Treating the Hidden Hurt

Milly Gonzales

by Myles Dannhausen Jr.

“Why don’t you just leave?”

That question is at the heart of the issues that Milly Gonzales grapples with every day as the executive director at HELP of Door County. The organization provides free, con dential services for victims of domestic violence of all kinds, and when Gonzales hears people ask that question – or hears victims ask that same question of themselves – she gets frustrated anew that society hasn’t learned to point the question in a di erent direction.

“Why do we always put the onus on someone that’s being victimized or oppressed?” she asks. “We never ask why the oppressor is behaving this way. Why is this person using power and control or physical violence or sexual violence? It’s the way we’ve been conditioned to perceive things, and we need to ip that narrative.”

Leaving sounds easy to the outsider, but for victims, it’s far from being that simple, Gonzales explains. And the issues victims face anywhere are exacerbated in a rural community.

“Is a ordable housing accessible here in Sturgeon Bay?” she asks rhetorically. “I’m consistently struggling with nding housing for people who want to leave their partner. If by chance they nd some housing, you have to think about day care options. You can’t get away without having a vehicle. So if you leave, you may not have access to a ordable housing, or day care, or public transportation or a vehicle. So now you have to navigate this and try to provide housing and stability for my family as a single parent while you’re dealing with the traumatization. And then you engage in the criminal justice