Savari adivasi bahujan and dalit women conversing
http://www.dalitweb.org When Love is Brutal: Personal Narrative of Surviving Domestic Abuse Swati Kamble After being treated unjustly for five years and after contemplating about it for over a year and a half, it's only now that I could gather courage to tell my story to the world. I realize that by being silent I am not only accepting the injustice that happened to me but I am also supporting injustice happening to others. Let me come straight to the point. I am a survivor of domestic abuse, both physical and mental abuse for over five years, until I ended the abusive relationship. It has been a longstanding struggle within me and with myself, whether or not to give voice to my lived experiences. Writing this narrative takes me back to horror chambers. I still tremble with the thought of the brutalities I endured. However arduous, I want to step up and speak out. My reason for writing this narrative is that I want to face the demons. I want to make sense of the things that happened to me. But not just for me. I want people to know, especially the young girls and women who are conditioned to endure violence and who are silently fighting abuse. I want them to know that they are not alone in this fight. To the society that pretends it is a private matter, I want to say loud and clear that domestic abuse is real. It happens more frequently than we would like to believe. It happens across caste, class, religion and race. Education level of the abuser or the abused doesn't have much impact on how badly you may be beaten up or how long you will stay in that relationship before you get out, if you are able to get out at all. The physical and mental trauma undoubtedly has a long-lasting impact. As survivors, we may feel weak and feeble. But we shouldn't blame ourselves and should courageously voice out the injustice. I want to also establish that as much impact the ever pervasive violence has on my life, it does not define me. The person that abused me is just one of the many faceless aggressors around the world who has the same violent, manipulative and guilt-tripping traits. Many educated young girls and women in our community fear and feel ashamed to come out as battered women. I want to plead to all those courageous women out there: don't let your personal narratives be unheard, don't be invisible, trapped in the statistics of domestic violence. Let the staggering figures have faces, speak out. Come forward with your stories in solidarity for those beautiful souls who are still struggling to make decisions. Don't fight in
