After Julia started regularly attending the meetings for victims of
physical and emotional abuse, she would tell me afterward what they had
discussed. She didn’t want to give me
any particulars about any one woman’s abusive situation because that
information was confidential, but she did want to tell me the kinds of
questions that were asked of the victims.
It was the way to determine if they were, indeed, victims of abuse and
knew it. The counselors wanted to make
the victims aware of what constituted abuse – which could take many forms - and
that, if they weren’t already aware, they had to become aware of these forms.
I would tell her, “Julia, you have been mistreated and abused by Evan
for so long that, to you, the situation at home seems ‘normal’. But, someone outside of your situation
looking in, especially a trained observer, would be able to dispassionately
determine that you are, indeed, a victim, only you just aren’t conscious of
it. You might actually be thinking that
you deserve his mistreatment of you, which is complete and utter nonsense!”
“Actually, Nina, “she would say to me, “there are so many different
signs that you’re in an abusive relationship that it seems impossible that, as
a victim, you would not be aware of it.
Here is an example of what I’m talking about: your partner’s controlling behavior. Maybe some people wouldn’t think of that
aspect as something that is considered abuse.
Behavior like, does he act excessively jealous and possessive? Does he control where you go and what you
do? Does he keep you from seeing your
friends and family? Does he limit your
access to money, the phone, or the car?
Does he constantly check up on you?
All of this can be considered abuse of an emotional type.”
After Julia had told me about the discussions that were going on at the
sessions, I started thinking more about it.
I remembered seeing a DVD movie called A Stranger in My Bed (starring Jamie Luner and Chris Kramer, from
the Lifetime Movie Network), which was about this very thing, except that the
husband didn’t stop at purely emotional abuse; he continued with horrible
physical abuse that often landed his wife in the hospital with deep bruises,
lacerations and broken bones. She would
usually need stitches, at the very least.
But, she would never tell anyone at the hospital what had really
happened to her. She would say that
she’d fallen down the stairs or some such malarkey and wouldn’t dare tell the
medics or the doctors the truth of the situation. I’m sure that she knew it was abuse, but I’m
also sure that she was deathly afraid of her violently abusive husband. Eventually, she’d had enough of his inhumane
treatment of her and left him by very cleverly faking her death in a caving
accident, though she was an expert caver.
He, at first, believed that her death had occurred even though her body had never been recovered. However, he later managed to find out through
a private investigator that she was actually alive and living somewhere else
under an assumed name. Not only that –
she had a boyfriend. And, that’s when he
unleashed an unrestrained fury on her.
He resolved to kill her in the most heinous way possible – by burning
her with acid. It was only because of
her deep feelings of love for the man in her new life that she found the
courage to fight back, defend herself and the new man in her life, and was finally
forced to kill her husband in self-defense.
Julia was gradually
working out her own way of coping with the ongoing physical abuse she
constantly suffered at the hands of her husband, Evan. However, with the increased understanding she
was achieving through her counselling sessions, she now recognized his
behaviour for what it really was. And,
she also knew that, married or not, a wife did not have to accept abuse as part
of her marriage vows. She was
discovering, perhaps for the first time since marrying Evan, that she had
choices. For one thing, she did not have
to keep putting up with his controlling, manipulative and punishing
behaviour. Although she did not know why
he vented his rages on her continually, she knew she was not responsible for
them.
There was now help being made available in
society for victims of abuse. The
general population was finally beginning to accept and admit that this huge
problem existed. The police were willing
to help, but unless victims were first willing to help themselves by laying
charges of spousal assault and getting a restraining order against the perpetrator,
there was little they could legally do.
Most male police officers had all but given up on helping these hapless
victims for that reason and had become, therefore, complacent in their
attitudes. I suppose it’s always more
difficult for a man to empathize with a female victim, so female police
officers were also often despatched to a scene of domestic violence. Against all odds, they were able to talk to
the victim and make her see things more rationally. The male officers who accompanied her to the
scene could restrain and arrest the perpetrator very effectively while she
calmed the victim down and arranged for her to go to a shelter temporarily. If there were children in the household, they
were despatched to a babysitter or a family member for the time being. It was the best solution that could be
implemented by the police.
So, when Julia
got into a fight for the third time in a single month with Evan, she eventually
got the courage to call the police, have him charged with spousal assault and
arrested. Because she was now willing,
with the encouragement of a female police officer, to testify against him, the
police were also now willing to protect her and help her start a new life. They told her it would not be easy to do any
of this, however. To make a major change of any kind is never easy, they said to
her. But,
it is worthwhile when you consider the alternative. If he
were free right now, he could easily maim or kill you and he would not think
twice about it.
I vowed to
myself that I would be there for her, as I’d promised. Whenever she needed me, I’d drop everything
to be there. I hated Evan for what he’d
done to her already and what he would do if he had the chance. For now, he was behind bars, which is where
he belonged. As long as Julia was able
to keep it together and testify against him, he would be sentenced to prison
for anywhere from three to five years, depending on the circumstances. She would then have other choices about what
to do in her life, and I would be there for her every step of the way. I had discovered, myself, through my own
personal abusive situation that no one can escape or cope with an abusive
situation alone; the victim needs continual help and support and money and,
perhaps, a brand new identity. These
days, there is no limit to what can and should be done to help a victim who
wants to change her circumstances for good. Society, as a whole, is no longer
willing to condone the heinous actions of these cruel perpetrators and wants to
put them where they rightly belong – behind bars for a long time.
copyright 2016 - Anne Shier - to be published in book format in the future (hard cover, soft cover, e-book / audio book)
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