No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us

by Rachel Louise Snyder

A large TV dominated the room, playing cartoons. The two younger kids were glassy-eyed with exhaustion. They displayed no emotion at all. No fear, no joy, no curiosity, no surprise. The teenager was combative with the officers, and I wondered what it all looked like from her point of view, six large men standing in her living room, looming over her as she sat on the couch. One or two walked down the hall, shined a flashlight into chaotic rooms. She wasn’t forthcoming with any information, and I thought of the negotiation class. It’s not an interrogation; it’s an interview. None of these officers seemed able to step back and read the room for a minute, to crouch down to her level, to offer her just a simple comforting phrase, to ask, for example, how they could help. Was there someone she could call? Did she need food? Instead, they towered over her collectively with their bulletproof vests and their guns and their gear and their hissing radios. They were leaving her in this disastrous house where a grown man who abused them would return, probably in a matter of hours, and a grown woman who may have been equally abusive but was at least a sometime protective presence may or may not return. It was shocking to me in a sense. None of these officers was anything but polite. They knew the law. But they were also absolutely ill-equipped to act or think in any way that suggested they recognized the psychological complications at play, the implications of what they looked like from...

A large TV dominated the room, playing cartoons. The two younger kids were glassy-eyed with exhaustion. They displayed no emotion at all. No fear, no joy, no curiosity, no surprise. The teenager was combative with the officers, and I wondered what it all looked like from her point of view, six large men standing in her living room, looming over her as she sat on the couch. One or two walked down the hall, shined a flashlight into chaotic rooms. She wasn’t forthcoming with any information, and I thought of the negotiation class. It’s not an interrogation; it’s an interview. None of these officers seemed able to step back and read the room for a minute, to crouch down to her level, to offer her just a simple comforting phrase, to ask, for example, how they could help. Was there someone she could call? Did she need food? Instead, they towered over her collectively with their bulletproof vests and their guns and their gear and their hissing radios. They were leaving her in this disastrous house where a grown man who abused them would return, probably in a matter of hours, and a grown woman who may have been equally abusive but was at least a sometime protective presence may or may not return. It was shocking to me in a sense. None of these officers was anything but polite. They knew the law. But they were also absolutely ill-equipped to act or think in any way that suggested they recognized the psychological complications at play, the implications of what they looked like from a child’s view. This was trauma happening in real time. They weren’t interested in either the messiness of human emotion or any future fallout from this moment. At the same time, their jobs had prepared them only for right and wrong, criminal and civilian. Snyder, Rachel Louise. No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us (p. 191). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.