ELIAZBETH CITY, N.C. — I could hear the yelling from downstairs. There was nothing unusual about it by then. I'd grown accustom to yelling in my house.
But it was the words I heard as I passed the bottom of the stairs that led to my mother's and stepfather's master bedroom.
"Let go of my throat, Arthur!"
As she said those words I could hear her gasping for air. I could hear her crying through her pleas.
"Let go of me!" she cried.
I turned and ran up the stairs. "Let go of her," I said as I pushed him back. He wouldn't let go of my mother's throat, so I punched him in the stomach. But an 11-year-old punching a grown man in the stomach, well, it just didn't faze him.
October is National Domestic Violence Month. And while one month to raise awareness of such a serious issue may not seem like enough, it shouldn't go unobserved.
And it won't, at least not by the people who offer shelter and assistance to the many women and children who suffer under the hand of an abuser.
It's a societal illness that while it directly affects the abused, also deeply traumatizes the children in those relationships.
For me, the affects of my mother's two years under the hand of her second husband are emblazoned on my mind. In the end, as a child, I was powerless to make it go away.
"I'll throw her down the stairs along with you if you don't go away," he said in a loud, and calculated voice.
I shrunk down the stairs, ashamed that I hadn't rescued my mother from a monster.
My stepfather was a highly respected Beverly Hills oncologist. He was a man of means with a reputation for being an aggressive physician who could be relied upon to make hard and serious decisions for his patients. No one, least of all my mother, would have thought that he was capable of the kind of violence that would see me thrown across a room, my head missing the window by inches, or pinning my mother down on the ground, strangling her.
It was dark in our house when more screams awoke me, along with my sister, one night. We ran to the living room and by the front door he had our mother pinned to the ground.
"If you call the police, I'll hurt her," he yelled at us. And we froze in our tracks, crying and feeling helpless. I had wanted to call the police, but knew he would make good on his threat.
Domestic violence is a living nightmare, both for the spouse who is being beaten and the children who stand by helpless. And while there is help for the more than 3 million women who are reported abused each year — estimates are difficult to pin down because so many incidents will go unreported — the cycle of violence in one household seems to be never ending.
"Women leave six to 10 times before they leave for good," according to Pat Youngblood, director of Albemarle Hopeline, a domestic violence shelter and advocacy organization. "The goal is for them to be safe and be empowered. And to know about resources available to help them have a nonviolent life. They have to decide whether that means going home or not going home."
The violence in my household went on for two years. No one, not the neighbors nor nearby family members, seemed to step in, at least not that I could tell. But I did have one ace up my sleeve, my grandmother. One summer, while staying with my grandparents in Little Rock, Ark., I told her about the abuse.
By the end of that summer, we were secretly moving from Los Angeles to Dallas, Texas under the guise that I was going to a boarding school there. My mother, my sister and I each packed a suitcase, secretly got on a plane and left.
My grandparents helped my mother find a job, buy a house and new car. We had successfully removed ourselves from the monstrous situation.
But not everyone is that fortunate. And while I've had my difficulties in life since then, I've been more fortunate than some, considering the statistics about children from households where domestic violence is prevalent.
"There's a lot of depression, anxiety," says a Hopeline victim advocate and counselor, Janet Nielsen of children who witness domestic violence. "School work declines. There is shame, guilt and suicidal tendency. A lot of different symptoms; there's social behavior like acting out aggressively or very passively."
For me, the solution was to slink away and hide whenever possible. In mornings, as I left for school, I would round the corner and head down the alley where a window to our garage was left unlocked. I would slide it open and hide inside, eventually being caught by either my mother or our housekeeper, Myrtle.
In the years to come, although not violent with my loved ones, I would find myself angry and found that I had to learn to break that cycle and relearn how to be a human being without the anger and the baggage that I carried from my childhood.
I am one of the lucky ones.
Domestic violence is passed on from one generation to the next. Nielson, who's been working with victims of domestic violence for years, says she is now beginning to see young women seek shelter who were once the child of an abused mother. Those young women are in abusive relationships perhaps because that's all they know.
But the cycle can be broken, says Youngblood.
"There are plenty of people who have broken the cycle," she says. "Those are the people who we hope will role model for others."
But breaking that cycle requires help. Whether you be a family member or a neighbor, if you see domestic violence happening you may be the only link to assistance the abused has at hand.
"You have a right as a citizen to get involved," says victim advocate Amy Barclift. "Offer a shoulder and a hand. It is our business as community members.
Youngblood says that at the very least, call the police and let them sort things out.
For my part, I was fortunate to have a family member I could trust, my grandmother. But it's important to understand that not all people have that person in their lives.
You can make a difference. You can help stop the beatings and the nightmares. You can help a new generation break the cycle of violence.
Robert Kelly-Goss writes for the Daily Advance in Elizabeth City, N.C. E-mail: rkelly-goss AT coxnc.com