_http://www.philly.com/dailynews/features/41009742.html
Tue, Mar. 10, 2009
Jenice Armstrong: 'Miss Pauline' counsels victims in abusive relationships
By Jenice Armstrong
Philadelphia Daily News
Daily News Columnist
IT WAS A POWERFUL moment last week when TV talk host Oprah Winfrey looked straight into the camera and warned Rihanna, "If a man hits you once, he will hit you again."
But the pop princess singer apparently isn't ready to accept Winfrey's advice. Singer Chris Brown and Rihanna reportedly are still a couple and according to her lawyer, she doesn't want Brown to be prohibited from seeing her while he awaits trial for battery.
I once had a friend whose boyfriend beat her with a belt. When she refused to leave him, it doomed our friendship. I couldn't understand why she stayed and I let her know it.
But Pauline Brown, who for years has counseled battered women in the living room of her Philadelphia rowhome, understands why women take their abusers back over and over again. She knows why they stay. And when they call her with yet another story, Brown listens.
"They really have to want to leave a relationship. It's almost like a drug. You have to want to get away. Most women at first feel like they've done something wrong. It's their fault. [They think] 'What can I do to make him stop?' So, they're walking on eggshells," explained Brown, 55, who has been victimized herself. "They see it building. The men start cursing you out and they start becoming inflamed over any little thing.
"Battery is a learned behavior. If all you ever saw was people fighting, you think it's the norm. What you're used to is the cursing and the screaming and the hollering and the fighting," she said. [...]
