October Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Domestic Violence Awareness Statistics

October is not only breast cancer awareness month; it is also domestic violence awareness month.

People with certain defining characteristics do have a higher chance of becoming a victim of domestic violence, and 85% to 95% of domestic violence victims are women. But it’s important to note that these victims are found evenly distributed across all ethnicities, religions, income levels, educational levels, and sexual orientations.

She could be your doctor, a room mother at a Catholic school, the reverend’s wife, the teacher-of-the-year at the local high school, your sister or sister-in-law, your boss, your boss’s wife, the owner of the coffee shop you frequent, the choir director, the stay-at-home mom next door.

She could be your daughter, your sister, or you.

See: National Domestic Violence Statistics

Domestic Violence Traits

Common traits that victims of domestic violence often share:

A poor self-image.
Low self-esteem.
Self-blaming. She believes the abuse is her fault.
Economic and / or emotional dependence on the abuser.
Lack of support from family or friends.
Family and / or friends who shame or blame her.
Isolation from family and friends.
Belief that she can’t attract a better partner or doesn’t deserve a better partner.
Belief that negative male attention like stalking, jealousy, and control prove she has value and / or is loved.
A background in which she witnessed domestic violence. Statistics show that female children who witness domestic violence are more vulnerable to becoming victims of domestic violence as women (http://www.safehorizon.org).
A background in which she was the victim of sexual assault or other domestic violence.
A background of emotional neglect or abuse from a father or father-figure.

Victims of domestic violence don’t necessarily possess all these characteristics, but most, if not all, possess some. Most alarming, these characteristics may be well hidden from most people who know the victim.

Victoria’s Story

Victoria was a police officer who worked undercover to catch pedophiles trafficking child porn. She was independent, strong-willed, and very smart. She was deeply involved in volunteer and undercover work to save children who are forced into adult entertainment and pornography. On the surface, she was absolutely the last person you would guess could become a victim of domestic violence. Victoria hid the chinks in her armor well, but abusers are like blood hounds. They can sniff out the chinks that make their victims vulnerable.

Three months before she died, Victoria found the courage to leave her abuser and move into her own home, but that didn’t save her life.

He pinned her down on the bed and repeatedly punched her and throttled her before she even married him

-said Marge, Victoria’s best friend since childhood. Marge hired us after Victoria’s abuser brutally killed her in the condominium Marge rented to Victoria. Vicky also knew he had beat his first wife, putting her in the hospital once.

But Victoria was in love. She actually convinced herself that this was a one-time occurrence that she had caused because she yelled at him. She completely ignored the fact that he had repeatedly abused his former wife over their entire 11-year marriage. She would NOT listen to my pleadings to step back and see this man for the abuser he was. Why did she marry him, knowing his history?

He was like a daddy to Vicky. Ironically, even though he abused her, he made her feel safe and protected. This man filled a deep need in Vicky to be noticed, valued, and protected by a man. To get that need met, she twisted the accompanying abuse into something that was always her fault, something she could control and change if she tried hard enough. After a while, I think Vicky actually believed it was her fault. This is the tragic psychology of abuse.

Vicky’s father is where her problems come from, I think. He absolutely adored Vicky’s mom. But he pretty much ignored Vicky. She was invisible to him, she annoyed him. I can remember her trying so hard to win his attention and approval, but her attempts, at least in my eyes, just annoyed him. When she was 9 or 10, she’d leave these folded-up notes around her house threatening to run away and never come back. Her dad just ignored them. I remember him just walking away disgusted when Vicky would ‘bother’ him with her teenage angst about a boy or clothes or whatever. He just wasn’t interested in being a father to her. I remember Vicky being jealous of her mother to the point of hating her. I remember her daydreaming about what kind of daughter her dad would like to have and then actually trying to become that daughter. Emotionally, Vicky was a messed up kid. I felt so bad for her.

And then along came Jason, who filled the painful emotional void left by Vicky’s dad: Jason slathered her with attention that she didn’t have to fight for, at least not on the surface. But Jason was still legally married to his first wife when Vicky met him. And best of all, Natalie wanted him back, and he faltered before choosing Vicky. This was the fight of her life, so it must have seemed like the prize of a lifetime, the prize she could never win as a little girl, no matter how hard she tried.

I think Vicky’s ability to form healthy attachments to men was crippled by her father’s emotional detachment. She was always attracted to the wrong kind of male attention. She never saw normal behavior as ‘attentive.’ It was never enough for her. Strong, abusive behaviors like jealousy and stalking seemed to make her feel valuable. God, I watched her kick so many good, gentle guys to the curb.

Victoria finally left Jason, took Marge’s advice and sought counselling, and moved into Marge’s condominium. But Jason’s jealousy reached a fever pitch the day he was served with divorce papers. He left a message on Victoria’s cell phone screaming,

You think you can leave me? Stick me with some kind of [expletive] alimony payments? It doesn’t work that way [expletive]!

He then drove to Victoria’s condominium and savagely beat her to death with a floor lamp and a fire extinguisher.

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