That Girl

*STRONG TRIGGER WARNING*

Contents deal with domestic violence.

After the whole ordeal, the questions came: “Why didn’t I call the police?” My hands were on the phone, fingers were dialing, but almost deliberately avoiding the 9 and the 1.  “Why did I stay?”  “Why didn’t I leave the first two times it happened?”  “What could I have done differently?”  “What if I ran faster?”  All these things.  But why didn’t I leave?  Especially after I had warned him that the next time he had his hands on my neck, it would be the last? 

All of these questions were geared towards me, what I could have or couldn’t have done.  They were just lyrics to an even deeper tune of shame.  I kept telling myself “I’m not that girl” but that’s when it hit me.  What is “that” girl?  The shame I feel seems to paint itself in a tired face, a disheveled and broken down female.  And that is the problem with society today.  It is not in the laws, the could-have-done’s, the should-have-done’s, or the what-ifs.  It is in the conventional attitude society has established,  where we deflect our anger and animosity.  It places the face of the victim at the forefront, for the world to see, and the abuser remains a shadow on a building.  In the cases of man on woman abuse, it seems to be the only time we see a man reduced to body parts, on posters or TV: a fist, spread legs in ready-to-attack stance, hand with belt, a blurred, but looming image in the back ground.   Once again, when it is crucial that a person be humanized, they aren’t.  The abuser remains this entity that the perceived victim should do well to avoid.  The onus is on them.

I am picking my mind apart, trying to understand why I could have had such a thought “I am not that girl.”  Why such shame is attached to what I’ve been through.  Why a tired, sallow, sometimes battered face is something to be ashamed of.  And I could only conclude what exclusivities do not pertain to domestic violence:

1) It is not something that is brought upon oneself, it is something that is done to you, by someone you loved and trusted.

2) It does not discriminate financially

3) It does not discriminate personality wise, or intelligence-wise

4) It does not discriminiate racially, or sexually

5) It does not doscriminate against any certain “class”

6) It does not discriminate against gender either.

ABUSE IS NOT THE VICTIM’S FAULT

Doctors, Social Workers, Lawyers, Teachers, Family members:

Please do not treat a victim as a burden.  Please do not tell them they should have left, or place any more pressure on them at the time.  They are already aware of what they need to do, and they need your support and understanding most during this crucial time. 

Please do not rush them out of your office or patronize them, they are a human being who’s world has just been turned upside down, and are doubting themselves in all sorts of ways.  It is almost tantamount to suffering a loss.  Please be more understanding instead of treating them like another number or statistic.  If you’re angry at the normalcy of such events, please direct that anger where it belongs, at the abuser.

There are no more bruises to remind me when I look in the mirror– but a broken tape rolls in my mind, playing the event over and over again across that wide screen.  I’m lying at the foot of it, exhausted from picking it apart.