What Are We Doing To Help the Victims of Domestic Violence?
I cannot stop thinking about the woman who is serving a life sentence in Louisiana for killing her boyfriend, twenty years ago.
This fire that has been lit, will only make me want to help and find out other ways to help more women and men get the real help they need.
I heard a story about a girl who was living in a hotel room because she and her boyfriend could not rent a place. The guy was around 400 lbs. and the girl was slowly losing the 200 lbs. she had put on herself. The abuse began to get worse. She recalls being drug out of the car and drug up the stairs because, you see she was not dumb she knew he was up to something.
She did not want to get out the car. He had been working all day and he came home to go out again. She recalls wondering what in the hell was he up to? She was working close to three jobs because he could not find one. Every morning he would wake up and head to the temp agency to find work. He would yell in her face and repeatedly visit her work where she was making a check every week. He was jealous and controlling. She recalls wondering why she was with him.
I listened and let her cry. This is domestic abuse. I have never been drug by my hair out of a car or down/up a flight of stairs. But, hearing this one story really got me. Where was the police? Why were they not called?
The system is filled with drug addicts and abusers. But, do you know when the cops are called what happens? If you dare have protected yourself and fought back, your ass is going to jail too! So, I can relate. I too can remember being scared to call the police. I recall being afraid I was going to jail. That is why I stopped fighting these abusers back and created a plan to get myself help and get out before I got myself arrested.
Would you help a man or woman that was being yelled at or battered? Would you call the police and write a report to help the victim?
We are so consumed with our own crap, we tend to turn our eyes. I know if I saw a woman getting yelled at in a vehicle I would probably follow the car and call the cops. I know if I saw a man beating his girl I would interfere and get her help. Why? Because it happened to me. No one helped, and I feared for my life.
What are states doing to help out the victims? What laws are being created to rehabilitate the victim? I have not seen many and I am curious why we are only helping the offenders. They get to experience a class full of abusers for six months to help them not explode on the next victim. Are we really preventing another assault? Are we just masking the real problem?
Some great questions to ask yourself if you choose to date again after you have been a victim of domestic violence:
- How should I find my partner?
- Is it reasonable to expect my partner to make major changes if I want him/her to improve?
- Do I really love this person?
- When should I make a commitment to another person?
- How long should I wait to get married?
- Should we get married or live together first?
- Did you run a background check on this new person?
- Does he/she really care about your inner self?
- Are you loving yourself over this person?
If you have not found your partner it’s ok and I guarantee if you keep digging and working on yourself that person will come into your life and find you. Not the other way around.
The key to loving yourself is respecting yourself. If you are being yelled at, choked, drugged, grabbed, or treated with any of these awful violent acts you are not being loved.
If you can go to bed with this person, you are telling this person that what they are doing is ok.
Everyone I continue to meet is fighting a battle I truly know nothing about. My plan however in this world of despair that is domestic violence, to be a beacon of hope!
