Safety Should Not Be a Luxury
We’re excited to invite allies and activists to share their perspectives on our blog. This guest blog is written by Karoline Starostik, survivor, advocate and author. Her recent book, Becoming Your Own Love Story, is available for purchase here.
“Abuse doesn't discriminate. It doesn't check your résumé, your bank account, your education, your passport stamps, or how articulate you are about your feelings. It doesn't care how accomplished, resourced, spiritually aware, or outwardly "together" you appear. It shows up in quiet homes and public ones, in luxury apartments and modest kitchens, in families that look perfect from the outside and lives that seem, by all appearances, protected. I learned this the hard way. Not because I was naïve or weak, but because abuse is not a reflection of who you are or what you lack. It is a failure of another person's capacity to relate with integrity. And believing it only happens to certain kinds of people is one of the most effective ways it stays hidden, wrapped in shame, silence, and the false comfort of "this couldn't happen to someone like me."
- Karoline Starostik, "Becoming Your Own Love Story"
But here is the part we talk about even less: abuse may not discriminate, but protection does.
The Rave That Never Ended
Being with my ex husband felt like a seedy, chaotic underground rave where the music is too loud 24/7 and gives you tremendous anxiety.
You can't hear yourself think. You can't find the exit, because the lights keep changing and someone keeps telling you the exit was never there. After a while you stop looking for it. You learn to dance to a song you absolutely hate, because standing still feels more dangerous.
Nobody loses herself in one drastic moment. It happens little by little. A compromise to keep the peace. A truth swallowed because saying it out loud would cost too much, like… your life. An instinct overruled, then another, until your instincts stop speaking up. We picture abuse as bruises, bleeding noses and broken bones. We rarely picture a woman who checks the abuser's face before she checks her own feelings, whose nervous system is set permanently to "brace."
And when she finally finds the exit, we expect the music to stop. It doesn't.
When the System Looks Away
Leaving was not the end of the story. In many ways it was the beginning of a second, very exhausting one.
I did what we tell survivors to do. I documented. I reported. I asked for help. And still, I watched accountability fail to arrive.
We tell women to speak up, then treat their testimony as an inconvenience. We tell them to report, then send them home with a case number and a pamphlet. We tell them to leave, without telling them the truth: separation is often the most dangerous time. In one New Jersey review of domestic violence deaths, 8 of 9 fatalities happened when the victim had left or was planning to leave. I was terrified the abuser would come after me and carry out his threat.
So the instruction is not just "leave." It is "leave, and then survive the most dangerous chapter mostly on your own."
The Price of Leaving
Here is the uncomfortable truth I sit with: I was one of the lucky ones. I had money for lawyers and security. I had a home in another country. I had loved ones who believed me because they were either present, or saw my bruises.
None of that prevented the abuse. It only gave me options afterward. And options should not depend on your bank balance.
Financial abuse occurs in 99% of domestic violence cases, and survivors name money for themselves and their children as one of the top reasons they stay or return. Abusers know what the system often forgets: control the money, and you control the exit.
On the flip side, as in my case, you can be the one with the resources and still be on the receiving end of financial abuse. Not only was I assaulted weekly, but after I left, I also discovered how much damage had been done behind my back. I was horrified to see that the bank had accepted several of my checks bearing a (very badly) forged signature. HOW did that pass?! Not even the most disgusting Hollywood horror movie could have come up with a more devious plot. When safety requires a lawyer, a security team and a second home, it is no longer a right. It is a luxury. And how have we quietly accepted that?!
Somewhere to Go
If you are still inside the noise, I won't tell you to just leave. I know how much that sentence costs.
I'll tell you this instead: you are not imagining it, and you are not too smart for this to be happening. The person you were before the music got loud is still there.
And to everyone else: protection should not be something a woman has to afford. I want a woman with nowhere to go to be met with something more useful than the instruction to leave.
I want there to be somewhere for her to go.
Together We Can End Domestic and Sexual Violence
