TW + TMI: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE #QandA
For those who don't know, Q&A is an Australian talk show hosted by journalist Tony Jones and a panel of five public figures, i. e. politicians answering questions provided by viewers/audience.
And tonight's topic was domestic violence.
ETA: It's probably not meaningless that three members of this panel were male, but only two female. On a panel about DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
I don't even watch the show because I don't have a TV but alone all these tweets of angry, hurt people unnerve me.
Most women I know have in some form experienced male violence. I remember when social media didn't exist I was regularly told that whatever I felt about violence, whatever I had personally experienced ... only happened in my head. Or it happened to me only because of a certain set of circumstances, and often this set of special circumstances neatly fit into a narrative that made me the one to blame.
I was often told how most men are good, but somehow I must have managed to pick the spectacularly fucked up specimens.
(Has anyone ever told you, "Maybe you should have dated the nice guys?")
I can't even remember a time in my childhood that was free of violence.
As a child I watched my mother getting beaten up-once my father smashed a big glass jar onto her head. It took her almost three days to wash all the shards out of her hair.
My head was smashed against the wall when I was eleven. Other times I got punched in the face, and one time after I got punched, I fell against the (metal) headboard of my bed and lost consciousness.
With 15 I got punched, then while lying on the ground I was kicked in the ribs.
When I was 22 I had a boyfriend who pushed me against a glass table. I hit my lower back, then my head when I fell down. He assured me he had never ever hurt a woman before-I had brought it out in him.
A year later he tried to suffocate me with a pillow. After that he cried and told me he just "loved me too much, he couldn't bear the thought of me leaving him".
In 2003 I dated a man who, after I broke up with him, threatened me with a knife.
I don't understand how people, in 2015, continue to trivialise violence against women. To this day I am reluctant to speak about the things that have happened to me because the most asked questions are: "What did you do?" or "What did you say to set him off?"
It mostly ends with me having to justify why violence happens to me, assure people, even my friends, that it was not my fault and often people remain sceptical.
I have a good life today and am surrounded by great people who care about me but I had no help. I alone made the decision to not remain part of this depressing statistic, to not be a victim. Most of my friends didn't help or maybe they couldn't. Maybe they didn't know how to.
I battled my way out of abusive relationships alone, I learned to recognise and ban toxic people from my life. I learned to recognise and put into words what was happening to me. I learned to acknowledge my own situation.
I have never felt lonelier than in these times, with people telling me it was my fault that the man I dated got violent ("He really, really loved you!" "But he wanted to kill me with a knife!" "Well, maybe you drove him crazy!"). At some point when enough people tell you, it's your fault ... you start believing them. And you have to fight that too, their doubts, your own doubts.
The scariest thing to me is however, that my story is only one of many. It's really nothing out of the order, nothing special. I have heard so many different variations of this story, and in the end they're all the same story. And always, always, there is this one person asking, "Why didn't you just leave?"
Tonight I realised I am still angry about the past, and I wonder how many women are out there, being told that whatever happens to them is actually their fault, you know? I wonder if I continue to look the other way, and ignore my past as I usually do, it will finally go away, shrink into insignificance. Because, as much as I admire the courage of people who take on their ghosts and monsters and battle them, I am not one of them. Fighting was never something I wanted to do. I was never strong, I never wanted to be.
All I ever wanted was an easy life.