm's way, though try and be that safe space for your friend or family member.

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Is there anything that family or friend member like should avoid, like not do, like that you say you would see with maybe some of the clients, right, that were at Rainbow Services and that the clients talked about, or you know, just that you know from your own education, like family or f family or friends do, which I'm sure is out of love, right? And out of care. But it's like, no, don't like, don't do that. Like that, that's not good. That won't help. Right. What would you think?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Well, telling someone they should just leave before really knowing all aspects of what's been going on, that can be really hurtful and that could cause a person to not want to share with you. So again, that's why I suggested remaining as neutral as possible. And in your mind, you can be freaking out, but on the surface, remaining neutral so that you continue to be a safe space for that person. The second we get judgy is the second that they go, Okay, you're not a safe person for me to talk to. I'm gonna move on or just handle it on my own. Exactly what the person who's harming them wants to have.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Is it really, really hard for a woman or man who is in this place, right? To I mean, I I know it's hard for them to get out, but and we talked about it being how complex it is and and in terms of why it, you know, they remain in the in the relationship. I guess I want to ask why why does it take the length of time it does sometimes for somebody to be able to move on or try to, I don't want to say move on, because that minimizes all the work that needs to be done. So forgive me sometimes for my language. Why sometimes is that cycle so long in terms of the process of it?

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yeah, again, I think I go back to the stages of change. Like we've heard there are statistics around it does take someone six or seven times of leaving before they leave for good, same similar to quitting drugs and alcohol, right? How many times do people quit before they quit for good? I think there's like this inherent hope that we hold that the person's gonna change. And so we think about it, I'd share, you know, these relationships start in love, start in attraction of some sort. The person sees good in that other person, and you want to continue believing that they're good. So your mind is battling what your heart knows and your gut is telling you.

SPEAKER_00 34:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

And that's one of the biggest effects, I think, especially on women, on all humans, really, is that that distrust of your own sense of safety, distrust of what your gut and your instinct is telling you. Because here's a person harming you that supposedly loves you, that's gonna be very confusing. And then to continue staying, you know, is confusing. Though the the staying, I think, is really about holding hope that the other person is gonna change, that this was only a one-time thing, right? And then they are saying all the right things, they tend to say all the right things after a big blow-up, so that you want to believe they really are going to change. And then again, you have kids in the mix, that just makes things even more complicated.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Because even on top of your own questioning your gut, then you have your kids questioning your decision too. Like, why can't we just go home? Why can't I go and see my other parent, you know? So yeah, it's very wow.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

So so the average then is six to seven, seven times then and I think so, or seven or to eight.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah. It's very similar to addictions.

SPEAKER_00 35:41

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

How many times people relapse? Yeah. Yeah, think relapse. That's really kind of what it is, right? They go back hoping things will be different.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

So do they do they talk about, do they use that language too? Like when they're working with with this type of population, do they do they call it a relapse? If let's say, you know, I don't think we call it relapse.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

No, I've never really called it relapse, but you there has been that kind of correlation to addiction.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

Because it's very similar, right? It's very similar because an addiction, I mean, they call it the insanity, right? Of going back to the first drink and insanity being doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

You know, and so same thing with kind of this going back to the relationship, hoping that it's going to be different this time, hoping that that partner has really changed, that they really mean these promises this time, that they really are gonna be true to what they're saying, stay in that phase for I don't know how long, usually it lasts when they're kind of in that phase where things are great again, things are good.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

The honeymoon phase.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Yeah, the honeymoon phase before things continue and start escalating again.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

Right. Yeah, so many similarities. Because remember, my I began my career in Skidrow and working in substance use. Very a lot of similarities between addictions and intimate partner violence in terms of the kind of process folks go through to really get beyond it and on their own healing journey.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Have you, throughout like your work and the things you've done, and have you seen any specific laws change in terms of domestic violence or intimate partner violence that have been pretty major, pretty significant in like the last, I don't know, five years or anything.

SPEAKER_01 37:27

Yeah, just a yeah, just a few years ago, I was involved with the coalition work, the DV Homeless Services Coalition in Los Angeles. We co-sponsored a bill with the state of California, Senator Rubio's office to ensure that every community in California who receives funds for to address homelessness includes survivors of domestic violence and women in their plans to end homelessness. So that was a big major one. I mean, there's tons of different laws that have changed, but in the past five years, I would say that's the biggest one in this state to come about to support survivors and with the homeless and housing issues that we have. I thought it was really amazing to see that uh passed and to see such a support from it from across the board. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Excellent.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

Are there any laws that you would like to see passed that you've thought about before in your in the past with your time in the in your career or even now, you know, that I think having seen that policy get into law and now watching it get through kind of the state and watching other folks have reaction to it has been an amazing experience, though also really tough to get a law passed. And then once you get it past, ensuring other folks are paying attention to it, that the state is actually implementing it. It's a lot of work. So I'm not sure. I think since that one and since that experience, I haven't really thought about it. But my love for policy has been a big driver in my work and my career. And that's towards the end when I was in the domestic violence field with Rainbow Services, we were leading, co-leading that coalition with Downtown Women's Center, trying to bring a lot more attention to the issue of homelessness among survivors of intimate partner violence. Because in Los Angeles, when they do that point-in-time count every year, I think it's probably happening in a couple of weeks. Yeah. What they're seeing is across the board, 40% of adults who are experiencing homelessness have experienced intimate partner violence. Oh, wow. You have that many people in a group. That's high. Things tend to get done, right? But for some reason, we're not focused on that when we're looking, when we're talking homelessness. So that part of my work now with the coalition is running a gender-based leaders committee to ensure that we have kind of buy-in across the board from leaders across Los Angeles to advocate for monies around housing, immigration, and mental health for survivors of intimate partner.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

And how's that how's that process been for you?

SPEAKER_01 40:19

You know, we we did a lot of amazing work this past year in 2025. We got the city of LA to keep 4 million bucks on the books that they were slated to cut from victim services. So that was amazing. We got that new department, county department on housing and homeless services to not cut anything from victim services. So that's a big win. And we're really pushing to ensure the survivors are elevated when we're talking housing and homeless services, because if we can address homelessness amongst folks who've experienced intimate partner violence, that's addressing 40% of the adult population. Yeah. And I would imagine a number of the kids who are homeless on the streets is because of violence in the household. So we would address so much more if we focused on domestic violence, intimate partner violence, a little bit more in our homeless services.

SPEAKER_00 41:18

Wow. And again, phenomenal work that you're doing. It truly, truly is. I look up to it a lot because that's great change. It's a great impact, you know, that you're having in so many ways. So again, tremendous amount of respect for you for that. So we're getting close to winding up here. So one of the things I like to do at the end is I I have the four same questions I kind of ask right each each person that's on the the episode. And just one or two sentence response. If so, here's question number one. If someone feels powerless right now, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 41:54

That's such a good question. You're not powerless? Dig deeper.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Nice. You're not powerless, you're not powerless. Dig deeper. I love it. What's one thing an everyday person can do to make a real impact in this area?

SPEAKER_01 42:10

Just continue learning.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

Yeah, continue educating yourself, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:13

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

Okay, third question. And you don't have to get into the I I mean, I have the assumption and I go off the assumption, we've all been through our own personal journey, our own personal pain, right? On our on the road that of of this life, of course. So who did you become because of the pain that you lived through?

SPEAKER_01 42:33

I think I'm becoming more and more myself because of the pain that I live through.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

I love that answer. Talk more about that.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

I think, you know, becoming a baby elder now. It's really about unlearning what society has taught us and trying to uncover who we've always been meant to be. And some of that is reconnecting with all of those practices, ceremonies, and magic that we were disconnected from, that our grandparents were disconnected from because of colonization, capitalism, all the patriarchy, all this stuff. So for me, these past few years have really been unlearning all the things that are expected of me and getting into and accepting and embracing all of who I am.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And hopefully we will be having another podcast, and that that is going to be the focus of the next podcast. I think that would be wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

All right. The last question what do you want your legacy to be? And not your career, but your soul's work.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Love and connection. I really think that that's why we're here is to just love and to be connected to one another. And, you know, there's so many different ways to do that now. Through social media and face time and these Zooms, right? And it's beyond just picking up the phone. Though, because of all of those different options, I think it's almost harder sometimes for people to choose how to connect. So I think my life's legacy is just to get back to the simple connection of being in community with one another and getting back to love, just focused on love.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Well, Elizabeth, I want to thank you so much for taking the time today. Like I said, and I'm saying it with us talking now. So hopefully it'll feel like you're committed to coming back and us talking again more. See, I'm see how I'm doing that? Trying to kind of track tracking. You're manifesting. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:45

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 44:46

Yeah, I think that would be great. But again, thank you. One last thing is there like a, I imagine there is, like a national line number somebody can call. They're in this type of relationship and need help. What who would you first guide them to reach out to?

SPEAKER_01 45:02

There's like a national network. There is the national network to end domestic violence. They can help folks all across the country identify which services are available in their area.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Excellent. All right. So they can just Google that or look online.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

And then edv.org, I imagine that is.

SPEAKER_00 45:19

Okay. All right. Well, once again, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, who took the time again to listen today for joining us on another episode of Finding Your Voice. If this conversation resonated with you, please share it with someone who could benefit and subscribe to stay connected to future episodes. Thank you for listening to Finding Your Voice.