Until the night he smashed her car windows, broke into her home and threatened to kill her, Priscilla thought her boyfriend was a reasonable guy.
"We'd been best friends since I was 12, and he was always like my protector," she said. But when she became pregnant by him at 17, his attention turned menacing.
"He got really jealous, like he didn't even want me spending time with the baby," said Priscilla, now 20 and worried enough about her safety that she asked that her last name not be revealed. "I knew that he could be violent, but I didn't think he would do that to \o7me\f7."
His late-night attack last May sent Priscilla and her mother searching the Internet for help. They found Break the Cycle, a national group based in Los Angeles aimed at helping teenagers prevent and stop partner abuse.
The group helped Priscilla get a restraining order, taught her to navigate the legal system and counseled her on ways to maintain a safe and healthy relationship with her son's dad. Now Priscilla is working with Break the Cycle to spread the word to other young women.
With a $15,000 grant from the Los Angeles Times Family Fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, Break the Cycle is expanding its "Ending Violence" program, which sends lawyers and counselors into schools, colleges and community centers to teach teens about healthy relationships and the legal means to stop abuse.
Last year, thanks to the generosity of Times readers, the Family Fund spent $1.4 million supporting Southern California charities' work with disadvantaged families. Its donation helped Break the Cycle reach almost 20,000 teens.
"Typically, a lot of the young people we see have already experienced dating abuse or domestic violence in their families," said Break the Cycle attorney Jimena Vazquez. Still, the group's biggest hurdle often is teaching teens to recognize danger.
"A lot of teens don't understand there's a lot of abuse besides physical," she said. "We talk about verbal abuse, sexual abuse.... A lot of time is spent talking about relationships, what they should and shouldn't be like."
Like Priscilla, many teenage girls are flattered by a partner's obsessive attention and surprised when it turns violent.
"So many of them don't think of jealousy and possessiveness as being part of an abusive relationship," Vazquez said. "They think it's normal for their boyfriend not to let them talk to other boys.... They think, 'Great. He wants to spend all his time with me.' They don't recognize that could be a warning sign."
