El puño

.El Puño means the fist..
I'm studying Spanish because I would like to be hired by tessa..I have no degree, no money to obtain one..so being bilingual is my best bet.

When people think of abuse..we are used to thinking of battery.
 Someone hitting someone else.
I have found the biggest hurdle in someone trying to turn their lives around...is the fist of government.
I have heard many surprising things in the course of deciding to advocate for abused women...I am always surprised how negatively people can view the process.
WHY wouldn't she just leave...
I would never allow anyone to abuse me!
If she stays, she gets what she deserves.
Now, I understand not everyone has been in an abusive relationship....and not everyone understands the dynamics that occur when a woman decides to leave an abusive relationship...or even how someone gets to a place where they "allow" it to happen.
How do we allow anything?
How do we allow ourselves to get fat?
Settle?
Quit?
What do we tell ourselves that makes it okay?
Many things.
An abusive relationship does not appear, full blown..if a man came up to you..beat the shit out of you and then asked you on a date.
You'd say no..
These things don't happen all at once..our lives don't slip away from us all at once. It's a gradual eroding of self...
Giving small pieces away in exchange for peace and quiet, or a nice dinner...or an end to the argument..
Or to spare your kids another argument.
Then, one day you look up and realise you lost your friends two years ago because you got tired of the shaming comments, or the accusations of infidelity when you took time with friends.
You stopped talking to your sister because you didn't want to argue about your relationship....you had a child, you wanted it to work...
Little by little...concession after concession...and one day you look up..you have no money, no job, no friends..and he hits you..and tells you that you are the reason...and he is the only voice left.
Now you want to leave.
But you have a child, no money..no job, no friends and no resources.
You call the police, they arrest him..he's out in two days...
And now he's angry.
He has a temporary protection order..which he violates repeatedly.
And gets nothing but a slap on the wrist.
Because, believe it or not..it's a misdemeanour.
Even if he is convicted, it has no effect on his parental rights.
So he can use the courts to control her.
And a man who has spent years psychologically and physically abusing her will now have unfettered and unsupervised access to her children.
And only she knows what he is capable of...
And people wonder why they don't leave...
I wonder that they do. It's a miracle really.
A tremendous act of courage.
People have a hard time changing jobs, or losing weight...

Let alone....
Leaving the only home you have, with threats of violence and death..with your child...only to get ground up in the machinery of a system that doesn't recognise the affects of trauma.

The fist.

El Puño.

That is why I love this job...I'm on the inside of the fist...the only way to really change anything is to join it.

And try.

Chris out.