Abuse survivor turns her life around, helps other women

By Karen Peterson

Leader Staff

PABLO — Rebecca Longtree doesn’t understand why she is still alive after being brutally abused so much she lost the twin boys she was pregnant with, but as she stood in front of a crowd of people at this year’s Clothes Line project to share her story, the reason became clear — she’s a survivor.

With her personal experience, Longtree gave a much-needed voice to the T-shirts and silhouettes that represent the large numbers of woman and children who have suffered abuse, in what is now an annual event at SKC to highlight the problems of domestic abuse.

Longtree said her history of abuse started as a child but the worst of it came seven years ago in Seattle, where she spent three of the most horrendous days of her life tied up, pregnant, raped and held prisoner by her former husband.

“I was trying to leave my husband when he came in with his friends. He hadn’t been home in awhile, and the day I decided to leave, he came home with his cousin and three friends to see all of my stuff packed. I was then tied up for three days. I was raped, scared, and he put tattoos on me. The higher they got on drugs the worse it got for me. The beatings got harder. I was burnt with cigarettes, and he poured gas on me.

“It was a hard three days. I was five months pregnant. Before that, when I would feel the babies kick, I took it for granted until I couldn’t feel them anymore. He took a knife to my belly and he tried to take them. He said if he couldn’t have them then no one was going to have them. I think even if he wasn’t high it would have still happened,” she said.

On the third day, Longtree was shot in the arm and the abdomen.

“They wanted to make sure that if I survived the babies didn’t,” she said. “Then he wrapped me up in a carpet and threw me away. He validated that as me being his property, once you have no value you’re put in the garbage.”

Longtree spent a few hours curled up, bleeding in a pile of garbage until the curiosity of a boy saved her.

“A little boy came and found me,” she said. “Then, the ambulance came and I was in the hospital for a long time.”

Like many victims of domestic violence, abuse was second nature to Longtree.

“I was taught how to be a victim instead of a survivor. I grew up in an absentee family where I kind of raised myself,” she said. “I never knew what the real meaning of love was. When I was growing up, love left bruises and so I married an abuser because it wasn’t different for me.”

As a Tribal descendant of the Sioux and Assiniboine Tribes, Longtree feels that the abuse has become a way of life for many native women.

“Women used to be sacred in our culture. The women in our tribes used to hold our tribes together but now the medicine wheel is replaced by violence. The men used to be warriors but now woman are going into battle. The cycle of life has been changed, for many, to a cycle of violence,” she said.

To survive, women often develop coping mechanisms in the form of denial — “it’s not that bad” — and some even believe they deserve the abuse, she said. So, once a woman finally does leave it’s to the point that she needs a lot of help, and sometimes, Longtree said, the resources aren’t always there.

“Women need a better system and more support. After I recovered physically, I went into counseling. It helped, but the system needs a lot of work. People still blame the victims for not leaving. They say ‘It was your choice, why didn’t you leave sooner?’. But it is hard to leave when that is all you know. So we need more education. We need to teach children, boys and girls, to value themselves. We need more community involvement, too,” she said, “And counselors, they get drained from all the work that they do. They need support as well.”

Longtree believes that with stricter legal penalties for abusers the problem might not be as prevalent.

“You get more time for driving on a suspended license than for abusing your partner. My ex-husband is out right now. He was put on probation for what he did to me, and his cousin, for shooting me, he only got a year. They didn’t kill me so the sentence was almost nothing,” she said.

Longtree has since moved to the area and turned her life around. She is going to college to become a social worker with the hopes of making a difference.

“I want to work with women that are incarcerated. The reasons that they are there mostly stem from violence. There will never be change if you can’t change the mindset that violence is OK. People have to take the initiative to stop the cycle,” she said,

Currently, Longtree is also working at the Two Eagle River School on a relationship program to help girls realize their self-worth.

“Working with the girls has been the biggest help for me so far,” she said. “Everyday I questioned why I am here and I realize the answer when I look at the students. I know what it feels like to have a bullet go through my skin and I’d do it again if it means that none of your daughters have to go through what I did.”