Why We’re Here

Because, on my last day, I only had one bruise. But over the years, I was battered. Shredded to tiny bits. Shaky. Nervous. Unsure. Scared. Fed up. Drained. Uninspired. Loyal. Defeated.

Because no one sees most of it — by design. Because you have to keep going, you almost don’t have a choice. Because the system is set up to respond to physical violence alone, and even then, it’s designed to protect the “presumed innocent” instead of the actual innocent. 

Because when you’re in it, you know others have it worse, so yours isn’t that bad. Even though it’s bad. Even though you’d never let your child or your friend live through something exactly the same. Even though you deserve better. Even though you’ve lost yourself, your compass, your ability to think clearly for the sake of someone else.

Because abuse is gray. 

It is not binary. It is not one thing or another. It is many things in many colors in every temperature. It is not one haphazard ingredient.

Abuse is a calculated recipe. 

For Your Record is here because abuse is all of that, which is sadly only some of it. And because abuse continues after someone leaves, which is not something everyone considers. 

But, it’s better than being in it, every day. 

For Your Record was born from a survivor’s frustration and heartbreak and anger and empathy. It was born from a mother who endured years of emotional and eventually physical abuse. It was born from someone who still navigates post-separation abuse, who still hits emotional potholes, who has grown immensely and who understood the knowledge she has earned through her unimaginable turmoil has to be useful to others.

It was born with the understanding that domestic abuse and intimate partner violence is deep, widely misunderstood, dangerous and not fixable.

It’s not. It will forever be a societal problem. It will, because as a species, these behaviors and personality disorders are baked in. Trying to undo layers and layers of learned behaviors is an exercise in futility.

But, providing support to survivors in a way that hasn’t existed to this point? That gives people traction. Recognizing all forms of abuse — emotional, sexual, physical, mental, financial, spiritual — as abuse allows survivors to better understand where they are.

Where are they? They are surviving abuse. 

It’s here to say, without question, that emotional abuse is a form of domestic violence. It is emotional violence. Some people may need to read those statements again. And let them simmer. 

Remember, abuse is a calculated recipe. It is doled out with intention, in whatever form it arrives. All of it is designed to isolate a survivor, to keep someone right where they are, to feed the needs of malfunctioning personalities, to control. 

Abuse is designed to make a survivor believe they are no longer able to steer their own ship. For Your Record reminds them they can. 

I did. She did. So did she. Our board, which includes a number of survivors, did in all the ways we needed to. We are survivors. Which means we were once in it, in the gray, in the deep, in the chaos.

And we’re here to guide others out, by offering empathetic advocacy, financial grants for filing fees and public records fees, and muscle.

Why muscle? Because they atrophy if you haven’t used them in a while. And in abusive situations, the muscles one uses for self preservation shift. We’re part of the rebuilding process, which includes reminders of the strength you’ve built while surviving. It’s a vitally important reminder that is often brushed aside or never acknowledged at all.

Abuse is gray. It’s a long story. It’s a complex recipe. And we get it. That’s why we’re here.