***TW: sexual assault and domestic violence***
The day the body of Gabby Petitio was discovered, nothing felt right.
I had been following the story since I had first caught wind of it about two weeks prior, and have been drowning myself in podcasts, news reels, body-cam police footage and TikTok explanations ever since. I wasn’t naive enough to believe that Gabby would return home alive, nor was I naive enough to think her boyfriend was innocent—but there remained a hoping, yearning feeling that for once (I mean, just once) she would be reunited with her family with air in her lungs and a beating heart.
As a quick run down, 22-year-old Gabby Petito had been exploring the United States in a travel van with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, before she was reported missing at the beginning of September after not returning home with Brian from said trip. Brian has refused to speak to law enforcement and is currently missing with no indication of his whereabouts, after allegedly being aided by his family. Gabby was last seen in Utah or Wyoming.
When the news broke that the FBI had located remains that were in-line with descriptions of the young traveler, I wasn’t shocked. The inevitable had occurred once again and I was just angry. I was on the sidelines witnessing another young woman’s livelihood ripped from her hands at an age where she was barely old enough to legally drink. I spent the entire day in a mundane funk, the world passing by around me as I was numbed by another woman to add to a grossly underestimated set of statistics involving domestic violence. I felt sick.
At the time, I couldn’t put a finger on my shifting mood, but now I understand I wasn’t on the sidelines of this sickening story and stories like it, nor have I been since I was 16 years old.
At the young age of 21, I am a survivor of domestic violence. For years I dealt with torment on behalf of my abuser that bled into threats to family and other loved ones, aggravated stalking and break-ins—you name it, it happened. I feared for my life on several occasions, and wished it would be over in others.
To speak out publicly as a survivor of domestic violence for the first time feels more earth-shattering than the discovery of gravity itself. But when incidents such as Gabby’s get swept under the rug with little regard, it feels as if silence is just as enabling as being, or equipping, an abuser. Without stories like mine, like Gabby’s, like the hundreds of other women beginning to find their voice as they realize their spot is not on the sidelines, those unaffected by domestic violence could not understand the reality of intimate partner violence.
To many people, if they can’t see the fire lit, they assume it’s not burning. It takes feeling the warmth of the fire in due time to face the reality that not everything that is true will be seen with the eye.
I’m just trying to make it warm in here.
To rehash my trauma or to recount the horror film I lived within for years of my life does no justice to Gabby, or to myself, who has worked years on healing in the healthiest ways applicable. To take light away from Gabby’s heart-wrenching story would deem this article invalid. So instead I will share statistics from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, statistics both I and Gabby, and probably many others you know, are a part of. These statistics serve to prove the terrifying actuality of what women all over the world experience and are begging their peers and lawmakers alike to acknowledge. Please understand that what I and young women have experienced extends past a number, but these numbers illuminate how far-reaching this epidemic of a problem has become.
- Intimate partner violence makes up 15% of all violent crimes.
- Women between 18-24 are most commonly abused.
- 1 in 7 women have been stalked by an intimate partner to the point where they felt as if either their or their family’s lives were in immediate danger.
- 1 in 4 women have been victims of severe physical violence in their lifetime (beatings, burning, strangulation, etc.).
20 people per MINUTE are physically abused in the United States.
In one year, that makes up 10,000,000 individuals, both male and female.
I despise that it takes social-media-trackable cases for information to be provided and accessible to all people. Nonetheless, the issue of domestic violence in a country so adequately equipped to educate youth about being an advocate, not an abuser, is startling and needs to be addressed.
The terrifying truth is that victims are your neighbors. Friends. Family. Classmates. Sorority Sisters. Coworkers. Even your worst enemies. Survivors of domestic violence are people like me, who may have not spoken publicly about it for five years, or ever. And that’s okay. Regardless of who they are, it is our duty now more than ever to listen, to stay vigilant and look out for one another. Believe your friends and provide them help in any way they feel comfortable accepting if they find themselves at the hand of an abuser.
The next time a story like Gabby’s comes across my timeline, I would like to be shocked and surprised. In a perfect world, I wish a story like Gabby’s would never come across my feed again.
Protect women. Hold men accountable. Believe survivors. Find America’s 300,000+ missing women and children, regardless if their stories are national news or not.
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Please visit https://ncadv.org if you or someone you know is in need of resources pertaining to intimate partner violence.