“With myself, the trauma, it’s very difficult to trust again and it’s very difficult to trust your own judgement too,” Jane adds.
It really makes me angry that the culture of accepting domestic violence is so prevalent here. Even the name is a problem. It’s not ‘domestic violence’ that makes it sound different from the reality that it’s ‘violence’ just as plain and simple.
Old pain (trauma) we don’t think about or that we try and bury eats our confidence, makes us prone to worry and stress, and holds us back in ways we usually never realise.
Thankfully the old trauma can be reduced with the right therapy (there are 4 options that have been shown to work reliably across the world – EMDR, Exposure Therapy, Trauma Focused CBT, & Stress Inoculation Therapy, are all A rated for reducing trauma and PTSD). Getting over it is possible, but it should never be needed in the first place if we didn’t have such a problem with allowing violence to be a part of our culture.
We use so many excuses – ‘he’s a good man really, the drink changes him’, It’s between a husband and wife not our business’, ‘I don’t know what to do or say’ and so on. In each case the choice is to do nothing and to allow it continue.
We need to teach our kids better. We need to shine a light on violence when it happens so it can’t continue in secret. We need to speak out and make an issue of the culture that fosters violence.
Violence, hurt, trauma, shame all stay with us and tear up our lives as we shy away from change and stay feeling stuck and trapped in how we feel. It’s a two part equation. No to violence, yes to change.
http://www.rte.ie/news/special-reports/2015/0329/690723-the-lifelong-scars-of-domesic-abuse/