Inner scars time cannot heal

By Andrew Stone

Thumped pensioner Patty Smith recalls with chilling clarity the morning a thug attacked her at breakfast and stole her purse.

"I don't think I'll forget it. Some of the damage he did will never come right."

Eighteen months after Mrs Smith was punched repeatedly in the face in her St Heliers kitchen by a man wearing boxing gloves, the 79-year-old can still feel pain from the blows.

"I have to take drops because my eyes are infected and my upper lip is painful where it was split.

"When I go out I get very nervous and find myself looking over my shoulder. I hear footsteps and I get scared, and I take a sleeping pill before bed so I don't have nightmares."

With a brother of 93, Mrs Smith had hoped she might have a few good years left. But she thinks the assault has sliced a few years off her life. She suffered a heart attack during the bashing and another later in hospital.

Psychologist David Thomas says the effects of violence can stay with people for months or even years.

Besides physical injuries, stress takes its toll.

"Victims may feel vulnerable and unable to protect themselves," says Professor Thomas, of the Auckland School of Medicine's community health department.

"People can dwell on it. They might become preoccupied with their own security and turn their home into a fortress."

Mrs Smith's fence is now topped with barbed wire, nails protrude from the gate and an electronic alarm around her neck is linked to a security firm.

She seldom leaves home, partly because a bad hip has degenerated since the attack.

Professor Thomas says assault victims can recover from the trauma of attack, only to succumb to illness related to their disturbed emotional state. He thinks it is important that victims get support and counselling.

Dr Peter Adams studies domestic violence.

The clinical psychologist and behavioural science lecturer says some individuals never recover from a torn home life and research shows a violent second generation is emerging from broken families.

The Auckland University teacher likens the random attack that destroyed Patty Smith's quality of life to a war-time trauma injury.

Victims of domestic violence are more likely, says Dr Adams, to exist in something akin to a police state.

"Cumulative systematic violence can have a devastating psychological impact. The physical effects of home invasions look dramatic on front pages.

"For survivors of domestic violence the outcome can be like colonisation."