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Domestic Violence Doesn't Always Start With a Punch · The Beth B Shift

• Domestic Violence Doesnt Always Start With a Punch: podcast but due to technical difficulties I'm not really sure what happened and I'm not concerned but I thought I'd jump on for a little bit because I did promise that I would be on live tonight to talk about domestic violence. And I'm choosing this topic because I know a lot of us feel a certain way about domestic violence. But domestic violence didn't always start as a punch. It didn't start with a a hit. It doesn't start with obvious signs of injury. It doesn't start that way. Sometimes it starts with an obvious word to the person who's being spoken to. You guys gotta stay with me. Welcome back to the Beth B shift where the vibe is unmuted, unafraid, and unapologetic. I'm Beth. And I've chosen this topic tonight because a lot of us feel that if someone is is being abused and there are they are a victim of domestic violence, that there should be some visible signs of injury. And some of the words I'm gonna say tonight won't be good. They won't be all fluffy, they won't be. Some of them may be triggering, but I feel like we need to see what domestic violence does, how it affects people, and not just the person who's the target, not just the person who's who is suffering from the actions of another. Every time you think about domestic violence, what do you think? What do you say to yourself? What do you see? We often think that domestic violence is always associated with scars or with injuries, something that is visible for us to determine that domestic violence is an issue in a relationship or in a situation. And that's not always the case. That's not always the case. Sometimes, right, domestic violence is a spoken word. Sometimes domestic violence is something someone says to us to hurt our feelings. But words sometimes aren't enough, right? Sometimes it's the intention. It's the intention. What does a person who is suffering from domestic violence feel when words are being spoken to them, words are being said to them that makes them feel bad about themselves? What are the what is being imposed on me or a person who's in a relationship, right, where emotionally they are being made to feel that they're not worthy? Domestic violence is not just about a physical attack. Domestic violence is not just about visible signs of injury. Domestic violence is sometimes the words that are used against a person and they're consistent. The patterns and the behaviors of a person who is imposing on another person's freedom. By way of words. Sometimes it's the other person's opportunity to force me in a situation of force my feelings to conform to what it is that they want. And here's a little disclaimer: these little triggers, these words that I'm using, I the the intention is not to trigger someone on to make somebody feel bad about their situation, but it's to bring awareness to the fact that. Domestic violence is more than just physical abuse. It's more than just hands to another person's person. It's it's not it's it's more than just physical abuse. Sometimes a person can speak to you in a tone that is unwelcoming. Sometimes that tone Hurt your feelings. And domestic violence is not, emotional abuse is not just one incident. It's more than one incident. It's one more than one incident, and it's consistent, consecutive. It's the behavior of a person who imposes on the freedom of another by saying words. Fiziko wor fizyko tings. Sometimes that's just it. And bringing awareness to this issue is is to educate people on what the alternative is. Sometimes we're in situations that we can't get out of. Sometimes people are in situations where they're in love with someone, they're in a relationship with someone, they live with the person. Financially, they cannot get out. They're struggling to think the best of themselves when they are being told every day of their lives with this person that they're not worthy. They're being told that they don't matter. Someone is imposing on their freedoms to be the best version of themselves. Sometimes all we know is what we see. Some of us grow up in households where domestic violence isn't obvious. Sometimes it isn't obvious at all. Sometimes we see it, we study it, we accept it. And if we're in a situation where it's a part of our livelihood, right? If I get a spankin' as a kid and now my mom is getting a spanking from the same person, I don't always see it as domestic violence. I don't even know what it is because I don't have language for it. I don't have words to describe what's happening. I don't know what it is at all. And it's not until I become an adult and I realize that this behavior is unacceptable. Sometimes I don't understand the behavior until someone else says that shouldn't happen to you. Sometimes we don't realize that we're going through something until another person says, I wouldn't take that. I wouldn't, I couldn't deal with that. And a lot of us shun the fact that we're in this situation because we don't want anyone to know. Some of us are from the space where people say whatever goes on in my house stays in my house. So we don't look for resources to help us figure out how we can have better options or there's an alternative to what it is that we're going through. Some of us we don't even consider that. We don't think about it. But we gotta be mindful and we have to be, we have to remember the fact that we matter. We have to remember the fact that our words matter, our emotions matter, our feelings matter. And no one has the right to impose on what it is that we think and feel. We have the right to stand up for ourselves, especially in a situation where someone is using their words. To make us feel bad about ourselves. Domestic violence is a real thing. And a lot of us we we I don't want to say we ignore it, but we don't deal with it head on. Sometimes we the onus is on us to be different or to make the change, but we don't make the change. Sometimes we can't make the change. Sometimes we don't feel like we can make the change. We're in a space where we feel like no one's gonna listen because the only person that we love and care for is telling us that we don't matter. Sometimes we don't want to hear messages like this because we don't want to face reality because it's hard. And even when we reach out to a friend or we reach out to someone and we feel like I need to talk to someone, I don't like what I'm going through, I need to make a change, something else has to happen besides this, I wanna be happy. We hear stories of other people who have who who have a domestic situation and lives are different from ours. where they experience love and affection and don't always encounter words that make them feel bad. And I'm not talking about random words. I'm not talking about regular arguments. I'm not talking about that. I am talking about constant. Behaviors where a person is using their words to make us feel bad on purpose. The intention is the thing that we have to pay attention to. And when we those words are used against us and we don't know what to do, we don't realize that there are alternatives, that we can call a friend or that there are resources that we can use to help us get out of the situation that we're in. Some of us are stuck in situation with a domestic partner where we're being abused mentally, physically, or emotionally. But I want you to remember that it's very important that you stand up for yourself because you matter. You stand up for yourself and own your rights. Own your rights to be a better version of yourself. Use the resources that are available to you. Know that you are not alone. Know that you can make a change. When you start in a relationship where you come in and you're okay with yourself, you're confident with yourself. You love yourself. You know exactly who you are. You're extending your love. You're extending yourself to a person that you decided to be with and care for. You decided to be in a relationship where it looks like you're building. But the person you're with either changes their mind or decides not to build with you. And during that relationship, you come to you come to the point where these words are hurting you. You come to the point where you hear what the other person has to say about you. You don't like the words that are being used to describe who you are to them, what it is that you do for them. They start to convince you that you're. They're the only person that will ever love you, that you have nothing to offer to anyone. You start to shut down. They start to isolate you. They make you feel like you can't be with anyone else them. You can't talk to anyone else but them. You can't have a relationship outside the relationship that you have with them. And the more you feel that way, the more you start walking on eggshells. Now you don't know what to say, what to do, how to feel. You don't know what to say. You don't talk back. You don't have an opinion. And that doesn't start right away. That starts that that is a process that happens over time. That process happens over time. It doesn't happen right away. But we need to educate ourselves on what domestic violence looks like when it comes to verbal and emotional abuse. Verbal and emotional abuse. Is sometimes Just as bad as the physical abuse. Just because we can't see the wounds doesn't mean it's not there. They're not there. The wounds are there. The wounds are there. We're human. And we have a right to respond as humans. And when we're with someone who uses their words to force us to feel bad about ourselves or minimizes or d diminishes our Confidence What we think and feel about ourselves. Imagine being in a situation where you're in love with someone, you care for them, you cater to them, you accommodate them, you make sure all the everything that they're asking for is satisfied and nothing is given in return. And every time you look to give or you look to accommodate or you look to make them feel better after they've submitted their complaint, right? Because everything starts with the complaint. And relationships, they all start out great. It's everybody starts out happy, and then somewhere along the lines, they start to express how they feel. And that's natural in the in a relationship. It's a natural thing. People do that all the time. But when it starts to impose on our freedoms, when it starts to impose on who we are and what we feel about ourselves, when it starts to diminish our ability to be confident and walk. Aff knowing that we are who we are and that we deserve happiness, we deserve to be free, we deserve to be loved, we deserve to be cared for, we deserve affection. When it starts to impose on those things that we have set out for ourselves, we have a decision to make. Two can't walk together unless they agree. And if everything I do is wrong, if everything I say is wrong, if I always have to walk on eggshells to make sure that I accommodate your feelings and emotions, and everything you have to say to me is always hurting me, is always making me feel bad about myself. If it's always forcing me to make you happy and forget my own feelings, if I have to shrink. And be a different person. If I have to think that I'm not worthy, and everything I should do should appease and accommodate the person that I love, the person that I'm in a situ of relationship with, who cannot see me, who always wants glitz and glory just for their own they're on a pedestal and they put themselves in a space where now they're trying to force me to love them beyond capacity, where they're forcing me to love them beyond myself, where they're they're I don't want to say force, but they're encouraging me with the words that they're using to describe the things that I don't do that they don't like. And I'm not talking about I don't cook the right meals. I'm not talking about me not using the right seasoning. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the words that a person uses to describe what you do that impale ability to be great, that impale your ability to be a better version of yourself, that impale you to become who you are destined to be. We have to love ourselves. Cause we're important too. Now I'm all about relationships. I'm all about, I'm all about domestic partnership. I'm all about building. I feel like two people can always find a way to build and live and be in harmony together with one another. It's the moments where we are listening to the words that another person chooses, right? There's so many words in this world that a person can choose to describe what it is that we do that makes them unhappy. It is the moment when that person chooses the worst words possible to describe what it is that I'm doing that makes them feel how they feel. If we have an open line of communication. I should be able to talk to you and you should be able to talk to me. We should speak freely amongst one another. We should be able to talk to one another and say, I don't like that. I don't like what you said. I don't like the way you made me feel. It when you do this, it makes me feel like this. We have a right to speak. And the person who's speaking to us has a right to speak too. But if you love me, if you love and you care for me, if what you say does not match your actions, because every time you get to talk to me, your voice, you elevate your voice or you make me feel like I am not worthy. If every time you speak to me and you damage my heart, you make me feel like I don't matter. And it can be the simplest things. How many times have you been in a situation where the person that you love, right? You've made a simple mistake. And every word that they chose to describe what you did makes you feel like, my gosh, I didn't know it was that serious. And out of love, you say, I don't like how you spoke to me. I don't like the words that you used. I don't, I don't like that. And then they choose to tell you, you're too sensitive, or I didn't mean it like that, or that's just the way that I am. That's how I talk. We have to be mindful that we deserve love too. We deserve to be seen too. It's the onus is not on us to carry a relationship where two people are involved. I'm not responsible to make you happy all the time. I'm not responsible for making sure that everything I do is to accommodate your feelings all the time. A relationship goes. Both ways. It's a two way street. I'm not always responsible for making you happy. I want to make you happy though because I love you. I want you to see the beauty in me because I love you. I want to share everything that I have with you because I love you. But when you start tearing me down, I have to make a choice. I have to decide between your happiness and my mental stability. I can't always accommodate you if everything you think of me tears me down. Domestic violence does that. And because we don't talk about it, right? It's a taboo. Nobody wants to talk about the hard, the hard things. Nobody wants to have the hard conversations. Nobody wants to admit. We don't want to admit that we're in a situation that makes us feel like we're not worthy. We don't, we want, we don't want to admit that. We don't want to see that. We don't want to deal with it. It's a hardship. 'Cause first I have to admit to myself, how did I get here? What did I do to make this happen? What how did I contribute to this situation? But sometimes we buy into the illusion. We buy into the illusion of someone who tells us that they love us. We buy into the illusion, believing that that person is going to accommodate us the same way that we choose to accommodate them. We buy into the illusion that someone's gonna care for us the same way that we care for them. But that's not always the case. It's not always the case. And those are the spaces that we need to be mindful of. We need to pay attention in that space. Because if we're in a mutual situation and we're in a mutual relationship and we're in a mutual agreement where I've decided to be with you and you've decided to be with me. And the very thing that I do, it could be the most simplest things. And it won't, it just makes me feel bad every time you speak to me. Whether it's the silent treatment or I didn't cook something correctly or I had on the wrong dress, that's not fair. And then when I choose to say what it is that you've done to me, I don't get to speak. And if I do speak, you give you return with the silent treatment. Domestic violence doesn't always look the same, it doesn't show up. In every situation the same way all the time. It just doesn't. I remember a time where I saw a woman come into the post office and this lady looked disheveled. She had papers in her hands. The papers were crumbled. You could tell that she cared about them because she needed them, not because she wanted them to be important. She looked like she had dressed herself, but not for the occasion. She put on her clothes to come outside to manage what she needed to manage because she was instructed to do so. She shows up at the post office, I'm standing in line, and she's ahead of me. She's talking to the clerk as she's trying to get help. And rather than get receiving the help that she needed, the clerk was dismissive. He elevated his voice every time her soft spoken voice asked for assistance. He didn't get the gist of why she was there, but once she was allowed to speak, I was able to learn that she had been instructed by the court to come to the post office to change her address for the P.O. box that she shared with her husband. And it was a safety precaution. She was there to change her address because it was not a good idea for her to have to have moved and then to have this address listed on the P.O. box because if it's her husband, he's entitled to her new information because they're together. It's not up to the post office to decide who they share the information with when two people are listed on the same P.O. box. She came to the post office to have her name. removed and have another pill box listed under her name with her new address. But the clerk couldn't hear that. The clerk didn't see that. He couldn't see how disheveled she was. He couldn't see her demeanor and how she was soft-spoken and she was looking for assistance. He couldn't see that. And was even more. Worse is the fact that i it was 345 and the post office closed at four o'clock. And I was standing in line and even though I knew I could have missed my turn for doing what I needed to do, once I realized what she was saying and what it was that she needed to get done, I spoke up for her. I recognize the signs of a person who disheveled it. I'm not saying every time a person is disheveled or not well dressed or they're soft spoken that they're a victim of domestic violence. I'm not saying that. But what I am saying is there are signs, there are things that we can see, especially when we need to step in and help a person who needs help. Domestic violence doesn't always start with a punch. There are there aren't always visible signs of injury for a person who is suffering at the hand of their abuser. That's not always the case. And then I'm not asking you to be a detective either and always figure out when somebody is suffering at the hand of another. And it's not even our decision to make when we look at somebody who looks like they may be in a situation where they need help. But what I am saying is the Beth Be Shift, this podcast, this podcast is about bringing awareness. We have to bring awareness to our community so we can see the signs and know when a person needs help, whether it's domestic violence or something else. We have to be kind to one another. We have to remember that we're humans first. It's a busy world and we're all distracted. There's so many distractors distractions. There's so much going on between bills and working and people who are suffering in a space where they don't realize there's an alternative. But we can be the voice. We can be the voice for someone who lost their voice and they don't realize it's still there, they just have to activate it. We can be the voice of reason, we can be the person that comes to the rescue of someone else. And I'm not telling any person to go out looking for people who look like they have been subject to domestic violence. What I'm saying is if we see Where we can interject to help a person who looks like they could use our assistance, that may be the space that we belong in. We have to be mindful that domestic violence does not come in the form in which we perceive it. There's so many different levels and elements to what it is that that particular thing in encompasses. There's so many other elements. Not just physical all the time, sometimes it's verbal and emotional. And even when we're the person who's experiencing these things, we gotta be mindful of that as well because we get to stand up for ourselves. We get to choose. I hope this message has been helpful for someone. And if you can, please like, share, and subscribe. Share with someone that you know is possibly going through someone something or they could use this information to help someone else. Because we get to choose. Until I see you guys again, this has been the BethB Shift. Until then, stay grounded.