My History with Violence

Whether you like to admit it or not, violence (most likely) has had its influence in your life.

When I was younger, my parents had a good family friend whose house we went over to often. Their friend was a single mother of two who was, at the time, dating what seemed like a really cool guy. The 'normal routine' of hanging out at this friends house was as follows:
-parents would drink, bbq, and gossip
-kids would swim, play video games, or ride bikes around the neighborhood

Of course since alcohol was more likely than not involved in these hangouts, things had the capability of getting a little rowdy. One specific time, though, things got way out of hand. The mothers boyfriend had to much to drink and got a little rambunctious with her son in the pool, pretending to drown him not realizing that he was actually doing it. Once my dad and the other husband there noticed, they jumped in the pool to stop it. The boyfriend ended up getting into a drunken rage, yelling at everyone and blaming them for 'not letting him have any fun' and telling the son that 'he's just a pu**y'.
By this time, the mother had gone over to him and quietly suggested that he go inside and cool off and drink something other than alcohol. Not only did this further upset her boyfriend, but it caused him to take a swing at her. At this point all the youngest kids (including the mom/girlfriend's kids) were getting rounded up into a car to leave. I didn't witness what happened after the boyfriend took the initial swing, but I just remember hearing a lot of yelling and things breaking around the house, and seeing pictures later on of bloody items that the boyfriend used to try and get to his girlfriend. I found out later that the mom/girlfriend went and hid at a hotel for a night or two, while her kids stayed with a friend of their mothers that the boyfriend didn't know about.

After witnessing an ordeal like that, I stopped cowering away from acts of violence when they occur. Instead, I take the same position that my dad and the other dad present took; I attempt to stop it from happening and attempt to mediate the situation. When acts of violence between people happen, I tend to try and get in the middle of it to put it to an end, and if/when that works, I'll sit the two parties down and try to resolve the issue. If acts of violence occur with myself, normally they don't follow through and I'll end up trying to talk it out anyways.