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A Letter to My Daughter About Fighting Back

By on November 20, 2012
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Letter to STS Daughter 1

And while I sat in that empty train car, I remembered a Monday morning a few months before, how I’d reached for my “allowance” to buy a train ticket, and how it’d slipped from my fingers and fallen down down down through the sewer grate. I had fallen hard to my knees, and tore a nail as I tried to pry the grate loose. Because it didn’t matter to me that below flowed a river of piss and shit. All that mattered was that I had lost my $20.00 and I had to get it back.

Or else.

“This isn’t going to happen again,” I said a little louder. To myself alone.

And it didn’t happen again. Because something broke inside me then, and I only returned to that apartment with the big windows with a friend to pick up my things when I knew he was at work.

And it didn’t happen again because I finally opened my mouth and started telling people what had happened.

And it didn’t happen again because saying these words out loud made it real–and I could see with brutal clarity that it was up to me to not let it happen.

But all that time wasted. The low-grade panic, punctuated by bursts of random violence. All that time wasted being prodded along down a path by someone I trusted. All that time wasted, wasting away.

Don’t be like this.

Don’t be dependent on how others treat you. You are strong, and brave, and wonderful, and kind.

Stand up for yourself.

Fight back if you have to.

I learned all of this by living it. And I don’t want you to learn like this, because while I was lucky enough to walk away with my two legs and my body intact, we shouldn’t tempt fate.

I didn’t plan on telling you this. But I see how similar we are–I see your softness, your kindness. I see how you forgive so easily–too easily–when someone is mean to you.

It’s wonderful to be kind. It’s wonderful to be compassionate. But within reason, darling daughter. Within reason.

So, be badass. Be brave. If someone is mean to you, then good riddance. And don’t wait for them to walk away. YOU walk away.

And for the rest of your life–whether I’m around or not–it’s my job to protect you by teaching you how to protect yourself.

 

A note from Mara Yacobi, Jewrotica’s Certified Sexuality Educator:

Relationships run on a continuum from healthy, respectful and honest to unhealthy, coercive and abusive. Sometimes it can be hard to detect when you are in an “unhealthy” relationship because it falls somewhere in the middle of the continuum. The following information is intended to help clarify the qualities found in unhealthy relationships.  Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a term used to define any behavior that causes physical, sexual or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse. IPV can be committed by women and men in same-gender and opposite gender relationships. As you just read in the article A Letter to My Daughter About Fighting Back, IPV typically starts with emotional abuse and then progresses to physical or sexual assault.

IPV includes four types of behavior*:


Physical violence: When a person hurts or tries to hurt a partner by hitting, biting, kicking, punching or any other type of physical force


Sexual violence: Forcing a partner to take part in a sex act when the partner does not consent


Threats: This includes the use of words, gestures, weapons to communicate the intent to cause harm


Emotional Abuse: Threatening a partner or his or her possessions or loved ones, or harming a partner’s self-worth.


If you or someone you know needs help, contact NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE (800-799-7233) Open 24 hours a day, 365 days per year. The line is a resource for safety information and can connect callers with safety advocates.


*Center for Disease Control: Division of Violence Prevention 2012

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Social media guru of Jewrotica, Sarah Tuttle-Singer is a writer for the Times of Israel and Huffington Post. Sarah lives in Israel with her two children and is - in her own words - quite dangerous when bored.
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