What is it like to survive a murder attempt?
This was the central question of a study conducted by Hila Avieli of Ariel University in Israel. Little was known about this experience; specifically, the investigator sought to explore how survivors understand their own emotions and navigate their emotional worlds in the aftermath of such a horrific event, with an eye to their changing needs over time.
To pursue this inquiry, Avieli recruited 11 women between ages 28 and 62 who had been violently attacked by a partner—with the intent to kill—and whose cases were deemed by police or court documents as attempted murder. The women were interviewed about the murder attempt, including questions about the relationship prior to the attack, the events and accompanying feelings in the days after the attack, and the long-term emotional consequences of having survived the attempted murder. From there, the participants’ narratives were coded for themes.
What did Avieli find? The analysis yielded four major themes, which are summarized below:
Theme 1: Living between dichotomies: A fragmented identity. The women shared that they were caught between two extreme and opposing forces. On one side, they experienced a renewed sense of joy and self-worth, while on the other, they wished they had had not survived the attempt, and felt “remorseful” for ever starting the relationship. One participant expressed:
“So that day was the day I was reborn, I got my life back, and it is a miracle I got out of a situation that most people would die from. I knew for a fact I’m going to die; in my heart, I parted from my parents, from my sister, and then, in seconds, things changed … I try to keep this awareness, this happiness within me, to go back to whatever I knew about myself before, but I keep losing it, over and over again … I wish I had died, I wish his attempts had been successful, and I wouldn’t have to wake up each day and cope, and eat, and drink, and walk, and act like a normal person when I’m actually dead …”
Of note, the narratives revealed that the constant feeling of being threatened and powerless can become an even greater source of distress than the original act of violence. This lingering sense of fear and uncertainty—never knowing when or how harm might strike again—often overshadows the initial trauma.
Theme 2: Embodied fear: A fear that will not go away. All participants highlighted fear as a key emotion that shaped their mental state going forward. One interviewee remarked:
“It’s like a new being has entered my life, the fear is so concrete; it’s like carrying another person on my back, 24/7, wherever I go, whatever I do, all I think about is when will he get a hold of me … His crazy eyes are engraved in my soul, and I know, I just know, he will come for me once again … finish the job he started … I used to think that the worst is behind me, but not knowing when it will happen is torture, the constant waiting in fear is the real torture…”
Theme 3: The loss of future: A life divided. All of the women pointed to a clear divide between life “before” and “after” the attack. Their hopes, dreams, and plans were violently shattered, leaving them with a sense of confusion and uncertainty about the future. A participant shared:
“I was going to be a chef. I just finished culinary school when it happened and I was already cooking at private events, and I started my own small business, but obviously, it all went to the garbage, everything I wanted or worked for … he stabbed me right between the shoulder and the arm. It’s getting better, but I don’t think my hand will function like before … I tried to cook for someone a few months ago and I got panicked, I felt it’s too much. I started feeling that I was going to faint, and the person who hired me was really pissed … so I feel there is no going back, or ‘getting my life back on track’ …”
Theme 4: The loneliness of surviving the “unsurvivable.” All of the respondents spoke about a persistent sense of loneliness, a feeling that remained despite the support they received from family and friends. According to them, this isolation stemmed from the unique experience of surviving an intimate partner homicide attempt, with its own complex and challenging circumstances. One woman reflected:
“It took me a while to understand, I mean to really comprehend, the singularity of what I’ve been through, I mean, most people who went through what I did didn’t survive, so the fact that I’m here … it is amazing, surviving the unsurvivable, but it also kind of … feels really lonely somehow … like the only people who can somehow understand my experience are actually dead, you know what I mean? And the fact is, I’m not alone; everybody around me is trying so hard to understand, but how can they, really? I saw this apocalyptic TV series where the main character survived this horrible deadly world plague. She was the only one who survived, the only one who lived through it … I cried so much when I saw that, like, this TV character was the only one who I could identify with for a very long time…”
Avieli maintains that survivors of intimate partner homicide can shed light on the experiences of this marginalized group—and being a survivor of the unimaginable.