How does one define abuse? Is it merely hitting, scratching, or beating? Is it the emotional molestation that often hits harder than a blow? Or is the real crime of abuse the insidious, crippling cycle which it can create and recreate in our best and brightest, the lives it wastes, the hidden, burning shame it can induce? Ellen is the true story of two generations of abuse-the abuse of the mother, which led to the abuse of the daughter. More than a tragic chronicle of familial abuse, though, it is the story of hope, prayer, conviction, and courage: It is the story of a little girl inside who said, "stop! I have put up with this emotional and physical abuse long enough!" It is the story of a strong and stubborn woman who refused to allow the abuse to carry on into another generation, saving her own children from the humiliation and pain which she experienced both first-and second hand. Ellen is the emotionally intense story of one woman’s courageous, triumphant fight against the cycle of tragedy and poverty. It is an inspirational story of prevailing, of overcoming against the odds, of survival of the bravest. It is the dramatization of how faith in oneself and in a higher power can allow a woman to achieve much more than she ever thought attainable.