After a long and tedious day at her office job, Margaret picks her two young children up from afternoon day care. She stops by the grocery store for tonight’s dinner and comes home to do the dishes, pick up toys, and prepare her family’s meal. She is tired and stretched thin. Don, her husband, worked an extra shift at his construction job, and she knows he will be agitated and his temper will be short. She tries to make their home just as he likes it to avoid any sort of argument, and to calm his nerves. She checks the refrigerator to make sure he has a cold six-pack of beer.

When he arrives, he is exactly how Margaret hoped he would not be. She asks how work was; he responds in grunts, he grabs a drink. Margaret has his dinner waiting steaming hot on a plate; she hears it crash to the ground. He yells that this is not what he told her to make. Her heart stops as he comes stomping into the kitchen. He grabs her by her hair, taking her to the dining room. He shoves her face onto the ground that she spent an hour cleaning. Her face is being rubbed into the food. He asks her if it tastes good, and when she says no, he asks how he was supposed to eat it, then. She cries, she says she will make him something else. He looks up to see his 7-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter standing in the doorframe. He lets go of her, steps over her and grabs another beer. Margaret stands up, he tells her to clean the floor, and she does....

Domestic violence like this is an epidemic that has reached greater heights than ever before. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV) website: In 2004, law enforcement agencies in Missouri reported 39,097 incidents of domestic violence; 51 domestic violence homicides were reported that year. What is important to know is that these cases account for those that were reported to the law. Thousands more are not. It is for this reason that Domestic Violence Month is observed in October.

The NCADV's website (www.ncadv.org) defines domestic violence as “...a pattern of behavior used to establish power and control over another person with whom an intimate relationship is or has been shared through fear and intimidation, often including the threat or use of violence. Battering happens when one person believes that they are entitled to control another.” Victims are subjected to many forms of emotional abuse, including but not limited to intimidation, isolation from family and friends, fear, criticism and shame. They are frequently physically and sexually abused as well. Some women are forced to have sexual contact at the whim of their significant other, and they experience broken bones, bruises, and burns on a regular basis at the hand of the people whom they trust and are supposed to feel protected by.

Domestic Violence Awareness Month had its start in October of 1981. The NCADV hosted Unity Day, offering a place wherein connections could be made between people advocating for the rights of battered women and their children, helping and hoping to end it. From there it evolved, and in October of 1987, Domestic Violence Awareness Month began.

Donating cars, phones, time or money to help not only the cause but the women and children affected in your community is simple and potentially life saving. Information about how and where you can donate can be found at www.ncadv.org.

When Margaret went to bed that night, she tried to find strength. She thought about her children and their emotional and physical well-being. She thought about the day she married Don, and the dreams they had together, preparing to build a life. That next evening when she left her tedious office job, she picked up her children and just kept driving.

For an insight into how the mind of an abused person might work, read our story.

Copyright 2006 Metropolitan Community College