Domestic violence is a societal cancer thats getting out of control. You only have to read the statistics and lessons learned compiled by nineteen police forces to get a feeling for how bad its getting here in the UK alone. Whatever form it takes, domestic violence is rarely a one-off incident, generally its a pattern of abusive and controlling behaviour through which the abuser seeks power over their victim.

• Domestic violence accounts for approximately 15% of violent crime nationally, accounting for 31% of all violence against women and 5% of all violence against men.
• On average, two women a week are killed by a current or former male partner.
• One in four women will be a victim of DV in their lifetime and women experience a greater risk of repeat victimisation and serious injury.
• Eighty-nine per cent of those suffering four or more incidents of DV are women.
• One incident of DV is reported to the police every minute

Scary huh? A couple of days ago a friend asked me to accompany her to a hospital. My friend, Claire, is a self defence instructor and shes been doing it for a long time. The individual we visited, who im going to refer to as ‘M’, is a student in her class. I know M, we sparred together, I’ve helped with her training. M suffered a terrible ordeal a few years ago, and like many women she went through counselling to come to terms with what had happened to her. Anyway she decided she wanted to learn to take care of herself. She found an environement in which she felt safe and in eighteen or so months had made great progress. She’s a laugh to be around! I’d stopped thinking of her as a victim a long time ago.

Three or so nights ago she got into a heated argument with her new partner, and he assaulted her. I didnt enjoy that visit to the hospital, in fact I didnt enter the room, seeing her through the glass window was enough to piss me off in ways I really didnt want to think about. Claire made subsequent visits to see M, over the last few days but I chickened out of going. Yesterday morning though Claire convinced me it would be good for M to see someone other than her, and M kind of guessed I was feeling a little awkward about the whole thing. Anyway I turned up and sat down at her bedside.

What do you say? Hey, how you doing?, as if I can’t see. Then M did something I wasnt expecting at all. She smacked me across the tip of my nose with her index finger. It’s something I’ve done to her during training when I’m trying to make a point, or I think her concentration is wavering … and she needs to focus. She just said “Dont you dare feel sorry for me. You think I look bad, you should see what that bastard looks like” … I laughed, we all did. I’ve never felt so proud of anyone. She was hurt, you just have to look at the bruises to know that, but here she was laughing and joking about it. She went on to say “he beat me up, but he didnt break me – no-one’s gonna do that Nad“. We chatted for a while, laughed, joked … I didn’t feel awkward anymore.

She told me what had happened, I wont go into the details suffice to say that its a tragedy that women who have suffered abuse, try to move on with their lives only to end up being abused in another relationship. It stems from the men’s need to exert some kind of control over the women, things like telling them who their allowed to be friends with, what they’re allowed to do and when etc. This was the only time this guy had assaulted her. Once is, one time too many. M stood up to him, she didnt back down, or simply let him hurt her. She tried to defend herself and did an ok job of it. She didnt hurt him as much as he hurt her, shes 5′ 2″ and he’s 5’11”, but thats not the point. Sometimes it isnt important whether you win or loose its that your willing to make a stand, your not prepared to give in to fear and capitulate, or let someone do whatever they want to to you. When your backs up against a wall, you simply cant afford to.

I’m pretty sure what im advocating isnt consistent with what many councellors and clinical psychiatrists would advocate. I hate though that many of the women in M’s position end up being pumped full of pills and clinical drugs as a way to help them deal with whats happened to them. Fundementally though were never going to find the answers to our problems in the bottom of bottle of anti depressants, or even in the bottom of a bottle booze. What it does is numb your mind … trust me I’ve been there.

To get over something like that you need to regain your sense of self worth, you need to feel empowered, to feel like your in control of your life, and that the shadow of fear isnt cast over every facet of your being. It’s hard to deal with that … its hard to conquer fear, I don’t think anyone truly does, you just learn to do what you need to in spite of it.

I’ve spent christmas day in some strange places in my life, this christmas im gonna spending part of it visiting M with some of our gang, we all know she’s ok and were all proud of her, and how’s shes dealt with this. As for the guy that put her there … well I hope he enjoys the view from his cell, from what I hear he’s going to spending a long time in there.