The Legacy of Domestic Violence

[Posteritatis]

I'd been watching a few fairly harrowing discussions of domestic violence on DU this evening. I'm starting to think my Reader feed knows what's going through my head, since it just gave me an article over on The Guardian by actor Patrick Stewart about his past experience with it. I figured I'd pass it along.

I had to stop reading midway through the second paragraph for awhile and just think about what must have been going through his head there, based on what he said.

My father was, in many ways, a man of discipline, organisation and charisma - a regimental sergeant major no less. One of the very last men to be evacuated from Dunkirk, his third stripe was chalked on to his uniform by an officer when no more senior NCOs were left alive. Parachuted into Crete and Italy, both times under fire, he fought at Monte Casino and was twice mentioned in dispatches. A fellow soldier once told me, "When your father marches on to the parade ground, the birds in the trees stop singing."

In civilian life it was a different story. He was an angry, unhappy and frustrated man who was not able to control his emotions or his hands. As a child I witnessed his repeated violence against my mother, and the terror and misery he caused was such that, if I felt I could have succeeded, I would have killed him. If my mother had attempted it, I would have held him down. For those who struggle to comprehend these feelings in a child, imagine living in an environment of emotional unpredictability, danger and humiliation week after week, year after year, from the age of seven. My childish instinct was to protect my mother, but the man hurting her was my father, whom I respected, admired and feared.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/27/patrick-stewart-domestic-violence

[greennina]

1. Typical military

When you teach young men to be so violent, they have trouble turning off the violence when they get home.

[cynatnite]

3. It's not just the fault of the military...it's the fault of war, their fathers and etc. n/t

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

4. So you have some evidence to show that veterans have higher rates of domestic abuse?

[undergroundpanther]

2. He sounds like my father

except my father never saw combat as far as I know.But the military fucked with his head.He was a drunk and he took it out on me.I have pstd now,my home was as violent as a combat zone.

[FirstLight]

5. may have been a military thing a few decades ago... but the legacy goes on

Domestic violence is one of those 'family curses' because even when you don;t want to be the monster you were raised by, you find that rage and emotional instability are commonplace in the adult children who have survived through this...even those who don;t physically experience it.

there is so much more to say on the subject, but right now words escape me because i am wrung out ...even witnessing the abuse from a distance today brought my own victimhood into sharp focus ... i am glad i was able to at least speak to the sheriffs without getting emotional. i saved my tears and anger for when i was driving home, alone.