Cell 2 Soul: The Humane Health Care Blog

Giving You Drugs Won't Help Your Husband

“Are you not giving me any medicine?” her patient asked?

Ms. Shahab was silent for a moment, and then said with a sympathetic gaze, “Medicine for you will not cure your abusive husband.”

"The therapist was born in the isolated Afghan village she still lives in, in 1987 or 1988 — she is not sure. Her father was shot and killed at his mosque shortly before she was born. The reasons for the killing remain unclear, but it shattered their family and forever changed life for Ms. Shahab and her two siblings.

Ms. Shahab and Client (NY Times)

"A marriage was arranged to a man almost 20 years her senior when she was only 13. But the marriage did not stop her from completing her education. She took two of her youngest children with her to school, placing them at the kindergarten as she attended classes."

She is now a therapist in the village, caring for women battered by family and war.

This is an inspiring article:  Afghan Therapist Finds Empathy is Good Medicine.

 

A Letter to Janay Rice from Jane Seskin

Dear Janay,

If you were sitting with me in my office, this is what I’d tell you.

I’m sorry you were beaten. How scary it must have been to see the video.  To have this one, incredibly brutal moment in your life on display, over and over again.  To relive an experience months old, as if it were yesterday, when you might have been working to put your life back together. To move forward.  Please know you did nothing wrong.  Ray did.  With all this publicity, give yourself some time alone.  Find a safe place for yourself.  One you can go to when you need some quiet.  See supportive women friends.  Talk to someone who knows the dynamics of intimate partner violence on a regular basis.   You’re in this relationship for your own reasons.  Try to figure them out.  Get a handle on self-care.  Treat your body with respect.  Discover your passions.  Learn what brings you comfort.  Surround yourself with people who nourish, not deplete. 

For full letter: Download Janay Seskin

Jane Seskin is a clinical social worker and the author of Witness To Resilience: Stories Of Intimate Violence.

Witness to Resilience - Jane Seskin

Jane Seskin is a clinical social worker and writer whose poetry has appeared in journals, newspapers, and magazines..  Her book, Witness to Resilience, consists of moving, poignant, vivid poems about violence towards women. They touch our hearts and sear our souls.  The first poem in this book is “Home.”

I never thought
of the kitchen as a battlefield
with hot foods,
dishes, pots, and silverware used as weapons.

I never imagined
a broken mirror could scar flesh,
a bedroom pillow could smother a breath,
a curtain rod could gouge out an eye.

I never realized
the handy tool chest
could be
so lethal;

roach spray could blind,
hammers could break fingers
and screwdrivers could puncture arms, legs, breasts.

I never thought,
imagined,
or realized,

but now I do, since I started listening
to women

talk
about
the violence.

*****

William Carlos Williams wrote:

                                          It is difficult

 to get the news from poems

             yet men die miserably every day

                                                  for lack

of what is found there.

In Jane Seskin’s poems, the voices of the abused women she sat with, are a cry, a seminar, from the heart.

For more information see: Domestic Violence Facts