In the Cycle of Abuse, It Hurts to Love.
If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence. Reach out.
Let me start this post with a few facts.
Real love is unconditional.
Punching, spitting, hitting, kicking, or choking someone you love is not normal.
Manipulation is a form of violence.
Help is available.
As a police officer, it was typical to go to 5 or more domestic violence calls a night. These calls would range from neighbors overhearing a husband and wife screaming at each other, to family members drunkenly brawling on the front lawn.
We would often make repeat stops at certain houses, separating and arresting spouses/family who would take turns at beating each other bloody on the weekends.
Once, I responded to a neighborhood at 4 in the morning for a 911 call of a woman screaming in the street. We followed the sound of a woman screaming and a man grunting, and found her cowering against a fence, clothing torn, skin bloody. Her boyfriend was standing in front of her, with HER belt wrapped around his hand, buckle facing out, arm raised and ready to strike.
Her skin was a bloody mess, cut in perfectly shaped belt buckle marks across both breasts and arms.
They had been together for 10 years. This wasn’t the first time this happened… just the first time the police had been called.
But with this story, I want to make one thing clear.
I’ve personally arrested just as many women for domestic abuse as men. Just because most charts and statistics list men as the abusers… that is not always the case.
Why don’t you just leave?
Ugh. I hate this question. It invalidates every feeling a survivor feels and makes the future seem impossible.
Yes a survivor. Not a victim. A person who has endured ANY kind of physical or mental trauma at the hands of someone else is a survivor in my opinion.
A survivor often does not have the ability to “just leave” an abusive relationship. If “just leaving” was even remotely possible… some may not realize it’s an option.
Patterns of abuse can be traced back generations and survivors may not have the ability to see another way of life. Along with years of mind games and terror, abusers often create a sense of financial insecurity, physically preventing a survivor from leaving.
October is domestic violence awareness month. But are you aware what abuse even looks like? What an abusive relationship looks like to an outsider? A little education could literally save a life.
Do you know someone who is a victim?
Love shouldn’t hurt. Ever.
As always,
