A Story Shared by:
kara c. Olympia, Washington

My story starts with the pledge I just made to Victory over Violence.  I am very aware of the subtle ways in which violence exists day-to-day, person-to-person, moment-to-moment.  I consider it to be like a hidden poison that I feel compelled to drink.  Am I a violent person?  I ask myself that all the time.  I would say I’m not a perpetrator of violence, I know all too well how it feels to be on the receiving end of incoming assaults.  However my role in it is to sooth the violence away, or at least I try.  I’ve watched myself in this role and felt imprisoned or held captive by the attitudes that make up the many faces of violent harsh attacks.  But it’s not so easy to spot the actual violence itself.  It’s usually veiled in some way that feels intimidating or threatening or demeaning, or in some cases you just get cut off as though you do not exist.  The implication however is an unspoken contract between two people, do as I say or (fill in the blank.)  These relationships happen over time and most often you don’t see what’s happening to you until it’s too late.  You have now been manipulated into somebody’s play toy.  In other cases you believe if you love enough, turn the other cheek, be a good example the violent nature of the relationship will change, not so.  It does not work that way until you speak up.  Your mind may tell you that if you speak up you have a lot to loose.  It’s scary and it’s frightening.  If this has been your pattern or way of being in the world you hardly even understand that you are being used by the other person as a means for them to control and inflict upon you there feelings of anxiety and inferiority.  You hardly know that you need to step back and understand yourself better so that you know you are complete, powerful in your own right, divine.  So is the other person.  When you keep the cycle going, enduring the damaging behaviors of abuse nobody win.  The violent acts permeate through everything like the air we breathe.  We take it in as our lifesource we breath it out for other people to absorb and the feelings of resentment and bitterness grow into every crack and crevice of our surroundings.  It’s true, its really all encompassing until somebody breaks the cycle.  How to do it?  Hmmm, not easy.  (to be continued!)