I Read This Week’s Domestic Violence Headlines. Here’s What I Can’t Stop Thinking About.

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, so maybe I should not have been surprised to see domestic violence everywhere in the news this week.

But I was.

Not because the stories were especially shocking. That is actually what bothered me most.

They felt familiar.

One headline was about Denise Brown, the sister of Nicole Brown Simpson, speaking again about domestic violence more than three decades after losing her sister. Another reported that at least 31 people in Minnesota were known victims of intimate relationship homicide in 2025. A new University of Florida study looked at something we still don't talk about enough: the possible brain injuries that can accompany intimate partner violence.

Different stories. Different people. Different states.

But I kept thinking the same thing:

How much suffering happens before the rest of us finally see it?

Domestic violence is rarely one terrible night that suddenly appears out of nowhere. From the outside, people often look for the obvious proof. A police report. An arrest. A visible injury. A neighbor calling 911.

But anyone who has lived close enough to this issue understands that the story often begins long before that.

It can begin with fear.

Control.

Being told who you can see, what you can spend, where you can go, or why everything that goes wrong is somehow your fault.

It can be the strange skill of learning someone's mood the second they walk through the door.

And eventually, things that should never feel normal can start to feel normal.

That is why the new University of Florida research caught my attention.

Researchers studied 125 military spouses who had experienced intimate partner violence and found that those reporting IPV-related head trauma also reported higher levels of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress.

What struck me was not only the medical finding.

It was the idea of an injury people may be carrying while nobody around them realizes it is there.

We still have a habit of asking survivors, “Why didn't you leave?”

Maybe we need to ask a different question:

What happened to you while you were trying to survive?

Then there was the Minnesota report.

Thirty-one known lives lost to intimate relationship homicide in one state in one year.

It is easy to read a number like that and keep scrolling.

But 31 is not really a number.

It is 31 empty chairs.

Thirty-one families receiving a phone call they will remember forever.

Thirty-one stories that reached the point where they became statistics.

And we should also remember the people whose experiences never make a headline.

The woman who goes to work the next morning and tells everyone she is tired.

The friend who slowly disappears from the group chat.

The mother who keeps saying everything is fine because explaining the truth feels harder than pretending.

The person who is not ready to leave yet.

That last one matters.

People sometimes imagine leaving an abusive relationship as a simple decision: you realize something is wrong, pack a bag, close the door and start over.

Real life is rarely that clean.

There can be children, money, housing, threats, immigration concerns, pets, shame, isolation and the very real question of where you are supposed to go tomorrow morning.

Sometimes a person needs help long before she is ready to say the words, “I need help.”

This week Denise Brown spoke publicly again about her sister Nicole and about her continuing mission to bring attention to domestic violence.

Thirty-two years later.

Think about that.

A violent relationship does not affect only two people. Its consequences can travel through children, parents, sisters, friends and entire families for decades.

That may be the biggest message I took from this week's news.

Domestic violence is not a “private family matter.”

It never was.

The National Network to End Domestic Violence is using #Every1KnowsSome1 for Domestic Violence Awareness Month this year.

The phrase is painfully accurate.

Almost everyone knows someone.

Sometimes we know their story.

Sometimes we don't.

So this October, instead of simply wearing purple and posting an awareness graphic, maybe we can do something harder.

Believe people sooner.

Listen without immediately asking why they stayed.

Stop treating controlling behavior as romantic.

Pay attention when someone we love starts becoming isolated.

And make sure the person who finally says, “Something is wrong,” does not regret telling us.

Because after reading this week's headlines, one thought stays with me:

We spend far too much time asking why victims didn't leave sooner.

Maybe we should spend more time asking why abuse was allowed to continue for so long before anyone helped them leave safely.

Domestic violence survives in silence. So does shame. Breaking that silence may be one of the most important things any of us can do.

If you or someone you know needs help in the United States, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), by text at START to 88788, or through TheHotline.org.

#DomesticViolenceAwarenessMonth #DomesticViolence #DVAM #Every1KnowsSome1 #Survivors #EndDomesticViolence