October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. If you or someone you know in Ventura County needs help, contact the Coalition for Family Harmony. Their 24-hour hotline is 1-800-300-2181.
Jane is 22 years old. We're not using her real name. She spent 7 years in a relationship with a man she loved, who became increasingly violent.
She describes her abuse:
"I would get dragged around the room by my hair. It was so bad that the next morning I'd be crying and pulling chunks of my hair out. He would hit me wherever my hands weren't blocking because I would cower and go like this, and I'd get blows to my back. I've been choked. I've been bitten."
This is the reality of domestic violence. The bruises heal, but only until the next abusive incident. Living with fear and shame. A set of complex emotions and battered self-esteem.
"It wasn't always as bad," recalled Jane. "We were really good friends, and that's where I started to fall in love with this person. I was infatuated. I was ready to spend my whole life (with them). And then slowly, as years went on, it started to get a little worse."
She described how the abuse affected her, how it left her on edge at all times.
"I'm having to unlearn so many things. I'm always feeling like I'm going to be punished if I do or don't do something the right way. I would be scared to come home because I didn't know what I was going to face."
Jane is not alone. Approximately 7,000 allegations of domestic violence occur each year in Ventura County, along with around 345 allegations of adult sexual assault.
Jane eventually left the abusive relationship and found safety at the nonprofit Coalition for Family Harmony shelter. In 2025 alone, the shelter helped more than 5,500 survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
"When we think about domestic violence, we think of the physical violence, of course. We think of bruises and the scars," explained the organization's executive director, Caroline Prijatel-Sutton. "There's also emotional violence. There's financial abuse as well, taking away cars, property, not allowing them to go to work. There's (threats) of hurting animals (and) children."
Services to help abuse victims are increasing. A new emergency domestic violence shelter opened this year at the Ventura County Family Justice Center. The Coalition for Family Harmony now operates three emergency shelters along with Ventura County’s only rape crisis center.
"Our role is to make sure we're providing safety," said Prijatel-Sutton. "We're taking them away from the abusive situation, and we're advocating for them 24-7."
She added that abuse victims can't always leave their abusers easily, for a variety of reasons.
"Some of it is easier to understand than others. Finances, of course, is one. The control and manipulation, the gaslighting, 'I'm not good enough.' 'I will never find anybody else.' 'I can't live on my own.' Those are all things we know that abusers will tell their partner to make them stay."
As for Jane, she knows her situation could have turned out differently. Instead of being a survivor, she could be a statistic.
"There were times when he was beating me, and I was like, 'One of us might just die, and it could be me, if he doesn't stop.' Or I would get so low to the point where I even thought about ending my own life. If I stayed, I probably would not have been here in 10 years."
