Maria
He was drinking too much. It was his sister’s wedding so you would think he would be happy, that everyone would, but you would also think that common sense would tell you that drinking and driving is not kosher (just as driving and texting isn’t.) Ordinarily I wouldn’t have cared as I had resigned myself to his sneaking around and my being sober, as I would have to steal the keys, drive home and put up with the aggressive behavior, screaming, ranting, hitting and puking afterward. Was I settling? Of course. Did I scream and throw fits because it was always the same? Yes. I was no saint, but I was tired. And that day I’d had it because it was the night before our 1st wedding anniversary and I expected some form of control. I expected him to care a little because once he started he wouldn’t stop and I knew that that night would be the same.
I had to drag him out of the after party at 3:30am. All the way to the car it was screams and insults in the middle of the street about how it was his sister and her wedding and such. I couldn’t take it. I was livid. I grabbed the keys and got in and it got out of control. What was said? Words are unimportant. The rage in his eyes, however, wasn’t. I have never wasted so much energy screaming.
My face ached as it swayed from right to left and I felt his fingers burn across my face. I felt my necklace slip into my dress. My jaw dropped open as tears slid down my cheek and suddenly I struggled to breathe. I stared ahead. I just stared ahead into the night, my mind blank and plagued with racing thoughts of the slow motion movie of my life I had just watched, miserably, once more.
I have never had to stop the car in the middle of the road because I couldn’t drive, because he grabbed the wheel, because I got slapped across the face mid-drive….
I hated cars so much. I hated anniversaries. I hated screaming. I hated rage. I hated him. I hated apologies.
I hate anniversaries, I hate apologies, oh how I hate rage. I hate screaming. I hate that car.
Lea
I could tell you about the beatings my stepmother gave me from the age of 8 till nearly 13, though I fought back at the age of 11. I could tell you about the verbal abuse she, my stepfather, and other adults that were in my life doled out to me as a young child. I could tell you about how my stepmother’s brother, 12 years older than me, molested me from ages 8 to 9, till he was caught–and even then my father will tell you it’s never been proven. All the while the “uncle” was also molesting my best childhood friend and was caught doing that, too. I could tell you about how the OTHER “uncle” (18 years older than me) tried to have sex with me more than once around the age of 12 till 13, or how the only man I ever married verbally abused me and stole my child from me. How every adult in my life, till I was 27, abused me in some way or another.
I could tell you all about that and more, but I won’t. That was the beginning. I want to tell you about the end.
I was 25 when he walked into the door of my apartment that first time. He was 21 and it was love at first site, at least for me. His sister brought him to meet me. He had just gotten out of prison for attempted murder (something I didn’t know for almost a year into the relationship). For the most part, he never left my home again–unless you count the weeks he would be gone with some girl drinking, doing drugs and other things.
I don’t remember much of the times he hit me, only that I was bruised and battered afterward. Less than a year or so into the relationship, after confronting him again about being gone, about being with another woman, about doing drugs and being drunk, I felt my lip getting bigger. I could taste the blood in my mouth and hear the ringing in my ears. And then he was gone again.
He did what I believe most abusers do (of course there are exceptions to the rules)–came crawling back, begging me to take him back, telling me how sorry he was, that he would never do it again, how much he loved me. And I did what I thought I needed to do, because I “loved” him.
My life went on like that for a while, back and forth, back and forth. Always the same woman he’d be gone with and would return, giving me a beating, begging for me to let him back home, convincing me that he would never do it again, over and over again. The weeks and sometimes months that he would be on his best behavior, the woman would be around, he’d tell her to go away and I would get beat still. A year and a half of this.
And then I got pregnant.
While it wasn’t a planned pregnancy, I thought it would change everything and I was correct, it did. The first few months he was attentive, home, worked all the time, helped around the house and I thought, wow, here is the man I love, I knew if I was patient enough, he’d show up. The other woman continued to come around and I saw the rage he use to show me, inflicted towards her. She stopped for a while and then one day when I was about 4 months pregnant, there she was again. He’d taken off a few days prior, back into his pattern. And then he came home and beat me up, pregnant. He pushed me out of a moving car twice, punched me in the face more times than I can count.
On Christmas eve, he’d been on a bender for weeks and I wouldn’t let him in the house. I was 7 months pregnant, my oldest son was there with me and while I was afraid, I was less afraid of him doing something to me, than I was of exposing my 6-year-old to his fury. He’d never hit my child but I wasn’t going to take any chances. My son and I were supposed to drive 150 miles the next day to spend a week with the family and He knew it.
He went away after about 20 minutes of banging and my son and I went back to watching a show on TV. Another knock on the door, with me ignoring it, had him yelling on the other side that we would not be going anywhere tomorrow and the proof was in my parking space, then he left (or so I thought.) Not thinking, I ran out to my car and found that he had slashed all the tires, broken all the windows and did unbearable damage to my car. I could only stand there with tears in my eyes oblivious to everything around me, until I found myself shoved front first into a brick wall, then on the ground begging him to stop as he kicked me and punched me, while I tried to protect the life inside of me and that little life turned herself upside down becoming a breech baby. A neighbor came out, chased him away, and I went into the house, broken and beaten in more ways than one. That wasn’t the last time though.
A week later, he came back and I was too beaten to even fight it. For the next 3 months, nothing happened. No beatings, no fights, no other woman. I was a shell of who I had once been, jumping at every noise, every movement he made. Occasionally he’d raise his voice but no longer was there a response from me other than a startled jump which must have gone unnoticed as he never mentioned a word about my startles.
In February, our daughter was born c-section and while I remained broken within it had been a while since he had laid a hand on me and my guard began to come down, even believing just a little bit that life would be normal….
But what exactly is normal? When our daughter was 8 weeks old, he went off on his usual bender, which lasted 3 days. Yes, my guard was down, yes, I was hoping that things had changed for good, but somewhere inside of me I had gained strength, strength I didn’t know I had until he returned that last night. He began to break down the front door to get into the house. I heard the noise as it was happening, grabbed my daughter, placed her in the arms of my roommate who took her into her room and I let him do what he was going to do. I didn’t fight back, but I also knew that the police would arrive soon, as I had called them before the door came crashing in. He heard the sirens and left. The police came and went and he returned, only to begin beating me again.
At one point, I got out of his grip and ran into my roommate’s room. I made it through the doorway just as he grabbed me and shoved me. My daughter was on the bed and I nearly landed on her, which would have killed her. The cops came again, this time catching him and hauling him to jail. Paramedics came and checked me out, suggested I go to the hospital, but I opted instead to go to a motel and within the week, left California and headed to Vegas, never looking back again, never seeing him again and never to be treated that way, again.
I’d like to say that my experience with abuse ended that day, but it didn’t. Abuse comes in many different forms and while I’ve never again allowed myself to be put in a position like that, it still took me a few times to “get it right”. To stop the verbal abuse from another before enduring it longer then one time, which I do now. No one has ever laid a hand on me again in anger and if it were to happen, it would be promptly dealt with, in the form of pressing charges.
One last thing though, in order for me to have peace within myself, for me to move on, but mostly for my beautiful daughter (and subsequently, my next and last child), I had to learn to forgive him the things he had done to me, I had to forgive myself for staying even when I “knew” that I should have left the first time he hit me and I didn’t. Thus the journey began, helping me to heal in the process, which in turn allowed me to raise my daughter and son in a home without anger, without adults raging, without unbearable pain and misery.
And for that lesson, I am grateful.
If you are currently in an abusive relationship, man or woman, adult or child, get help please. There IS help out there and now as opposed to 18+ years ago there is MORE help, MORE understanding, MORE compassion than ever. We are everywhere, to help you, to give you advice, to give you shelter, to be there for you.
*PostScript. I cry as I write this. As I told Maggie, I am SO very tired and SO very ashamed to admit this, but something must be done, said, put out there. I said I was telling you of the end of my abuse. I lied. Yes, lied.
My children have never seen me being abused in anyway, nor have they ever been abused. However, that has not stopped my 13-year-old son from being very verbally abusive to me and his sister, mostly to me. I am at a loss. My own flesh and blood, saying horrible hurtful things to me, raging at me, ABUSING ME VERBALLY…and I don’t know what to do. I want to take him in my arms and hold him till he is done, instead I cower in my room, afraid, sometimes in tears and so very sad. My greatest fear is that, while he has never seen someone being abused as I was, he will repeat history, becoming an abusive adult. As of now, he has never raised a hand to me and while I know that currently I am stronger than him, eventually, I will not be. I stand 5’8 in my bare feet, he, at almost 14, stands 5’7 and he is not done growing. I have taken his skateboard away, which causes him to become more violent, punching walls and screaming horrible abusive things at me. I ground him and he rages in his room. I stop speaking to him for days and he will harass me.
I do not know what to do. His father is not in his life, never has been, so sending him to his father is not an option. Sending him to military school is not an option as I do not have that kind of money. Sending him away anywhere is not an option. I tell him that we will go into therapy together and he shoots back at me that he will not speak. My beautiful baby boy is an abuser and I simply do not know what to do. It is breaking my heart and I am ashamed, it must be my fault, somehow I have failed him, somewhere I went dangerously wrong with this once sweet smiling boy and I don’t know how to fix it, or even if I have the energy anymore to even try to fix it, how very sad is that? I know in my heart that I must do something… but I don’t have the answers anymore of what to do and… my biggest fear?
Wednesday Q&A: How can I help my emotionally abused friend?
QUESTION:
I have a friend who is in an emotionally abusive situation with her husband of about five years. About four years ago, there was an isolated physically abusive incident, but since then, she is adamant that it has not escalated that far again. He didn’t hit her in that situation, but in that incident he threw a lamp at her. She has expressed that she wants to leave, but that she is scared to make that decision. She also is hoping things get better. Right now, she is living day by day. From my perspective, she is walking on eggshells in order to avoid screaming matches. All of her actions are to prevent him from getting angry with her. When he gets angry, it is always irrational and over something that could be discussed rather than argued about, and things that she cannot always control. He calls her names, he makes her feel worthless, he refuses to have sex with her (and that is something that has been an issue since day one of their marriage), he degrades the way she looks, etc.
My question is, although this situation isn’t necessarily physical, are the rules still the same as far as intervention from friends? Previously, on another Q&A, a mother of a physically abused woman was encouraged not to demand that her daughter leave and was given pointers on how to her her feel safer. In the situation of my friend, what do we do? We have a group of supportive friends that would be willing to get her out, but we know that it is her choice to make. We want to help in any way that we can, we just don’t know where the line is. Help!!
ANSWER:
Your friend is lucky to have you. And you’re right: If and when she leaves is a decision she needs to make for herself.
Many of the same “rules” still apply — leaving any abusive relationship (whether it is physical or emotional) in a way that is safe requires an often-overwhelming amount of planning and resources. Encouraging your friend to “just leave” can be dangerous to her safety. In addition, if she isn’t ready to leave, she may interpret your encouragement as yet another demand, another judgment, another way in which she fails to measure up to the expectations from those around her. And she’ll pull away.
Survivors who’ve experienced both physical and emotional violence often say later that the emotional injuries were more difficult to deal with and took far longer to heal. Emotional abuse can erode your sense of self, can make you doubt your own instincts, can make you believe your partner when he tells you that you’re worthless. Emotional abuse, over time, can cause you to believe you deserve it.
Right now, your friend needs your unconditional listening and your nonjudgmental friendship. Your circle of friends can work together to create a safe, supportive space. If she comes to you to talk about what’s happening at home, listen. And tell her that you love her. That she deserves to be loved. That love should not cause pain or fear. That the abuse is not her fault.
If she actively wants to leave but isn’t sure how to make that happen safely, you can suggest she call a domestic violence help line. But let her make the call when she’s ready. And if you’ve already offered this suggestion, there is no need to offer it again. Most likely she remembers. It can take a lot of guts to make that first call to a crisis line. It’s hard and scary. It’s admitting, sometimes for the first time, that this problem exists, that it’s dangerous, and that it isn’t something she can make better on her own.
Don’t give up. She needs you. Your friendship offers the steady notion that someone loves her and believes in her and wants the hurt to stop. This quiet reminder may help her realize she doesn’t deserve it after all.
Please exercise the same safe, supportive, non-judgmental restraint in the comment section of the Q&A as you do for survivors, as many of them are reading.
Our volunteer expert, Carrie K., is a trained advocate who has worked with survivors of domestic abuse and sexual assault, as well as their families and friends. Her background includes hotline advocacy, community education, and awareness and prevention programming around issues of domestic violence and sexual assault. Most recently, she has worked for a domestic violence intervention and prevention program in Wisconsin. She blogs at rageisgood.blogspot.com
If you have something you have always wanted to know about domestic violence and/or sexual assault, please email your question to carrie [at] violenceunsilenced [dot] com.
