Speaking out about abuse can potentially help others

At 24, I was a victim of domestic violence and I did nothing about it because I thought it was my fault. I believed that I was responsible for his abusive actions.

It all started when I stopped working. He was now responsible for the roof over my head and the food on our table.

One Friday night back in Ponte City, central Joburg, I decided to lock the door to the flat we shared as I went to bed. He had gone out clubbing.

When he found the door locked on his return after midnight, he shouted at me to open and I wasn’t chuffed. So, I yelled back to say he must keep his voice low.

To him that was an invitation to pummel me. I woke up with a blue eye, swollen lips and my beautiful front teeth were also in pain.

Growing up, I had witnessed cases of physical abuse and the police were never involved. The poor women would either wake up the following day hiding their faces, or stay in bed all day long. The difference was that those were married couples.

I did not want to raise our child alone. In my mind, I thought abuse was an initiation into womanhood.

Despite my injuries, he just woke up and went on his way, off to drink again. He never apologised.

I spoke to a friend who was also in an abusive relationship. And the first thing she said was that I shouldn’t involve the police.

She knew quick remedies of healing broken lips and blue eyes. She said I was wrong to shout at him because he was a man and men needed to be respected.

My abuser and I were of the same age. We had a toxic relationship but I didn’t know much. I was a mere matriculant. That’s what he called me. He always ensured that I knew I was useless and nobody would ever tolerate me.

I was tired of not having friends. That’s what abusers do, they gradually isolate you from everyone. They also know how to assault your self esteem by planting negative and self-doubting thoughts in your head.

I was now a slave. If he wanted to speak to me he would, and if he didn’t then I had to accept that I was living under his roof, and his word was law.

Abusers are always horny too. After smashing every part of your body, they then violate you.

One day an argument ensued and he pushed me against the wall. I am not sure if he only pushed me or he strangled me as well because I lost consciousness. He then locked me inside, I was bleeding on my head.

When I woke up, I called a good friend who knew about my relationship. I fell down again and I woke up the following day in hospital. I had lost a lot of blood.

My friend had given the nurses a statement and they wanted me to open a case against him, but I wasn’t going to do it.

Then a case of murder in the Randburg Magistrates’ Court encouraged me to find strength, forgive him and be grateful I did not die at his hands.

Women abuse is rife and the statistics would be even higher if more women spoke out about it.

Maybe dialogue will reach our men and they will see what pain they are causing us.

It still feels like it happened yesterday, but I am 100% healed now. I guess the pain comes every time I hear that one of my sisters was murdered under these circumstances.

That is what really breaks my heart. Maybe if some of us had come out earlier, they would have realised that they too have options.

Maybe we could have saved many lives.