By Sarah Hall<\/p>\n
Photos by Michael Di Giglio\/MDG Images<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Never ask Stephanie Piston why she didn\u2019t leave her abusive ex-husband sooner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hated that question,\u201d Stephanie said. \u201cHated it, hated it, hated it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephanie was married to a man who physically and emotionally abused her, forced her to have sex with other men for money, engaged in unprotected sex with strippers, sexually assaulted her and controlled her financially. But she stayed married to him for nearly five years. Making the decision to leave, she said, was something she had to do on her own, and there were a lot of factors that went into it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy didn’t I leave sooner?\u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn’t my time.\u201d<\/p>\n
It took a miscarriage, nearly two years of therapy and a mountain of debt, but Stephanie finally escaped the relationship \u2014 but not without a multitude of scars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an infection you never get rid of,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can suppress it. You can deal with it. But it\u2019s always a part of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Breaking free<\/p>\n
When the relationship started, Stephanie and her then-boyfriend were living separately\u2014she was in Queens and he was in Binghamton.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was still on his best behavior,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Two years after they started dating, the pair married, and that\u2019s when the bloom fell off the rose. But Stephanie said it didn\u2019t seem like abuse \u2014 not right away. She compared it to putting a frog in a pot of boiling water.<\/p>\n
\u201cI put that frog in the pot of hot water, the frog is going to jump out to save its own skin,\u201d she said. \u201cPut that frog in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat. Frog’s not going to jump out because it becomes accustomed to it until the frog is dead and floating backwards.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time she understood how bad her situation was, she felt stuck.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had nobody,\u201d Stephanie said. \u201cMy family all lives in different states. My friends were a lot of his friends. I had my co-workers but I was still getting used to the job and trying to figure out where I fit in in that grand scheme of things. And you don’t want to bring that to their doorstep.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then in 1992 she had a miscarriage. It was a wake-up call.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was going through a hellish time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Stephanie started going to a therapist to help her deal with her grief. Over the course of the next two years, working with the therapist convinced her that she had to get out of the marriage.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I kind of always thank that little soul for saying, \u2018Okay, I came. I visited you.\u2019 But staying would have tied [my ex-husband] to me for the rest of my life and I don’t want that,\u201d Stephanie said. \u201cI always wonder what could have been, but then I realize it wouldn’t have been a good thing. It wouldn’t have been good for that child and it wouldn’t have been good for me. Because I probably would have stayed and I’d probably be dead, or that child would be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Becoming a survivor<\/p>\n
Her family was stunned to learn of the abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Why didn\u2019t you come to us sooner? Why didn\u2019t you say something sooner?\u2019\u201d Stephanie recalled them asking. \u201cYou have to understand, there’s 16 years between me and my youngest sister, and 18 years between me and my youngest brother. I wasn’t going to bring that to their doorstep. I did not want to put anybody else in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n
She realizes now that shame also kept her from reaching out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s embarrassing to say I need help,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause they said, \u2018Well, we\u2019re not sure if you really should have married him.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
With the help of friends, Stephanie moved to Syracuse, where she met Ed Piston. Ed, too, was going through a divorce.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just kind of healed each other along the way,\u201d Stephanie said.<\/p>\n
The pair married in 1999 and had two children, Zach and Kaitlin. While Stephanie has a good life now, she knows she\u2019ll never fully escape the one she left behind. She went through a very dark period when her kids were little.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could not think. It was get up, take the kids to daycare, come home, crawl back into bed, covers over your head and just pray,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd you’d always get the question, do you want to hurt yourself? No. But if I went to sleep and never woke up again, that would be okay, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stephanie was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is common in victims of intimate partner violence \u2014 one 1999 study found that as many as 63.8 percent of IPV victims later received a PTSD diagnosis. She\u2019s open about her diagnosis and how she\u2019s struggled in the wake of her experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cHealing is not linear,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can’t go A-B-C-D-E to healing. You can go A to Z to X to J to K. You’re going to be bouncing all over the place. And it comes in its own time and it comes in its own place, and it comes with its own purpose. And then you move on to the next thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s taken a lot of time, a lot of soul-searching and a lot of therapy for her to get to a place where she could consider herself a survivor instead of a victim.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m not afraid to talk about it and I’m not afraid to say, \u2018Yeah, this happened to me,\u2019” she said. \u201cAnd I’m not embarrassed by it anymore because it wasn’t me. It was him. It’s all him. It’s his fault. It’s not my fault. It’s his poor choices, not my choices. It’s his attitude, not my attitude. I don’t blame me anymore. That was a long time coming. I blamed myself for a long, long time. I blame him.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her own sake, Stephanie has chosen to forgive her abuser.<\/p>\n
\u201cI forgive him for what he’s done, but I can’t forgive him for who he is now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u2018I am enough\u2019<\/p>\n
Stephanie knows she\u2019s one of the lucky ones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got the right help at the right time,\u201d she said. \u201cBut the other thing too is I have very good medical coverage and I have therapy and my therapy is paid, I have a co-pay and I can get my medications relatively inexpensively. A lot of people don’t have access to that and that’s a crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
Until then, Stephanie sees it as her responsibility to advocate for other survivors of abuse\u2014and to do what she can to prevent abusive behaviors. In the late 2000s, she signed on as a New York State Action Leader for Moms And Dads for Education to Stop Teen Dating Violence, as well as Liz Claiborne\u2019s Love Is Not Abuse campaign. From there she became involved with Break the Cycle, a grassroots organization that works to end teen dating violence. But most of her work is closer to home.<\/p>\n
For nearly 30 years, Stephanie has been involved in the Order of DeMolay International, a fraternal organization dedicated to building character and leadership skills in young men ages 12 to 21 and its sister organization, The Organization of Triangles. She uses her position there\u2014and the respect she\u2019s gained with the teens involved\u2014to talk about intimate partner violence and to encourage kids to engage in healthy behaviors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI talk about it all the time,\u201d Stephanie said. \u201cThey’re willing to come to me and talk to me. It’s the perfect target age and if you even get a handful of them to listen to me, they’re going to take it back to their peers. Or they’re going to take it back to their families and say, \u2018I don’t agree with this.\u2019”<\/p>\n
New York was the first state in the DeMolay organization to adopt the domestic violence awareness program, as well as a bullying and suicide awareness platform, though other states have now picked it up. It\u2019s also the most comprehensive program in the country, requiring additional training beyond what the programs in other states do.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith these organizations, we’re trying to teach these kids to think on their own, stand on their own two feet, be independent, and just kind of guide them,\u201d Stephanie said. \u201cYou hope that you guide them in the right way, that they’ll take those lessons with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And in Stephanie\u2019s experience, those lessons do stick.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of [former participants] say to me now that are adults, \u2018You were right. And I listened. And I won’t put up with that. I am enough,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a lesson it took Stephanie years to learn, and she hopes others in her position are able to pick up on it sooner. The only way they can, she said, is if more people are aware of what may be going on behind closed doors.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody looks the other way because \u2018it’s a private matter,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBut 1 in 4 women, 1 in 7 men, will experience intimate partner violence. It\u2019s not a private matter anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Stephanie tells her story, over and over again.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery victim should have the opportunity to become a survivor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Sarah Hall Photos by Michael Di Giglio\/MDG Images Never ask Stephanie Piston why she didn\u2019t leave her abusive ex-husband sooner. \u201cI hated that question,\u201d Stephanie said. \u201cHated it, hated it, hated it.\u201d Stephanie was married to a man who physically and emotionally abused her, forced her to have sex with other men for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,126],"tags":[974,971,972,970,964,973],"class_list":["post-2607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-health","tag-demolay","tag-domestic-violence","tag-intimate-partner-violence","tag-stephanie-melissinos-piston","tag-survivor","tag-survivor-issue"],"gutentor_comment":0,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/mdg20190808-102.jpg?fit=4460%2C6690&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2610,"url":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=2610","url_meta":{"origin":2607,"position":0},"title":"INSPIRE: Bryn Lovejoy-Grinnell, Vera House attorney","author":"Sarah Hall","date":"October 2, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"By Sarah Hall Photos by Maureen Tricase\/Capture Your Moments \u00a0 Bryn Lovejoy-Grinnell is often surprised at how many people she encounters who don\u2019t realize they\u2019re being subjected to interpersonal abuse. \u201c[They] came in for a divorce and they started talking and you realize, \u2018What you just described is abusive,\u201d said\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Features"","block_context":{"text":"Features","link":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?cat=101"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/fullsizeoutput-9344_7786030.jpeg?fit=834%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/fullsizeoutput-9344_7786030.jpeg?fit=834%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/fullsizeoutput-9344_7786030.jpeg?fit=834%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/fullsizeoutput-9344_7786030.jpeg?fit=834%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2613,"url":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=2613","url_meta":{"origin":2607,"position":1},"title":"FOR A GOOD CAUSE: Liberty Resources Help Restore Hope Center","author":"Sarah Hall","date":"October 5, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Sara Haag, MSW, Divisional Director \u00a0 Tell me about the Help Restore Hope Center. How was it started? How are you funded? The Help Restore Hope Center is a domestic violence, rape crisis, and victim services program based in rural Central New York, proudly assisting survivors as they transform their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Causes"","block_context":{"text":"Causes","link":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?cat=104"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/sydney-sims-3zgllN5P7Mc-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/sydney-sims-3zgllN5P7Mc-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/sydney-sims-3zgllN5P7Mc-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/sydney-sims-3zgllN5P7Mc-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/sydney-sims-3zgllN5P7Mc-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3212,"url":"https:\/\/www.syracusewomanmag.com\/?p=3212","url_meta":{"origin":2607,"position":2},"title":"Mary Nelson: Building a Better World","author":"Staff","date":"August 17, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"By Stephanie Herbert Hometown hero, visionary, and caregiver, Mary Nelson is dedicated to providing services to at-risk greater-Syracuse area youth to unleash their unlocked potential. 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