Julie Federico


I never wanted to be a domestic


violence expert.


I never wanted to be a domestic violence expert. I wanted to buy new tennis shoes for all of the homeless children in the country or cure cancer. I could have gone on Oprah to share my secret knowledge of Science that led to my remarkable cancer cure discovery. Lives would have been saved, families protected. No, instead I got a Ph.D. in domestic violence by default. It snuck up on me; I was in the freshman year of my degree before I knew I was enrolled in the frightening program of study. It started off slow, gathered speed and became full on in the years following my escape. When I dated the abuser there was only one instance where he showed his abusive side. I had become ill with the flu and came home from work to find out I had no aspirin, 7 up, or chicken soup. I called the abuser and asked him to bring some over.


He went off, yelling at me and asking me why I had run out of these items. I thought it was weird. After it was over neither of us ever talked about it and I never saw this side to him again until a few years later when we were in Mexico. We were leaving the airport, very happy to be on vacation! And we got into a cab 20 minutes later, he yelled excessively at me because I did not have single bills in US dollars to tip the cabby.


PHF Magazine April 2017 7


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