““No one knows if love or violence came first.”

For her love of camping, she calls herself the “sleeping bag lady”.

Her mental grit and optimism kept her positive throughout the trials and tribulations of camping.

However, her life was full of other challenges, including the relentless physical abuse that she faced from her ex-boyfriend while studying alone in London. Facing this unexpected tribulation, the “sleeping bag lady” decided to grasp the nettle, call the police and seek punishment for her abuser as soon as possible, and move forward to a new life.

Like a tough soldier, she rose to the occasion like she did numerous times before while camping. Nevertheless, strength is a heavy burden; the result of accumulating scars heals over time.

The “sleeping bag lady” and her ex-boyfriend were school mates, and they quickly became well-acquainted. She never imagined that violence and emotional manipulation would find themselves in her peaceful life, cloaked in the illusion of love.

The first act of violence happened at a dinner. For being late by ten minutes, her ex-boyfriend became angry and dejected, ordering only his own food. He cancelled the concert tickets for both of them. She found his behavior irrational and decided to take the metro home. Her ex-boyfriend called her number continuously, begging her to turn back, and after much convincing, she relented.

After she returned, her ex-boyfriend claimed to be tired, and the couple returned to his apartment without going to the concert. While heading to his apartment, the “sleeping bag lady” asked her ex-boyfriend to stop engaging in illegal economic activities. He became exasperated and the two began an intense argument.In a fit of rage, he threw her down into the downstairs garden, and began to beat her, causing severe injuries to her mouth, hands, face, and even teeth.

ortunately, people around noticed his violent behavior and the “sleeping bag lady” took the chance to run to a friend’s home for the night.

What surprised the “sleeping bag lady” was her ex-boyfriend’s hypocritical and transient apology and guilt.

After leaving, she received 40 calls from her ex-boyfriend. He threatened that if she did not pick up his calls, he would end the relationship. He also unreasonably claimed that the two of them would share equal responsibility for the incident.

However, unexpected nightmares came one after another. She discovered that her ex-boyfriend’s abusive actions were incredibly frequent. Whenever a conflict arose between them, he would block her contact, follow her back to the apartment and pressure her to have sex with him under the pretext of “developing their relationship”, after which he would evade responsibility for his actions by cutting off communication with her and becoming detached. He would break items in her home and defame her on social media after she received an offer letter to college…

“He could never communicate his thoughts calmly to me. It was lies, all of it was lies.” The “sleeping bag lady” wanted to resolve this emotional and physical abuse by communicating with her ex-boyfriend, but he did not allow any such communication to take place, and even blocked her contact.

After finding out her plan to call the police on him, the ex-boyfriend threatened to kill himself. Empathetic, she consoled him, realizing only later that this was just a ploy to to avoid the involvement of the police.

In despair, the “sleeping bag lady” even became mired in self-doubt.

After facing her ex-boyfriend’s abuse and lies repeatedly, the “sleeping bag lady” finally decided to tell the police.

However, it had already been one month since the incident in the garden, and the video surveillance record had been cleared out. There was not enough evidence to indict her ex-boyfriend.

Thus, the “sleeping bag lady” turned to her school for help. However, her school’s departments abdicated the responsibility to another department. In addition to having no surveillance record, the department concerned about crime also failed to look deeper into her case. Thus, she never received psychological support or assistance of any kind from her school.

However hopeless her situation seemed, the “sleeping bag lady” stated: “My heart is big enough, and this incident has turned me into an even stronger person, an even stronger woman. I don’t need psychological support; I just need a straight-forward solution - to have my ex-boyfriend punished for his actions."

While the “sleeping bag lady” is pained by recounting her experiences of facing her ex-boyfriend’s abuse, this recounting brings clarity to her own understanding of what happened.

Increasingly, she is realizing that relationship violence is not permissible, and she no longer doubts whether she is part of the problem; she knows that all the guilt resides within the perpetrator of violence.

At the same time, she is combatting a trend in society to blame victims when relationship abuse takes place, recognizing that it is not the victim who should be faulted for the crimes of the abuser.

After asking for support from her school and the police, contacting numerous women’s support groups and legal-aid teams, and exposing her ex-boyfriend on social media, the “sleeping bag lady” felt that women’s rights organizations should be stronger. These organizations should act as shields to protect victims, as well as punish abusers for their actions.

She describes herself as someone who will proactively search for help and spend a lot of time and energy on contacting organizations. However, many women do not have the courage to speak up about the injustices committed against them. At the same time, due to the lack of organizational support for these women, their voices are drowned out.

To have victims not be able to speak their truths while abusers get away Scot-free would be the worst possible outcome.

The “sleeping bag lady” wants to tell women: “There is no need to wallow in sadness, rather, after facing violence from an intimate partner, you should begin to look forward and look for a solution. In this process, you should first clarify your goal, as well as what you want to achieve by the end of it."

She encourages girls to stand up and speak for themselves, contact resources, and eventually punish their abusers. It is possible that in the past, she was mired in self-doubt and fear, but she is brave and strong enough to light the path for other women to seek justice as well.

Hopefully, the organizations and institutions that exist to alleviate intimate partner violence are strong enough to help victims. Hopefully, victims willing to speak up will be heard, and their goal to seek justice will be fulfilled. And we will try our best to help victims of intimate partner violence, be it reporting on or speaking out on social media.

Hopefully, everyone's light can be seen, and if it is not bright enough, then the power in numbers can start a fire.

• Author: 赵萌
• Reviser: 马欣钰、董智、秦科
• Translator: Wiley Luan
• Proofreader: Weiyu Dai
• Images source: Unsplash