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Mary Edmiston has a good job at the Alaska Native Medical Center -- a job she's determined to hold on to after making some big changes in her life.
"I'm not leaving my work every few days when my daughter calls saying something is wrong, I need to go. That happened all the time," said abuse survivor, Mary Edmiston.
The trouble with Edmiston's daughter was a serious drinking problem, abusive boyfriends and bad decisions. Edmiston moved in to help her daughter care for her children, but it wasn't long before her daughter's anger turned against her.
"She was breaking my furniture and threatening me, getting in my face. They would take my food and blame me, because I would say something. And they would say, 'Don't you want your grandchildren to eat?' and, 'How could you be keeping all this food when you know we need food?'" said Edmiston.
Edmiston says guilt was a big part of letting the cycle of abuse continue and, frankly, get much worse--guilt that she had somehow caused her daughter's alcoholic rages and the violence that always followed.
"That it comes back to you that you've done something wrong in raising them, that you didn't do enough for them, that you should keep doing something, that you can't leave them when they're in pain," said Edmiston.
But eventually Edmiston's pain was so great that she found her way to the AWAIC Shelter. She says it took the support she found at the shelter to understand that she couldn't fix her daughter, but she could get help for herself.
"I'm stronger now and I just say, 'No, I can't do it,' if she asks me for money, 'No.'"
Edmiston says she's learning every day how to improve her life; and that newfound strength is helping her daughter grow as well.
Edmiston took advantage of several
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