Nandini Ray: Hello friends hope you are doing good. Thank you for joining the Maitri podcast Between Friends: Conversations with Maitri. I am your host Nandini Ray with my production team member Daman Tiwana sending you all a warm welcome. I'm so excited to share this news that we have just completed our season one with 19 episodes on discussing different issues that are related to Maitri's work and matter to our community. You can find all these interesting episodes on Soundcloud, different podcast apps and on YouTube. Search for my Maitri Between Friends. Today we are presenting the first episode of our second season, and in today's episode we will be focusing on survivor stories, stories of their journey, pain, resilience, and hope. We have two members, Lakshmi and Preeti will be joining us to discuss this very important issue. Yoni Ki Baat is a women's empowerment platform dedicated to raising awareness about the issues that are impacting the South Asian communities. Both Preeti and Lakshmi think that by sharing survivors’ stories, powerful stories, with a larger audience, we can help provide insights to the larger community on issues such as gender inequality, gender violence and abuse. So Lakshmi and Preeti Welcome, Welcome you both to our show. Can you please introduce yourself to our audience and say a few things about Yoni Ki Baat?

NR: Wonderful, great, great information. You know what, Preeti we are doing this episode in hopes that we will be able to engage our community members in starting a dialogue about ending victim blaming and holding perpetrators accountable. Also, we want to send a message out to all who are suffering, relationship abuse, that abuse is never victims fault. You shouldn't be ashamed of your abuse and you have rights. Everyone has rights and options to have a violence free and peaceful life. Through your YKB stories, I hope that we will be able to educate our community members. So I understand that your journey with YKB you have come across so stories of surviving violence shared by your participants. So can you please share any story where you have seen someone going through the trauma of relationship abuse, but yet yet didn't give up? Probably showed the resilience and courage to build their path to self-sufficiency. So can you share any story?

PM shares survivor story.

NR: Wow. That's an amazing story of survivor. What a powerful story you just shared Preeti.

PM: It's an amazing story, it's been amazing to see this sisters journey to everything and coming out so strong, and currently helping other people in similar situations.

NR: Thank you so much for sharing this story. I think many listeners out there if they're suffering, and they're, you know, scared that what will happen if I try to break the cycle of abuse, they will have some hope. So thank you so much. You have come across so many stories. Through these stories, what are your insights about the cycle of violence that survivors face?

LK: So Nandini thanks for giving us the opportunity again today. And, you know, I think after having spoken to several sisters about their journey and their feedback, what we are understanding more and more is that there's clearly a cycle of violence. And there are several stages. The first one, I would say is denial, where you start saying, This is not happening to me, there is no violence and don't even acknowledge that there's violence in your life. So that's step one, denial. The second one is, you know, you start accepting it, but then you move to a phase where things will change, like the person will change. He might be behaving like this today. Or she might be behaving like this today. But things will change. Right? Then the hope, and the hope. Yeah, yeah. Abuser will change. Correct. The third one is where it starts moving into completely, it's my fault. What have I done wrong? How have I triggered the other person? Is it me? That's the crazy one in this situation. The fourth kind of stage we see is, you know, that's when the first bulb starts coming on saying I need to leave something is wrong with my situation. Not everybody is in the situation, why am I kind of in this, right, that's the first kind of understanding of something is wrong. The fifth one we see is when as we call it, shit hits the fan, something happens, that's really bad people get badly beaten up, or they break limbs, or there's a death threat, or they're an attempt made on the life. And that's when kind of the person gets into Oh, my God, now I need to escape the situation, right? There is a movie when the kids care for their own life or the lives of their children. Right? Correct. And that trigger could be, you're scared for your life, you're scared for the life of your children, or it gets to a point where there's no way back, you realize that your life is in danger, then the next one is really. And that's a situation where I see a lot of people actually make the move of leaving. Where you know, it kind of gets into a crisis mode, and they leave. The next stage after they leave is called, I would call it the aftermath Where, it kind of sinks in that oh, my God, I'm alone, right? However bad my situation was, I've gotten out. And now how do I manage the crisis, so the person is running on adrenaline at that point. The next stage we see is after the crisis is over, they moved out there, they're staying in a shelter, or they've gotten out of the situation, they're served in order. That one is the beginning of the survivorship where the depression starts setting in. The crisis is over the adrenaline settle down. I think of it a little bit after like somebody passing away, and then when if all your relatives leave the house, then you know, you're suddenly alone. And the depression starts sinking in saying, Oh my god, this is reality. The next stage we've seen is really the beginning of recovery, slowly and steadily rebuilding your life, rebuilding an identity, realizing that there is a path forward, reclaiming yourself, Reclaiming your life, correct. And the last one that I see really would be where I call the person to be a survivor, where they're able to manage the situation. They have peace of mind after many, many years, possibly decades. And they're managing that PTSD. You know, the trauma is there, but it's being managed. And that's when I think, really we see people coming up to us in YKB because then they really want to give back. They want to help others in the community. They want to share their voice. So yeah, so that's where we see this, this cycle playing out.

NR: We also see the same cycles when we help our clients and you have wonderfully described a part of dv survivors, how they transform their pain into power, anguish into action. So I'm sure people who are listening today and who are suffering relationship abuse. We get much strength and hope from this discussion that their life is not ending. They have hope they have future. While I was listening to you I was thinking that, you know, sometimes some people they face roadblocks. For some people, it's not really easy to understand that it is okay, I can stay alone. So, that kind of fear, always let them you know, stop seeking out help or going to the next step. So can you share any story where someone faced roadblocks or barriers in breaking the cycle of abuse? And how did they overcome these barriers?

LK: I think we have shared some of the larger issues that come up and how people have overcome them. The first one, I think the largest one we see is the financial constraints, especially that we see is in an area like the Bay Area, which is really, really expensive. The first question comes saying, how will I feed myself? How will I feed my child, that's the first situation that prevents so many women from leaving, we have seen so many sisters who basically get into the situation. And when they broken out, I think one of the things that's really helped them is shelters and support organizations to even figure your path to kind of financial help. So that's one, the second one we've seen, which is a big, big barrier, in many cases has been immigration and people's immigration status. And we've seen stories of immigration status preventing people from running away if you know that children get abused, they get abused, and they keep taking it because of their immigration status.

NR: Yeah, many of our clients, they told us that immigration status is used as control mechanism. If you report that abuse, he will be deported, something like that. And an example we have is one of our sisters whose passport was taken away. You know, she couldn't get in touch with her family. And she couldn't even think about going back to India, because she had no way to get a passport. Because the husband, the first thing he did was take the passport and lock it up. So that's something you definitely see.

NR: I think Here comes the information part because people should know there are agencies like Maitri, we have five agencies in Santa Clara County. DV agency that can help those agencies can provide free and confidential help for whoever is suffering, relationship abuse. And people should know whoever is listening this show, if you need any information about this agency, please call Maitri helpline. You can go to my website, maitri.org. And find information. And whatever your question, whatever state or location you are in, if you want to find the local domestic violence agencies phone number, please contact me. I just wanted to give that information out. Please go on.

NR: We have to end victim blaming, that's the most important thing. And we have to provide nonjudgmental support to all survivors out there.

NR: Yes, information can save someone's life. So it is always good to find information that can help track and provide right health. So national dv hotline, National Domestic Violence Hotline, anybody can google search this number and they can reach out to them, right? It's 24/7, they're open, they can provide help in more than 100 languages. So it is okay to reach out to them. So in our walk, we have seen many misconceptions and myths in the community about domestic violence. Many times at our resource booth, people come or even educational sessions, when we go to presentation, people come and they ask, really, do we have organizations like Maitri in the Bay Area? Do you really get calls, south asians, immigrants here? They're all educated successful, quote unquote, modern minority type. So do you really get these cases? When we share our helpline statistics, and we tell them that domestic violence or violence against women, sexual assault can happen to anyone, it's not that only happening with poor and uneducated classes, because we have clients from various socio economic educational background, and some of them are doctors engineers are earning high figure salaries. And some of them don't even have full degrees. Some are fluent in English, some are in a monolingual, some have no visa status, and some are their citizens here. So we have a mixed bag and domestic violence, violence against women can happen to anybody. So have you come across any such misconception while collecting stories from your YKB sisters?

LK: Yeah, Nandini, we've come across several, and I'll just share a few here. One is the story that this doesn't happen to women who are educated. I myself have come across so many women, as you're saying we're highly highly educated, who are victims of domestic violence. The second one is this doesn't happen to people who are placed well financially. And I want to break this myth as well, that there are people who are from the lowest to the highest status in society financially, Who all are similar victims of domestic violence. So there's no connection with the financial well being of a person. The third one, and that applies actually very clearly to Maitri is there's this misconception that domestic violence happens only to Indians in India, not in the Bay Area, you know, like only educated people come to the Bay Area, they don't get abused. I think Maitri's testimony to the fact that there is need for so many so many organizations like yourself for this cause. Another one that you just mentioned Nandini was also that people can get held only if they're citizens. You know, this is something we've seen with several of our sisters that they applied to us for help. They got restraining orders. And they managed to get a lot of help and status, even though they were not citizens. So you know, they can get help, even if they're not citizens. Yes. The other one that I would add is I can't call 911 because my status will be impacted. That's one which also I want to dispel. We have had several cases where people have successfully called the cops and got help. Other one that I'll speak to what I just spoke to her sister was a if people know that I'm a survivor of violence, I won't get a job, they will think of me as less than so just want to break that. We have seen several several stories of people who've gone on to get good jobs to talk about their stories. Domestic Violence is such a prevalent situation in the US that now I think, very clearly people are open to accepting and driving the confidence of survivors. And the last one I would sit under is that only people who speak English can get help, and that especially among our Indian community, so I want to share that amongst south asians. There is help in different languages. You don't need to speak English to get help.

NR: At Maitri we provide help in so many South Asian languages, if someone is calling us and asking us can be talked to someone in Hindi or Punjabi or Bengali or whatever the last When she wants to talk, we will find ways to connect with the right staff or volunteers who can speak that language.

NR: And always what we see big responsibility is on victims shoulder to stop the abuse. Because some survivors, they're told, you know, you can change the situation, have a baby, or cook well, or listen to your partner or whatever your partner is saying, do this or do that, then abuse will stop. So here comes the victim blaming, people shouldn't say these things, because we should acknowledge that abuse is not victims fault. So whatever that victim is doing cannot help in stopping or ending the abuse is perpetrators fault, it is very important that we should talk about this issue. Other than that, we won't be able to change people's perception. This misconception means we need to break that down otherwise, we won't be able to change from the situation where it is violence abuse taking place.

LK: And Nandini one last point I want to add is that for some reason, this there's a myth that this is a women's issue. When women are just one part of the situation, right? It could be men, it could be women, it could be women vs men, men against men, just labeling this as a women's issue is something which is also a myth or misconception.

NR: Absolutely, absolutely. So at Maitri, we keep saying that it's not women's issue is a community issue. Unless community members do something, we won't be able to change the situation. And it's a big misconception that it's a women's issue. If you see the statistics, most of the time women are abused from that perception. Maybe people think that's a women's issue, but it is not it is a community issue its not someone's personal problem. Many times people think oh, it's someone's personal problem, we shouldn't be talking about this, we shouldn't be discussing this thing. So that's the stigma. That's that taboo. So we have to break that stigma and taboo. So how can we engage community members in preventing violence against women? That's the big question we are now focusing on at mighty we are doing a lot to engage and educate our community towards prevention. What is YKB be doing in raising awareness about violence against women?

NR: You know, that's a big question. People should understand that people should focus on why the perpetrators are abusing, not focus on you know why victims are not leaving. So they are not leaving, there could be thousand reasons. We are not in their shoes; we don't know why they're not leaving. And it is dangerous. Statistics show that when women want to leave the abusive situation, it's really dangerous situation for them. So it is not easy. People who are not in their shoes may not understand that it is not easy. Our community should focus on the question why someone is abusing their partners or their family members.

NR: Wonderful I'm seeing that YKB is doing a wonderful job. And thank you kudos to you, Lakshmi, Preeti and your team for working on this issue. And do you want to share anything else?

NR: Yeah, as you know, Maitri started in 1991, 30 years back. In our work, we have realized that crisis intervention is not enough. We need to focus a lot of prevention. Unless we stop the boost to happen in the first place. We will keep doing the bandage on the wounds. So it is very important to talk about prevention. So thank you pretty and Lakshmi for this wonderful discussion. Through your YKB stories, you focused on how one can reach to a turning point, and finally, reclaim their self identity. That is wonderful. And I hope all our listeners will think about these issues deeply. And they will support survivors and they will take part in creating a society where all relationships will thrive and created dignity and compassion. Before we part for today, I just want you to keep in mind that if you are abused by someone you trusted you love, then it is never your fault. And you don't have to suffer in silence. Help us out there call any agency like Maitri, be strong enough to break the shackles of abuse and reclaim your self identity. We are ending this episode with a powerful survivor story to give hope to many out there who are still suffering from relationship abuse. Believe in yourself, you can rise again. Yes, you can do it.

NR: I'm your host Nandini Ray signing off today. But we will keep talking about this issues over and over unless we engage all individuals out there in preventing violence against women. Thank you for supporting us and listening to our podcast. Keep listening. We will come back with a new episode. Till then stay safe. Stay happy. Bye.