We're Afraid of the Dark Places

 Recently I published a comment on a blog that asks for a writers to respond in just one minute. And the topic was something like what would you do for a friend?


Generally, its fun posting in just one minute because you say whatever is on your mind.The first thing that came to my mind? I would help a friend if she/he said he/she was ever abused. I would validate him/her, and I would share with my friend as much information as I could about how and where to get help.

I found myself posting anonymously. I could have posted and linked to purple song, it certainly would have attracted the right people but instead I posted anonymously. Why did I do that? Was I embarrassed to talk about the dark subject or was it something else?

Back when the whole thing "went down" with Rihanna/Chris Brown a couple of years back, I remember Rihanna say she was ashamed to admit she was an abused woman. No woman (or man) wants to admit they are being abused. Because of re-victimization and more than that the SHAME that comes with admitting you are a victim. But maybe because its a matter of admitting it as something that happened to us. And later, it becomes a signal of strength, something we've overcome. Abuse can be so debilitating because it can become our way of life, daily handing over our power until we have no power left to hand over, the frog in the frying pan that does not recognize itself in hot and hotter water until it is sadly boiled to death. 

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Awareness precedes change. By becoming more aware, seeking answers, doing our own research and talking to those more knowledgeable we knock down walls, thrust open doors and shine light on those dark places. When we do, those places become fact, not scary fiction, and possibilities, not impossibilities, public knowlegde, not shameful secrets, places of relating, not abandonment and empowerment instead of guilt and shame.

It happened with the breast cancer movement and while we haven't yet found a cure for that epidemic, shining light to Domestic Violence is not going to stop abuse from happening. 

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said "We can murder the murderer but we cannot murder murder." 
So we will never be able to stop abuse from happening, but we can educate those on why the need to have power and control over another is so tempting and help ourselves as a society to gradually become more aware, conversations will begin and continue, and maybe, just maybe we'll see change.





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