Photo credit: Tom Jenz
"Madeline Brigantti: The Road Back from Abuse"
Here is Madeline’s story as told to me in her own words.
“I was born in Milwaukee’s inner city in September 1970. My parents were drug addicts. When I was three, they abandoned my younger brother and me. My grandmother took over, and I just assumed she was my mom. I called her Mommy. From the ages of three to ten, I was sexually abused by Mommy’s husband. I was ten years old when I learned that Mommy was actually my grandmother, and my so-called aunt was my real mom. Mom came back into my life after recovering from drug addiction.
“I’ve spent most of my life trying to find somebody I could trust. The people that were supposed to keep me safe abandoned me, hurt me. On my seventeenth birthday, I enlisted in the U.S. Army.
"Little did I know that baggage travels. Right away, I met my future husband. He was kind, loving and gentle. We settled in Washington D.C. I had a daughter, but then my husband started to physically abuse me. Yelling, hitting. Then, I had two more children. Slowly, my husband’s abuse grew to an everyday thing. When I was seven and a half months pregnant, he punched me in my stomach, and I miscarried a stillborn child. I wanted to die, but I didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger. I was working two jobs and mothering three kids.”
“In 2001, I finally came back to Milwaukee, got out of the marriage with the help of my mom and aunt. I was broken for many years after that. In 2008, I was raped by an ex-boyfriend. I went into therapy treatment, met some other women who had suffered domestic violence, and I realized I was broken. Slowly, I learned to fall in love with myself. Everyday, I look in the mirror and find something beautiful about me. A while ago, I got involved with Frank Nitty and the protest movement. They taught me that it’s okay to be scarred, wounded. I’ve now put on two separate People’s Cookout events to honor inner city men and women leaders.
“Right now I am living on Social Security Disability because I have 32 broken bones and a fractured skull from my ex-husband’s abuse. My hands shake. I have terrible anxiety. But I keep on. I am a student at MATC majoring in Business.”
Madeline also tells her dramatic story in her book, BRUISED BUT NOT BROKEN, available on Amazon.
Central City Stories is a collection of visual narratives from Milwaukee's central city by writer and fine arts photographer Tom Jenz. You can see more of his work at TomJenzAmerica.com.
