Her soul is bruised from his hate-filled words.Her arms are sometimes black from his fists.You think she is in danger, but can you do anything?
Yes, you can continue to read this page.
Domestic Violence
You as a victim or a friend can help by obtaining as much knowledge as you can.
The first thing I want to stress to you is that you are not alone.Every 15 seconds a woman is beaten, that is 4 woman per min, 240 an hour, 2880 a day.We need to get these numbers lowered and the way for us to do that is through education.And making this publicly known is our first step.
This problem is not isolated,it happens all over the world to all walks of life, rich, poor, young and old.It can be brother-sister, sister-sister, brother-brother, mother-daughter etc..not just husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend.
Long ago there use to be a law that allowed men to beat on their woman as long as they didn't use anything bigger around then their thumb.This is where the rule of thumb comes from.
The BIG question that always gets asked is "why do you stay?".There are several reasons "why", 1)children, 2)financial stability, 3)have no car, 4)have never worked or been on their own, 5)do not know where to get help from. We believe that the batter will change. After a battering episode the abuse is very sorry, loving and swears he will "never do it again". Because we love the men we married and see that man every time things are good, we want to believe that they will change. This is why we stay or leave and go back.Woman go back at least 7 times before they stay gone for good.
Everyone needs to know that they are not alone in this, there is help out there just look for it.
1-800-end-abuse
The above number is a nation wide number where you can get referals to a facility in your area. Please use these tools to get the help you need. Even check your local paper for meetings, phone book for crisis lines. Things can change for you and you can live a normal life.
I want to tell you a story,about a young woman who thought she fell in love with the most wonderful man in the world. When they married he treated her as if she was a queen. He wanted them together all the timeand she thought that this was sweet. He did not want her to work, he wanted to take care of her. She agreed to these things because she did not see any problem with this. She saw it as being loved. He told her he loved her often.
One day they had an arguement and he called her mean names and said the most terrible things to her. "He was just upset" she told herself. The next time they fought was when he came home from work and his dinner was not ready, he shoved and slapped her. This scared her but she looked at it as her fault and maybe she deserved it. "I should have started dinner sooner", she said. The more this went on the worse it got. The hitting got more frequent. She left several times only to return or to have him find her and make her return. She would stay in motels under differant names and he always seemed to be able to find her. One time he found her and drug her across the street so he could beat her up, an employee saw this and went and got her away. It seemed so hopeless to keep leaving. She had been through much abuse with this man, from being tied up with a phone cord and held hostage in their apartment to having weapons pulled on her. There came a point when she finally got the courage to leave and get her life together but he distroyed that . He broke into the house she was staying at and beat her up while she was in the shower. This woman lost everything, her self-esteem, who she was, her willingness to live, her hearing and a baby and almost lost her life. They had been out one night and on the way home thay got into an arguement, he pulled to a side street and started to strangle her until she was unconcious. Thinking he killed her he went and got a shovel and started bo bury her alive in the desert. She came to and it startled him so he started in with the crying to make her forgive him and she did after a while. See this person had nothing left of herself and the way to make things not hurt so bad was to turn to drugs. At least it made the pain less. It wasnt until one night when he beat her up and threw her out of their house that she decided that she had, had enough. She went to a friends house to get away from him and decided not to turn him in, until he showed up at her friends house and beat her up again. She called the police this time. And stuck by her choice to put him in jail. After this the officers helped her get in contact with a shelter. And in list shelter she read everything she could get her hands on and decided that she had had enough and it was time to live her life for her and to love the person she is. Now this young woman lives a good life and is very happy.
The start of this story has all kinds of warning signs that she should have seen but did'nt. These are the kind of things we need to educate others on. Education is the start to putting a stop to this.
I hope this page will some day help someone as that shelter did for me years ago.
Please dont forget to come back and sign my guestbook.
This page was started on JAN 9,1999.
This page was last updated on March 19,2000
I am adding a link to a poem I think should be read by all. Please take a few minutes to read this.
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