August 15, 2006
‘Life without fear, action without error, love without limit’
by Deborah Olick, Health Educator
You could choose to look at any part of your life using the saying above. Today, I want you to look at it in a home with domestic violence. For people living with domestic violence, the words above are just words and just a dream…a beautiful, but unreachable dream. In a home with domestic violence life is lived in fear. No matter what victims say or do, it is the wrong thing. You are only allowed to love in the limited way they want you to love. It is not and never will be enough.
Domestic violence comes in many forms: verbal abuse, like name calling and/or shouting to emotional, physical, mental or sexual abuse and/or neglect. Most of the time, we don’t recognize domestic violence because we lived with it growing up. No one labeled it or even talked about it. If we did talk about it to someone we usually made them promise, “…don’t tell.” because the abuser had threatened they would hurt us or a loved one if we told and if others found out. The abuser said it would be “all your fault.” When we are kids we say, “When we grow up we’re not going to live like this…”
When we are grown up, we say it is not domestic violence because we think this kind of behavior from our spouse or partner is normal. We do everything to convince ourselves that we deserve this kind of treatment from the person we love. We end up telling ourselves, “It is my fault that he does this to me.” and do everything in our power to make everything right. We change and give up everything, thinking that this surely will make our spouse or partner happy.
It is heartbreaking that we give ourselves up for this person. We dampen or extinguish our children’s or our own spirit to make this person happy. It is heart sickening that we are scared of the person who says he loves us. It hurts that everything we do or say is wrong. It matters that we aren’t allowed to show how much we really care and love this person the way we want.
Domestic violence happens everywhere in the United States. The Center for Disease Control reports that there are 5.3 million women and 3.2 million men who reported some form of domestic violence. In Bethel, there were approximately 533 domestic violence calls in 2004. The National Crime Victimization Survey found that 85 percent of the victims of domestic violence are women (Rennison 2003). Domestic violence is an unacceptable problem in the YK Delta.
Recognize domestic violence. Don’t make any more excuses. Get help. Protect yourself. Protect your children. Here are some places where you can accept support with domestic violence issues:
Your church
Your local police or safety officer(s)
Your school’s staff
Your village clinic
Tundra Women’s Coalition 543-3444