The Beginning...
Domestic abuse has many beginnings, all of them dark. It might start with arguments between a husband and wife. It might start with just a 'feeling' of irritation, gradually growing inside a person until it one day explodes in an attempt to relieve itself. Whatever the beginning, there is never an easy ending.
There is no one who is a 'typical' sufferer of domestic abuse. It is an illness that can invade any house in any neighborhood in any city in any state or any country in the world. It does not depend on economic status, social status, or age. In recent years it has come to the awareness of society that it doesn't even depend on sex. There are women who abuse their husbands, just as surely as men abuse their wives. And children are also sad victims of this problem.
I have purposely used a dark, gloomy background on this page to illustrate the feeling what a person going through this situation feels. I am trying to make you feel some of the discomfort. It's a feeling that things will never be good again. A feeling of being suffocated, trapped, and unable to escape, except into your own mind during rare quiet times.
A victim of domestic abuse feels that there is no one to turn to. No one who will understand. No one who has ever had to go through anything so terrible before. There is embarrassment, shame, a feeling of hopelessness. No one to help.
However, there IS help. There IS someone who understands. There ARE people who have gone through the same thing, and have emerged as survivors, stronger than ever before. They develop a fierce determination to never let the same thing happen again, not only to them, but to others. Since most of the victims of domestic abuse are women, women everywhere who have endured this hell have formed a sisterhood. They support each other. They care about each other. And they take pride in each story of survival.
When this realization comes to a victim of domestic abuse, a change takes place...a change so powerful that it will not be contained. A person who comes to this realization suddenly reaches 'that place' where a person has to be in order to gain the strength to help themselves. Before this 'place' is reached, telling this victim to "just get out of the situation" does no good. Until they reach 'that place', they do not have the strength or the belief in themselves to be able to "just get out".
But one day, it happens. They realize what is happening to them. They get angry, and they fight back. And when they do........
