Not everyone has a place to call their home,
They’d cower in a corner, waiting for the blow,
They worry for their children, asking questions
No one wants to think about, like:
Should I take them in the night and run?
Or should I stay and take those painful blows?
I really hate watching the news and I do restrict how much I watch so as not to overwhelm meyself with all the bad news. Tonight I have been watching and there has been stories about domestic abuse and the struggles services have trying to handle the cost of living crisis.
It has reminded me that Christmas is not a time of joy for everyone. If you have a safe place to live, it is hard to imagine how terrible it must be for those who don’t have that luxury.
As a teacher, I notice that some students have awful behaviour in the lead up to school holidays and I sometimes put it down to tiredness or just being excited. But there are some who are acting up because they are frightened. They know that their holiday is going to be chaotic, and maybe even violent.
And if these services where people can go to escape that violence are struggling, it doesn’t even bear thinking about what the consequences may be.
I don’t know what the answer is, but it worries me when so many services (including our NHS) buckling under the pressures. Worrying times indeed…
Much Love
Rachel xx
Margot Kinberg
You make such good points here, Rachel. There are precious few options, if any, for people who live with domestic abuse. In some places, it’s hard to get any complaint take seriously. Even if it is taken seriously, there’s not always a network of support for people who need to leave. As you say, reduced funding doesn’t help at all. And COVID plus the holidays, when people are all together, have made things even harder. I don’t have a perfect solution, either, but I have to believe that if we keep it in people’s minds and in front of them, maybe something productive will be done.