On this site I will be writing about what I have learned about domestic violence - how to identify it, how to get out of it, and how to heal from it.  I am writing this book straight from my experience.  You won't see me being careful with my choice of words or worried about getting it wrong. During the last 15 years I have waded through just about every obstacle there is, fallen into every trap, stepped on every land mine, and only by the Grace of God and the people that He put in my life, did I and my children survive.  This will be an on-line book so that it will be accessible for anyone who stumbles upon my site. It is titled 'When You Are Ready'  because the nature of domestic violence nurtures victims that will literally not leave the violence until they SEE a problem.  The tragedy is that the first thing to go is 'the eyes'.  For those who married into it, it is a personal choice to bind one's eyes - it makes the relationship easier to understand when you don't look too closely.  For those born into it, well, your eyes are covered from birth and it usually takes well into adolescence to discover what you are missing if you discover it at all.  The problem with choosing to not see the warning signs of domestic violence may seem sensible, even forgiving, in the beginning, but it quickly becomes the binding that keeps you trapped, and keeps your children from even knowing what a real family can be like, setting them up to nurture or perpetuate violence of their own for generations to come.

DV is a difficult and dangerous thing to escape.  You can't do it half-way, although it is not unusual to see women going back and forth into the abuse like some kind of deadly ping-pong game.  This back and forth game is very disturbing for those who care about her or her children.  Education is the key for family members and friends who want to help because the more you get yourself caught up in the crazy-making world of DV, the more you realize it is a phenomenon that goes against the basest concept of human survival.  The victims protect their abuser, some mothers seem to be blind to their children's abuse. Children often grow to hate the one parent who didn't abuse them because they see them as weak and therefore at more fault than the abuser.  It is not unusual for children to take over the parenting in the family as the non-abusive parent becomes less and less functional. The abuser carefully creates a cocoon around his family that can become impenetrable to healthy friends and family.