Cold Moon

*****Trigger Warning! Child Abuse, Adult Abuse, Domestic Violence*****

Tonight is a full moon if you’re not aware. They call it the Cold Moon and I think that is fitting for this time of year. Here in Alaska it is a balmy 26 degrees and while that may seem freezing to most, it is actually a heat wave for us. The sky is completely clear and you can see every star. It would be an amazing night to chase auroras if there were to be any, but that is not what leads me to the keyboard tonight.

People are crazy on a full moon. There’s bound to be some type of science behind it, but any time there is a full moon and people act out it can be heard “Well it is a full moon!” Take my town for instance. There is talk of a tragic event that occurred where a woman was brutal beaten by her estranged husband while her mother in law recorded the whole thing on her phone. Why would something so horrible happen? The only logical thing I can tell is that the victim had just requested a divorce not even a month earlier. Their story appears to be littered with bits and pieces of domestic violence. Now the even crazier part is that it has been reported that someone has said that we do not know the situation and maybe the victim “had it coming”. This is what brings me here.

As someone who has survived various accounts of domestic violence I can whole heartedly disagree with that statement. There is no evidence whatsoever that would suggest that the poor woman was getting something she “deserved”. When you are outside of a relationship you really have no idea what is happening behind closed doors and if you have never been involved in an abusive relationship you can not possibly begin to imagine the hell that is. To love someone who has chosen to harm you physically and mental is a complicated cluster full of misguided rights and wrongs. None of which make any sense at all.

My first abusive relationship was with my stepmother. Ahh yes, so typical right? As a stepmother myself I can say with a large amount of confidence that no, it was not typical at all. This woman was the only mother figure I knew and she hated me. She would bestow upon me both physical and mental abuse my whole childhood and would have continued it into my adulthood had I not removed myself from the toxic family I had grown up with. There are several who would say that I was the bad seed, but they have not heard the true stories of what my life was like.

The second was a man child I had loved since high school. Yes, abuse was part of my understanding of love. How could it not be when that is all I was shown as a child? I thought it was normal to an extent. We all have demons to fight right? In some twisted way, I thought that them showing me their real ones was a call to rescue. I could save them if I just loved them enough. If I allowed them to direct their anger at me, all would be well. It wasn’t though. Tragic events took place that sent my life into an even deeper spiral. More on that in another story.

The third was pure insanity. That is all you’re going to get from me on that one at this time. Just know, it was very, very bad. I am lucky to be alive.

After all that, in my 30’s I started to finally date nice guys, but it would take me awhile before I learned to accept the niceness for what it was. I hurt some in the process of finding myself, for that I am truly sorry but I won’t apology for where I am today.

My point in sharing all of this is to remind myself and others that we truly do not know someone’s situation. With a full moon there are always more dispatches for domestic violence, welfare checks, and the like. With Covid on top of it all, these numbers have sky rocketed. People are shocked by what they learn, but it does no good to discredit or defend the perpetrators until facts are available. Even then, the defense is weak and you look like a fool. There is never any reason to cause physical harm to another person just because you are mad. I’m by no means a master peace keeper, if you hurt my child or someone I love there will be consequences, but there is a right and wrong. A victim does not choose to be a victim. Sometimes it is all they know, and the unknown can be even more scarier than the abuse.