Jasmin Barmore: "There is light at the end of the tunnel." (Photo: Facebook)
Detroit Free Press reporter Jasmin Barmore opens up to readers, telling about the physical beating shortly after her marriage in 2009 that was the beginning of an abusive relationship.
At 21, two months after marrying her Redford High School sweetheart, the native Detroiter writes:
I was lying in a bed in the emergency room at Providence Hospital in Southfield because my then-husband had busted my head open. ...
The whole time that I lived with my ex — one year in total — I got abused. Some days it would be verbal abuse. On other days it would be physical abuse. It happened so much that I blocked out many of the incidents. I remember times when I was scared to come home after going out to eat with friends because he was in one of his moods.
I used to hold my head down when we were out together because if a man looked at me the wrong way, or said something as innocuous as, "Hi, sweetheart," I knew my husband might have a fit when we got home; a rage that could escalate into physical violence. ...
The year that I lived with him, even while I loved him, I was so scared of him. I learned him so well that I knew when an attack was about to happen.
She tells her story to help others.
I want every victim of domestic violence to know: You are not alone. And if you get out, I promise you, there is light at the end of the tunnel. And if you want it, a whole new life.
Barmore, who went to high school in Detroit's Miller Grove area, began her local journalism career at The Detroit News in June 2020 shortly after earning a master's degree in journalism at New York University. She joined the Freep this year as a community and neighborhoods reporter.
