Domestic violence is a plague that is effecting millions of American women every year. It is women of all colors, social status, and religion. It is women if all ages and educational levels. I can speak from experience, domestic violence cripples the victims emotionally, spiritually, and sometime physically for the rest of their lives. I will never be the same again.

It is a traumatic experience beyond understanding to have someone that you love with all of your heart and soul try to destroy your very being. Soldiers in battle suffer Post Traumatic Stress disorder. They have trouble dealing with all of the pain and violence that they have witnessed. It is an awful affliction to overcome. For the abused woman, they have suffered violence and pain at the hands of the person that should be taking care of them.

The abused woman begins to feel unworthy of success in life. They no longer want an education, a job or a nice home. They don't care about their looks and paying the bills. They are just in survival mode; do whatever it takes to get through to the next day. Their kids do not have the support of a mother because you are so busy trying to keep your husband happy and thus non-violent, that the little things like reading bed time stories just don't happen.

Domestic violence is usually an accepted practice in our society. People say that it isn't but in reality it very well is. People think that a couple fighting is their own business; they should just stay out of it. Unless the abuser is a drunk or drug user the woman tends to be doubted. Her believability is questioned and she feels even less human than before. Even when the women is willing to press charges, then man is slapped on the wrist and told to get counseling for his anger problems which rarely is effective. A restraining order is a joke and the man usually breaks it and just gets more angry than before. Plus, if a woman tries to get away from the husband, that is difficult at best. Most abusers keep a tight rein on the money and the whereabouts of his wife. The woman has no money and no way of leaving. They are too ashamed to ask for help and when they do many times the don't find too many willing helping hands. Battered woman shelters only offer a safe house for a temporary time. They don't find jobs, get vehicles or nice cloths for the woman. They don't even provide babysitters for the woman when she is trying to get help or a job.

If you know an abused woman then please understand her situation. The solutions are not as cut and dried as they may seem to you. She must fear her husband getting visits to her children and she isn't around to protect them anymore. She now must take care of herself if she leaves and she has heard for years that she is incapable of doing that. Her husband tells her that he will always find her and hurt her no matter what and most of the time that is indeed the case. The laws have to get stricter on the abuser so that so many of the problems inflected on our society by this plague will cease.

Learn more about this author, Cretia Ussery.
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