Love can make a person do crazy things. Someone that is in love can easily be manipulated and fooled. Love is so innocent that one can easily lose an eye and become blind. A person can believe that they’re helping someone when they really are causing nothing but pain. A lover can tell a person in love that the sky is green. At first the person in love may say to them,

“What are you talking about? I know the sky is blue.”

However if the lover is constantly reiterating the concept of the sky being green, it can change and even distort the mental idea of the sky in the loved ones mind.

For example, constantly hearing “the sky is green! The sky is green! The sky is green!”

Overtime may make a person second-guess him or herself and take a double look. The constant idea placed within one’s mind can literally make a person disbelieve his or her own eyes.

“Could they be right and could I be wrong?”

“Am I crazy?”

“You know the sky does look a little green.”

“Oh it’s been green the whole time, how silly am I?”

In that moment they have gotten you. They have made you believe in their lie. You are now their fool. They have gotten you wrapped around their finger. They have trick your mind into believing what they want you to believe. They know the power they have over you. They have preyed on your insecure thoughts. Maliciously manipulated you into seeing what they choose for you to see. Many people who claimed to love a person hold this power.

Is love blind or did the lover put blindfolds on them? Although love is a beautiful thing it allows us to be weak and vulnerable.

Pain can also make people do crazy things. Pain can cause someone to use violence. Pain can muffle a person’s voice. Sometimes pain can make people do things they are not proud of. Sometimes fear festers into a mind-numbing creation due to pain. Some people can become heavily wrapped up in fear. Feeling as if they are screaming at the top of their lungs yet no one can hear. Looking around for help but help is nowhere to be found. Victimizing them making themselves feeling small and powerless. Believing lies because they have become too weak to take a stand.

Domestic violence can create those feelings within the victim. Mercy College would like for their students to never feel this way. Constantly fighting to bring awareness. Teaming up with different organizations to stop victimizing students. Most recently Victims Assistance Services teamed up with Mercy to create an event to bring awareness about domestic violence and sexual assault. This organization works with survivors of rape, sexual assault and abuse. Unfortunately one in three girls and one in six boys are sexually assaulted before the age of eighteen.

Victims Assistance Services works with any innocent victim of a crime. Letting students and people in general know that there are still people who care. They are here to help, allowing people to have a safe space to come to. They promise to give people confidentiality and find warning triggers to help victims and survivors.

“Every nine seconds a woman is beaten,” announced Ariana Cember, a representative for Victims Assistance Services for awareness and prevention.

Domestic violence can be:

• Psychological
• Sexual
• Verbal
• Privilege (Male, Race, Gender use it against victim)
• Financial
• Exploitation
• Emotional

They can use tactics like:

• Alienation
• Isolation
• Minimizing (What the did wasn’t that bad.)
• Denying
• Blaming
• Intimidation
• Threats

Cember shined a light on awareness that domestic violence is not biased to heterosexual couples but also in the LGBT community. There have been reports that 43.8 percent of domestic violence is lesbian relationships, 61.1 percent is in female bisexual relationships, 26 percent is in gay relationships and 37.3 percent is in male bisexual relationships.

There are a whopping 20,000 calls a day reporting domestic violence. Every minute 20 people are victims of domestic violence. That’s 1,200 victims in an hour. A shocking 58 percent of females that are 16 years and older are killed by an intimate partner and 3 percent of males are killed by an intimate partner.

Domestic violence typically happens in a cycle of abuse.

1. Honeymoon Phase – Partner is usually overly attentive and possessive.
2. Tension Building Phase – Partner shows signs of built up aggression, outburst and victim maybe trying to do things to stay on their good side.
3. Explosive Phase – Partner uses violent acts, Physical and mental abuse.
4. Reconciliation – Partner may say things like “No one will ever love you as much as I will. No one will put up with you like I do.”

The cycle then repeats itself.

It is very easy to just say, “Why don’t they just leave him or her already?” But there can be many reasons for why someone would not just get up and leave. A person can hold out hope that their partner can change.  They may fear for their lives. There are many have children or pets involved.

There are a handful of reasons to stay, but being physically or mentally abused is the strongest reason to leave. Those people are not stupid or foolish. It often takes people 7 attacks for them to walk away for good. Unfortunately for some they died before they gather the courage to leave. It is never too late to leave. No one should manipulate you or make you feel bad for wanting to leave them. You live your life for yourself and you make your own choices.

Many times if it happened once it can happen again. If one sees red flags of abuse or manipulation, it is important to walk away from the relationship as early as one can. Demonstrate courage and strength.

As Emma Murphy did on social media, publicly announce the situation. When doing this, you have an anchor to keep you groundedwith a firm stand on the situation. Returning to that relationship would result in public backlash.

Victims Assistance Services believe in bystander intervention. Using the 4 D’s to help.

• Direct
• Distract
• Delegate
• Delay

Using the 4 D’s as away to prevent sexual assault. If you see something that is not right, stand up and speak or act.

Ana Gonzalez, Mercy College’s Equity Compliance Specialist, want to remind students to speak out about sexual injustice.

“My door is always open for students,” said Gonzalez. “I encourage students to use their voice. Less than 50 percent of victims report these crimes and it is my job to seek out student justice. You can always find me in the health center or email [email protected] and call (914) 674-7679.”

Gonzalez stated that one in three women worldwide experience some form of sexual violence or intimate partner violence as well as one in six men experience sexual violence.

You can also get in contact with Victims Assistance Services by calling (914) 345-3113 or the 27/7 rape crisis hotline (914) 345-911, toll free line 1-855-VAS-CALL or you can email Cember directly at [email protected].

The worst feeling can be not having someone to talk to when going through a hard time in life. But you are not alone. If there is breath in your lugs there is still away out and a chance for rebirth. Each struggle structured your frame of thought today and made you who you are. It is never too late to speak out it might just help somebody else going through a similar situation. Remember that someone who truly loves you would never want to hurt you. A lover’s quarrel should be just that and not take a hold of your life.

Use your voice because your voice matters, you matter!