The murder of Dayna Fure has left many of us feeling helpless. How much more helpless must women who are victims of domestic violence or stalking feel now?
If a young, energetic woman who followed the rules and got a protection order to help herself can be killed, what hope is there for others?
Ultimately, all responsibility lies with the abuser. The fact is, they’re not taking responsibility for their actions and that leaves the victim with the task of changing her life in order to try to save it. One critical step women can take is to develop a safety plan, said Scott Santoro, the legal department manager with the Snohomish County Center for Battered Women.
“I really believe a lot of people think of a safety plan as an eight-page document,” Santoro said. “That’s actually not true at all.”
The purpose of a safety plan is to identify where you live your life – and that’s not something most of us do. But once you sit down with a sheet of notebook paper and a pen, it’s not difficult to figure it out.
Santoro suggests writing across the top of the paper all the places you plan to go that day (work, grocery store, church, restaurant, etc.). That includes your car. Down the left side of the paper write three categories: risk level, what you can do to increase your safety at each place, and people you can tell about the abuse and your situation. For example, if you’re assessing the risk level of going to the bank that day, you might ask yourself if your abuser’s name is on your account and if you need to change banks right away. You might look at shaking up the order in which you run errands – even making some drastic changes and leaving places you like visiting because your abuser might track you down there.
“What we tell victims is, this plan may only be good for one day. The next day it’s back to square one,” Santoro said.
Getting a protection order is a very important step. But victims must remember such orders aren’t bullet-proof or knife-proof. They can’t stop an attacker’s hands from wrapping around your neck or a fist from slamming into your face. Protection orders don’t mean police are watching your abuser 24 hours a day.
You are smart and you can figure out how to draft a safety plan every day and become more and more aware of your surroundings. Being a victim of domestic violence doesn’t mean keeping your head down; it means keeping your head up and knowing what’s going on around you every second of the day. It’s an act of confidence and control and you deserve both.
No, it’s not fair. You shouldn’t have to change your life and your schedule to accommodate him. After all, this is his fault. But this isn’t about fairness anymore. It’s about keeping yourself safe and alive.
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