Domestic violence survivor Leslie Morgan Steiner tells story of “Crazy Love” at YWCA Oklahoma City

It started out a love story. She was a successful and pretty Harvard grad working as a writer and editor for a magazine in New York City. He was charming and handsome, with a job at a Wall Street bank.

Five days before their wedding, he choked her, leaving 10 bruises across her neck. She married him anyway.

The violence continued — worsened — but Leslie Morgan Steiner didn’t consider herself a victim, though she sees the warning signs now.

“I had no idea I was walking into crazy love: this psychological trap,” Steiner told a group of 700 people gathered Thursday for a YWCA Oklahoma City fundraiser at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.

“Crazy Love” is also the title of Steiner’s 2009 memoir.

Steiner was the first domestic violence survivor to give a TED Talk, which is a series focused on short speeches that are designed to inspire people. When Janet Peery, chief executive of YWCA Oklahoma City, watched that video, she knew she wanted to get Steiner to visit Oklahoma City.

Sponsors helped to offset the cost of having Steiner speak at the luncheon, one of the major annual fundraisers the YWCA Oklahoma City depends on, Peery said. The YWCA operates the only certified shelter for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault in Oklahoma County, and also provides counseling and other services.

“In our mind, it can’t happen to us,” Peery said of the attendees, who were predominantly professional women. But having Steiner, also a professional woman, speak emphasized the point that domestic violence can happen to anyone, regardless of demographics.

“My story starts at 22,” Steiner began, describing how she met her first husband (she’s happily remarried now.) “It usually comes wrapped up as the most romantic love you could imagine.”

But he soon began to isolate her from friends and family, by keeping their engagement a secret and encouraging her to quit her job and move with him to a small town.

He controlled the only car.

He bought guns, on the pretense that they were to protect her.

He abused her on their honeymoon, and once or twice a week after that. The last time she lay on the floor unconscious as he broke her favorite framed wedding photo over her head, glass shards cutting her face.

When she came to, she called police and now credits the officers’ frank observation as the push she needed to leave him. They said her husband would kill her if she went back.

Friends, family and a domestic violence advocate helped her from there, offering support without judgment.

“I’m a typical victim,” Steiner told the crowd gathered Thursday. “That’s why there’s so much hope in this room.”