Numbers to make the blood boil

 *Author’s note: This post mentions domestic violence and may be upsetting for some readers.

After this post, I’m going to take a break from posts that talk exclusively about very serious topics. I need this to be a place where I can write about cross-country races and coffee shops and other everyday-life things. And the people who read this post need a break from heartbreak.

I will continue researching and writing about those serious topics – just not here. I need to find a place where I can join conversations already happening among people deeply invested in the same issues that spark a fire in me. 

For now, though, I can’t not say this.

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Nearly 50,000 Michigan women were hit, choked, kicked, drugged, cut, raped, stalked, threatened with a gun, isolated, financially trapped, terrorized, intimidated, harassed, or otherwise victimized by someone with whom they were in an intimate relationship last year.

No, that number isn't right. Not 50,000.

That’s just the number of women who reported the abuse to police.

Many abused women never tell anyone about the abuse. Studies indicate one in four women experience severe physical violence from an intimate partner in their lifetime.

One in four. One in freaking four.

I just attended the trial of a man convicted of strangling a 17-year-old girl to death, then shooting a 31-year-old woman he thought was going to rat him out to police.

So much of this case infuriates anyone who hears it. The senseless and utterly inexcusable violence makes the blood boil til it burns. No girl should die with a man’s hands around her neck, then be tossed in a back yard grave. No woman should lie lifeless in the woods for weeks, shot to shut her up.

But what burns hottest right this moment, several days after the jury handed down their guilty verdict, is not the violence that ended these two lives.

It’s the violence that came before it.

The same violence more than 50,000 Michigan women experienced last year.

Teenage Brynn was badly beaten before she died, with head-to-toe bruises left behind to bear witness.

Before she was executed in the woods, if witnesses were telling the truth, Abby was choked, hit, and screamed at by her killer when she wanted to leave. Witnesses said he treated Abby like property, taking away her phones and her liberty, using other people to control her, and, according to one witness, trying to sell her to his friends for sex.

The murders happened while the defendant was on bond for a domestic violence charge. A former girlfriend told police he pulled her from a car, snarling, “Listen here, bitch,” then shoved her onto a couch while she was holding their child. Another time, she said, he picked her up by her neck and threw her on the floor. He was good at cutting off her windpipe in a way that didn’t leave fingerprints, the woman told police.

Michigan State Police statistics report an alarming increase in strangulation as a weapon by domestic abusers. Last year, 326 Michiganders reported being strangled by an intimate partner ― a whopping 600% increase in the past decade.

And abusers who strangle tend to do it again, studies show. A certain grip, requiring very little pressure, can render a victim unconscious in seconds, giving abusers the feeling of control they crave. Repeated strangulation, which can leave no marks, can damage the brain and cause symptoms similar to dementia. 

Strangulation is also a predictor of worse violence. Statistically, a woman who has been strangled once is seven times more likely to eventually be killed by the person who strangled her than other women in abusive relationships.

Of course, abusers use many other tools to maintain power. They use verbal cruelty. They use bank accounts. They use their fists. Of the 70,000 people ― including men and children ― who reported domestic abuse in Michigan last year, 40,000 were assaulted by a “personal weapon.” That’s police lingo for hands, feet, knees, or any other body part that can inflict pain.

Good Lord. More than 40,000 women, men, and children, hit and kicked by people they thought loved them.

Just last year.

Just the ones who reported it.

These murders happened in a small city in a rural area where, as the locals say over and over, everyone knows everyone.

It’s hard to admit you’ve been hit at home in a town where everyone knows everyone. Where the person who hit you might coach the chief of police’s son in Little League. Where the unspoken rule is you stick by your family, no matter what, and when something goes wrong, you tough it out.

It’s happening so much more than we know.

And what we know is horrifying enough.

I don’t know how to end this post. I’m just mad, with a hopeless kind of anger. I don’t know how to make it better.

If someone is hurting you or someone you love and you want someone to talk to, you can call the Michigan Domestic Violence Hotline at 866-864-2338, or reach them by text at 877-861-0222.

You can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text “START” to 88788.

You can also search Google for domestic violence resources in your area. Most are staffed 24/7 to listen, believe you, and give you whatever support you need.

If you suspect someone you know may be a survivor of domestic abuse, you can call the hotline numbers above or your local advocacy agency to learn how to help. Or visit thehotline.org/support-others.

Someone in your life is in some way dealing with domestic violence. Live with compassion. You never know who is watching to see if you could be their safe place.

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