By Emily Stonehouse

Please note that the following editorial contains depictions of domestic violence that some readers may find uncomfortable. If you are in a dangerous situation of domestic violence, contact 1-800-823-0599.

I lived in a house, once, that had a turquoise door.

It was a cute house. Yellow shingles and green shutters and that little turquoise door.

Despite the bright colours, it blended in with its surroundings. It was Newfoundland, after all. The province I moved to when I decided to go back to school, in an effort to one day become a teacher.

From the street, the house looked like any other house.

But what many did not know, and what I took years to share, was that behind that turquoise door, it was not a safe space. The police had entered. More than once. Calls of concern from neighbours, from passerby, from behind the turquoise door itself.

There was yelling, there were threats, there was violence. Some days were normal. Some days were terrifying. One day, I left.

Too scared to look back, I packed a single backpack one afternoon after I had scrounged enough money for a plane ticket. I left my keyboard, my red ukulele, my art deco poster that had travelled with me from apartment to apartment, reminding me to make art not war.

I ran away. I saw a glimpse of light that shone through the inky nights that offered a promise of tomorrow, and I took it. I had to. I look back now and realize that my very survival was dependent on taking that risk. That shot in the dark. That hope for tomorrow.

That was eight years ago this month. I bring this up annually, not as a pat on the back for myself, but as a reminder that we do not know what happens behind closed doors.

Last winter, the YWCA went to our own local county council, urging the issue that gender-based violence is an epidemic that runs rampant across the region. They made the conservative estimate that over 2,500 local women have, or are currently, experiencing intimate partner violence. That over 30 per cent of women over the age of 15 have experienced gender-based violence in their lives.

It’s real. It’s happening. Right in front of us.

But in rural centres in particular, we don’t see it. It happens behind closed doors. Doors on houses that hang wreaths, doors on homes with smoke curling from the chimney. Doors of our neighbours, doors of our friends.

And gender-based violence doesn’t target a specific demographic. Of course there are socioeconomic factors that play a part in statistics, but on a large scale, it can happen anywhere, to anyone.

I never thought I would be a statistic. No one ever does. But we can’t always control what happens behind closed doors.

What we can do is ask for help. Find the light where we can. Lean on support networks. Recognize that life is worth living. That there is a hope for tomorrow.

I will forever thank my friends, my family, and this very community, for welcoming me back with open arms when I felt I had fallen. I will never stop recognizing that I was one of the lucky ones.

Because we never know what happens behind closed doors, and as a community, it’s our job to make sure that when one door closes, another one opens.