Complete helplessness, despair and lack of information to seek help / Article / LSM.lv

Lāsma has experienced two unsuccessful marriages involving both physical and emotional abuse. Right now the painful time is behind us, Lāsma has been able to get out of this hare, now, at the age of 46, she is a student, getting her first higher education. With this open story, she wants to share her experience, “so that some readers might see themselves between the lines of my story and be able to find the strength not to subject themselves to prolonged violence in relationships.”

Introduce your story she presented her way to a new life. The second story reported her first marriage, exposure to physical violence and inability to get away from such a life. Helplessness and “shame that I – a girl from a normal, good family – was stuck in such a trap.”

The third story about the opportunity to tell someone outside the family that they are living with an abuser and ask for help:

We were friends with a married couple at the time, she was mine girlfriend, at least I think so. In the countryside we would say that we live in the neighborhood, the distance was not great. Somehow they came into our lives without noticing, through acquaintances, through neighbors, we traded the grown potatoes together in the market, we got to know each other better. Common holidays, birthdays, did not even notice how they squeezed out all our friends from our circle.

In fact, I now realize that part of my husband’s aggression catalyst was mine girlfriend. Quite banal, standard situation, to disgust banal. Now I can only be grateful to her that by walking hard to the goal, she actually freed me from further destruction, but I am not protecting my daughter, there my girl friends intrigue won, but this is already another story of suffering.

She felt sorry for me…

Two faces, two worlds, you wander between these worlds and lose yourself, you no longer distinguish good from bad, right from wrong, because there is only one truth at home – the truth of physical strength. You are not asking for help, neither for your family, which is hundreds of kilometers away, nor for the police, anyone,

you suffer quietly, because you are ashamed, ashamed of your buried dreams, shattered illusions about married life,

despair strangles you every night as you listen to the sounds of car engines while standing in the darkness of the yard at night.

Complete helplessness, despair and lack of information to seek official help. There is no access to the Internet, I do not remember any inciting programs on television that would encourage an uprising against moral and physical violence in the family.

The closest neighbors knew, but they did you have to live here, must work with the aggressor.

I was even afraid to drink a hot cup of tea at a neighboring house, because I could be looked up, found, and it would only get worse. The only refuge is open field, darkness and river bush.

One girlfriend however, I was pityed, at that time I did not realize that her pity was so strange. She helpfully brought me alcohol from time to time, which did not help me at all, because I had reached such a state of daily stress that I could not simply drink it. Sitting next to me, urging me to run – because one day he can knock you down like that.

What did I do? I shed tears girlfriend on the shoulder, I listened to her tearful story that she and her husband do not succeed without loving her, a man has appeared in her life, who has become close and dear. Such conversations made me think that I was not alone in my marriage.

Oh, or if I had known the truth, the truth that had been going on behind me for several years, and what role this girlfriend will play for many years to come, like a selfish hyena tearing my and my daughter’s life to shreds…

To be continued…

CONTEXT:

Public media charity marathon “Give five!” This year will focus on domestic violence, a complex and multi-layered topic, both in terms of emotional, physical, financial and other forms of violence between family members, and the consequences and scenarios for action to enable a new life to begin. Charity marathon “Give five!” will take place from 17 to 23 December.

Funds donated during the marathon will be diverted Ziedot.lv rapid response or crisis fund, providing financial support mainly to women and children who want to break out of the vicious circle of leaving a violent relationship but are unable to do so due to a lack of support.

Various organizations, crisis centers, specialists in Latvia offer assistance options victims of violence.

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