"It has been years yet she still flinches anytime someone raises their hands towards her. She still cries in bed at night from the never ending nightmare of him holding her tightly. She does not know when a good man is trying to love her because all he ever did was hurt her. She looks at her daughter, tears filling her eyes, how can teach her daughter about love in these conditions?

Her beautiful little girl is staring back at her. That young child is trying to yell for her mom to get back up because he is coming back and looks even madder. She has seen most of it, even though her mom has tried to shield her young eyes from it. Her mom feels like she is a terrible mother, but her daughter sees a strong woman. She sees the Super Mom who has protected her all her life, the Super Mom who took more than one job when her father left, the Super Mom who does everything in her power to make sure they make ends meet with more left over, and the Super Mom that loves her unconditionally...but her mother does not know that.

It is not until years later, that beautiful little girl grows up into an astonishing young lady. She is ready to date and is in love with the idea of love. High school was the point of her life that she was prepping for. Then she meets him; the love of her life....or so she thought. He starts out all loving and caring, and then one day he flips. He starts getting mad at the littlest things and continues yelling at her day by day. It comes to the point that she feels like she is having post traumatic stress disorder from back when she was a young girl. He makes her feel like she is less than dirt and that she could never find anyone to love her like he does. She finally realizes that he is wrong, and one day she will find love when it is right."

This sounds like a movie doesn't it? Something too real or common cannot be real life, right? But that is the joke of it all, this is a more common lifestyle in the world today but we all decide to bat our eyes and turn our heads when we see it. More than 1 in 3 women (35.6%) and more than 1 in 4 men (28.5%) in the United States have experienced rape, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime. Nearly half of all women and men in the United States have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime (48.4% and 48.8%, respectively). (www.thehotline.org/resources/statistics)

Just because you do not want to act like it is real, does not mean it is not. Domestic violence and rape are more than physical damage. It does more damage emotionally by draining the person of everything they are. Just think of that little girl who knew when enough was enough, because she had to watch her mother go through it. More common girls and boys are fighting to stay on top and to find the loves of their lives not knowing that even when they strike or yell at them, it is affecting them.

Don't just turn your head, know the signs and know how to help someone.