When no one knows the person who is suffering

There are important voices we sometimes cannot share. I'm sharing one today.

It is an unsigned letter to the editor we received. The Daily Herald does not publish anonymous letters in its print editions. Anonymity is not conducive to constructive conversations, and if people want to engage in secretive and counterproductive dialogue, the opportunities online are abundant.

Most unsigned letters we receive fall under that category.

A consumer who feels wronged by a business and wants to use our space to lash out.

Someone who wants to unleash accusations about another person, business or politician but doesn't want to be personally accountable.

A writer feeling freed by invisibility to unload unguarded rage or vulgar hatred.

But then there is this one, a short handwritten note sealed in an envelope with no return address:

"I hear you. To all the women sitting at home with a domestic abuser, I hear you. I know that you are biting your tongue & remaining silent just to keep the peace in the household. I know that you are doing this for the sake of your children. Every day is hard and long right now because of COVID-19. You do not want things to escalate in your household because everyone in your household suffers and feels it. The abuser is selfish and mentally weak. I hear you, victims, and I am thinking of you daily. I am one of them. Stay strong. Anonymous."

A psychologist or domestic abuse expert will probably find more in those 105 words than an expression of sympathetic solidarity. I found the message simply haunting.

It evokes a story likely being carried out behind virus-closed doors in homes across the suburbs, across the country. A story that won't end when the virus has faded and those doors remain closed.

Not that it's a story we don't tell from time to time, often through the experiences of brave victims who have managed to escape an abusive relationship or of volunteers who work with people suffering in these conditions. Even during the COVID-19 crisis, our reports and commentary have made reference to the added strains endured by children, women and others in dire circumstances.

But sometimes a story can only be seen, only be felt, when it comes from the pen of the person experiencing it.

And sometimes it can only be told when no one knows who that person is.

So I am letting this one be told today. I hope it gives the writer, and others like her, some added resolve. I hope she, and they, will recognize that there are resources to help, even now, and will search them out.

I believe that this time, in this rare but not rare enough instance, anonymity is constructive.

• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is deputy managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on Twitter at @JimSlusher.