Carolyn McCurdie
(Read the first part of Carolyn McCurdie’s reflections on this topic here.)
There are many, many victim-blaming questions that are asked. Most of them arise from cultural assumptions and I’m as much a product of this culture as anyone. There’s no blaming that anyone could do that I haven’t done to myself. One that caused me years of soul-searching is: but didn’t you see the signs? Surely you should have known.
Yes and no. With hindsight and maturity I can see that he was extremely narcissistic. Everything was about him. I didn’t recognise that. He was a heavy drinker. Every young man I knew was a heavy drinker. I wasn’t alert for trouble. I didn’t know I should be. There was no violence at all. This didn’t begin until about a year into the relationship. By that time I was committed.
So why didn’t I leave? Such a common question, and one much easier to answer.
At a time when communities are being fragmented, human relationships increasingly commodified and people alienated from the political system, signs of resistance are springing up, often in unexpected places. In Dunedin, and particularly in North East Valley, close to where I live, community gardens and self-help groups are burgeoning.
On Thursday 5 April, New Zealanders will be encouraged to think about, talk about, and plan for their future and end-of-life care. 
I told myself it wasn’t so bad. After he’d knocked me down, he never kicked me. He never broke bones, never did anything that needed medical attention. In eight years, he forgot discretion only twice. Then I had the black eyes, fat lip, swollen, discoloured face that the world could see. I hid inside, rang in sick, made carefree jokes about walking into cupboard doors.
Who says teenagers don’t talk? I can assure you that they do, at least when you seat them on a sofa across from an interested and patient interviewer who hangs on their every word. They talk – oh yes, they talk. In our research on teens’ life stories, we have some 50-page transcripts of teens talking about their lives.