The "But" that judgeyness wrote?

From the Herald website yesterday:

A barrister who suffered severe head injuries after she was attacked by her ex-husband has spoken out about the devastating effects of domestic violence.

The 39-year-old lawyer was bashed five times around the head with a large rock in front of her terrified 5-year-old son and suffered "horrendous" facial injuries including a broken nose, bruising and cuts to her head and face.

Her former husband, Kevin Hume, was jailed for 16 months at the North Shore District Court on Thursday for injuring with intent to injure and breaching a protection order.

The court was told Hume sent text messages saying "I will never hurt you" and "this is the final text" just a few hours before he crept into her home north of Auckland in the early hours of January 8.

When she woke up at about 2.45am, Hume chased her into her bedroom, pinning her down before beating her over the head with a large river stone.

Hume only stopped the attack when their young son, who was sleeping in the same bed, was woken by his mother's screams and switched on the bedroom light.

...The victim hopes to start a new life with her three children aged 19, 8 and 5, and did not want to be named.

But she wrote a harrowing account of the assault and posted it on the internet, and updated her 1500 Twitter followers on the case. [my emphasis]

Hang on a second, what's that "But" doing in there??

There is a world of difference between putting something up on the internet in a manner that you control, and disclosing your name to the biggest newspaper in New Zealand. For a start, searches for your name on Google are likely to rank the Herald's article top, mentioning you as a victim of a horrific beating. Who wants that to be what a prospective employer finds when they are looking to short-list you for an interview?

Good on this woman for sharing her story. She goes on to say, later in the article:

"I never thought I would be one of those women that this happened to," the lawyer said after the hearing. "I kept saying to my friends, 'I'm not a battered woman, that's not me'. Even though I know it wasn't my fault, I started blaming myself."

She said sharing the experience with others helped her to get through it: "It's given other people the opportunity to come to me with their stories."

I hope that stupid, senseless "But" doesn't put her off.