Virginia Finster thought she was going to die.
It was June 2011, and as her partner’s hands clamped tight around Finster’s throat, her infant son was just a few feet away. She managed to get away before the man could kill her, running barefoot from her home until she found help.
When the police arrived, they made sure Finster’s son was safe and arrested his father.
“When I look back, there were lots of signs,” Finster, a SAC graduate who now works as a marketing content creator in SAC’s Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications, said. “I wish I had made decisions to leave that environment earlier than I did.”
In the United States, more than 10 million people per year — nearly 20 people every minute — are physically abused by an intimate partner, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV). About 25% of women and 14% of men suffer severe physical violence, such as beating, burning and strangling, at the hands of intimate partners.
“You begin to understand the importance of education in stopping these cycles of violence. There is power in knowing that we can do something to put an end to it, and it starts with … self-reflection.”
— Virginia Finster
The night Finster nearly lost her life to domestic violence changed everything for her. It was the first step to breaking the cycle of abuse for her and her children.
“When you sit down with professionals that see this day in and day out, you realize you’re not alone,” Finster said.
Finster was able to escape the abusive relationship she was in and positively transform her life. Now she shares her story of survival to inspire others to break their silence and stop intimate partner abuse.
In October, she spoke at SAC”s “Keeping Ourselves Safe” event, one of several observances on campus for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Twenty women attended the event, and after hearing Finster’s story, several shared their own stories of trauma and survival.
“She reached out from the heart, and through her story, she was able to inspire those who might be suffering through domestic violence to speak out. She showed all of us there is hope,” Empowerment Center advisor Bertha Castellanos said.
In the fall of 2011 — a few months after the assault that made Finster finally leave her abusive partner — she enrolled at San Antonio College. She was living out of the trunk of her car at the time, and she often went to class hungry, unable to afford to feed herself.
She left SAC after several semesters to work full-time as a pharmacy technician. She returned to SAC to complete her associate of arts in journalism in 2018 and served as a photojournalist and photo editor for SAC’s student news publication, The Ranger (SAC Student News is the relaunched and renamed version of the publication).
She was making pictures of an event at the Empowerment Center when she met Castellanos. Castellanos allowed Finster to express her struggles humanely, and she advised Finster to take advantage of the resources available on campus and beyond, including the Advocacy Center, women’s shelters, and childcare services.
“When I first joined the resource room in the Advocacy Center, I was shocked by the staff’s friendly demeanor and the love and respect they showed. They made me feel seen,” Finster said with tears in her eyes at the event in October. “To me, the Advocacy Center and the Empowerment Center stand out as a slice of heaven on earth.”
Finster said the support and resources she found as a student at SAC were vital to her success. After graduating with her associate of arts in journalism, Finster earned a bachelor’s in Political Science from Texas Tech University in 2022, and she was honored as her class’s banner bearer for the Arts and Sciences Department that year.
She said education allowed her to reflect on the abuse she suffered and find the courage to talk openly about it with her peers and, ultimately, share her survivor story publicly.
“You begin to understand the importance of education in stopping these cycles of violence.” she said. “There is power in knowing that we can do something to put an end to it, and it starts with education. It starts with that self-reflection.”
Finster has learned that abuse patterns are often passed down for generations. Growing up, Finster endured verbal abuse and vitriol from her mother, who learned the behaviors from her grandmother. Finster said she felt like her mother’s “punching bag,” and the behavior became normalized in her mind.
“I thought that was just the way love was received,” she said.
The father of Finster’s first son — the man she escaped from in 2011 — also suffered familial abuse as a child, starting with his mother’s intimate partner, who abused her in front of him when he was a child.
Data from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence says about 7% of children in the United States are exposed to intimate partner violence each year, and 90% of them are eyewitnesses to this violence.
According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, “Children who witness violence between parents may also be at greater risk of being violent in their future relationships.”
Finster said her former partner’s abuse started with efforts to isolate her. He sought to estrange her from friends, especially those concerned about her well-being and livelihood. That was coupled with emotional abuse.
“He would say things like, ‘No one will ever love you like I do. Who’s going to love someone who has no education? You have no job; who’s going to support you like I do?’” Finster said.
Eventually the abuse turned physical and became a regular occurrence. Her partner drank often, and his violent outbursts were sudden and unpredictable.
The night she finally escaped, authorities photographed all the bruises on her battered body, and she had to describe the abuse that had gone on for years. The process opened her eyes to the red flags and warning signs that occurred early in the relationship and that the abuse she was suffering wasn’t normal.
Now Finster is determined to help other victims of domestic violence recognize the patterns of abuse and get help.
“It’s important that we break the silence and encourage people to seek help,” Empowerment Center senior coordinator Melissa Flores-Valencia said. “There is help here at SAC for those who are struggling.”
