Domestic Violence: Life After Escape

This is an attempt to turn my personal lemons in to communal lemonade. It is a collection of information that I learned the hard way, often months and sometimes years after it could have helped me. I feel that my experience though it scarred me gives me an opportunity to touch the lives of others by sharing what I have learned and hopefully helping people avoid or at least minimize the hardships that I went through. This article is devoted to life after escape from an abusive situation. There is a wide variety of material concerning escape plans that take into account all of the steps a victim of abuse needs to take to safely escape the situation.

While escape plans are crucial due to the amount of material already present I chose to focus this article on life after escape because there is a lot less material available concerning it. Victims of domestic violence face a wide variety of issues after escaping an abusive situation ranging from economic, security, mental health, medical, and legal challenges. Unfortunately most victims are unprepared for the predicament that they are in which can give their former partner the upper hand in the battle. I refer to it as a battle because victims of domestic violence, especially ones that are attempting to or have ended the relationship, are indeed at war. I hope this article will help victims prepare to move on and I also hope that it will help inform the general public about what victims of domestic violence are up against when they leave an abusive partner. For the purposes of this article I will refer to victims of domestic violence as she or her. This is to avoid unduly lengthening the article by always writing he/she, and is not meant to detract from the number of males that are victims of domestic violence.

Once the victim has completed intake at a shelter or has arrived at a safe place she should first take a moment to relish her newfound freedom. But only a moment because when a woman leaves her abuser he will often do anything to force her to return. So in addition to lying low she must begin seeking help from every agency that will offer it and must do so immediately.