Color Me Butterfly

It comes as no surprise to me whenever I encounter:  “I understand how domestic violence and abuse can pass down from one generation to the next . . . but how is it that it kept a hold on four generations of women in your family?  How is this even possible?”

The first time this question landed on my ears, I was baffled.  I, too, didn’t understand how this could happen.  How could it be remotely conceivable that domestic violence and abuse can start with my grandmother, then pass down to my mother, then down to me, and now on to my daughter – four women, in four generations – all struggling with this?  And by the second time this question came to me – I made a vow to FIND OUT.  I needed to understand it.  I needed to own it.

I set out on a crusade to FIND OUT.  I researched papers, articles, the science.  And with all my research, I was able to find a common explanation – an explanation that made sense, but still didn’t quite dig beneath the surface – the explanation: Intergenerational Abuse.  Simply put, Intergenerational Abuse is when abuse has a way of passing down from one generation to the next – when the cycle of abuse continues to perpetrate.  For example, when a son bears witness to his father abusing his mother, then he later becomes abusive.

Now this made total sense to me, but still it wasn’t enough to quench an unnerving thirst and craving that I’d gained to come to terms with how my family ended up in this predicament.  This definition just didn’t quite cut it for me.  It had to be more to it then just that.

After still feeling an unresolve in my resolve to FIND OUT… I steered away from the obvious definition.  It all sounded too cliché.  In writing Color Me Butterfly, I had come to know more about my family than I’d ever expected to know – and the one thing that I now understood was that something more lurked at the fabric of my family and put a dent in it.  I became obsessed with better understanding the ‘not so technical’ explanation.  And in the corner of one evening, deep in mind, the answer came to me.  It came packaged in a simple seven letter word.  It came in all its simplicity.  The answer?  SILENCE.  Domestic violence and abuse took hold of my family, not simply because of intergenerational abuse.  Not simply because we lured it into our lives.  And not simply because we weren’t strong enough to break the cycle; but simply because we did nothing to break the SILENCE.  Talking about what happened to the women in my family was simply just something ‘we refused to do.’  It came with the old family adage that you just don’t air your family’s laundry; and more importantly, ‘you just don’t talk about it.’  This was the enlightment behind what led to 60+ years of domestic violence and abuse in my family.  The fact that we just didn’t talk about it.  We just didn’t discuss it.  This was unfortunately, just something we just didn’t do…

Having allowed silence to conform our beliefs, it also confined our growth – and kept this horrible thing in our family.  If only my grandmother would have opened up to my mother about the perils of her life… if only my mother would have shared her experiences with me --- if only I had had the tools sooner to communicate this to my daughter, then perhaps there would be no need for Color Me Butterfly. 

Intergenerational abuse is more than just about passing down the cycle of abuse from one generation to the next – it’s also about passing down the silence.  It’s about coming to terms with the ideal that if we continue to embrace silence, then we will never be able to break the cycle.

One of the leading questions that always pop up whenever I’m speaking to a group is a question that undoubtedly is in search of a very keen answer… perhaps an answer to bring sense to something that seems senseless.

Why Do Women Stay? lurks at the tip of every person’s tongue.  Why? they are desperate to know.  And even though the question is intended as an inquisition in general, oftentimes, I can’t help but wonder if they are searching for an answer to their own struggles.

When I first started speaking to groups, I struggled with this very question and its elusive answer.  I gave every scientific, pompous answer trying to explain cause or cure.  After all, I often wondered why did I stay?  Why did my mother stay?  Why did my grandmother stay?  Why does my daughter, to this very day, continue to stay?  I too, sought the answer to this question and I’d struggled with it for a long, long time.  Then as I began to speak to women from all walks of life, the answer though slowly, but consistently was revealed as more and more women came to me and confided some of the most sensitive, dismal realities of their personal experiences.  I’d come to understand that the answer spawned from a four letter word.  The answer:  FEAR.  Women stay out of Fear.  Fear about her own and her children’s safety if she leaves.  Fear of raising her children on her own.  Fear of the shame, humiliation and embarrassment she’d encounter when the truth is revealed to her friends and family.  Fear of not being believed when she finally reveals the truth.  Fear of starting over.   Fear of being alone.  Fear that she can not cope on her own.  Fear of breaking up her family – wanting so desperately for the children to have their father.  Fear of being disloyal.  Fear that if she leaves, who else will rescue and change him.  Fear of him making good on his threat to harm himself.  Fear of losing her identity because her identity is attached to him.  Fear of letting go of the only self preservation that she has gained through him.  And finally, Fear of the UNKNOWN.

F.E.A.R.  That four letter word begets so much power:  the power to make a difference in how a woman chooses to live her life.   The power to choose whether she can and will find the courage to let go.  The power to sometimes choose between life and death. 

It came as no surprise when I finally understood the meaning behind this word FEAR; because when I dissected it and really, I mean really understood its power, I also came to understand that it’s not as simple as it seems.  No woman, I believe, wants to stay.   Every woman, given the choice, would undoubtedly choose to live a healthy, happy and joyful life.  But for so many, that choice is too far fetched because it’s shrouded by a word that is capable of moving mountains in her life.  A word that supersedes all that she has come to understand.  A word that has garnered a new respect from me.  Nonetheless a word that I’ve also come to realize has only as much power as I am willing to give to it.  The more I came to understand the meaning and power behind the word FEAR, the more I was able to minimize its power.  I came to understand that this word can only have as much power as I am willing to impart to it.  So though fear sits at the hem of why women stay, I also believe that every women has the power to annihilate fear and make the choice to have a better life.

One of the saddest things that sit at the top of my heart is Our Children.  It is unfortunately a startling reality that three to five children are killed by their parents every day, in the U.S. alone, according to the American Anthropological Association.

My heart bled when I heard the news of how six children, all of whom are local to where I live, were killed within weeks of each other.  The first was on March 27th where police found the remains of four young children in the family’s townhouse in Frederick, Maryland, along with the hanged body of their father, Pedro Rodrigues.  To this day, their mother is still missing.  Then approximately 20 miles away, on April 3rd, Carol Danforth found the hunged bodies of her one-year old son and her two-year old daughter in the woods after receiving a threatening call from the children’s father, Gerardo Rogue, whom had also hanged himself nearby.

One mother is missing, the other grieving; and both have lost something more precious than one could ever imagine… their children.  I can’t even begin to describe the hole that would burst my heart if these were my children.  I can’t even begin to imagine how someone’s distorted, twisted mind would convince them that the best way to resolve a domestic dispute is to hurt innocent children.  I can’t even begin to fathom that there is any amount of justice for such a horrible, horrible crime.  The only thing that I can believe in is hope -- the hope that something must and will be done to protect our children.

We are living in sad times when there exists a reality that children are killed in domestic violent related deaths; many of which are a result of fathers who kill their children then commit suicide; or mothers with long histories of domestic violence who attempts a joint suicide of themselves and their children; or a father who kills the partner they’ve been abusing, kills the children, and then kill themselves. 

There is no amount of words in the Webster’s Dictionary that can begin to help me to make sense of something that is senseless.  The only thing that I can say is that I hope that someday, somehow, in some way, there will come change or a miracle to protect Our Children.

My heart goes out to all the children and families that has been affected by this terrible reality.