It's my job to talk about domestic violence: Halle Berry

Los Angeles: Actress Halle Berry feels it is her duty to help victims of domestic violence because it has affected her life too.

The "X-Men" star has been a victim of domestic abuse in a previous relationship with an unnamed boyfriend and has also witnessed the violence her mother was subjected to when she was growing up, reported People magazine.

"I saw my mother battered and beaten many years of my life and I felt helpless. I have an understanding, a knowing. I feel like I have something that I can impart to these women. It seems like

I've overcome it, but I really haven't. In the quiet of my mind, I still struggle. So while I'm helping these women, I'm helping myself through it, too," she said.

Berry, 49, is also trying to clear up misconceptions about domestic violence, insisting many people do not understand the cycle of abuse.

"For some reason, I've found after 15 years of working with the Jenesse Center (domestic violence prevention organisation) that when it comes to domestic violence people just say, 'I don't get it. Why don't they just leave? This is ridiculous'," she added.

"I call them (these women) addicts. They're love addicts... They're addicted to the pain. And they're largely addicted to the pain because they've been taught nothing else. They haven't been taught that they have self-worth or value. They often weren't loved the way they should've been as children from their mothers or their fathers. People didn't say the things they should have said."