It’s the holiday season, and most of us are in high gear, thinking about what gifts are still left on our list to check off and what to buy the person on your list that has everything. Let that resonate for a minute, the person that has everything. Not many of us are thinking about the people who have nothing that are wondering how they will even find any joy at all in the holiday season. Sometimes it takes you being that person who had everything and lost it all to stop and think about the people who gave up everything to save themselves.
I’m one of those people.
My mind was churning with all things I had to check off my list today as I was driving Lauren to school. The voice on the radio invaded my thoughts.
“…Grandparents were awoken to a loud pounding on their door in the middle of the night. It was their daughter with her three children; she was escaping an unsafe domestic situation. She left with nothing but her children. Now there are five people living in the house, and we’d like to help make the holidays a little brighter for that family.” Everything stopped for me in that moment. I was taken back to a March night not too long ago when I was in a similar situation. Every emotion I felt that night returned. Panic, disbelief, shame, and fear.
I was surprised at how deeply those words coming out of the radio affected me. I looked over at Lauren and asked her, “How can we help others like her? Why am I so emotional about it?”
“It’s because you were in a similar situation, mom you know how it feels.” I thought about how hard it was for that woman to take her kids and go back to her parent’s house. I thought about the stigma that sometimes comes with being in a domestically unsafe situation. What would happen if I shared on Social Media that I wanted to help a family this Christmas would someone say, “Why did she stay? Why did she let it get so bad?” Then I realized something I didn’t like about myself. I’d had those same thoughts in the past.
I felt sick with the realization that I had been judgemental of someone who might not have been able to get out. She didn’t stay because she was stupid. She stayed because she was afraid. Afraid that she wouldn’t be able to feed her kids. Afraid because she had nowhere to go. Afraid of what he would tell people. Afraid she would lose her kids. Afraid of the embarrassment and shame she would face. She was more afraid of all of those things more than she was afraid of him. I know all this now, and I’m sharing this part of my journey to healing hoping it might help you understand why she doesn't leave and to not be so quick to judge.
Victims of domestic abuse are experts at hiding it from friends and family. When someone decides to leave an abusive situation, they have been through hell and back several times, and they've made this trip alone. They don’t need to go through the shame of being judged because they were in a situation that was out of their control. I ask you this holiday season as you sit on your couch with the Christmas tree shining brightly, ordering gifts on Amazon, sipping the $7.00 coffee you grabbed on the way home from getting a mani/pedi - remember, there are broken families out there, with kids who didn’t ask to be in the situation they are in, who might have only the clothes on their back. Where is their joy?
“Domestic abuse comes in many forms, and it doesn’t just happen to women. Men can be victims of domestic abuse too. I chose to relate this blog to a woman because I am a woman, and I have personal experience with domestic abuse.”
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