This isn’t a good introduction post. I don’t know how to open a blog. So I’m going to blog about what is on my mind.

                There are so many things to say about domestic violence and the things that come next. But the one thing that is bothering me, one of the main things I have learned, is that DV isn’t private.

                You might feel like it should be private. I sure did. And I know people who love me did too. I was told time and time again how private this situation was, how it is my story to tell. And yet in the end, I am not the one who gets to tell it. I don’t get to decide who hears my story, how the narrative is. My story has become the story for those around me. Something like a horrible car accident they saw that they can’t help but relay to others. Something shocking and new in their lives that needs to be shared with others. So they will tell your story. They will edit your story to make sure the drama is in all the right places. To make it more intense.They will change your story to fit their need, every time it is told.

                Some people have good intentions. Other times they just aren’t thinking. “Hey, so-n-so would never tell anyone. It’s okay.” (Not realizing the irony in this.)“Well you don’t know what-her-name, so it doesn’t matter.” (But now this person who I do not know, knows me. Because you have shared one of the most shameful,humiliating, terrifying moments of my life with them.) “Well this affects me too. I needed someone to talk to.”
                I won’t touch that one. It boggles my mind to the point that my anger begins to bubble and raise inside,and I want to scream.

                Domestic violence, especially in it’s more extreme forms, is “exciting”, for lack of a better word. It is dramatic. It opens the door for so many opinions, and before you know it you will find other people slipping in, for some reason taking the victim status upon themselves. As if being a victim has some type of glory in it. They were hurt by what happened to you, and so they become victims with you.

But they’re not.
Because they weren’t there that night.
They didn’t get photographed by a large male officer, who’s look of pity while he counted bruises was louder than the millions of questions the female officer was piling up. They didn’t have CPS show up the next morning for their child, accusing them of neglect for not calling 9-1-1 during the violent attack. They didn’t see a police report filled with lies from their in-laws. The same people who heard the cries for help and did absolutely nothing.

No. They didn’t think they were going to die that night. They didn’t go through something so traumatic, that their mind somehow clicked off emotion and went numb. They didn’t have to begin to learn to feel again.

They might try to tell our stories. But they are OUR stories. And I guess now, I’m ready to start telling mine.

I don’t know if it will ever get read. But I think it’s time. So, welcome to my story.