Dealing with reality of abuse

Violence erupts between partners in one out of every six couples in Oklahoma, according to the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.

Despite a 40.9 percent increase of reported domestic abuse incidents from 1993 to 2007, experts fear many more cases go unreported.

"People just kind of shuffle it under the rug,” said Lynda Powell, founder of the Bethel Foundation for abused single mothers. "Of course, no one wants to deal with ugly stuff, and this is ugly.”

The reporting of abuse has increased thanks to education, but rising poverty and drug abuse has keyed a rise in violence, said Julie Young, coordinator for Trauma and Prevention Services with the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse.

To combat the problem, state groups are increasing trauma services — because there are few in the state — and have recently established domestic violence trauma centers and child trauma centers, Young said.

Nonprofit groups like Powell's are also reaching out to abuse victims by offering counseling services and establishing homes for victims.

"Abuse that is taking place in Oklahoma to women and children ... really needs to be addressed in a big way,” Powell said.

Powell should know. She's survived abuse — twice.

Signs of abuse

Lynda Powell thought the eye doctor was joking when he asked who had been beating her up.

That was absurd, she thought. It had been 12 years.

But the routine eye exam in March revealed glaucoma in both eyes, caused by what the doctor called "Mike Tyson-level” punches to her big blue eyes.

Years of violence in two abusive relationships might have caused Powell to go completely blind in as little as two years had she not had her eyes checked and started treatment.

Now happily remarried and driven by faith and her own abusive experiences, Lynda works every day "to provide blessings” to women through a nonprofit organization she founded that provides support to single mothers and their families.

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