Personal Stories

We teamed up with Nickelodeon to produce a Nick News segment about CDV, designed to reach out to children themselves. "Family Secrets" features interviews with children and parents who have experienced childhood domestic violence, which occurs when a child is living in a home in which two parents are violent with each other, or when a significant other is violent to one of the child's...

“Healing from childhood domestic violence is difficult, but it isn’t impossible. Luke 1:37 says, “For nothing will be impossible with God” and I believe that’s true.”My name is Caroline Abbott, and I experienced emotional and verbal domestic violence as a child. I was never physically abused, though my younger brother and sister were severely spanked with a leather belt. As the older sister, I...

“My life almost ended on that hot August night. But it didn’t. And that night helped me figure out what I WASN’T going to be and what I WASN’T going to do with my life. And what I WAS going to be and do.” Growing up with Domestic Violence We were at home – a place called Muddy Creek Mountain. It was pretty isolated and a few miles out of town. My parents had been fighting and my father had been...

By Chelsea Waldroup, 16 years old – Former child of domestic violence featured in documentary “The Children Next Door”It’s the elephant in the room – the intense emotions of being torn between two people you love and trust. Scared and confused, I began to feel hopeless. Even worse than all the violence against my mother was the fact that my siblings and I had began to think this was normal.My...