Per CDC (Centers for Disease Control), spousal abuse affects more than 25 million American women.  Spousal abuse is listed as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship.  Forms include physical aggression, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, economical abuse, and psychological abuse.  Domestic violence is a pattern of abuse behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.  The second most common form is Common Couple Violence (CCV) which arises in a single argument where one or both partners physically lash out at the other.  Spousal abuse is the leading cause of death and injury to women in America.

For the child that witnesses violence may exhibit fear, anxiety, insomnia, social and academic problems, numbed emotions, and vindictiveness.  As adults, they usually turn to substance abuse, crime and violence in the home.  Children who live in an abuse home also  experience physical and emotional neglect.  More than half of the men who abuse their wives also physically abuse their children.  Children who witness theses traits often grow up to exhibit these traits thus ensuring a legacy of domestic violence.

LET’S BREAK THAT LEGACY

I close my eyes and dream …

of far away lands, mystic places,

lost islands in the sea.

I long to be anywhere

but here and now,

anyone but me.

I cover my ears and listen …

to songs in my head, ideas I’d forgotten,

or the beating of my heart.

But nothing ever stops

the screaming of my parents

and it’s tearing me apart.

I hide my heart and feel …

moments of anger, the weight of loneliness,

and a tear against my cheek.

No matter how long I hide

or how quiet I sit,

I’m too afraid to speak.

I wonder, would it have made a difference

had I never been brought into existence?