Caution this contains specific details of domestic violence, emotional and verbal abuse, proceed with caution.
Also I want to state that these are my experiences and my perspective. Others may see these same events differently and I respect that. But I believe it is essential we share our experiences with Domestic Violence, so we can recognize it in our families and in our communities and strive for healing. We are only as sick as our secrets.
I am writing this month about my experience with domestic violence to honor my history, that of my grandmothers, my great-grandmothers, and my friends who currently struggle with family violence in their homes. And most of all I am writing this for our children. That we may heal these spiritual illnesses afflicting humankind and help build peace on Earth by building peace in our hearts and in our homes.
5 years ago this month I left my home due to domestic violence. It took 6 weeks of communicating with my husband's family and our local Baha'i Spiritual Assembly to coordinate a separation enabling me to return to my home in Ann Arbor, MI from my refuge at my parents home in Juneau, AK.
These words from the Guidelines for Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violence from the Baha'is of the United States were a comfort to me during that storm and still are to this day:
The National Spiritual Assembly wishes to convey a clear message that acts of domestic violence are at complete variance with the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh and that violence in the family is a practice to be condemned. In addition, domestic violence is a criminal act in the United States. Such behaviors, on the part of either men or women, are rooted in longstanding social practices connected with an inability or unwillingness to apply the fundamental spiritual principle of the equality of women and men and to recognize the fundamental right of every human being to be treated with consideration and respect.
What are the behaviors rooted in longstanding social practices connected with the inability or unwillingness to apply the fundamental spiritual principle of the equality of women and men? What does a fundamental right to be treated with consideration and respect look like?
This is the definition of Domestic Violence in the Guidelines for Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violence:
Domestic violence is a pattern of behaviors used among family members or within a home by one or more persons to oppress, dominate, and control another person or persons. Abuse occurs among people from every socioeconomic, racial, educational, cultural, and religious background. It may occur between partners in a relationship, married or not married, living together, separated or dating. It may also occur between siblings, between a parent and child(ren), between an adult child and an elderly parent, or between other relatives. Sociological research indicates that in the absence of remedial action, abusive behaviors that do not directly incorporate physical violence may lead to it and that such behaviors usually worsen over time.
What patterns of behavior are used to oppress, dominate and control another person? What is remedial action? Abusive behaviors that do not directly incorporate physical violence may lead to it and usually worsen over time.
Patterns of Domestic Violence may include the following: physical abuse, sexual abuse, economic abuse, destroying or damaging property, neglect, abandonment, emotional and verbal abuse, corrupting, stalking, using coercion and threats to intimidate, isolating the abused party, minimizing or denying the abuse, and blaming the abused party.
In my experience emotional and verbal abuse worsened over time. Looking back now I can clearly relate to the illustration of the frog in the pot of water that slowly heats up to a boil. For me it took about 7 years to get to a place where I felt I had to jump out of the boiling water or else I wouldn't survive. As I found peace in separation and followed by a Year of Patience, a Baha'i practice of attempting to reconcile before seeking a divorce, I felt like I had lived in a cage that had slowly over time grown smaller and smaller until I no longer had the freedom to move.
When that "cage" was no longer there, it took months and years to heal from the emotional abuse, the constant criticism and judgement, and to stretch out my arms and legs and learn how to walk on my own again without a constant leash of emotional and verbal abuse being tugged to require me to make certain choices or consequences would be given.
Challenge: make a commitment to learn about the Equality of Women and Men and how Domestic Violence plays a role. Read the Guidelines for Spiritual Assemblies on Domestic Violence. It's approximately 100 pages. If you read 5 pages a day you could finish by October 30. If you read 1 page a day, you'll be done by the end of January. To heal domestic violence the whole community needs to be able to recognize it and help encourage suffering families to get professional help.
You can find a copy here
http://www.bahai.us/social-action/advancement-of-women/addressing-domestic-violence/
This painting is of a mother reading a bedtime story to a child at the Seattle Art Museum by the artist father. May we all be comforted and sheltered and loved by our mothers in a happy and healthy and peaceful home.
