160- Domestic violence awareness (1) - from reading a news article to posttraumatic growth

***trigger warning*** : domestic violence. Trauma

I have previously shared with you parts of my life stories, which included my post about growing up with domestic violence and abuse. 

In short, I witnessed the mad aggression that my father hit the woman I thought was my mother and turned out to be my step mother. 

I was also physically abused on numerous occasions, quite often. 


Both my step mother and me have been thus brutally attacked by a man supposed to love us, and who, in his distorted sense of self as savior of humanity and our souls, used the excuse that he wasn't harming us, but our sinners' bodies and punishing them for their frailties and sins. 

But, all this was nonsense. These words were excuses for a weak man with various untreated mental illnesses (not the least of was and still is schizophrenia) to direct violence, verbal and physical towards anyone at any given moment. 

My severe life experiences and traumas have left unseen scars on my psyche, and I have grown a passionate hate of domestic violence, which is why I have been outraged last night upon reading that Russia has voted, with a majority, a bill that further decriminalizes domestic abuse.

Indeed, a few months ago, there was already one such a new law that made it that if no wounds were visible, there would be no charges of abuse. The new bill reduces domestic abuse from a criminal offense to a mere administrative offense. It's bound to give more power to men to abuse their wives and children, with close to nothing to stop them anymore. 

If it's not criminal to abuse a spouse or a child, it opens the door to all those men who wished they could but didn't, and now that their government is saying it's ok, go ahead, rule your family as you see fit, you are the boss, then all those men are potential additional abusers. 

What I find most shocking of this all, is that the proposition for this law was made by a woman, a president of a family affairs & women's committee!! 

How can one such a woman (and mother of 2), even conservative as she is, propose a bill that will allow more men to abuse their wives and children ? All that in the name of ''preserving the parental authority''! 

No, let me rephrase this very clearly, to read between those fine lines of her statement, and of all that majority who voted for one such a law to pass : they all thought that 36,000 women and 26,000 children abused daily in their households weren't enough. 

Let those numbers sink. 36,000 women and 26,000 children,  40% of which are severely wounded, every day in current Russia. 

These are sadly only a fraction of the epidemic that plagues our world and I cannot even come close to talk about it in one post without just copy pasting the horrendous statistics of domestic violence in the world, which takes many forms : Physical, sexual, emotional, and economical.

These abuses occur every day, every moment, everywhere in the world. There are no boundaries in social classes, religious or ethnic groups. It's a rampant disease that no one seems able to contain much, yet along stop. Our world needs to fully address all the factors that led these acts and words of violence to occur in the first place, stop hiding the facts behind walls of silence but shout out loud that WE HAVE  A PROBLEM, a very serious one, called Domestic Violence. 

It needs to be eradicated, but the task seems impossible... how can anyone take this giant plague off the face of our planet when it appears to have so many faces and tails, not unlike one of those dangerous monsters from mythology, when it spreads even worse after each hit?! 

I say, the least of acts we can do are to be kinder to one another, raise awareness and teach our spouses and children that these acts can no longer be tolerated nor exist. 

We need to join feminism, human rights, children's rights, to all our hearts and daily efforts not to reproduce the mistakes of our ancestors and really tackle this task, one moment at a time - one person at a time....  Don't think that others need to do it and not you! that you are only a small person in the vast world, but that you can act, now, today, tomorrow, towards a better treatment of children and spouses. 

The cycles of violence will not end out of the blue, but out of personal efforts. Be kind, every day, every moment. Feel the urge to hit or smash someone ? go burn those anger calories on sport, or better yet, on a cause. 

Feel the urge to say something that would alleviate your anger for a second but hurt your child or spouse, and cause regret to you for the next few years or decades ? Stop! Think. Turn your tongue in your mouth. Don't say it. Express yourself in a non destructive, non critical way. 

It's possible. Together, we can all work on these and help reducing this illness, better than any magic pill... 

If you want to know more, let me share, for the moment, 30 shocking DV statistics that remind us it's an epidemic  and a rather comprehensive wikipedia page about domestic violence. 

There are thousands, millions of webpages to find information from ;  hundreds of groups you can join and act with, and help these causes that are feminism, women's rights, children and human rights, and so forth. Every little act can stack up into big enough act to save one, or several people from the clutches of violence. 

I personally intend to become more active in these fields, not just talking and posting about them, but becoming a member or at least a donate to such groups who act every day to preserve endangered lives.

I need to do this for myself, as a catharsis because of my own experience and witnessing of domestic violence and abuse, but also as a human being who cannot sit idle. 

I have been dreading acting before ; I have been afraid that my past would be too much to bare in the midst of it, and for a while that was quite true. But now, as I have been working on my overall mental health and have become an advocate, positing on this blog and actively sharing with others my story, I feel I am coming much closer to using my pain and experiences to bring something positive to someone, somewhere, out there...