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Writer's picturematt smith

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month — The story behind a song.

(EDITOR'S NOTE — National Domestic Violence Hotline — 800-799-7233 — Hours: 24/7

This month is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, an issue on which our song 'Benny Says Her Peace' focuses.


The song is about a woman — a friend of ours — who for many years was a victim of brutal and unrelenting domestic violence at the hands of her sadistic husband. The toll it took on her was extensive. Even after finally escaping the years of physical abuse, her life remained derailed for nearly a decade due to PTSD, and ongoing death threats from her ex-husband from whom she remained in hiding.


In April, Joe had sent me a piece of acoustic music with which I was wrestling. I couldn't make anything work, struggled to find a melody and eventually became saddled by writer's block.


After weeks of trying and failing to come up with lyrics, I was sitting in a cafe downtown, again listening to what my brother had sent me. Nothing was happening. And then I get a text from our friend. She was "done" she said. She was putting her life back together. She took herself off the laundry list of psychotropic drugs on which she was put. She was giving a big fuck you to those who continued to keep her down. She was stepping out again, back into the world.


There was something about her series of texts — her words, her bravery, her experience, her decision to break free. Her courage ignited inspiration. Suddenly, the words — her words really — started flowing. Verses, chorus, spoken word elements poured out onto the page.

I often think of the horror she went through and the years and years of nightmares she endured, the repeated threats on her life she continued to receive long after she escaped, how 20 years of her life had been held hostage by sheer terror. PTSD is paralyzing. It robs you of your life. Her life had been ransacked by a monster, and her brain was left haunted by a violent ghost who continued to hold her hostage for nearly two decades.


I couldn't begin to imagine. But far far too many women can...










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