Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Heart of the Matter

Both at work and on my other blog (the formatting is a little confusing, I'm sorry about that) domestic abuse has been a popular topic of conversation. My privilege is showing here, but yelling was rare in my house growing up, and hitting wasn't even in my realm of understanding. As a child it never dawned on me that a spouse or parent would actively perpetrate violence against another spouse or child.

Recently a presenter from Day One came to speak to the youth about dating violence. Day One "is the only organization in New York City solely devoted to the issue of teen dating violence," and they focus on helping teens to protect themselves and their peers. According to the U.S. Department of Justice 1 in 3 teenagers experiences abuse in a dating relationship, and this number simply blew me away. This means that every single teenager in the United States knows someone or is someone who is trapped in this vicious cycle of abuse. We are all responsible for the code of silence surrounding abuse.

Perhaps one of the most helpful pieces of knowledge our wonderful presenter Claudia imparted to us was what not to do when a friend or family member is a victim of abuse. Claudia asked each of us to respond to a few prompts, including - Who is the most important person in your life? What is your most treasured possession? Where do you get your information about the outside world? Who do you depend on for support? She then asked us to choose one of these responses that we would cut out of our life. Then another, and another. Eventually, all of our responses were crossed off and we were left with nothing. This, she said, is not only what happens in an abusive relationship, but what we're asking a victim to do when we say things like "Why don't you just break up with him?" We're asking that person to cut possibly vital people and things out of their life. When faced with a situation like this I know that (before this workshop) my gut reaction would have been to say something akin to "Get out! End it!" but now I see that this is not only not helpful, but possibly harmful to the other person.

This entire internship experience is forcing me to confront my own privilege and prejudices on a daily basis, which shouldn't surprise me but somehow wasn't what I was expecting when I embarked on this journey. It's difficult but I feel like I've already grown so much from this experience. I'm going to try to post more, keep an eye out!

Kisses and contraception,
Naomi

1 comment:

  1. I'd be very interested in more of what not to do certainly, but what TO do would also we helpful. As "break up with him/her" would have been my first response (at least internally), what constructive responses can you make to being informed of an abusive relationship?

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