Restoration of Hope gives victims another chance at normal lives

This is the second in a three-part series on domestic violence. Names of those abused have been changed.

The children were in bed and Charlotte Carroll was spending Christmas Eve assembling toys by herself. She had no clue where her husband was and didn’t dare ask.

Carroll would not have believed anyone who foretold she would be abused. Yet, she was for two decades. It’s knowledge that now helps her in her present role as director at Restoration of Hope.

Carroll, along with now retired Joyce Stewart, founded Restoration of Hope in 1997 as temporary housing for women and their children who have been victims of domestic violence.

“We give them referrals and options. They have to make the choice (to leave),” Carroll said. “We can’t make them leave. They have to want to better their lives. That’s why it‘s important for women who have been in their situations to be there to explain they are not alone.”

Lisa, an abused woman who sought help at the Stuttgart shelter, said the volunteers became her friends and helped give her hope for the future and regain her self-confidence.

Restoration of Hope is just one in a network of shelters throughout the nation that helps women in transition get to where they need to be. Carroll said they help women both locally and from across the nation get back on their feet once they leave, which includes going to court with them for support.

For Lisa, the non-profit shelter also helped clear any legal issues that occurred since she left her abuser. She said the hardest part once at the shelter was when she began searching for a place of her own and transportation. She was able to find a job after two days at the shelter.
Another important part of the shelter is preparing women to leave an abusive relationship.

“It’s the most dangerous time of the domestic relationship because when the perpetrator realizes she is leaving, they realize all they did before did not work and they will cry, beg and plead for them to come back,” she said. “He will make all types of promises—if drunk, go to AA, will get counseling—all the things she wants to hear and, most times, it will work.”

Carroll, who is the outreach coordinator/child advocator in Prairie County as well, said it works because when abused women leave, they are totally lost since they have not been making decisions or money for themselves. “They have lived in a survival mode,” she said.

The women feel failure at everything. The decision is not aided in the fact that most women in an abusive relationship will typically have three to four children. Carroll said, the perpetrator “will say no one wants you with all these children. He will threaten to call DHS (Department of Human Services) and report the woman as a neglectful mother.” If called, DHS will remove children if domestic abuse is found to be occurring since it is not only dangerous for the child, but a learned behavior.

It’s an experience that Carroll has lived through. The Atlanta, Ga., native began dating her now ex-husband when she was 19-years old. He was controlling, jealous of her relationship with family and friends and would get mad at the smallest things.

Their relationship worsened when he began taking drugs a year after they married. He began punching walls and eventually hitting Carroll and their children. The family moved to Stuttgart in 1976.

At one point, Carroll said she was going to leave and had her stuff already boxed up, however, “he pulled the box out of my hands, pinned me to the wall and said he would kill me.”

“Then he said he would kill himself and ran out the door. I heard a gunshot. It scared me,” she said. “I ran outside and he was standing behind the door laughing.”

She eventually left for good in 1984 with the divorce final in 1985 after her son told her he was learning Tae Kwon Do because “one day his dad was going to push him against the wall one time too many. He was going to be able to defend himself and me.”

It was then that Carroll realized that there would eventually be an altercation between her son and husband that would leave her son hurt, in jail or dead. She stayed with friends and, at one point, hid in a trailer at Reydell so he couldn’t find her. In the following months, she heard it all — he courted, begged and threatened to kill her — before he threatened suicide again over the phone and even shot a gun in a failed attempt to get her home.

He (eventually) called and told me he had left the state because he got drunk one night and decided he was going to climb on the roof and shoot me in the head when I left work, she said. He said only God had stopped him. So he left the state so he wouldn’t do that.
Carroll said he has since died. She and her children have forgiven him especially after learning that he had repented — after his death, they found his Bible open to Psalm 32.

It’s a life lesson that she has shared with fellow domestic violence victims well before the shelter opened. Now, she said her main goal is to give the women the tools they need to help themselves.

“At some point in time, they will get the strength and courage to get out and we want to be there,” she said. “If we only save one out of 14 people here, it will be worth it.”

Restoration of Hope has a hotline, of which the first question asked is “Are you safe?” If they are trying to leave, Carroll said they work with police to help meet the woman safely and take her to the shelter. Once there, the woman is treated for her injuries if needed, advised of the house rules and asked to write an impact statement on what happened to bring her to the shelter.

Carroll said it takes an average of seven tries for a woman to successfully leave, although they gain more knowledge and information of what they need each time. If a woman does go back, Carroll said they make sure she has a safety plan and an emergency plan — have a neighbor or friend call police if they ever see a certain object moved or in sight.

Safety measures are also in place at the shelter, which has had a perpetrator call and threaten them before coming in its parking lot before being scared away. Carroll said they also take each person’s word at face value. If they say they have been abused, they are given help. However, she said it does come out if they are not being truthful or, in fact, are the abusers.

To get help, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1 (800) 799-7233. Locally, those being abused can call the Restoration of Hope Hotline at (870) 672-4341 or toll free at 1 (866) 884-4637.

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Restoration of Hope gives victims another chance at normal lives