Dr. Elisa faced tremendous challenges while growing up in a section of New York where the residents were tremendously affected by poverty and violence. After her child’s father was killed during a robbery attempt at the age of 18, Dr. Elisa decided to change her circumstances by focusing on education and establishing a career as a doctor. She eventually earned degrees from Columbia University and Yeshiva University and now works to empower women and children. Dr. Elisa shares her personal story of triumph and discusses how to escape from a physically and mentally abusive relationship. –amir shaw
Why did you decide to become a doctor and what are some of the struggles that you had before you decided to focus on helping others?
Clearly growing up in the 1980s and ’90s it was a very challenging time in New York. But so many people that I knew had been killed and really plagued by so many of the fatalities that go on in urban communities today. My own child’s father was murdered in a brutal robbery. I decided that clearly I had to do something to change my conditions in order to improve the quality of life for myself. I wanted to help women that were plagued by the same social conditions and problems that I was faced with.
For women who are going through abusive relationships, what are some key steps they can take to remove themselves from those situations?
We should have a zero tolerance for physical or mental abuse. There is a certain amount of accountability and responsibility on the part of the individual to remove themselves from that situation. We are not living in a country where women have no rights. This is a place that’s a model for how a woman should be treated … women should leverage [that] to have the best life possible.
What are your thoughts on Montana Fishburne and Kat Stacks?
We must find out why these women are sleeping with that many men. Is there an issue around their capacity to understand and comprehend how dangerous that is and how it reflects on their own self-esteem and self-confidence? That in itself could be considered a mental health disorder. I would help them understand how valuable they are and to understand the risks that are associated with that type of behavior. We would need to do a full analysis of why they desire to sleep with that many people just for the sake of sleeping with them. We can’t take abnormal behavior and make it normative just because we know a lot of people are doing it. [There’s] something wrong with that.
