By nature we’re all optimists. If you tell people that the average life expectancy is 87, and then ask them how long they’ll think they live, they’ll normally give you an answer of 93, 95 etc. The statistics never apply to us, just to everyone else. Millions of people play the lottery. Why? Because somebody has to win. The odds and the chances don’t matter; somebody has to win and that somebody could be me. When it comes to violence however, we don’t think/believe it could be us, we’re always sure it will be somebody else: good things happen to us, bad things happen to everyone else. We might win the lottery, but the statistically more likely chance of us being selected as a victim doesn’t apply to us, that’s for everyone else.   

The only people who expect to be assaulted, are those who have a history of being assaulted: those who have had the myth that it won’t happen to them be proved incorrect. It is a sad truth that people only perceive their vulnerability and accept the possibility of being targeted once it has happened. As a child who was bullied for a number of years, I was never in any doubt that I could experience violence at any moment, and that truth has never left me – I’m not the terrified individual who believes being a victim is inevitable, that changed when I was 12 years old, but I understand that I can be targeted as a victim, and that there are individuals out there who may want to cause me harm. My own experiences also tell me how life-defining being the victim of violence can be, and that I don’t want to re-experience those feelings and emotions again.

I am optimistic that I will not be the victim of violence again; not because I now understand how to physically defend myself but because I understand the profile and the methods of predatory individuals and how to identify violence before it occurs. When people ask me if I’ve ever had to use the skills I’ve learnt I can honestly say that I use them every day – not that I have to physically defend myself on a daily basis but that I put preventative measures in place that keep me safe, even if this is just waiting a moment before I exit my car to make sure I have a 360 degree view of my environment. I do this every time I get out of my car despite the fact I have never been assaulted getting in to or out of a vehicle. I recognize that experience can also be a limiting factor as well as an enabling one. Just because you’ve never been assaulted doesn’t mean you can’t/won’t be.

We all come up with self-congratulatory solutions to violence that we believe will keep ourselves safe, but are not based on anything concrete or real i.e. if I behave in a certain way a person will ignore me/pass me by. Most of the time these “assumptions” are based on the ways we would act and behave if we were playing the role of the predator e.g. we would not target someone on a cell phone (they’re talking to someone who knows where they are), we would not try and snatch a handbag from someone who had it slung across their body, as it would be difficult for us to take/snatch the bag (a sturdy knife that could be used to cut the strap and the victim would quickly solve that problem), if someone we were mugging threw their wallet on the floor we'd leave them to goand get it etc. These are all issues/problems that we as law-abiding don’t know how to overcome however they’re not ones that predatory individuals care about.

We may believe we live safe lives and have safe habits, however there are individuals out there who care little for how we think or what we believe. We can all be targeted as potential victims and we should accept that, assume responsibility for changing it, and recognize that just as we could win the lottery so we could become the victim of a violent crime.