Warning: This article details a case of domestic violence.
When Caroline Way saw the horrific injuries her ex-boyfriend had just inflicted, she began to laugh – a reaction that may have just saved her life.
Her former partner Deke Orriss was dragging her to the bedroom, threatening to kill her when she caught sight of her face in a mirror. He had beaten her so badly the 41-year-old UK woman didn’t recognise herself.
“It was that reaction that made him switch back and he started crying,” she said.
Three years on, and Caroline is sharing the photographs she took every day of her healing face on Facebook in the hopes that her story will inspire other women to seek help.
The attack had left the woman from Axbridge, Somerset with a broken jaw, cracked eye socket, two black eyes and blurred vision.
Caroline said she had found taking the series of selfies, which show her bruises deepen to a dark purple then fade, therapeutic as she watched herself heal.
"Ok, so this isn't going to be a comfortable thing for people to see,' she wrote in a Facebook post accompanied by four photos of her bruised face.
"But I'm posting this after three years as I don't want any girls to have to have their faces rebuilt and their whole lives dictated by abuse.
"I'm trying really hard not to let my past dictate my future, but it sometimes feels like it does.
Top Comments
I hope the little homily from Rosie Batty that came up at the side of this story is reaching the aboriginal women who suffer extreme domestic violence in the northern part of the country.
I also hope it reaches the actual perpetrators of domestic violence, but I doubt it. These men would be immune to such advice, while all the men who do hear the message would not dream of using violence towards their partners; but unfortunately they are all lumped together in this witch hunt which attacks the good as well as the evil.
Men in this country are in a lose/lose situation.
18 month suspended sentence for such a brutal attack. If he'd done it to a man on the street he'd be in prison for years. Disgusting.