This story was reported for the San Diego News Network on March 8, 2010.
Editor’s Note: This is a part of a collection of stories SDNN will publish throughout the month of March to celebrate Women’s History Month. Join us as we recognize Women’s History Month by sending in your stories too and checking SDNN every day for stories from other women in our region. Happy Women’s History Month!
Leslie Morgan Steiner’s memoir “Crazy Love” didn’t immediately capture my attention or interest.
But I knew Steiner’s work; she’s the best-selling author of “Mommy Wars” and the author of a 1980s Seventeen magazine article that chronicled a young girl’s struggle with anorexia nervosa. The article stirred up a vital conversation that had never been addressed so candidly until then.
And I knew from reading Steiner’s work, she would be fervently honest in “Crazy Love,” a book about a four-year marriage in her early 20s and the verbal and physical abuse she endured. I know, too, she would take responsibility for her choices and wouldn’t play the victim.
She’s candid about her ex-husband, a man who used the word “retard” as a term of endearment, and about identifying as a domestic violence victim.
Two days after starting it, I finished reading the novel I would have passed on had it not been written by Steiner.
Steiner and her book highlight the struggle with domestic violence that 1.3 million women (and 835,000 men) face each year in the U.S.
Though Steiner escaped her abusive relationship more than two decades ago and released “Crazy Love” about a year ago, her journey against domestic violence continues. She created “The Crazy Love Project,” which allows victims to share their stories anonymously. And on Thursday, she’ll be the keynote speaker at the YWCA’s annual benefit, “In the Company of Women”; 100 percent of proceeds will benefit domestic abuse programs.
In our Q&A, Steiner opens up about her ex, the Rihanna-Chris Brown relationship, and the project that’s giving voices to victims.
Many courageous women have shared their stories about domestic violence. What makes you and your book different?
There are a couple of things. One is that, I think I’ve had enough distance with what had happened to be really honest about myself and the role that I played in my own destruction. I think the other memoirs that I’ve read have been sort of more angry and wounded. But, I think I had the distance to be really fair; I think; I hope. Also, I don’t think I demonized my ex-husband — I didn’t want to do that and I’ve never done that. I’ve always seen him as a really troubled person who had really good qualities but who had a bad deal by being so abused as a child. I wanted to write a book that wasn’t black and white and that just really tried to show the reality of what it’s like to be in an abusive relationship.
You know, looking at me from the outside, it looked like I had everything – I had a degree from Harvard, a supportive family, a great job. I had so much going for me. I think that’s really contrary to most people’s stereotype of abuse victims, who tend to think of victims as poor immigrant women with lots of children who can’t leave. There are definitely women who fit that description and men too but what makes my story different is that I had so much privilege you thought I could have left at any time. I still thought I couldn’t leave him until the very end when I had to leave him – when it was a choice between him or me. If I would have stayed he would have killed me.
How did your friends and family react to your novel given the sort of image your father attempted to portray of you and your family?
My mother and my siblings were incredibly supportive of it, they are really proud of it. I think it’s particularly amazing because my mom doesn’t come off easy in the book – she comes off as wonderful mother with a lot of flaws but she loved it and was so proud of it. My brother and my sister felt the same way.
I don’t know if my father has read it. We’re not close and he has never said anything about my writing or my work.
I have to say, I hate it when people use the r-word. It’s the term for an actual disorder but has been used for negative connotations. How did it feel the first time Connor [the name given to Steiner’s ex-husband] called you that and then he kept calling you that?
I have to tell you, so many people hate that part. It really gets under their skin that he called me that and that I took it. I think it captures really well the paradox of our relationship that he could say something really mean to me like that and convince me that it’s a term of endearment. I think it shows what a psychological trap I had fallen into, that when he called me that it made me laugh and made me smile.
It also captures a paradox of the self-esteem I had. I know I’m not stupid and the entire world could scream at me and tell me that I’m stupid and “retarded” because I know I’m not. So it didn’t hurt my feelings that he said that but I was vulnerable enough that I didn’t say to him, “Don’t call me that.” I also wonder if it said something about him that he had to put me down in a passive-aggressive manipulative way.
During your marriage, you interviewed an expert who studied abusers. He told you, not one of the men he studied stopped abusing women despite therapy and counseling. If that’s the case, when will the violence end? What does it boil down to?
What I really learned from writing the book is that it really breaks the silence about what I went through. I really think that’s the answer and that’s the simple thing to do – to talk about it, write about it and to be open about it.
The first group I spoke to were a bunch of salesmen at St. Martin Press, who had to go out and sell my book. I broke the silence by reading the book and talking to them about it. I would say 90 percent, nearly every man at that meeting went on the table and said, “I was abused” or “My sister just got out of an abusive relationship” or “My mother was married to an abusive man before she met my dad.” Every man was so touched by it.
Experts estimate:
One out of every four children in California is exposed to violence as a victim or witness
21,000 domestic violence calls or cases were reported to law enforcement in 2004 in the County
The County’s domestic violence hotline receives over 5,000 calls annually
Every year, 1,510,455 women and 834,732 men are victims of physical violence by an intimate.
Men are more likely to be injured in reciprocally violent relationships (25 percent) than were women when the violence was one-sided (20 percent).
Everybody needs to just break the silence about it. That is the answer. That is how victims will get out faster. That is how abusers will be able to seek the help that they need faster. But I don’t think it will ever end until we stop asking “Why a woman would stay with her abuser?” and ask “Why would anybody beat the people who they love most in this world?”
It seems so easy to blame the abusers though. Do you think they deserve a little sympathy for their situation?
I do, I do. I know it’s sort of a strange position to take but they absolutely deserve our sympathy. They deserve sympathy because so often they have been victims themselves and I think demonizing them doesn’t do anybody any good. Also, in a strange way, it makes the victims feel really guilty. Like when people said to me, “He’s such a monster.” Then well, you’re telling me, I love the monster and I would’ve never fallen in love with a terrible person. He was half good and that’s who I fell in love with. So, I think they deserve sympathy and understanding but not excuses. It’s wrong and it’s criminal to abuse anybody.
During the news of the Rihanna-Chris Brown relationship, you spoke out in support of Rihanna and elaborated on your story — what sort of reaction did you get from that?
The reaction to everything I had written about Rihanna; there were a lot of people who had been in abusive relationships themselves and they were very grateful. The whole Rihanna-Chris Brown situation while awful for both of them was wonderful for this country because it educated people so much about what domestic violence is really about. It showed us that you can be young and beautiful and talented and still be a victim and still be an abuser.
I’m very, very proud of the way Rihanna has handled everything. I think that it’s terrible that so many people expected her to speak out right away and become a champion for victims when she was going through her own private kind of hell. But she really spoke about it candidly, much of the way I try to speak about it in “Crazy Love” and she doesn’t demonize Chris Brown, which I think is important.
I think it’s really wonderful that she can be sympathetic to him despite being the victim because he was abused as a child just like how my ex-husband has. He has confronted his problem quite honestly and I hope that he gets the help he deserves. I’ll tell you, I think Rihanna has a simpler problem to solve: she just has to avoid abusive men but Chris has to ask why he was abusive even though he opposes abuse himself.
Tell me about The Crazy Love Project. What do you hope will come from the project? What have you learned so far from the project?
It has just been so great. I felt so empowered by speaking out that I wanted other people to have the same experience even if they couldn’t write a whole book or didn’t have the opportunity to publish their book or were afraid to and needed to protect their anonymity.
So, as soon as it was published, I got hundreds of e-mails with most people who told me their whole story. I’d write back and say, “I have this thing called ‘The Crazy Love Project.’ Do you want to share your story?” Almost everybody said yes. It was wonderful for them I hope and for people to realize that victims come in all ages, races, ethnicities and life stories. I’ve heard from grandmothers, gay men, Ivy League graduates and people who were barely literate enough to write an e-mail and they’ve all told the same story.
For me personally, it made me feel not alone. I think one of the things you want more than anything when you’ve been through a traumatic experience is to feel like somebody else was there with you. By hearing from so many people, I feel like they were there with me during the relationship and I feel like I don’t have anything to be ashamed of because I’m in such good company with people who lived through it and put it behind them.
If there is one thing you could tell everyone in the world about domestic violence and those involved, what would it be?
To talk about it and to talk about it anyway that you can whether you’re a victim or not; you never know who is listening.
Hoa Quach is the political editor for the San Diego News Network.