Published Oct 16, 2008
Each year, roughly 200 domestic abusers participate in a year-long treatment program through the Crisis Center of Northern New Mexico, most of them by court order. Lou is a successful graduate of the program, and agreed to an hour-long interview with a SUN reporter over lunch. He requested that his last name not be used.
Even after a year in prison for firing three shots into the car of a woman who jilted his friend, Lou wasn’t convinced he has an anger problem.
“Hell, if it hadn’t been for the police, I would’ve put five shots in it,” he said and laughs.
The first restraining order his ex-girlfriend filed against him did not tip off Lou to the problem either, and neither did the second.
Things had gone well enough between the couple the first year-and-a-half they lived together. The trouble started a little after their son was born. They split up a few months after that, and soon came vicious fights over the child.
“We’d fight over who gets to see the boy,” Lou said. “I’ve got issues with things taken away from me. I lost my dad, he passed away.”
Other times, the fights were over “stupid things,” like money or the car Lou bought her. The abuse was never physical — Lou insists he never lays his hands on the mother of his son. Most of his problem was with emotional abuse: yelling, screaming and just all-around battering the other person’s soul, he said
“Your mouth can say some extremely hateful things that can just embed in a person’s memory for years,” Lou said. “You’re really persistent about it, too, making sure you’re really getting to them.”
The boy was born in December. By February Lou’s girlfriend had left him and had filed the first of three restraining orders against him, the last of which came with a court order that landed him in 52 weeks of treatment sessions for domestic abusers at the Crisis Center of Northern New Mexico.
Aside from offering shelter to the victims of domestic abuse, the Center organizes group sessions to treat the abusers.
“It’s just as important,” groups coordinator Chris Aragon said. “The battered wife might leave the abusive husband, but if he doesn’t deal with it, what’s going to happen? He’ll find somebody else and start all over again.”
Aragon coordinates six groups a week — five for abusive men, one for abusive women — with roughly eight participants each. Of the 200 or so abusers Aragon works with each year, most are there by court order. Five percent or so arrive voluntarily, “either because they realize there’s a problem, or because the wife says, ‘I’ve had it. Do this or I’m out,’” Aragon said.
From beginning to end the program takes 52 sessions and about 40 percent of participants complete the program.
Lou finished the full 52 weeks four years ago and he is a better man for it, he said — but certainly no saint. He doesn’t fight with his partner mostly because he’s been single for the past several years, he said half-jokingly.
According to Aragon, a major part of the group sessions involves breaking abusers’ denial that they have a problem with violence at all. From that perspective, Lou has gotten only part of the way to recognizing his problem. It took 40 minutes of conversation for Lou to acknowledge his domestic issues were anyone’s fault but his “crackhead” ex-girlfriend’s. Even then, he was reluctant to describe his violent episodes in much detail.
But if the measure of a participant’s success is that he changes his thinking, “to understand that violence is not normal,” as Aragon put it, Lou is by and large a rehabilitated domestic abuser.
Lou sees that in his relationship with difficult customers at his job.
“Most people are s—t, you know? Most people are a—holes. They complain about everything,” Lou said. “But it’s your choice to take control of the argument. You can either act sarcastic and let it escalate, or you can answer with a comforting answer, like, ‘How can I be of assistance?,’ and simmer it down.”
His relationship with the mother of his son these days is strained, but at least on his side of the phone receiver, civil, he said.
“It’s not pleasurable. It’s pick him up when, drop him off where, ok, bye,” Lou said. “Yeah, there’s arguments, but I try not to raise my voice anymore. And she’s no angel, either.”
The most important thing Lou took away from his sessions at the Center, he said, is to understand how his anger works and where it comes from. Part of it is understanding what Aragon called the “cycle of violence.”
“You have a big fight, and then you make up, you get it on, the honeymoon period, you know?” Lou explained. “Everything’s fine and dandy during the week, but small things happen, they build up, and again the explosion, the big fight. I don’t explode like that no more.”
And understanding the origin of his anger has helped Lou deal with it. For him, the big issue is childhood neglect.
“My mom wasn’t a very loving lady. If she was a plant, she’d be a cactus,” Lou said.
Knowing that helps Lou control his temper around his young son.
“If you don’t praise children, if you yell at them, that’s everything, dude. It’s all about the way you’re brought up,” Lou said. “Kids, they create some serious messes, and you just want to f-ing kill them. But yeah, you know, like I said. I don’t explode like that no more.”