Domestic violence in Suwannee County up 50 percent

Published 12:00 pm Thursday, September 1, 2016

LIVE OAK, Fla. — Before Cindy Robinson’s daughter was born, her first husband destroyed everything in the house. 

All the furniture was in little, tiny pieces. He took her wedding ring and cut it to pieces. And, then, he came after her.

Her hair was longer back then, and he would use it to swing her around the room, she said. 

That night he almost killed her. She was on the ground and he was kicking her. One kick was aimed for her head, but she managed to move. Instead, he missed and kicked the wall, leaving a boot print on the wall. 

She got away. She ran out the back door, climbed over the fence and hid in the bushes of a nearby church and prayed that he wouldn’t find her.

He never did, but, the next morning, after sleeping in the bushes, she went back to him. She didn’t have a choice, she said. She had no where else to go. 

Robinson can’t remember what set him off that day, and she said that there hardly ever was a reason.

“They all run together,” she said. “I think I was five minutes late from work, I don’t know.”

Kathy White, executive director of Vivid Visions, said the reason is never important. Abusive partners hardly ever need a reason to lose control, she said.

Robinson is one of many victims of domestic violence in Suwannee County. Domestic violence crime is up 51 percent in Suwannee County, from 145 cases in 2014 to 219 cases in 2015, according to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement crime report. 

Vivid Visions is the certified domestic violence center for Suwannee County. It was founded back in 1995. They have a 15 bed shelter with full kitchen, living rooms, family rooms and play grounds for kids. 

The shelter is kept in an undisclosed location for the victims’ safety. Victims are allowed to stay at the shelter for as long as 90 days. Vivid Visions provides many services for them.

“Sometimes they don’t have any clothing. They just have what’s on their back,” White said. “They come in and their life has just been turned upside down.”

They provide them with food, clothing and legal advocacy. Visions will give referrals for divorce lawyers and prepare the victims for the future.

For Robinson, she left her husband nearly three years after he tore the house apart and threatened her life. Leaving him was the ending to a long and painful part of her life, full of complicated emotions she still struggles with today.

He was her first relationship and it began when she was 16 years old. Still in high school, he was three years older than her, out of school and pulling her away from her family. 

“He was the first person I was involved with,” Robinson said. “And in the beginning, it wasn’t violent.”

It started with him controlling everything around her. Who she could hang out with and what she was allowed to do. He would force Robinson to choose between him or her friends and family.

Eventually, when she was 17 years old, he convinced her to move in with him while she was still going to high school. He was 20 years old at the time.

“After we moved-in together, there were several different incidents that happened that I just swept under the rug,” she said. “I was determined not to prove my parents right.”

She was a teenager who assumed her relationship was natural. She said she would explain everything away as her fault, but in the early days at least, Robinson said the bad days were short and far between the good days. 

That changed after they got married. 

“It’s like that piece of paper made me a piece of property,” she said.

Things got worse. As the years went by, the bad days began getting closer and closer and closer, she said. They moved to a nicer neighborhood, bought a new house and continued to act as if nothing was wrong.

“I can’t believe my neighbors never heard me screaming,” she said. “Or that they didn’t call the police or get involved.”

For Robinson, this was life. She accepted it for herself, but that changed when her daughter was born, she said. 

“My daughter was born when I was 28 and she was 2 years old when I decided she wasn’t going to live like that,” Robinson said. “I was 30 years old, and I realized that I lived half my life in hell.”

The divorce took two and a half years, but even once it was official, her daughter still had to visit him every other weekend. Robinson said her daughter was terrified of him. 

Robinson’s attorney told her that if she was afraid for her daughter’s safety, she didn’t have to send her to him. And, in 2009, after Robinson remarried, her second husband adopted her daughter.

“So we don’t have to ever see him again,” she said.

Now, Robinson is moving on with her life. She went back to school and earned her associates degree in business. She is the assistant manager at a TD Bank, member of the board of directors for Vivid Visions and a board member for the CRA.

Her advice to anyone stuck in the same situation she was is to find help.

“There is help,” she said. “You don’t have to live this way. There is a better life. You are your own person and don’t let someone take that control away from you.”

For anyone seeking help, the Vivid Visions headquarters is located at 506 S Ohio Ave or call the hotline at 386-364-2100. To volunteer or donate, call 386-364-5957 or visit vividvisionsinc.org.