10/19/2026
“I was about nine years old when my mother brought me and my younger brother to the Women Against Abuse shelter.
My mother was escaping an abusive relationship, and we needed a safe place to live.
As a child, I didn't understand the danger. I didn't understand domestic violence. I didn't understand why we couldn't tell people where we were staying.
Looking back, we were only a few miles from home, but to me it felt like another world.
I remember the shelter as a big house with bookshelves, a porch and a yard.
I remember my mother taking classes and meeting with her case manager.
I remember the women cooking meals together in the kitchen.
There were other children for me to play with. We played games, read books, went to the park, and even rode together to pick out a Christmas tree.
In many ways, it felt like a village. But even then, I knew life was different.
We had to keep our location secret.
We changed schools.
And I remember wondering, “Is my mom going to be okay?”
I didn't know the word anxiety. I just knew what it felt like to worry.
One of the things that stayed with me most was watching the women support one another. As a child, I thought, “This is what adults do.”
Now I understand something deeper. Those women were survivors.
While rebuilding their own lives, they were helping one another find the strength to keep going.
Eventually, we left the shelter and moved on with our lives. But childhood experiences like these don't simply disappear. They follow you.
They show up in relationships, in marriage, in parenthood and in the way you see the world.
There were things about love, safety, boundaries and trust that I had to learn as an adult because my childhood had taught me something different.
And when I became a mother, I made a promise to myself:
My childhood norms would not become my children's norms.
I wanted my children to know stability.
I wanted them to know they could talk about their feelings and that adult problems were not theirs to carry.
Today, my children are grown, and when I look at them, I am reminded that cycles can be broken.”
Many thanks to survivor-advocate Dineth for sharing her story at our iPledge/DVAM rally 💜
If you or someone you know is experiencing relationship abuse, you don’t have to go through this alone. Call the Philadelphia Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-866-723-3014.
[Image descriptions: Pictures of survivor-advocate Dineth at the iPledge/DVAM rally in the City Hall Courtyard in Philadelphia.]
