Scarred? Where is the parent in you?

A little more than four years ago, I wrote my second column for the Register. It was about my journey out of domestic violence and it pretty much signaled to readers I was going to be a different kind of Sunday columnist.

The column gave readers a glimpse inside a household where domestic violence roared and left longtime consequences for the children involved.

But that column gave readers the short version because the long version of the journey was not fit for newspaper print and the words would not have rested easy on reader’s eyes.

So, a lot more was left unsaid then was told.

This column did not appear in October, which is Domestic Violence Month, because domestic violence can’t be reduced to a 30-day summoning of the guard when the guard needs to be on watch for the 365 days a year that women and children — and some men — are physically and emotionally abused.

Whether it is happening in the beachside homes of upscale communities or in the cold, concrete walls of urban public housing in New Haven or Bridgeport, the black-and-blue bruises of domestic violence are on the rise locally and nationally — and deadlier than ever.

But I am not writing this column to shine a light on abused women and men and I certainly am not writing it to be a blanket of comfort for their fears or low self-esteem.

But I am writing to ask those victims who are parents to find the mother or father inside them and save their children before it is too late.

More than 5 million children every year witness domestic violence — and those disturbing images and the booming rage that accompanies them are on a reel that replays over and over as their brains are developing and soaking up lessons. And as that reel plays, many children of domestic violence mentally retreat and even hide from themselves.

In my previous column about my long journey, I wrote how difficult it was for me to rebirth myself and find the James Walker — who had been beaten down physically, mentally and emotionally — that everyone else saw when they looked at me.

Experts say children exposed to domestic violence are more likely to attempt suicide (I did, twice), abuse drugs and alcohol (been there, done that), run away from home (I did that), and engage in teenage prostitution (I did that).

And it took decades as I did these things to shake the horror of the physical blows, the emotional trauma and the psychological scarring before I began to see the James Walker who everyone else saw, and began to care what happened to me.

I keep writing the word “decades” because I want parents to understand how long it takes a child of domestic violence to figure out how to fix what has left him or her broken.

Many times, I see parents physically and emotionally abusing their children and I wish I had a cape and could be their hero and protector. I know what their journey is going to be like and they will need all the support they can get. I also know some victims will never find the good inside.

As I sit here writing as a survivor, I have learned to live with the scars — even those I have accepted will never heal because I am now big enough, strong enough and smart enough to help myself.

But I started this column with words from my manuscript, “Dead Windows,” because that is how helpless I felt at age 8 as misery from my father’s anger and brutality raged through the house.

I hope parents who stay in domestic violence situations for whatever reason will read this column for their children’s sake because, right now, their children are not big enough, they’re not strong enough or smart enough to help themselves.

And they should not have to spend much of their lifetime trying to fix what parents broke.

Scarred? Where is the mother or father in you?