Alumna finds strength to leave abuse

By Jennifer Umaña
Daily Forty-Niner

Cal State Long Beach alumna Cayt Benson remembers the first time she went grocery shopping after she left her abusive husband.

"It was just weird going to the grocery store and buying the peanut butter that I wanted because I knew that someone wasn't going to make fun of creamy peanut butter," she said. "That in itself was monumental."

Benson now works as an assistant in human resources for 49er Shops, Inc. and is the program coordinator for "Silent Witnesses No More," an exhibit sponsored by the Women's Resource Center which continues Wednesday and Thursday.

The exhibit aims to educate the campus about domestic violence as part of Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Benson, 30, met her ex-husband in 1988. He did not display signs of being abusive when they were dating, she said.

"He was sometimes insensitive, but no more than some other people that aren't abusive," she said.

When they got married in 1994, things changed and the emotional abuse began.

"He started taking everything for granted and the insensitivity turned more into verbal attacks," Benson said. "It turned into me getting dressed up to go out and he'd be like, ëAre you really going to wear that?' You look stupid."

The abuse then turned into control issues. They had a daughter, Audrey, in 1996. If Benson had free time, her husband wanted her to be cleaning the house and doing motherly things. If she wanted to paint or do anything for personal growth she said he would make her feel that it was taking away from being a wife and mother.

"It was like once we got married, the label took over," Benson said. "That's all I was. I was just a wife, just a mother. Not a human being."

If she ever said anything about the way he was treating her he would say that he was joking and dismiss it. If she told him that she was really upset he would say that it was just a joke and she should not be hurt by it in the first place.

"It just gets spun into this web after so many years that you stop knowing which way is up," Benson said.

She suggested counseling for help, but he would not go. He told her that if she had a problem then she needed to figure it out because he was not the one with the problem.

About a month before she left him, an incident occurred that made Benson realize how dire her situation was.

"One time I turned around and he said, ëGet that look off your face or I'll smack it off for you,'" she said.

She decided about a month later to do what was best and she told him that the marriage was over.

"It turned into a huge argument where he started throwing things," she said. "I picked up my daughter to leave and he decided that I wasn't going anywhere."

That was the first time that anything physical happened and she had the bruises to prove it.

This occurred on a Saturday night. The next Monday morning when he went to work, she had a friend come get her and they moved her belongings to her parents' house.

Benson, who had been working as a bartender at the time, only had $100 to her name. All of the money that she had been making went to bills, while he had kept all the money he made to himself. She had to find a full-time job in order to support herself and her daughter.

After she left, he would show up at her work and home and start arguments with her. They soon started going to counseling, but that did not help. One night he started arguing with her and asked her to come home.

"I said, ëI'm not going to do this' and I started to walk out," Benson said. "He threw me back into the house. I could see other apartments and their lights were on. And I screamed as loud as I could. And for the next half-hour of stuff, I just kept thinking, ëWhere is anybody? Did nobody hear?'"

A year after she left him, Benson received a flyer about volunteers needed at the Women's Resource Center. At this point in time, she was finally able to talk about what had happened and she wanted to help. Becoming involved in the "Silent Witness" project helped her deal with what she had gone through.

"At first I kind of belittled myself by going, ëOh my God, these people didn't even get to leave,'" she said. "Their [situations] were so much worse and I was so lucky.'"

But by the time the program was over, she felt that her experience was just as valid as the other victims.

Her divorce was final in June 1999. Benson shares custody with her ex-husband; he sees Audrey every other weekend. She is very in tune with what her daughter has to say when she visits her father.

Audrey is very expressive and communicative, she said, and she will not hesitate to act the second there is the slightest discomfort from her.

Benson hopes to take her experience and turn it into something positive. She wants to get volunteer certification and head into the direction of education and prevention of domestic violence. She said she would like to work with teen-age girls.

It is important when someone knows a victim of domestic violence to not give advice conditionally or point fingers at the victim, she said. It is hard for her when she hears people say that the victims seek out these relationships and staying in them is their fault.

To help out a victim, it is important to remain a friend and realize that the person will take the advice when they are ready to take it, she said.

"If they decide to leave, it's got to come from them," she said. "Whether they know where they're going to go or not, it's got to be something in them."

• Long Beach rock band rides high