A Legacy of Violence

My mother was a battered woman, in every sense of the word. She was verbally abused, threatened, manipulated and physically abused. She lived in an environment of fear and helplessness he created to control her. He needed to control her because of his own insecurity and pain. The situation was a vicious circle.

Eventually, my mother ran, literally, in the middle of the night feigning a run to the store for presto logs. She was at the time heavily pregnant with me,  and leaving two young children with him. That is the level of fear she lived in. So afraid, so helpless she left without her children. This is something I know not many people can understand; leaving your children. It was difficult and painful and done out of sheer desperation. I watched that decision torture her all of her adult life. That decision, and the fact she had been broken down physically and mentally, seeped into every aspect of her life. The raising of her children, whom she chose as partners, everything was tainted with either guilt or fear.

She did fight to get them back through the court system, but he was a smooth talking convincing man and she was unable to win against him. This in and of itself took a great deal of bravery on her part. He was supposed to share custody, but somewhere along the way, through fear and manipulation, that never happened. My mother and I were separated from my two siblings for 20 years.

Violence against women, why does it happen? Is it the message society has fed us for so many years, that women are weaker, subordinate to men? How is it that a man can lift his hand, or lash out with violent and cutting words, to someone he professes to love? Is this a subconscious urge to control? A need to assert power? Superiority?

Whatever the answers are, it's past time to educate people, and to provide rescue for women from these horrible situations.  Because, even after a woman is removed, and years have gone by, there are still wounds that won’t heal. It is a far reaching and terribly damaging experience for any human to go through. Mentally imprisoned, and sometimes even physically. Post traumatic Stress is a very real repercussion for these women and their children.

I hope that before anyone judges a woman as weak, or stupid, or asks "why doesn't she just leave?" when they go back to the abusers, you must understand the level of manipulation and fear that has been leveled against them. It takes an incredibly strong woman with a network of people assisting them to get out of abusive relationships. Something the abuser has spent years breaking down and taking away.

Often the children of these relationships come away with anxiety, stress and fear. The girls choosing abusive men because that’s what they recognize of love, and boys abusing the women in their lives. This is a cycle that must end.

In our family, for the most part, we escaped but not without damage. Some of us narrowly avoiding the cycle. My first choice for a boyfriend was verbally abusive at the least, and at the very end pushed me down and put his hands around my throat. That was a turning point for me. It was then that I decided I would not allow a man to treat me like that ever again. At that time I did not understand the psychology behind the choices I was making. 

All the members of our broken family have dealt with the repercussions of our legacy in our own way, suffering from anxiety, depression, phobias, self medicating and other issues. But for the most part we have healed the best we can.

My point is this, batterers crimes are far reaching, and don’t stop when the battering stops. Society needs to step up, and better educate the populace on this issue, we need to fund programs for women to get out and get safe. To provide for them ways to keep their children together and make available food and shelter. These women are in essence victims of war, refugees in their own country. These women should be able to leave, without fear of losing their children, their homes, and their lives. It’s time for those who batter to be held accountable, not the victims.  I will share a link to my mother’s blog where she writes briefly about her experience.  http://www.writergoddess.com/2011/06/women-and-batterers.html