Domestic Violence Awareness Month: Real talk on domestic violence, the pain… the shame… and the roots
OPINION - The bottom line is: hurt people hurt other people. The truth is that violence, up close and personal, has been a part of American culture since Africans were brought here enslaved...
One way to truly reduce the crimes committed toward each other is to deal with the muted emotional distress being harbored within the mind and spirit carried deep within too many of us. If we are to understand the root causes of domestic violence we should turn to resources that speak to these issues. As a writer, I can speak to creative works that can help victims cope, and offenders see their way back to the light.
The documentary film, Boyhood Shadows: I Swore I’d Never Tell, produced by my dear friend Regina Kulik Scully, reveals the depth of lifelong pain felt by victims of abuse. Victims often abuse — if they don’t get help. Such a film sheds awareness on patterns of domestic violence and how to break them.
We can’t expect anyone who’s had to lie and cover up the trauma of a childhood experience of abuse and rape to have a normal healthy relationship as an adult anymore than we can expect a veteran returning from a war zone to conveniently settle back into some preconceived societal norm. Contemplating and hearing the right stories helps us all to understand that.
In the book Healthy Women Rock: How to Live the Life You Desire & Deserve, Lose Weight and Control Negative Thoughts, my colleague Madeline McCray shares her experience with domestic violence while compassionately making the case for her ex-husband’s humanity. Her tome shows that abuse can happen to anyone, and healing is needed by everyone.
We are, for the most part, born innocent creatures. Then life happens. Someone violates your body or your spirit — and you have no where to go with the pain. People aren’t getting the help they need.  And the abuse cycle continues. There are countless other valuable works to help us better understand the cycle and how we can break it.  We can’t name them all. Yet, one thing is for certain: left unchecked, parents and victims pass on those wounds, perpetuating an unnatural cycle of life. Domestic violence then becomes an entrenched reality, which deeply affects the black community more than any other group.
I strongly urge all of us who struggle with inner rage to seek the help needed. It is a blessing. And I encourage anyone who is in an abusive relationship to take the necessary steps to remove themselves and their children from that situation immediately. Get help –now — and heal.
The only thing to be gained from staying and suffering in silence, is more pain, and spiritual or physical death. This month we are all challenged to recognize domestic violence, call for an end to abuse, and repair the wounds in our psyches that perpetuate it, or allow our hearts to remain numb to this hell experienced by our fellow beings.
Terrie M. Williams is an award-winning author, public relations and branding expert, mental health advocate and woman on fire about spreading the message. Email her at [email protected] and follow her on twitter @TerrieWilliams.
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