What We Get Wrong About Domestic Violence: Abuse is a Pattern, Not an Incident

In preparation for a new shift to my career, I've decided to start putting down what I have learned so that others can learn from my time working with sex offenses and domestic violence - because what I'm about to share is not common knowledge, and it needs to be.  When these things become common knowledge, most of what we see will end when it comes to abuse.

The reality is, sexual abuse and domestic violence are both actual parts of our society.   They aren't some aberration that is "over there" or something that happens to "other people" that happens only sometimes and rarely.   We are literally around them every single day in one form or another.  Typically we don't even recognize when we are.  Because of this we have the opportunity to intervene much more than we think we do. 

I noticed that society and law enforcement both "get it wrong" about domestic violence - we focus on the violent act - or with sex offenses we focus on the sexual act - but we miss that the most damage actually occurs leading up to the offense.  We also tend to think as a society that "everything is fine" if justice has been served, or the abusive relationship has been left. 


Some of this is discussed in my first video here. 

I hope you will share this, feel free to comment and share, and I will be posting more of these in days and weeks to come.