Author Speaks About Experience with Domestic Violence

Kayla Desroches/KMXT

A Kodiak resident shared her story recently as part of Domestic Violence Awareness month.

University of Kentucky epidemiologist, Sabrina Brown, who splits her time between Kodiak and Kentucky, published a book called “I Married a Sociopath.”

It covers her experiences with her ex-husband over their 20-year marriage.

She says during that relationship she worked within violence prevention, but it took her a long time to apply that same information to her own case.

“The worst part for me was – and I detail this in my book because it’s so subtle, can be so subtle – but the physiological, the gaslighting, making the victim think that they’re crazy, projecting what they’re doing, but blaming the victim. Those are all very difficult to delineate in your own mind as a victim. So, I kinda straddled both as a researcher and a victim.”

She explains how the psychological aspect can make it harder for the victim to come to terms with the nature of the relationship.

“Other victims in writing this book and blogging for five years have come to me and said ‘I wish he had hit me.’ Because then it would have proven to myself, it would have proven to others, kind of the CSI effect, where ‘Oh, now I have evidence.’”

Brown says her colleague eventually helped her reflect on her own situation.

“And I think you have to be ready to hear it too. And guess at that time I was ready to hear it. She said ‘I want to know what he offers you, what he contributes to the relationship,’ and I couldn’t think of one thing. He didn’t work, I was a human ATM machine just on a treadmill, just keeping me in chaos.”

Brown has since remarried and speaks about her experiences as a way to reach out to other people who have suffered domestic violence. She sat down with KMXT as part of this week’s Talk of the Rock.

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