ABUSE
By: Moriah Barnhart
Tags: Domestic Violence, Abuse Survivors, Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Victim Blaming

Why don’t more victims of abuse speak out?

I’m speaking for myself and from my own perspective and personal experience. I realize there are a million reasons and tons of insights not noted here.

I imagine the most simple and widespread reason: It’s embarrassing. We are creatures of ego and reputation. We don’t want to be seen as victims. Often times we don’t see ourselves as victims.

Victim-blaming is deeply integrated into our society since its inception and throughout history long before that. Even with the advent of social media and decades of amazing awareness campaigns, there is still a sense of “she must have done something.”

And often, we blame ourselves too. We aren’t blameless, we can be instigators, we don’t always “act” like victims, we had a fight, we fight back, we fight… That doesn’t make abuse not abuse, and it can take a long time to process that.

Shame. It’s embarrassing. It’s that simple.

What’s wrong with me that I found myself in this situation?

That question is going to be a unique answer for everyone and if we don’t want to be repeating cycles we need to look for answers. Take the “wrong” out of the equation, no one’s perfect. But knowing how and why we find ourselves where we are is important. Writing, remembering, counseling… use all the tools and dig deep. This relationship is ten years behind me and I have barely begun to dig. But it’s important. It’s so, so important. You don’t really move on until you do.

What’s wrong with me that I didn’t leave sooner?

That’s a loaded question that deserves its own book. Again, everyone’s answer will be unique. Abusers make it really, really difficult to leave. So difficult that it’s easier to stay, and that’s saying a lot. I would move. He would find me and move himself in. What was mine was his. Always. Restraining orders only make people like that angrier. Scarier. Leaving is perhaps the most dangerous time in these relationships. I have to imagine most domestic violence murders happen when trying to leave. The list goes on and on- like I said that’s a topic that really deserves an entire book of its own.

Last May, my ex-husband filed for timesharing with my children. My children, who I’ve sacrificed every ounce of myself to protect. Who I’ve done every imaginable thing possible to protect from the day they were born. My children, who have been my life for all the years of their own. Mine, and no one else’s. No one else’s life has ever revolved entirely around theirs. Least of all his.

But that doesn’t matter to the courts in a state like Florida where, unless you can afford a powerful attorney, even murderers, rapists, and child molesters can be granted timesharing. In a case like mine, even the highest powered attorneys find themselves helpless at the hands of state case law. The law here states that the children’s best interest must be considered first and foremost in timesharing cases. Case law disagrees, stating that all parents must be given a path to reunification.

When my daughter was diagnosed with brain cancer, people thought this brought out in me some superhuman will to protect her. But the truth is, I was already in survival mode and had spent years protecting them. From him.

In most states, when you protect your children it’s easily manipulated to be seen in the courts as alienation. Which gives the protector less credibility and ability to protect, while giving the abuser more rights and time with the children. In many states, Florida included, it is nearly impossible to exclude a parent from a child’s life.

Maybe I knew how fragile my mental health was these past few years, but I didn’t really know until I got that unexpected letter from the courthouse. Until I had to comb through police reports on the girl he choked unconscious the year before. I read the restraining order I filed during our divorce before there was a stalking law in Florida… another restraining order I filed a month after the divorce was finalized while in the hospital during my daughter’s most vulnerable first week of diagnosis. I had NO RECOLLECTION of filing this until after I read it. And even then, I only vaguely recalled his violent outbursts in the hospital over not being included in a picture or random other things he perceived as slights and being told he was using drugs in the hospital bathrooms. Trauma tucked into secret compartments I didn’t even know existed.

I’ve never experienced the mental unhinging I have this past year-and-a-half. The absolute undoing of a person that fear can perpetrate. Fear for your children’s safety is the greatest fear of all. We need to stop advertising safety as physical. It is just as important to protect our children, each other, and ourselves mentally and emotionally.

I never spoke about my relationship with my ex-husband in depth. Not to my family. Not to most of my closest friends. I even felt I mostly protected my children from the reality I lived through those years. This past year has shown me the deep damage that secrecy caused me.

I was always surrounded by love, people who loved me deeply, my chosen family… and still, no one knew.

Of course, there were a handful of close friends who knew some of the darkest parts of the years I spent with him. To be exact: One from the earlier years, and one from the later years. Then of course their spouses and some of our mutual friends knew because they knew.

A black eye. A broken nose. A broken toe. The random colleague who saw me after a sleepless night before makeup and begged me to go to the hospital. The social workers at the hospital who begged me to file a report because this clearly wasn’t an accident. Rumors and gossip. But no one really knew.

Early on, Amanda was the first to know. We were really just still kids then but she was the only one with the wherewithal to know. I didn’t tell her, maybe I even tried to deny it, but she knew.

In that last year or so, when I couldn’t bring myself to confide fully in anyone- I left my home, everything I owned, the life I had just rebuilt in Idaho, and moved to Oklahoma. So Ashley knew. Which meant her husband knew. As much as I didn’t want anyone to know this dark part of my life, there was so much relief in having them to lean on. They kept me and my kids safe and loved me back to life.

And even though everyone kind of knew when I moved back home, they didn’t really know. The years. The details. They knew he was an addict, that it had gotten to a point of no repair/ return, and that I couldn’t risk my children’s safety… but they didn’t really know.

There is no specific profile of the people who find themselves in these situations. From the meekest to the most boisterous personalities, there is no one size fits all.

I don’t have the solution(s), but I do know that as a society we need to be encouraging people to talk about these things. Let people know that ALL KINDS of people experience these things. And it’s possible to survive. I barely survived, surely there are parts of me didn’t, but I’m here.

After a decade of suffering in chaos, confusion and silence, and another decade trying to move on, I’m willing to share this because I wish I had seen or heard these words somewhere in my own experience. I wish I had any idea that these experiences were not as isolated as I believed them to be, that there wasn’t only a certain type of person this happened to. My self-esteem and courage could have benefited from words like these.

People tolerate a lot more when they feel alone. People don’t learn to set hard boundaries without support.

We need to drag these dark corners of existence out of the shadows. Abusers lose their power in the spotlight. Victims lose their power in silence.