“I’m tougher now, but in a way I don’t want to be,” Cassandra said.
Cassandra is a survivor of intimate partner violence and she said HELP gave her the support necessary to get out of her situation. She wants other survivors to know that things can get better.
“You always have a way out. We’re never truly stuck,” she said. “There’s always light in the sadness.”
Cassandra said she felt stuck, for a long time. When she moved to Door County about eight years ago, she was involved in a relationship that turned abusive after the move, she said. It took her several months, but she managed to get out of the relationship on her own.
She soon met her most recent ex. They went out a few times and things started “getting weird” after she had known him for about a month, according to Cassandra.
What followed was a steadily escalating cycle of abuse, she said. She was raped regularly, locked in a closet, threatened and physically assaulted. He knocked out her front teeth twice.
She knew about HELP for some time before contacting the organization in 2019, she said. She kept thinking it would get better on its own.
“I feel almost like I was adapting to it, I accepted it,” Cassandra said. “He made me feel like I’m not going to have anyone…when you’re in an abusive relationship they make you seem crazy, or feel nuts.”
Once she reached out to HELP, she said Benzow and other staff made her feel sane again–they listened, they understood and they did not judge her. Benzow referred her to a trauma therapist and still goes with her to custody court dates. HELP provides her public transportation vouchers for her custody hand-offs with her child’s father. Cassandra also attends a women’s support group for other survivors like her.
Even with that support, she said she struggled for years to extricate herself from the relationship. The primary barriers to leaving were housing and custody issues, she said.
“I didn’t have anywhere to go,” Cassandra said.
In late 2024, “things were getting bad again,” she said and Benzow posted on HELP’s social media account that she was looking for housing for a survivor. A local landlord reached out and within a month, Cassandra and her daughter moved into their own apartment.
She recalled the specific date they left–December 13, 2024.
Housing is the number one barrier for getting clients out of abusive relationships, according to Loretta Heath, a domestic violence advocate with HELP.
“When we want to help someone get to a place they are safe, there is nowhere to put them (in Door County),” she said, and they usually refer clients to Green Bay shelters.
Sharing a child with her ex-partner was another barrier to leaving for Cassandra.
“One of my biggest fears was not being able to see my daughter or fear of losing her,” she said.
Her ex-partner threatened her and her daughter’s life, she added, but she did not understand the legal system well enough to retain full custody of their daughter. Her worst fears came true, when earlier this year, her former partner kept the child from her for over a month.
A custody case is ongoing, she said.
For now, Cassandra is trying to build a life free from old patterns. Being open about her past is part of that, and she said she continues to lean on HELP for support. She encouraged other survivors to do the same.
“There’s hope and ways out,” she said. “Hiding it makes it get worse.”
Cassandra said she is also teaching her daughter boundaries by giving her boundaries about basic safety and body safety.
“I’m making sure she knows what is right and wrong. If something doesn’t feel right, get away, get help,” she said.