If you are familiar with domestic violence, you know that its effect most often is to ruin your life.

I wish I hadn’t just written that.

Domestic violence is too often incremental, starting in a way that confuses, then escalating to a point where you are certain it’s time to leave.

Want some statistics? Here are a few:

— 1 in 10 high school students has experienced physical violence from a dating partner in the past year. This is incremental.

— 9.4% of high school students reported being hit, slapped, or physically hurt intentionally by their partner in the previous 12 months. Also incremental.

— Nearly 1 in 3 college women — 29% — say they’ve been in an abusive dating relationship. Ditto.

These numbers, posted by the National Domestic Violence Hotline, show only a tiny slice of the world in which our young people live.

As a woman who was once young, I identify with their battlefield. I want to see that change.

When I was their age, I was also confused. I mean, what exactly is domestic violence?

More than half of all college students — 57% — say it’s difficult to identify dating abuse.

Yet, there are signals:

— 1 in 5 college women has been verbally abused by a dating partner. Incremental.

— 1 in 6 college women — 16% — has been sexually abused in a dating relationship. Also incremental, but in a newly destructive way.

Fifty-eight percent of college students say they don’t know what to do to help someone who is a victim of dating abuse.

And 38% of college students say they don’t know how to get help for themselves if they experience dating abuse as a victim.

In Hamilton County, you can call DSAOC — that is, the Domestic and Sexual Assault Outreach Center. Here’s its toll free crisis line: 888-356-2006.

DSAOC is based in Fort Dodge; not only does it serve Webster County, but it serves Hamilton County and the surrounding counties of Greene, Boone, Story, Marshall, Tama, Grundy, Hardin, Butler, Franklin, Wright, Humboldt, Kossuth, Hancock, Cerro Gordo, Floyd, Mitchell, Worth and Winnebago.

Its crisis shelter, which accommodates women and children, is in Fort Dodge. Its Homicide and Other Violent Crimes office is based in Waterloo, but it serves the above-named counties.

What does DSAOC do?

In its own way, it saves lives. First by providing shelter to people leaving violent surroundings, but also by listening and teaching so that the people who seek help can see a way forward into a better future.

When I say domestic violence will ruin your life, I mean life as you’ve known it.

The challenge domestic violence presents to the victim is whether they can summon the will to trust that there is friendly light at the end of uncertain darkness.

And then find the courage to make a new life.

I was fairly young when I learned my early lessons in violence between people who are supposed to, at the very least, like each other.

It is the most extraordinary conundrum, the mixing of attraction and anger.

And, as much as it is a conundrum, it is also enduring.

Truthfully? Some of the pain never leaves you.

Survivors are three times as likely to meet the criteria for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. They are two times more likely to develop symptoms of depression and three times more likely to develop a major depressive order. They experience increased incidences of self-harm, anxiety disorders, substance abuse and suicide attempts.

It took me half my life to put the worst of it behind me.

You will notice I began this piece with statistics focusing on youth. They are the ones I hope never experience domestic violence because, in my experience, the best thing any of us can do is prevent it.

Jane Curtis is interim editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal. She is a 2024 Iowa Newspaper Association Master Columnist.