When I think of 'domestic violence', I recall someone I knew when I was 17, then I recall someone I knew when I was 25, then I think of the news stories that have surfaced about women who have been murdered by their abusive partners, I think of children, then I have to stop. It's too painful to think of.
As addicts go, violence surely goes with that lifestyle. The psychological makeupof batterers as well as the psychology of addiction dovetail, so to speak, and it's almost a certainty that someone who despises themself for being an addict will strike out and further deepen the hole that hides the psyche of a batterer. It was awful to walk into the methadone clinic to see one of the other 'clients' with a nasty black eye or swollen lip.
Since October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, it seems a good time to reflect on something too painful to think of very often. Because I'm not in an abusive situation right now doesn't mean I can run from the responsibility of helping others who might be caught in one.
There will probably be a candlelight walk in town to remember the victims; killed by a drunk and enraged husband on one Halloween after several years of abuse in the short marriage, the cute redhead battered by her partner who suspected that she came home from work in a dentist's office with signs of someone else's semen in her hair (hallucination caused by too much cocaine) and I wonder about the 2 sons who had to witness the horrendous end to their mother's life. I wonder where they are now, what it was like to have a guy signal you to come into a bedroom to see your mother's bloody battered body then notice that she was still breathing, causing the man to finish off the job. How often do they think of their mother? Do they have nightmares with images of their mom fighting to stay alive? I can't even imagine the psychological trauma these 2 young men must now deal with.
The violence that is so difficult to comprehend is mothers who murder their children. When I see any child with a tear in the eye, I want to gently take hold of them and fold them up in my body and my arms to protect them with all my might. I want to kiss their forehead and whisper, "I'll be with you now. It'll be OK." When I think of women who kill their children for the chance of a relationship with another man, I feel slightly ashamed of belonging to the same gender that would consider it.
There are millions of victims out there and I hope that this October one of them, or 10 of them, or hundreds of them can know that the hearts and prayers of survivors are tugging at them to come along, to get help.
| | Posted by mindinari at 4:21 PM - | |
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