When it no longer hits you in the face

Pain continues. The good part of that is that I have more time that I can dedicate to writing.

I work at the intersection of domestic and sexual violence and disability. It's a small field, but it fits for me. We recently did a training for people who work regularly with people with a wide variety of disabilities. The training focused on domestic violence, and how they should be approaching it in their work. We were debuting a new exercise that I created.

I created the exercise based off a true story. The woman in the story was involved in creating a video to tell her story. So we borrowed the story and did a role play with her asking for help from a caseworker. We asked the people in the room what questions they had for her, what they noticed, and what they would do next. At the end, we showed the rest of the video, where you discover that the woman ended up being horribly beaten.

What shocked me wasn't that it bothered the people in the room. It moved many of them to tears. While that wasn't my intention, it clearly reminded them of why it is important that we all offer the correct supports so that it doesn't come to that. What bothered me was that it no longer shocks me. Despite knowing that this is a fairly extreme case, I've heard many that are more extreme. I've seen too many videos, read too many case files, and comforted too many people. I've become almost resigned to the fact that violence happens. It isn't that I have stopped fighting to end it, but I've lost the hope that I can somehow stop it before it happens to someone else. I've shifted to worrying about how to help someone in the aftermath.

Some people would say that I have matured, lost the naiveness that so many people start with. My rose colored glasses have been broken under the pressure of too much reality. For me, I accept that it had to happen. You can't have your heart ripped to shreds every time you hear a story. But I mourn the loss of my belief that I can save people. I mourn the creation of the wall I have put up. It is both necessary, and cause for concern, that my heart no longer bleeds with each new story.