How unoriginal of a topic is domestic violence? It’s so ridiculously common that sometimes I stress out about how I could ever bring something new to the conversation.
What’s worse is, I didn’t even formally report mine. I survived, more or less played dead, then ran for my fucking life across the country.
That’s it. No savior. No policy change. No heroic ending with my abuser behind bars. No Goodbye Earl revenge montage.
Just another woman chewed up and spit out by the putrid, smug grin of a man.
Another cisgender, straight, white man whose upbringing and societal experience primed him for violence and privilege; skating by sans repercussions.
Another victim who survived knowing her successful escape hinged on other women taking her place.
It’s exceedingly rare to find someone who genuinely wants to talk about your domestic abuse. As soon as it’s mentioned it’s like a totally different mood. Forecast calls for uncomfortable silences, pitying looks, and rapid subject changes.
A well-known and highly common move of abusers is to isolate their victim from loved ones, and we all play right into their hands. We don’t want to risk an uncomfortable conversation, so we ignore the warning signs. None of our business, right?
As a result, domestic violence is treated as something that just happens. Tragic, yet inevitable.
But it’s not.
Talking more openly about abuse; whether before, during, or after actually encountering it, gives everyone involved in the conversation a better chance of fighting back. And that’s absolutely doing something.
Writing is mostly me attempting to get it all off of my chest so I can finally file it away in the past. As if a haunted house could become anything other than a tourist attraction (and a target of skepticism) by letting the world see its ghosts.
Processing trauma is a heavy burden, but being able to write about them helps me put those memories down. Not permanently, not yet; but it does help me at least take a rest to breathe before picking them back up.
Sometimes I even dare to imagine they feel a bit lighter.