She’s not keeping silent about domestic violence
Marian Mims keeps the cremated remains of her daughter, Melissa, next to her husband, Mike, on the mantelpiece in her living room.
“I looked at the statistics for the year that Melissa passed. In North Carolina, 131 women were victims of domestic violence-related homicides. That same year in Texas, there were 136 domestic violence-related homicides. You don’t realize how frequently this type of abuse happens, to men as well as women. It’s not something that a lot of people want to talk about. If they do, they’ll say, ‘Why doesn’t she just leave?’ But they don’t understand that the person abusing them has control over them. They make them feel like they have no self-esteem, like they’re not worth anything and that nobody else will ever want them. And they’re afraid to leave. The worst time in a domestic violence situation is when the person tries to leave. Then it can escalate because the abuser feels like that person shouldn’t be allowed to leave them. It’s just sad.
“It could be happening to the poorest person or the richest person. You never know what’s going on behind people’s doors. But if you do know someone who’s in that situation, you should keep yourself safe while doing everything in your power to help that person. Just reach a hand out and try to help somebody. I’ve done that before when I’ve traveled. I’ll take cards from Break the Silence Against Domestic Violence and leave them in bathrooms and other places. I have a Facebook page called Justice for Melissa Platt, and I put those cards around so people will know there’s someone out there you can talk to.
“I don’t care if someone’s on drugs, if someone is drinking, or if someone has any other kinds of problems. They don’t deserve to be beaten by another person who supposedly loves them. There’s no reason you should ever put your hands on a woman, a man or a child, at all.”
— Marian Mims
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