"Violence does not end when the weapons stop: violence continues to dig into those who suffer it." These were the words of Maria Ida Santopaolo, a 29-year-old pharmacist and victim of an attempted femicide on the night of June 2nd, in her hometown of Terranova di Sibari in the province of Cosenza, as she recounted her experience at a press conference at the Chamber of Deputies.
The man she considered "one of my dearest friends - she explained - ambushed me outside my home, armed with knives, carrying out a brutal and violent attack" simply because "I exercised my sacred right to say 'no' to a man who was demanding a romantic relationship from me."
"Today my physical wounds - she stressed - are healing, but my life has radically changed since that episode. I find myself facing - she revealed - a deep and debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder. The fortress of my independence has crumbled: today I am afraid of being physically alone, I live in constant terror that someone might attack me or hurt me at any moment. Even though my rational mind knows that in certain contexts I am safe, my body does not. My body responds to stimuli in an altered way, perceiving imminent danger even where there is none. I live in a state of perpetual alarm. An alarm that keeps me awake at night, that prevents me from going out alone, that has brought back an almost childlike fear of the dark, and that makes it immensely difficult to find even a shred of the peace of mind that was torn away from me."
For Maria Ida Santopaolo it is "fundamental to introduce and promote a deep emotional education, which must certainly begin within families, but which must find a structural and central place in schools. We must talk to young people, educate them from an early age about the value of respect, the recognition of each other's boundaries and limits, and the acceptance of rejection." This is precisely her goal: to go into schools to share her experience; she will begin in Calabria but hopes that other regions will also call upon her to bring her testimony to as many young people as possible.
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