FORT CARSON, Colo. -- The Elkhorn Conference Center looked like it was decked out for a Mardi Gras party Oct. 23, 2014, but the masks worn by attendees at Fort Carson's inaugural domestic violence awareness conference had a much deeper meaning.
The masks were the brainchild of conference organizer Lisa Jenkins, victim advocate with the Family Advocacy Program, Army Community Service, Directorate of Family and Morale, Welfare and Recreation.
"I'm a survivor of domestic violence myself," Jenkins said. "I remember losing my identity. Covering our faces with the masks was like a victim covering her identity and not being her true self."
By asking attendees to collectively remove their masks, Jenkins said they were symbolizing victims finding themselves again and no longer looking back at their difficult pasts.
She said one attendee, herself a domestic violence victim, had left her abuser but had still been struggling with her past. At the conference, she removed her mask and gave it to Jenkins because attending the conference had helped her greatly.
Jenkins organized the conference, which culminated several events throughout Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October, because she's found that people in the military or in relationships with Service members have special needs.
"We want them to know how to tap into resources" when they experience domestic violence, she said. "We want them to be able to be successful and safe when getting out of a situation."
She said the transient nature of being in the military makes escaping an abusive relationship even more difficult because victims are less likely to have a support structure nearby and may not know how to identify or find local resources available to help them.
Lacy Bowman attended the conference with her husband to learn how to help friends who might experience domestic violence as she did in her past.
"I've tried to help others in the past, but I was at a loss because I would hit a wall. The presenters this morning helped me get past that," Bowman said.
She said the role she hopes to play helping others is a delicate one that needs support just as victims do, and she learned how to find that support at the conference.
Cheryl Abeyta with the El Paso County Department of Human Services said the conference was beneficial and offered a "different flavor" since it was held at Fort Carson.
"It's good for us in the community to know what resources are available here," she said.
The conference's keynote address was by Carolyn S. Hennecy, an author, advocate and international speaker about domestic violence. Hennecy survived child molestation, spousal abuse and domestic partner violence.
"A victim of child sexual exploitation becomes very expert at hiding the secret. Evan at 7 years old when it first began, I knew something wasn't right," she said. "It was a trauma that set a foundation for the rest of my life, because that little 7-year-old girl came up with the mentality that she didn't have any value, there was nothing special about her, and the only good thing about her was how men could use her body."
Hennecy said for many years, she questioned whether she was really a victim of domestic abuse.
"Domestic violence begins emotionally, mentally, verbally," she said. "Mine started with 'Shut up. Stupid. Nobody cares what you have to say. Look at your big, fat butt.'
"You get in this trap. You get in this spider web and you can't find your way out, and the more that is said to you, the more you start to believe it. I lost me."
Hennecy showed the lunch crowd photos of her two children. "But then I became a mom," she said. "Here's your collateral damage of domestic violence."
At 5 years old, Hennecy's son was being abused as well, and he often wouldn't go to school. Hennecy learned much later that her son felt it was his responsibility to be her protector because he was a witness to the abuse she received.
"Can you imagine a 3-year-old little boy jumping between a grown man and his mother trying to stop the blows?" she said.
After years of being threatened with what would happen to her if she tried to leave her abusive husband, Hennecy finally decided to escape after she looked up from a beating and saw her two children standing in the bedroom doorway, having watched the whole episode.
"That day I realized if I stayed, he would kill me. If I left, he would try to kill me. I was willing to take a chance on leaving and going down that way (rather) than staying and my children becoming either witnesses of it or, God forbid, a side product of it and get a report of a double murder-suicide," she said.
"How many of you have heard this question: why doesn't she just leave?" Hennecy asked the crowd. "I will tell you why she doesn't just leave: 'If you try to call the cops, I will choke you to death. If the cops show up, I'm not afraid to go out in a blaze of glory. If you try to leave, you'll never see your kids again. How are you going to make it on the street, because you can't afford to take care of the children so there's not a judge on the bench that's going to give you custody? How are you going to explain to your family why you're out, because you kept this secret from them all this time?'
"Why doesn't she leave?" Hennecy said. "I'll ask you another question: why doesn't the abuser stop abusing?"
She told the crowd that if they try to help someone in a domestic violence situation, they must tread carefully.
"Don't try to tell them what to do," said Hennecy. "They're already being controlled. Don't take more control from them. If they want to go back, let them know that you're there for them. Give them control to make their own choice, even if it's a bad one."
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that one in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. Victim advocates are quick to point out that men also experience domestic violence.
Hennecy and Jenkins urge anyone experiencing domestic abuse to seek help. At Fort Carson, anyone with a military identification card can contact the Family Advocacy Program hotline at 243-7907. Those without access to the post can contact TESSA, the service provider for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in El Paso and Teller Counties, at 633-3819.
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