Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: if the violent person is a caregiver

Even well before the last bad thing happened, I imagined myself every now and then in a sort of sliding door with my husband Stefano. Thus, through a sort of visionary madness. While in the evening, I am bent over the table with the gag and he is in front or rather on top, he feeds me. A nice spoonful of minestrone. Eeehi! What are you crazy about? Why are you doing so? Why did you throw minestrone in my face? Because I’m tired. Because I broke my…. What are you saying Stefano? In the morning. Are you coming to help me? I would say that this time you can also piss in bed. While he showers me. No, not like that, take it easy, take it easy… Oh, what’s happening to you? It’s my business. Help, I’m scared. I won’t ask him anything anymore but when do I need it? Stop crying Laura. Maybe the assistants can help you. But never mind, Laura! Stefano is so loving and caring, aren’t you taking it a little too much for an argument? Here she is, she’s crying: nothing, she’s no longer lucid, you have to understand, poor thing. I’m afraid, what mood will she be in today? Let’s hope that when I ask him for help he is in good health… Someone help me please… What if I dial that number 1522? And who gets to the phone and then who presses the button, with my fingers paralyzed and then, where do they send me? But Stefano loves me, it’s impossible for him to behave like this, maybe he’s tired of this routine, maybe he’ll go back to normal… I want to die. Somebody help me.

I deliberately used Stefano as a stand-in to imagine myself, to tell you how violence against women with disabilities can be subtle, devious and blackmailing. I deliberately used him, who you know well as a rational and loving man (I add here, with such an idiosyncrasy for violence towards the weak that he would be the first to make a sort of law of retaliation, but perhaps let’s avoid underlining this).

In the aftermath of the tragedy of Giulia Cecchettin violence against women has been talked about and continues to be talked about. I understand that it’s difficult and that you don’t reach the masses easily, but I was sorry to never hear the slightest mention of violence against women with disabilities in demonstrations, marches and talks. I understand the media mechanisms but I repeat that I was sorry. Nevertheless the phenomenon of violence against women with disabilities by their caregivers – be they husbands or partners, family members, assistants or operators – is extremely widespread. As I watched and rewatched the reports on Giulia I imagined what it could be like for me, for me who depends 24 hours a day on the hands of a third party, and I mostly stay at home without major communication channels with the outside, to suffer violence, whatever form it may be. takes on: beatings, neglect, abandonment, debasement and abuse.

I looked around and realized that this phenomenon is very little talked about, but it is well investigated by the relevant institutions and associations. For example Oscad, observatory for safety against discriminatory actsof which a good report from 2022 can be found. Aside from numbers and data, here we discover a widespread phenomenon which, unfortunately, is very difficult to intervene on: because the woman with disability is first and foremost subject to blackmail due to her very condition; for its vulnerability which becomes double (the so-called double discrimination); because she herself is the first to either not want to ask for external help, or not realize (this is a transversal mechanism in any case) or not be believed, precisely because of the same physical or even more psychic or cognitive condition. Violence is often accepted in a sort of Stockholm syndrome because it is impossible to have alternatives or different help. She’s sneaky. As and more than generally known situations, there is a thin boundary between the disorder or discomfort of the woman, and that experienced by the same partner, cohabitant, caregiver: because in these cases mental and psychological tiredness, loneliness and wear and tear risk compromising a psychological balance which first and foremost is that of the caregiver (editor’s note: I am not offering alibis or justifications).

It’s another story when the violence takes place outside the home and it is the operators or assistants who perpetrate it. The episode in the Sicilian province of a woman with a mental disability who was abused for a very long time by her operator remains well known in the news: it was never known until the woman became pregnant. Also on the association’s website Difference Woman there are interesting resources (so to speak). And the feeling you get, reading these reports, is of double impotence compared to the situation of violence without a disability. Of double violence and above all, on the part of the institutions, of the social services, ultimately of the police, of one extreme difficulty in bringing out cases. Then think about how many different disabilities – physical, cognitive, psychiatric – condemn women to double imprisonment. You can consciously decide not to say anything to survive in everyday life (think of those who experience total non-self-sufficiency like me), because you are not believed, you are unable to react or regain lucidity to be able to let a voice come out of your body. A transversal and hidden drama, a double lace, a cage with a double lock that adds cruelty to cruelty. Between being sent to a facility where they don’t know how to assist you or manage you or maneuver you, and having to endure some insults or slaps, are you really sure that in my place or the many women with disabilities you would choose the first option?

Here it is, violence against women with disabilities (against all people and minors but here I want to focus on women). So: why, even if we are a minority and in the media ‘it’s okay’ for us to stay between the lines, no mention today as in other news cases?

More stories by Vanity Fair that may interest you:

– Stefano and multiple sclerosis: my appeal to Giorgia Meloni

• I Stefano and multiple scelrosis, a parenthesis of beauty
• I Stefano and multiple sclerosis: a signature for us and for you

– Stefano and multiple sclerosis: time for fresh air

–Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: we are also something else

-Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: violated intimacy

-Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: the contagion

-Me, Stefano and multiple sclerosis: it was like feeling free…