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WHAT WE DO

If you or someone you know is being hurt by a partner, call La Casa's toll-free, statewide Teen Crisis Line at 1-877-923-0700

Teen Intervention and Prevention Program

With this new program, La Casa's current services have been expanded to include battered and at-risk adolescents and their children/siblings. The Teen Program uses La Casa's basic service model, with counselors assisting each teen client with individual counseling, support groups, court and social service accompaniment, advocacy regarding legal, housing, financial and medical needs, and referrals for job training and placement. We help teens recognize potentially abusive relationships, identify contributing behaviors, such as alcohol and drugs, and gain an understanding of how the "Cycle of Violence" applies to their lives.

 

One Girl's Story A teen's story of abuse

While I was growing up, I swore that if anyone ever dared to lay his hands on me, I wouldn't stand for it. But you never expect to have your fiance say they love you one minute, and then ten minutes later they are chasing you around with an aluminum baseball bat, thinking of how great your brains would look on the wall. My fiance would wake me up in the middle of the night, telling me how he was dreaming of killing me. All of this combined with 'I love you' and 'I'm sorry.'

One day, I was riding with a friend to his house and there was my drunken fiance. He was waving my pager around and cursing. When he saw me, he yelled at me on the street, calling me names I didn't deserve. He spit beer in my face and threw beer cans at my body. Trying to figure out what he was saying, I talked calmly to him. He said he had received an urgent page from me (so he says, but I never saw it. He broke my pager before I could.) Why wasn't I here when he got here, he wanted to know. I had many tears running down my face. He put his hands around my throat. He was getting more upset and pretty soon he had slammed me up against a metal gate and broke a car window with my head. I was confused. Very confused.

Eventually, the abuse got to be routine. My fiance knew how to get into my head and consistently told me untrue things about myself, trying to blow my self-esteem. He was always trying to get me to hit him back. But I knew that if I answered violence with violence, it would only breed more violence.

Looking back, I wonder about myself and why I continued to stay with him for another two years. I was used to his dramatic mood swings. But I shouldn't have kept putting up with it as long as I did. Underneath it all, I knew better. Still, I was resistant to involving the police. Until one day last summer, when he was again chasing me around drunk and yelling about how he was going to kill me. He head-butted me so hard it caused the nerve in my tooth to die. Never before was I really afraid of him, but suddenly I was very afraid and called 911. The police came and arrested him. He spent 10 days in jail and is now tied up in the legal system.

I can now honestly say that I will never put up with anybody's abusiveness. I started meeting with a counselor from La Casa, although at first I didn't think I needed it. I was able to work out my feelings about my situation. I ended up with the clarity and the strength I needed to end my relationship. Abuse is painful, but you can refuse to accept it. You can only be abused if you allow it.