This week started off quite gloomy with a bunch of rain here in good ole Nacogdoches. I am usually a big fan of it, especially since we kinda needed a good rain here, but for some reason this rain got me in a mood. It just put me in an introspective and philosophical state of mind, and I just started to think about everything. One thing in particular that my mind just kept coming back to was that October is domestic violence month.
I had just finished the Surviving R. Kelly series, a week prior to the rain, that was just put on Netflix. I found myself horrified and moved by the stories these survivors told. It was an eye-opening series because I really didn’t know the whole story. I was so young when most of this was happening, but I knew something crazy was going on. I think that is what started my deep contemplation about the whole subject, which led me to do some of my own research. Although a lot of people would like to think that domestic abuse is a rare occurrence and that nothing like that could ever happen to them, it is actually very common. It is said that 1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner and that yearly more than 10 million people have been physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States alone. That is just physical abuse. There is also mental and emotional abuse that might go along with physical abuse. As heartbreaking as that is, we as a society need to bring more awareness and acknowledge the problem we have in our society.
Photos By LaShauna Bell
If you or anyone you know is experiencing abuse in their relationship, remember that you are not alone in your struggles. Like the rain, though it might seem gloomy and unending, the storm does pass and in its wake it brings flourishing beauty.