SAN ANTONIO –
A San Antonio woman has taken the violence of her past and turned it into a life-saving conversation.
Through theater and mentorship, Karen Chattum is expanding the public conversation about domestic violence, giving a voice to many people she knows are quietly suffering.
Chattum got pregnant at 16 years old and immediately got married.
"The first time he hit me was two days after we got married. I was pregnant with our oldest son," she said.
She said six and a half years of abuse landed her in the hospital and her husband in jail countless times.
Finally, Chattum took control and left for good. She said she did it for her children, who had watched the abuse their whole lives.
"I didn't realize at that time that trying to give them a dad was hurting them more than it was helping them," she said.
Chattum admits it took 20 years to fully heal. What helped her most was writing.
"I started just writing to vent at night. I started writing about being 16 and being abused," she explained.
That emotional journal soon turned into two novels and five plays that have been performed all over San Antonio and nationwide.
Four times a year, Chattum’s plays are shown on the stage at the Liberty View Church of Christ.
Her first play, "Sixteen," touches on teen pregnancy, family violence, substance abuse, and AIDS awareness. It runs every year in October during Family Violence Awareness Month.
"In 2010, someone watched it with her sister, and her sister took her home, and she asked her to wait and she moved out her abuser’s home and has not returned. I get a report back every October. She's now in a healthy marriage in Houston, she graduated from college, and she credits that to watching Karen Chattum's 'Sixteen,’" she said.
Chattum has seen many success stories like that and said it makes her grateful to have found her place as a true advocate.
"The ills that most of us aren't even comfortable talking about in our homes, we talk about them on stage, on purpose. If we start these courageous conversations, then we're helping somebody say out loud, ‘I'm taking my power back,’" Chattum said.
After every play, Chattum holds workshops, mentoring survivors and embracing tough topics. The workshops are held through her program S.P.E.A.K., which follows both solution-focused and narrative therapy discourse, providing social awareness through theatrical arts. They hold many different workshops: HIV 101, anger management, re-authoring conversations, self-esteem, domestic violence, stigma and substance abuse.
"This isn't a theater company. This is a social agency, and we're here to help people on their journey of healing, to provide prevention and intervention," Chattum said.
Chattum said the huge number of domestic violence victims in Bexar County hasn't dropped significantly, because there is still a stigma around family violence.
"A lot of it stems from we don't talk about this out loud. What happens in our house stays in our house. Let somebody hear your voice," she said. "If we walk around like everything is OK, then people are going to think this only happens to them. I grew up thinking nobody else goes through this but me, and that's not true."
Year-round, Chattum meets with survivors, points them to resources, gives them hope and offers real solutions.
Chattum has advice to those suffering abuse right now.
"Never allow anybody to have more power over you than you, because you cannot love anybody if you haven't learned how to love you. You're only a victim as long as your thought process allows you to be a victim. Start telling yourself out loud, 'I can do better. I can be better. I deserve better. I love me.’”
Chattum said without an enormous group of people, she wouldn't be able to do what she does. She wanted to thank Liberty View Baptist Church of Christ, her S.P.E.A.K. family, San Antonio Fighting Back, Nairobi Bar and Grill, Beauty Connections, Eva's Escape, The Genesis Project, John T. Maxey Lodge No. 4 and BEAT AIDS.
To find out more about Chattum's plays, novels, or workshops, head to her website.
For a whole list of local resources for domestic violence victims and survivors, visit KSAT’s Help for domestic violence victims page.