Domestic Violence

Domestic Violence:

Survivors and its Impact

Sarah Stamm

Morehead State University

Abstract

        This paper will take a brief look at what domestic violence is, and a longer look at what impact and effects it has on those who are victims of and witnesses to domestic violence.  Domestic violence has been an issue since the advent of the family unit.  It has gone through history as a generally accepted practice, as an issue never to be spoken about, and is finally becoming something that the public is not only aware of, but trying to stop.  Even so, there are many families who fall through the cracks, and children who become direct products as both the abused and witnesses of the abused.  This paper will explore this issue by following this thesis: Though some children are able to rise above a violent upbringing, many children of domestic violence environments turn into abusers themselves, seek out relationships in which they can remain a victim, or cannot become adjusted and productive members of society.  (The issue of nurture versus nature will not be explored, as it is a very different subject.)

Introduction

        Domestic violence is a growing epidemic across the country.  With the steadily declining economy, rise in unemployment rates, and all the stressors that creates domestic violence rates are rising (Buzawa, 2012).  Through intervention, the spousal or partners of those who abuse can often be helped to regain a “normal” life (Loxton, 2006).  However, the children involved are often not as fortunate.  Though some children are able to rise above a violent upbringing, many children of domestic violence environments turn into abusers themselves, seek out relationships in which they can remain a victim, or cannot become adjusted and productive members of society.  Since domestic abuse has been around since the first caveman knocked the first cavewoman over the head and drug her back to his home sweet cave, this subject is rich with research and information.  Focusing on children who witness abuse/are abused and become the abuser in future relationships; the children who witness abuse/are abused and subconsciously seek out relationships in which they will continue to be abused; and finally children who grow up to only find failure after having been abused/witnesses to abuse still lends to a very full topic.  

        To fully understand how domestic violence affects children, one must first understand what domestic violence is.  DomesticViolence.org defines domestic violence as “behaviors used by one person in a relationship to control the other.  Partners my be married or not; heterosexual, gay, or lesbian; living together, separated, or dating” (Creative Communications Group, 2009).  This means that the violence can be physical, sexual, mental, emotional, or any other behavior that would elicit a submissive response from the victim by the abuser.  For the purposes of the paper, the primary focus will remain on physical and sexual abuse.  

Becoming an Abuser

        Imagine a child, crouching in a corner or behind a piece of furniture, watching in silence as his mother is beaten bloody by his father every night of the week.  Imagine this same child watching this behavior every week for the first six years of his life.  Then imagine that once this child is big enough to ask his father to stop, he in turn is beaten bloody.  He also watches as his mother lies to the police (if and when they are called to this horrific scene), lies to the hospital when her injuries are too bad to be fixed at home, and tells him to keep quiet about his father’s behavior.  This is a scene that is so cliche it has become commonplace in countless television shows, books, movies, magazines, newspaper articles, and other media outlets.  This child, assuming he lives through his father’s abuse, is going to grow into adulthood.  He is going to date, and possibly get married.  And what was his example of how a marriage works?  Violence, and only violence is what kept his parents together.  

        In another very typical (and very popularly and infinitely repeated) scene is a child who wakes up in the middle of the night to a father, mother, or other adult climbing in bed with him.  He does not quite understand the acts in which he is forced to engage.  The kissing is not like the kissing he does with adults in public.  It does not involve small pecks on the cheek when he is under the cloud of night.  The touching is uncomfortable and sometimes painful.  He is made to do things that make him feel shame he does not comprehend.  He is told he is loved.  He is told what is being done to him is okay because it feels good.  This scene is somehow sadder than the first, but is also a part of the world most want to ignore.  And therein lies the problem.

        Children have better education about what should and should not go on in their homes than they did twenty or thirty years ago.  Since domestic violence is a subject that is not as taboo as it once was, kids have the chance to see that abuse - physical and sexual both - is not what is supposed to happen to them or those they love (Bentovim, 2002).  Yet, it still happens.  And when it does happen, and those children grow up, they can and do become offenders themselves.  

        An instance of child abuse is reported, on average, every ten seconds.  Of those abused, four will die from abuse every day.  Of those who survive, more than thirty percent will later abuse their own children and spouses/partners.  And these statistics only show those cases that are known.  It is estimated that the actual figures for cyclic offenders (those who abuse because they were abused) are closer to sixty and seventy percent because many cases of child abuse is unreported (Sharples, 2008).  Identifying victims is often easy, but these cases go unreported regardless.  And, as the world gets worse, the abuse will increase (Sharples, 2008).

        Other statistics show that while victims of sexual abuse do not always become pedophiles themselves, they are at increased risk to become physically abusive.  The percentage of sexual cyclic abuse is actually much lower than physical cyclic abuse; it is still correlative, though (Higgs, 1992).  Females are less likely to become cyclic sexual abusers than males, but are almost equally likely to become physically abusive in either case (Salter, 2003).

        The proof that it happens is evident.  The “why” is murky, though.  Some abused-turned-abusers claim they want to find some control over a life that left them feeling impotent.  When power is exerted in such a negative way over these people at time when they are supposed to be learning what life is, then their moral compass becomes skewed.  Others do it for a very different reason.  That same moral compass is skewed, but at a different angle.  These kids are supposed to be learning what love and communications are from the adults in charge of them.  They end up getting beaten and raped, and that becomes the only way they know how to love.  We read the way we were taught in English class.  We add the way our math teachers taught us.  It is only natural that we interact with those we love the way we learned from those who claimed to love us (Greenwell, 2013).