Screams are heard in an audio recording as Barbara Holland was battered by her then boyfriend, Dan Keyser.

Keyser was later found with a blood stained shirt by police.

Tales of abuse like this were described and deconstructed by Pamela Sepulveda at an intimate partner violence workshop on Tuesday, Oct. 27.

Sepulveda serves as the community outreach director for Casa Youth Shelter, a local shelter within the 562 area.

“This is important because I see how this issue affects the teenagers I work with at the shelter,” Sepulveda said.

She continued, “We have a lot of teenagers who I talk about this issue, and they experience it with their family or they experience it in their own personal relationships and it is a form of abuse and it is important for me to advocate on behalf of the people who don’t have a voice.”

Almost no chairs were vacant at the workshop where she chose members from the audience to reenact a budding relationship that would eventually turn violent.

Shannon Estrada, coordinator for the Re-Entry Resource Program said she planned the workshop in honor of domestic violence awareness month.

“[…] I provide resources for students and I know this is a big one. A lot of people if they haven’t been abused themselves they know someone. Just so that we can help them with resources, because a lot of times they don’t know what to do or where to go,” she expressed.

The outreach director recounted how these unhealthy relationships turn awry with subtle escalations and small boundary violations.

She explained how name-calling could quickly turn into throwing of soft objects and that may turn into scratching or pushing. Pushing can escalate into punching and so on.

These behaviors demonstrate the subtle escalation that has the potential to grow into more.

Phrases like “You’re a stupid [expletive]” and “I love you, please take me back” were heard as Sepulveda reenacted scenes of abuse with a cooperative member of the audience.

The workshop delved into the cycle of abuse, which includes

• Tension Building
• Acute Battering
• Honeymoon Phase

These three phases are heard in “One Voice,” the audio transcripts of a call placed by Holland on April 22, 2009.

In the violent audio that had an entire room holding its breath, students heard whispers of help by Holland to an emergency responder.

The almost 15-minute audio, details the arduous search for Holland, whose cell phone is disconnected, but not before an instance of battering is audibly heard.

Her then boyfriend Keyser, is questioned in the audio as police search for the missing woman whose cell phone cannot be traced.

A survivor of intimate partner violence, Holland went on to release the audio in order to help other victims speak out on their abuse in the form of “One Voice.”

Sepulveda stressed the importance of safe and healthy self-care after listening to such violent audio.

“It’s very intense. Everybody has a different form of self-care,” she expressed.

Drinking or using drugs, she related, were not healthy ways of coping and neither is driving while highly emotional.

Talking to someone and even going to the on
campus counselor was recommended if needed in order to not internalize such
energy.