COVID-19 and the silent killer in the house next door

One kick or one punch is all it takes for one person to murder another in the worst case, and yet thousands of spiritual murders are performed daily in the abuse pandemic within lockdowns everywhere amid COVID-19.

A Facebook friend shared with me an article profiling photographs of women who had been physically abused by their partners during the pandemic.  Of course, my mind leaps immediately to the fact that this is the tip of the iceberg.

How many women and partners are being verbally, emotionally, financially, and spiritually abused?  How many face gaslighting every day?  How many are deprived of food and other basic needs?  And how many grieve as they watch their children being abused before their eyes?  How many are controlled in a thousand different ways?  So, so many.  It is the unseen epidemic that has catastrophic consequences everywhere.  COVID-19 is not the only thing on an exponential curve.

Think about it from the abuser’s viewpoint.  They are pre-loaded with a cocktail of stress, because they are caged, because their work has been impacted, because supply of their particular needs has dried up, and because great change has stirred them up.

The volatility of these times means their capacity for volatility has been boosted like they’re on anabolic steroids.  The fact that women and children in the main, and I’m not discounting men from being within the abused here, are caged up with these animals at this time should cause society grave concern.

I know it causes grave concern in many healthcare professionals, in law-enforcement authorities, and counsellors of all kinds, and it’s presumed spiritual leaders get this too.

Sometimes it’s those who walk into our lives who we least suspect are those who propagate this violence. We must certainly bear in mind that some of the most dangerous offenders are also some of the most cunning that carrying off a tragically pathological disguise.  There must be hardly anything worse than a victim of violence living in silence.

It’s not just the home in the next suburb that is affected, just as reports on our news affect only the disaffected in some far-off part of our nation or city.  These occur in our neck of the woods.  The COVID-19 silent killer is occurring in the house next door, not just down the street half a mile away.  These are things that are happening in our midst.

And perhaps the biggest concern is not the overt attack that maims or kills a woman and her children — though these are shockingly horrific — and they do occur to our daughters and sisters and mothers and aunts and nieces — but it is those attacks that occur more routinely, where their spirits are killed little by little, day by day by myriad system of abuse within the household.  And when I say little by little, these are not little things.  They are torturous and they are heinous.  And worst of all there are no blue marks on the body or black eyes or signs of blood streaming down the face or of puncture wounds of broken skin.

The horror of humanity is bad enough in normal circumstances, but under the tyranny of isolation, those who are least safe in our societies, by the occurrence of bizarre familial circumstance, are being cooped up with those who are not designed to relate with others.

It is bad enough that there are visible signs of violence occurring, but please don’t look only for visible signs.  There are so many women and children who bear the marks of violence within wounds buried deep in the soul that won’t heal anywhere as easily or quickly as bruised flesh does.

When all of the COVID-19 is over, and we can hardly imagine what it will be like in the end, globally, I wonder what the overall effect will be like in terms of violence done in homes in our towns and cities in every country of the world.

Let’s stop imagining that this isn’t happening.  And let’s stop imagining that it’s happening elsewhere.  It’s happening right next door, potentially.  It’s in our lives.  And it may even be happening in our own home, so sad to think, as we read these words.  It may be a sister or brother reading this, angry and tearful, because she or he knows it’s his or her sister or brother.  Let’s not forget the fathers and grandfathers, mothers and grandmothers who know their kin are unsafe right now.  Let’s imagine the stress and fatigue they may constantly bear, and let us keep them in our prayers, as we ask God to prepare us to help in any way that we can.

Let us also consider the offender.  Perhaps in some situations they know they need help, but fear and shame prevent them from reaching out.  Let’s pray that they do reach out.  Pray that there might be opportunities to talk with one of these, to encourage them to be brave and be honest and to get help.  But don’t for a second believe that abusers think in ways at all to protect those they abuse.

And let us finally not forget the victims; those we hope will survive physical violence and those who may inevitably survive physically but may live to die spiritually.  Let us bear these on the hearts of our conscious awareness, so our eyes may see them from a socially distanced encounter at the supermarket.  Let us be prepared to lend our support, an ear to listen, with an attitude tuned to believe the stories they may tell us, if we ever earn their trust.  And let us be wise in these incredibly complex situations, so we may add value and not further complicate matters for them.

It is the most tragic of ironies that in this age of isolation, abusers, who are masters of isolation, will use isolation even more against their victims.

Photo by Gabriel Benois on Unsplash