The question we need to stop asking abuse survivors | Elli Jacobs
For a woman, leaving a family-violence situation is far more complex than just packing up her belongings and walking out the door to a new life.
“Providing public education – from schooling about healthy relationships to public campaigns to inform everyone and contradict the myths that create shame for women – could help to end domestic abuse,” she says. The abuse was on a weekly basis. Every Friday he would buy me flowers to make up for the abuse the night before. Eventually, I moved states thinking that the distance would benefit us. But we stayed in touch and I decided to give us another chance. Not long after, the abuse started again – this time, much worse.
He first assaulted me four months into our relationship, which resulted in a split lip. Then came the endless gaslighting, psychological terror and sexual assaults. They gradually distorted my reality, broke down my defences and eroded my self-worth to the point where I began to doubt my instincts and no longer recognised myself.
I felt helpless and began to isolate myself from my friends and family. Afraid and embarrassed, I made excuses to avoid gatherings, even postponing work meetings to hide the physical evidence of abuse.I escaped for the final time in October 2019. I fled to the local shopping centre and slid a note over the information desk asking them to call an ambulance to care for my open wounds.
I was constantly walking on eggshells. After months of demeaning comments, the physical and sexual abuse started. Because of the unrelenting anxiety, my weight dropped to 48 kilograms. I became a shadow of my former self.
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