When Safety Isn’t the End of the Story
Grief and the unseen aftermath of domestic violence
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.
10 million people in the US experience domestic violence every year. An estimated 1,500 people in the United States are killed by an intimate partner and another 2 million are injured annually.
I grew up inside a home shaped by that kind of violence. It leaves a mark that does not fade when the bruises do. It changes how you move through rooms, how you listen, how you love. It teaches your body to survive first and feel later.
This piece is for those who have left, those who are still trying, and those who never made it out. It is for the grief that lingers after survival, and for the courage that never stops quietly working in the background of an ordinary life.
We don’t always recognize grief when it shows up in the context of domestic violence. The obvious association is pain: physical, emotional, psychological. We know about fear. We know about trauma. But grief often goes unnamed. And yet it shows up again and again. In survivors. In families. In people who are still inside it. In those who couldn’t make it out. The grief attached to domestic violence is layered and complicated. It’s not just about mourning what was lost, but also about confronting the fact that something important was taken. Sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once. It’s about relationships that became unrecognizable. Versions of ourselves we no longer recognize. Lives that ended without anyone truly knowing what happened inside those walls.
If you are still in it, still enduring, still navigating, still calculating how to stay safe, there may be grief underneath the surface of your daily life. You may be grieving the freedom you used to have in your body. The way your shoulders dropped before they started holding tension. The voice you used before you started monitoring your tone. The space you once took up before you learned how to make yourself small. Even if you wouldn’t use the word grief, something inside you likely knows that loss has already occurred. Grief doesn’t only show up after the damage. It often begins during. It begins when you start disconnecting from yourself in order to cope. It begins when you realize your joy makes someone else angry. It begins when you stop believing that your needs matter. This kind of grief can be hard to explain to others. It’s not always obvious. It gets tangled up with shame, fear, dependency, silence. But it is grief all the same. And it deserves to be named.
Then there’s the grief that begins after you leave. It’s one thing to get out of a harmful situation. It’s another thing entirely to rebuild a life from the ruins of one that broke you down slowly over time. The grief here can feel disorienting. Because now you’re safe, but your body doesn’t feel safe. Now you’re free. But you’ve forgotten how to breathe. The grief might show up when you try to explain what happened, and the words feel too small. Or when you try to sleep, and your nervous system still expects footsteps in the hallway. Or when someone says, “You’re so strong,” and you wonder if they understand that survival isn’t strength, it’s endurance. People might expect you to be better now. But what you’re really feeling is flat, confused, angry, ashamed, hollow, tired. You may even miss them. Not the violence, but the moments between. The version of them that told you they loved you. The intimacy that once felt real, even if it was built on control. That grief is valid. You don’t have to explain it. You’re mourning a complicated relationship. You’re mourning the parts of yourself that were hurt. You’re mourning time you can’t get back. And you’re doing it without a guidebook, without a socially acceptable way to fall apart.
If this piece reaches you in the quiet, know that you are not alone. Bone & Bloom is a space for the sacred, strange, and deeply human. I write about grief, healing, and the things we carry. You can subscribe here to keep walking this path with me.
There’s also grief for those who stood on the outside. The friend who noticed the shifts, who saw the personality changes, the excuses, the distance. The sibling who suspected something but didn’t know how to ask. The coworker who overheard something and didn’t know what to do with it. There’s grief in watching someone you care about pull away. There’s grief in not being able to help. There’s grief in realizing your concern wasn’t enough to stop the harm. And sometimes, the grief takes the shape of absence. Because the person you loved is gone now. Because they didn’t survive. Because their name ended up in a report, in a news headline, in a statistic. And still, no one talks about them. Or when they do, the full truth is left out. The grief becomes private. You carry their story alone. That kind of grief can be isolating. You might wonder what more you could have done. You might replay old conversations, trying to find the moment you missed. You might hold guilt, even though it doesn’t belong to you. This, too, is grief. And it deserves space.
Domestic violence changes everyone it touches. It doesn’t always leave bruises. But it always leaves something behind. A body that doesn’t trust stillness. A heart that confuses love with walking on eggshells. A mind that interrupts itself before finishing a thought. A grief that has no neat category. That grief may live in ritual. In small acts of reclamation. Washing your hands slowly. Looking in the mirror and saying, You made it out. Lighting a candle for someone who didn’t. Writing your story down just to prove to yourself that it happened. There’s no timeline or checklist to get through. There’s no right way to mourn something that was never supposed to hurt you. But grief still finds a way to speak, even when no one else is listening.
This is the kind of grief that doesn’t get talked about enough. It’s not pretty. It’s not easily resolved. It’s often misunderstood. But it is real. And you are not alone in it. Grief doesn’t always show up in cemeteries or hospitals or broken hearts. Sometimes it lives in the bathroom, behind a locked door. Sometimes it lives in the way you freeze when someone raises their voice. Sometimes it lives in a voice memo you record but never send. If you are grieving, wherever you are in the story, you are allowed to name it. You are allowed to feel it. You are allowed to keep going, one breath, one ritual, one quiet moment at a time. Love today, Heather 🌸
If you are living in a dangerous situation, please reach out for help. You can reach the Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 or via text to 88788. You can also visit their website for help, just remember, for your protection to clear your search history after visiting any sites like this.