10/10/2026
Mental health awareness day? I wish we would not have to talk or read about this again and again. Yet it is too common. EQALL will not stay silent either. Nor should you! And believe me, I know exactly what I’m talking about. Besides the social impact activist streetwear https://eqall.eco I continue working with individuals and groups too. If you wish to talk, azeletmesei.hu 🇭🇺 I also work in English 🇺🇸 and Dutch 🇳🇱 and online (as I moved back home to Hungary 🇪🇺) A devastating feeling was the belief and shame that “I’m alone”… No one is… 😌🫶🏼 of any kind…
EQALL.hu
Az Élet Meséi
Dorottya Eva Kiss
The night before she was murdered, Michelle Monson knew her husband was going to kill her.
She had told people. She had left. She had come back. And in 2001 in Montana, Rocky Monson shot and killed Michelle and their two small children and then shot himself.
And the police said, "No visible bruises."
That's where Rachel Louise Snyder starts her book "No Visible Bruises: What We Don't Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us" — and I haven't been able to sleep right since I read it.
This book was published May 7, 2019 by Bloomsbury, 320 pages, by Rachel Louise Snyder — she's not a self-help guru, she's an investigative journalist, professor at American University, has traveled to 60 countries covering human rights, 2021 Guggenheim Fellow, her book was New York Times Top Ten Book of 2019, winner of the Hillman Prize and the New York Public Library's Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism. She spent a decade reporting this.
She opens with "I talk to a lot of people who don't want to talk to me." Because that's what domestic violence does — no one wants to talk about it.
I picked this up because my cousin stayed. I judged her for staying. I said what everyone says: "If it was that bad, why didn't she just leave?" This book took that question and shattered it.
Snyder doesn't just tell Michelle's story — though Michelle Monson Mosure's story is the anchor that will haunt you — she tells the stories of victims, perpetrators, cops, judges, advocates, and she shows you what we don't know is killing us.
This is what I learned, and I need every woman and man on my timeline to read this:
1. There were no bruises because strangulation doesn't leave bruises, and strangulation is the biggest predictor that he will kill you. The title "No Visible Bruises" refers to strangulation. Rachel shows that nearly 90% of domestic homicide victims were both stalked and beaten in the year before their death. The single biggest risk factor is a prior incident of domestic violence. And the highest risk factors out of 22 on Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell's Danger Assessment — which you can find at Johns Hopkins — are strangulation and access to a gun. I didn't know that choking was not "just" choking, it's attempted murder and it means he is 750% more likely to kill you later. Michelle had been strangled. We didn't have language for it then. We do now.
2. The most dangerous time is not when she stays, it's when she leaves. I always thought leaving was the safe part. Snyder shows it's the most lethal. Home is the most dangerous place for women, and as dangerous as it is inside, it is almost always more dangerous to leave. That's why women recant, why they go back, why they stay alive and keep their children alive. 20 people per minute in the US are assaulted by an intimate partner. Every day 137 women globally are killed by an intimate partner. And 50 women a month in America are shot and killed by their partners. And 54% of mass shootings in the US involve domestic or family violence. This is not a private problem, it's a public health emergency that we treat like a private embarrassment.
3. We are asking the wrong question, and there are answers that actually work. Rachel busts the myths we all believe: that if things were bad enough victims would just leave, that a violent person cannot become nonviolent, that shelter is an adequate response, that violence inside the home is separate from mass shootings and gang violence. She takes us into courtrooms in Montana, into a program in Massachusetts where Suzanne Dubus created a High Risk assessment team that can accurately predict who is at highest risk of homicide, into batterer intervention groups where men learn "unviolence." She shows that when we shine a flashlight in the darkest corners — when we ask "has he ever choked you?" "does he have a gun?" "has he threatened to kill you?" — we can stop it before it's a headline.
This is not an easy Facebook read. It's not uplifting. There are descriptions that will make you gasp. But it's the most important book I have read in five years.
I finished "No Visible Bruises" and I called my cousin and I didn't say "why did you stay?" I said, "How can I keep you safe?" I learned the language of violence and the questions to ask. I learned that love is what makes domestic violence different from other crimes — that's why it's so hard to leave someone you love who is hurting you.
If you have ever said "why doesn't she just leave," if you love someone who is in it, if you are a man who wants to be part of the solution, if you own a gun, if you are a police officer, a teacher, a judge, a pastor — please read this book.
I bought three copies. One for me, one for my sister, one for my local shelter.
Because no visible bruises does not mean no violence.
