“My world was turned upside down, as you can imagine. You think you know somebody…”

“For the last year and a half I’ve been told I’m paranoid, I’m psycho, I’m nuts, my insecurities will kill me one day.”

No matter which way you cut it, Emma is brave.

She is sharing her story, potentially putting herself in danger by doing so, and sending a message of strength and empowerment  to anyone else out there suffering domestic abuse.

Most of the discussion on Reddit (click the comments below to explore those) was focused around her comment regarding a “man’s right to put his hands on a woman,” and whether this is sexist or not.

“No man has the right to put his hands on a woman. No man at all, no matter how big or how small.”

Here’s what I think:

This is a human being, a parent, someone with a full heart, and here this person sits with a black eye, given by the hand of another person.

All gender removed, this is still not okay. Jealousy, broken hearts, tempers—none of this justifies violence.

Our support here is what matters; our solidarity around homes being a safe haven, not a place of fear; our relentless fight for every human being to know that they are worthy of love—respectful love, love with healthy space, love without an angry fist.

Comments from Reddit:

>> Hi Emma, Your child looks so happy and so beautiful. Give him the future he deserves. Be strong. Your children deserve the best, You deserve the best. Good Luck. I hope you find the help and courage to get through this.

>> I don’t know what is more shocking, the sexist derogatory comments or the number of upvotes they have on the youtube page.

>> “I’m not thrilled with the phrasing. Long and short of it, people shouldn’t attack each other physically unless in self-defense. Always another way to deal with a situation, and people who are sadists and attack on a regular basis are pretty terrible, no matter the gender.

Those attacks can take different forms – physical, emotional, etc. Either way, once you give someone a chance to get better (if you decided to try that) and it doesn’t happen, you have to move on. This can be hard for women especially if they have very little means and rely on a man for their living.

In that sense, they likely suffer more but perhaps all the unseen pain brought upon men by women emotionally makes things roughly even. None of it is good!”

Relephant:

Sometimes we stay in abusive situations because we don’t love ourselves enough. Here’s a tip on how we can fall in love with ourselves: