I've been attacked, hit, thrown, beaten, tied up, emotionally abused and more so I can believe that a woman could finally snap and forget what happened during such moments of terror as Jodi Arias described on the witness stand. How a woman could cover for a guy when she knew he was a bad person is not a mystery to me either. So many of her comments in the story of the killing of her boyfriend Travis Alexander rings bells that are waking up a part of my past that I rarely revisit. I find it easy to follow along with what she described happened in her mind if she really believed the body it was attached to was about to be killed. The temporary survival mode that might kick in after taking just one too many physical abuses THIS TIME also seems plausible because my mind has been there too. Bits of her story sounded so familiar that she almost had me going for a minute there..... BUT ... it is the rest of her story that doesn't add up to explain certain preparations she made and the cover up she engaged in which makes me think there is good reason to remember that just because one part of her testimony may sound believable doesn't mean it is or that it represents a total picture of what happened that day.
I am writing about this because after hearing today's statements from Jodi, I am concerned about the defense of abused women who fight back to the death of their attackers in the future being possibly tarnished by this sensationalized case. In the discussion of this topic there are two kinds of people, those who have lived with knowledge of what it feels like to fight an abuser for your life if not for your very soul, and those who haven't. For those who have never experienced psychological, emotional and/or physical abuse it may be hard to understand how anyone would tolerate such bad and dangerous circumstances to end up in such a situation that could have played out possibly even the way Jodi described in the first place. I find it is impossible to explain mental slavery and how one day you will find your world in even the smile of your abuser and the next day you will fully believe that getting rid of him before he gets rid of you is likely your only hope to survive. But there are millions of women around the world of all ages who can relate to one or more similar events in their own lives or the life or a loved one at least to a degree. There are probably millions more abused women who are not still with us because either their abuser or the lifestyle they adopted to cope with them and their injuries has killed them already. This is no light topic. But it needs the light to stay on the reality of so many women if it turns out that Jodi Arias is lying.
Even with my experiences I realize that just because it could have happened the way she said after she made pictures of her boyfriend in the shower, doesn't mean that it did, and I hope justice will prevail and that the jury will add it all up correctly, not just the part of the story that is, unfortunately, believable. What I worry about is that the next woman who is telling the truth about the abuse that led to a fight ending in death will be suspected of telling lies to get off of premeditated first degree charges. Society doesn't like to admit these kind of dramatic events happen all over America and all over the world every single day and night. Some are so far removed from it that they can't even conceive of it not being at least in part the woman's fault just for "putting up with" her abuser for so long no matter what a man may have been guilty of against her in a heated moment.
This small article can't account for all of the many things that need to be exposed or discussed on the topic of the abuse of women and their need for self defense. Its purpose is simply this, to remind us all that liars concoct the most believable stories that they can imagine, and the self defense against an abuser position is completely believable because it is common and sympathy for this part of her story may cause the jury or the public to forget the rest of her explanations. That it is so believable is a stain on society and that the suffering is still passed on from generation to generation holds all women in jeopardy until something changes. The changes needed are more than any one group of people can ever affect but together if we try, we might some day reverse the statistics by instilling self confidence, self love and a good solid course of self defense in our daughters, sisters, mothers and ourselves.
This is just a reminder that a terrifying dangerous scenario described in a lie does not mean the next time we hear it that it might not be the truth. According to the Domestic Violence Studies site, "Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime."
There are links to articles about and resources dealing with abuse below:
DOMESTICVIOLENCESTATISTICS.ORG
