Conflicts Within: the Cement for Silence

Looking back on my experience of growing up in a domestic violence household, I wonder what it was that really made me make that shift from an inability to rise out of silence to being extremely loud about the swarm of injustices that were going on around me. In an effort to expand on my first paper, I think it was my need to be emotionally mature enough to handle the swarm of emotions that overwhelmed me, the feeling of not being alone that came with having friends that I could speak to about my issues and, having an education.

By the time I was fifteen I was extremely mature. I knew and had experienced much heartache and pain having lived through an intense childhood and as such, had to grow up fast both physically and emotionally. It is sometimes difficult for people to understand that every individual matures at different rates. Most of my days, starting at the age of 5, were full of having to learn how to do adult things and face the realities of my home situation. Not only was I a child of domestic violence, but as the data shows, I also came from a extremely humble background. Both my parents had to work five if not six days a week in 9 to 5 jobs that treated them badly as employees and that took them away from home long enough that my siblings and I had to learn to fend for ourselves. I not only had to cook, clean, take care of my siblings, and manage violent encounters between my parents, but I had to be an A plus student so that I could someday help my family move up in society. Now for many people these are things that we all have to do at some point in our lives (excluding of course having to deal with violence in the home). The only difference for me (and for many others in similar situations) is that I could not depend on others to be there if ever I fell short of expectations. I really had no other family than the one that I lived with. Literally speaking, I only knew my maternal side, because my paternal side lived in Mexico. However, isolation was very common in my household. We were not allowed to visit with or converse with my mother’s side, because my father didn’t allow it. If we did, my father would blame my mother and, well, the rest is history.

So, as you can see, I had to learn how to deal with this on my own for a very long period of time. But, having grown to be emotionally mature I knew what I had to do to remove myself, if only for a short period of time, from that situation. I made friends with real foundations, so that I could one day depend on them for help if I ever needed it and I focused in school. By the time I was finally able to speak out about the issues pertaining to my personal and private life, I was mature enough and knowledgeably aware of people who could help me "get out", and that I was not alone. I knew what my options were:  calling the police, calling a shelter, or calling other people in my life who I had befriended and knew would be willing to help. Yet, although this helped me understand my position and realize my voice, I was still afraid. I was afraid because, while I knew that this was not a safe environment to be in, I was completely and utterly conflicted with the consequences of any of the options I had. I knew that although the light was there in the far distance for me, there was still darkness. The fear that my father would be imprisoned or that my mother and my siblings would have to suffer public humiliation was overwhelming clear to me.

Although it is a faint memory, I can remember having to deal with the humiliation of cops showing up at my door at late hours of the night answering a disturbance call from neighbors. I remember feeling like I could not walk out of my house the next day because of the fear that people would stare in judgement. You might be saying to yourself: “you shouldn’t have felt that way”... “people care, they wouldn’t judge”. But boy did they ever. My fear was not a fabrication of my internal battles; it was not paranoia; it was real. Neighbors would whisper behind our backs and even till this day do not interact with us as neighbors do. The fear  that my father would go to prison, suffer in a cell, and that we would lose half our livelihood was something that not every solution could prevent.  

Thus, I was still lost. I was able to intervene in the fights between my parents, but could not yet be actively be vocal about my personal life in the public sphere. The shift from the private to the public came as I realized that someone needed to create a solution that could be a safety net for women who were in similar situations. For, it wasn’t simply domestic violence that affected my family, but a combination of poverty, genderinequities in employment, and gender inequities in my culture.  I learned that without vocalizing my worries and concerns I was never going to get anywhere. I learned that I could not worry about what might happen because, no matter what the consequence, change would never come if the first step was not taken.

As I look back at my rise to vocalization in the scope of the 360, I really am thankful for having the opportunity to get an education and build a support system for myself. I can not imagine what it must feel like to have no support system whatsoever, have no education, be criminalized, be unemployed, and have no idea what to do to survive.