There is a moment many survivors of domestic violence know intimately — the moment you realize the person hurting you is not going to change. Not because you stopped loving them. Not because you suddenly became stronger. But because the fear finally becomes impossible to explain away.
For me, domestic violence was not a headline. It was my life. Like many survivors, I spent years questioning myself, minimizing what was happening, making excuses, and convincing myself things would get better. I carried shame that never belonged to me. That is what abuse does.
People often imagine domestic violence as bruises and broken bones. But often it begins long before with isolation, manipulation, humiliation, and control. It teaches you to walk on eggshells. To shrink yourself in order to avoid conflict. Over time, you stop recognizing yourself.
Leaving is not simply a decision. It is a process that can take months or years. One that is often made harder by financial insecurity, housing costs, fear, trauma, children, and the very real risk of violence escalating. For many women, a shelter is not just a building. It is the difference between staying and escaping.
That is why I was deeply troubled to learn that women’s shelters across Alberta are warning of funding reductions and uncertainty. When demand for services remains high and affordability pressures mount, this is precisely the wrong moment to weaken the safety net survivors depend on.
I know what it means to need help. I also know how difficult it can be to ask for it.
When governments talk about shelter funding, it can sound abstract. But behind every funding decision is a woman trying to decide whether tonight is the night she leaves. Behind every cut is someone answering fewer crisis calls. Someone turning away families because there is no room. Someone working another shift while exhausted because there are not enough staff. Behind every shelter bed is a human trying to survive.
Domestic violence does not exist in isolation. It intersects with housing affordability, mental health, addiction, poverty, child care, and economic insecurity. Every barrier that makes life harder also makes it harder for someone to leave abuse.
And yet survivors are constantly asked to prove they deserve support. We ask why they stayed, why they went back. Rarely do we ask why our systems continue to make escaping violence so difficult.
Domestic violence remains one of the most pervasive forms of violence. It affects women in every community, every income bracket, profession, and political affiliation. Survivors are not someone else’s daughters, sisters, mothers, co-workers, or friends. They are ours. I am one of them. I survived domestic violence. Many others did not.
Conversations about women’s shelters are not merely discussions about spending priorities. They are about whether vulnerable people will have somewhere safe to go when they need it most. No survivor should have to wonder whether a shelter bed will exist when they finally find the courage to leave. No child should be forced to remain in a violent home because there is nowhere else to go.
