As an intern, one of my very first clients was Martha C*, a tiny lady, middle-aged, about 5’2”.  Now, 5’2” is not extremely short, but this woman seemed very small. She looked at the floor, hunched her shoulders, and wrapped her arms tightly around her torso. Her steps were mincing and her voice a whisper. I got the distinct impression that she felt she deserved as little room in the world as possible.

She came to treatment because she was facing two crises. Her husband, Mac*, had been in prison for two years, but he had called (collect!) every day, cursing and berating her. She had been too terrified to refuse his calls. Now, he was due to be released in a month. To add to her troubles, she’d been bullied at work by an unfair boss, and eventually fired. How would she pay her bills? What would her husband do when he found out she’d lost her job?

I worked with Martha to reduce her anxiety, increase her assertiveness, and improve her understanding of boundary-setting, all seeming without success. We explored childhood experiences. She acknowledged she’d been mistreated, but felt she’d deserved it. She couldn’t see the connection among her many experiences of abuse. We continued to spin our wheels until the day she learned that a three-year-old niece had been molested.

She was furious! And her outrage toward that abuser allowed her to feel angry toward her childhood abusers, her husband, and the bullying boss. She decided to go to court over her job. She also contacted the police prior to her husband’s release about his history of battering her.

“Don’t worry,” a sympathetic police officer said. “If he even threatens you, it will be a violation of his probation. We’ll pick him up right away.”

Her husband was home less than an hour when he threatened to punch her. She immediately contact the authorities. “We’re sorry, Ma’am,” a policeman said. “People can say whatever they want. We can’t arrest someone for that. He’s got to actually do something physical.”

So Martha hung up. A day or two later, when Mac shoved her out the door, Martha called 911 again. “But did he hurt you? A shove isn’t really hurting someone. We can’t do anything about that.”

Soon after, when Mac pinned her against the wall and threatened to kill her, the police officer asked, “Did he leave a mark on you? If he didn’t leave a mark, you’ve got no evidence. We can’t help you. Call us if he leaves a mark.”

The lack of response by the police disheartened and confused Martha. We continued therapy, but she was becoming more and more depressed and hopeless. So I was astounded when she came to the next appointment with her sleeves rolled up, her head high, a broad smile, and a rakish swagger.  What had happened since the last session? Had the police finally come through?

Hardly. After Mac threw a heavy ashtray which left a large bruise on Martha’s thigh, she marched into the police station, showed the bruise, and demanded help. “But he didn’t have his hands on you. He needs to have his hands on you before we can arrest him.”

That did it for Martha. She knew it was up to her to save herself. The next time Mac came at her, she shoved him away. “I won’t be treated like that anymore,” she told him. “You can pack your bags and leave right now.”   When Mac recovered from the shock of Martha standing up to him, he cried and begged to stay. Martha folded her arms and glared. “We’ll see how you are. If you act like that again, you’re leaving.”

She also had appeared in court where the judge ruled that she’d been fired without cause. He ordered her former employer to restore her job. “I don’t want that job back,” she told me. “I just wanted them to know they couldn’t treat me that way.”

I worked with Martha for several more months while I completed my internship. Her demeanor had changed and she now presented as a strong, self-respecting woman. I still had doubts about whether Mac had changed, but I was confident in Martha’s new-found ability to handle the situation with courage.

She had given herself permission to act on her own behalf and to believe in her ability to save herself. In doing so, she’d found more power than she ever thought possible. When I meet friends or clients who don’t believe in themselves, I tell them about Martha and about the steps we took together to reach her strongest self.

*Names and specific information have been changed to protect the identity of these individuals.