15. From Survivor to Advocate: Windi’s Story
Windi, survivor and advocate from California, shares her journey of abuse and recovery. She details her childhood, meeting her abusive partner after a tragic end to a previous engagement and the challenges of her marriage with a partner suffering from untreated PTSD and financial instability. Windi highlights her efforts to protect and educate her children about domestic abuse, as well as her advocacy work in preventing gun violence. Windi describes her passion for being an advocate for gun violence and domestic abuse prevention after her own personal tragedy.
KEY HIGHLIGHTS:
Windi shares her background, mentioning she was born in Los Angeles and raised in San Bernadino County, California.
Windi describes her childhood as typical middle class with both parents working multiple jobs.
Windi meets her future husband while both are driving on the freeway, where they exchange numbers and begin dating.
She describes her partner's family and backgroud, that he was spoiled and not financially very responsbile.
Windi details how her future husband told her he has no children and hopes to become married and a father soon.
Windi describes their early marriage and birth of their two children, including her husband's PTSD related financial and mental instabilities.
Windi talks about her unsuccessful attempts to get help for her husband through the Veterans medical system.
As her husband continues to decline, Windi discovers he has a child, born during their marriage to another woman and now serving child support papers and freezing their bank accounts and assets.
Windi discovers her husband is not providing support or even contacts a child he has hidden from her during their marriage.
Windi talks about choosing to go into a domestic violence shelter to leave her marriage with her children, and how the DV resources helped her during crisis.
Windi advises DV survivors about making a plan to escape an abusive partnership and going back to school once you are out of an abusive relationship.
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