CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Family Crisis Center luncheon features abuse victim testimonial, Leading Lady Award winner

Courier-Tribune - 4/20/2018

April 19--ASHEBORO -- Victoria Thompson took abuse from her boyfriend for two years before deciding she had to leave.

"I didn't know why I was abused, but I knew why I stayed," she told a full house at Pinewood Country Club Thursday at the Sixth Annual Leading Ladies' Luncheon presented by the Randolph County Family Crisis Center. She was the featured speaker at the event, with North Carolina's First Lady Kristin Cooper a special guest.

Thompson said she met her boyfriend while she was a junior in high school. She knew he was a drug dealer but was attracted to him by the fancy gifts he could provide her.

It wasn't long after they started dating that he began controlling their relationship. For instance, Thompson had received a nice text from a male friend of hers that she wasn't romantically involved with. When her boyfriend saw the text, "he pushed me and I started crying. I cut off my friend from messaging and that let my boyfriend know he could control me."

Even after Thompson became pregnant, her boyfriend's violence increased, she said. "I was pushed, slapped, thrown around and pushed from a moving car." But rather than end the relationship, she tried to justify his actions.

After her son was born prematurely, he was diagnosed with epilepsy and needed extra care so Thompson could go to college. She moved in with her boyfriend "and the abuse got much worse. I made excuses to my family for the bruises."

Her boyfriend once threatened to shoot her, placing two bullets on a table and asking her, "Which one will kill you?"

"I knew I couldn't continue in that so I began to plan moving," Thompson said. "It's not easy to just walk away. You don't want the relationship to end, just the abuse. It's tough living on eggshells."

Thompson said she finally knew it was time to go when he announced that he had gotten another girl pregnant with twins. "He wasn't even taking care of my son," she said.

Then after her boyfriend was arrested during a drug raid and had to be bailed out of jail, Thompson said, "I could no longer financially support him."

One fateful day, she said, he wanted her to buy him cigarettes but she refused to put them on a credit card. "He beat me, beat the crap out of me," Thompson said. "My face was all swoll and bloody. I packed my son's bags."

She then called her mother to come and get her. Her mother came with another male family member, who got into a fistfight with the boyfriend during the confrontation.

"That's how I left my abuser," Thompson said.

She told the audience that "with pain comes strength." Leaving an abuser "may not be tomorrow or the next day, but some day you'll make it."

Thompson said she will graduate in a couple of weeks from East Carolina University with a degree in Family Community Service. She has already been hired as a case manager and advocate at the Randolph County Family Crisis Center.

***

Dare Spicer, executive director of the Family Crisis Center, announced that MPO Debbie McKenzie of the Asheboro Police Department is the winner of the 2018 Leading Lady Award. She credited McKenzie with pushing for the county's Children's Advocacy Center, which allows sexually abused children to be cared for here rather than having to be sent to Winston-Salem or Chapel Hill.

McKenzie said she knew early on in her career in law enforcement that she wanted to work with children. "It took a lot of years and hard work, but God opened so many doors," she said.

"I told Dare we need a child advocacy center because kids are having to go 45 minutes away and nobody follows up to make sure they're being cared for. I prayed to have it come to pass before I retire next year."

The Children's Advocacy Center opened with a ribbon cutting on March 14 of this year.

Cooper, who spoke before Thompson, has championed the issues of foster care, child abuse and neglect, childhood hunger, and early childhood development and literacy. She has served as a guardian ad litem for children in Wake County.

"There are so many issues for children," Cooper said. "We need to break the cycle (of children going downhill in life) with literacy, getting them ready for school, to graduate and to become active citizens."

Also on the program was Deana Joy, executive director of the Children's Advocacy Centers of NC; Judy Routh Hayes of the Leading Ladies' Luncheon committee; Marcy Jessup of the committee; Chief Jody Williams of the Asheboro Police Department; and Robin Coates of the Family Crisis Center board. The meeting was highlighted by a performance of "We are the Children" by the Neighbors Grove School Choir.

___

(c)2018 The Courier-Tribune, Asheboro, N.C.

Visit The Courier-Tribune, Asheboro, N.C. at www.courier-tribune.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.