Jennifer at Nanakoosa’s Place
Every time I am asked to share my story I wonder where to begin. I will start by saying that my childhood was somewhat unorthodox although reflective of the revolutionary free flowing culture of the sixties. My parents divorced when I was 8; I knew they were getting divorced because I knew my father was having an affair. I was the oldest child and as such became the “caretaker’ and “peacekeeper” for that time. After my parents divorced they both went through a couple of relationships which generally began and ended abruptly. Eventually my mother came out as a lesbian, which in the early 70’s did not involve coming all the way out. Our family had secrets and I, as the oldest, felt it was my job to guard those secrets.
As I stumbled awkwardly into adolescence I began to realize that the stress of being the family hero far outweighed the rewards. I was not a particularly popular kid, having frequently moved and changed schools. I did eventually discover two assets that won the respect of my peers; my cynical sense of humor and my ability to drink large amounts of alcohol. As I got a little older I realized that by consuming these massive amounts of alcohol I had the courage to seduce men. By the time I was in my late teens to early twenties, I was a fully fledged party girl. The punk rock music scene was a place I found acceptance, entertainment and plenty of sex, drugs and alcohol. It was in one of the more popular punk clubs of the time that I first saw, and was magnetically drawn to, the man I would marry not much more than a year later.
There are people who believe in love at first sight, I maintain that it’s probably more like lust at first sight. I think what really drew me to him was his aura of danger, unpredictability and complete irreverence. He really was the quintessential “Bad Boy.” We hooked up at a party later that night and within a week he had moved into the one bedroom apartment I shared with my best friend. He was extremely charming, fun and adventurous. He became my total object of obsession. I quickly made him the center of my universe, any plan activity and choice I made was based on what I thought or knew he would want. What he wanted was to party all the time and so we did.
Within a year and after several adventures, I became pregnant. By this time I had experienced some pretty severe episodes of physical abuse, psychological abuse and several nights of waiting up for him to return from a night out, only to be left waiting. My first thought when I found out I was pregnant was to buy a greyhound ticket and get out of town as fast as possible. But the sentimental part of me thought he at least had a right to know that he had a child on the way. I figured he would be the one to make a hasty exit via Greyhound out of town when faced with the possibility of the responsibility of parenthood; not to mention a partner who could no longer drink and drug every night. Much to my surprise his reaction was not at all what I had anticipated (and secretly hoped for). He made the declaration that we would settle down, stop using, he’d get a job and we’d get married. It was, in my “ideal world” a dream come true; and even though in my gut I knew better, I held on to that dream. We did get married, things actually were pretty good most of my pregnancy; I began to think maybe this could work after all.
That’s the thing many people fail to understand about abusive relationships; there are good times and you really do love this person because even though they hurt you there’s always an excuse, a reason. They themselves have been wounded, hurt and damaged. And if it even does occur to you that it’s not your fault any more than it is your responsibility to fix it, you are quickly reminded that you are all he has left; you are the only one who understands. What better chance for redemption for the kid who couldn’t solve her family of origins problems? I’ll show you I’ll create my own mess and then I’ll fix it!
We ended up staying together for three years. There were ups and down, but eventually things worsened. I suspected him of cheating, but I always used the judicial standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Of course that thinking is just really another form of denial. Denial is a powerful link in the chains that bind an abusive relationship. Finally even my well ingrained talent for denial could no longer hold its own against the reality I was living. I was no longer his savior, but was now a huge failure that had only made things worse. Oh and by the way how could I be trusted to raise a child? He’d make certain that didn’t happen. The chain that bound me had changed from the desire to be the Hero to the desire to survive and keep my child. Once again I found myself realizing the role of Hero demanded great sacrifice and offered little in return.
Finally one night after he had come home drunk, hit me, shoved me, choked me and trashed the house (he even threw the stove across the kitchen) I called the police. While he spent the night in jail I packed what essentials I needed for myself and my three year old into two large garbage bags and started calling friends. It was the middle of the night and I had to stand on the corner in front of the liquor store with my daughter and our bags to use the pay phone because after I’d called the police he destroyed the phone.
The next day I actually filed a restraining order stayed with a friend for a few weeks, then with my brother for a few weeks until I could save enough money to rent a small one bedroom apartment for my daughter and myself. As often happens, the first time didn’t “take.” He stopped drinking, turned on the charm, and even got his family involved. His family paid for a marriage counselor to work with us with the goal of reunification. After this there were actually a few good years, relatively speaking. I was enrolled in school working on a degree in Human Services, my daughter was in an excellent preschool and my husband was actually working here and there. But eventually, as all too often happens, things slowly began to slip back to the old ways. He started using again and soon after so did I. I fueled my days with valium and coffee (the housewife’s speedball), and my evenings with weed and the occasional narcotics and, of course, alcohol. Maintaining this state of chemically enhanced wonderland was yet another link in the chain.
There is so much to tell in this story I could easily write a book, but in the condensed form I will tell you that his cheating became so obvious that no amount of alcohol, pills and just plain denial could repress the knowledge. If I were to question it, I became the guilty party, un-supportive and crazy; He became more and more resentful, addicted, more and more involved in selling drugs and increasingly suspicious of my pursuit of an education. It was rightly so, perhaps, since I had long since decided my education was my ticket out of this nightmare. In those days the state would pay you AFDC (aid to families and dependent children) while you went to school and there were grants and loans available. Finally one spring semester in 1988 I took out an extra loan and forged his signature so he wouldn’t know (being married we were both required to sign the promissory note).
When I finally told him I was done and I wanted a divorce, what followed was a long horrendous week of basically being trapped in the house because he wouldn’t let me leave except to walk my daughter to her school bus. At the end of this week, on my 29th birthday, after I’d taken my daughter to her school bus, he declared he was going to kill himself and make me watch. He barricaded the exits and tore the phone out of the wall. He put enough drugs into a syringe to kill an elephant, and told me now you can have what you want, Happy Birthday. As he shot up and started to seizure, I found myself thinking I wasn’t going to go for help until he was gone. I realized I had become a hard, cold woman. I actually considered letting another human being die. What had I become? This was not the person I remembered being once, so long ago it seemed. She was hiding inside me somewhere like a small child waiting until it was safe to come out.
As fate would have it (and for the better I suppose) he survived, but I had made up my mind. If I had become the kind of person who would let someone else die without intervening I had completely lost my rational mind. So that was, as they say, the “last straw.” I called the woman he had been seeing and, much to her surprise, told her that he would need a place to stay and that I was certain she’d be happy to help him out, right? Within a day or two he was off to live with his mistress.
He came in and out of our lives at various and unpredictable intervals, usually promising a vacation or a shopping trip or some other carrot on a stick to try to maintain our daughter’s admiration. He rarely followed through. I think she was only about 11 when she herself told him she’d rather have no dad than one she couldn’t count on, and for many years they didn’t see each other. He’d pop in now and then, often years apart. It was when my daughter had our first grandchild that he started coming around more often.
I’m glad for my daughter that she got to know him, the fun side of him, and the goofy side. But not long after she got to know him, he was found dead alone in a hotel room of an overdose. His funeral was on her 21st birthday. No one knows for sure if it was intentional, or maybe “accidentally on purpose” I just hope that whatever comes next after this life works out better for him and anyone who loves him. Oddly enough, or not, I wish him the best; and that acceptance has broken the last link in the chain nearly 30 years later.
© 2010 Jennifer L. Hazard
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Jennifer writes at Nanakoosa’s Place, a “personal consulting, mentoring, and advocacy website for and by real women.”
Hunter
Break of Dawn
I never knew a woman to wear color like my mother. My mother, a kindhearted woman, whose loudest voice was barely a whisper. She always found time to place dark, heavy shades upon her burdened cheeks and brow. Unlike many women, she couldn’t credit her choice of covering to Maybelline or Cover Girl, instead it was the result of the “lessons” taught to her heavy-handed by my father. My mother wasn’t the kind to indulge in flamboyant fashion or adhere to the latest trend. Even in the hottest of seasons she always donned long-sleeved button-ups and heavy denim pants. Large blue and purple risings swelled like the peaks of the mountains acted as a backdrop to my childhood, the mountains a picture of peace and happiness that I would never know. The only pieces of jewelry she wore were the deep red stripes that carried up her wrists, bangles of regret and pain. Her eye shadow and blush permanently embossed upon her face.
As a child I remember her enter my room, watching her hide in the closet hoping that she wouldn’t be found by the man of the house, a man’s man, my father. Watching as he dragged her away and, instead of fighting, she would look at me and in a whisper say, “I love you, everything is just fine.” Hearing the pounding of flesh in the next room, trying to deafen myself with as many soft white pillows as I could wrap around my head. Trying to escape the screams of my mother that seemed to permeate the air. Wondering why someone couldn’t hear her, why someone couldn’t save her, why someone couldn’t save us. Listening as everything would go quiet. Trying to silence the flurry of thoughts that streamed through my consciousness. Attempting to listen as carefully as possible, to soften the pounding of my heart. Lying there paralyzed, afraid to move, afraid to call out for my mother, afraid as to what I may or may not hear in return.
I remember the mornings that followed the abuse, how my mother would feel so distant and cold. How she would try to pat away the bright red liquid that seeped through the cracks in her lips. How she would carefully cover the deep gashes that fell upon her cheeks and above her eyes. You could feel the emotion that she exuded, the deep despair that seemed to weigh in the air, the pain and anguish that had a tight grip around my mother’s neck, trying to steal away any life left within her.
The way my mother would tremble when my father entered the room. Seeing her quiver and fight through tears to smile as he kissed her. Wondering to myself why people said they loved each other, wondering if that was real love. Watching as my mother would prepare meals and stand at the end of the table, eyes focused on the ground as if she were looking for something, like she was waiting for an escape door to open and suck her inside, saving her from her life of pain and chaos. Watching as my father would eat his meal, waiting to see if he was satisfied. Knowing that if it was unsatisfactory then he would think it best served upon my mother. Crying as he would circle her, kick her, spit upon her, taunt her like a wild mad beast.
The memory of the time he showered her not with affection, but with a steaming pot of pinto beans–my mother’s favorite–is forever seared within my consciousness. I remember feeling disconnect from the world around me as the boiling liquid created welts upon her flesh. Running to her as the boils rose, soft pockets of pus, resentment, and pain. She was at her breaking point, a point of no return. Dead to everyone around her, dead to herself, numb, cold, broken. I never knew a woman to wear color like my mother, a woman as strong, as brave, as alive and dead all at once. No, I never knew a woman to wear color like my mother.
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This piece was written by Hunter Jolley in honor of her mother, Dawn. Anyone who wishes to contact her about her story is free to email her at hunterjolley [at] msn [dot] com.
Jenni Chiu (Mommy Nani Booboo)
In the dead of night, she was startled out of sleep by the click of her bedroom light being turned on. She opened her eyes, thinking she saw a figure at her door… but the lights went out again… making her blind.
Surely she was dreaming.
Confused, she asked, “Hello?”
Like an invitation.
Then he pounced.
She felt heavy gloves over her mouth, and a sharp pain in her neck as her head was yanked back by her hair. He told her she would die if she made a sound.
She believed him.
Her own bedroom became a chamber of horrors. Her pillow case pulled over her head, her underwear stuffed into her mouth. Her bra that was hanging on the doorknob was used to bind her hands behind her back. Her back cracked as he flipped her over and jammed his knee into her spine. She says she remembers the sound of snapping, but that it didn’t hurt. She could taste and smell blood, but wasn’t sure where it was coming from.
Then she heard the lights flick back on. And she felt him pacing… circling her… studying her… in the bright light… for what seemed like hours. Her own muffled breathing and her heart beating in her ears became her metronome.
She lay there, naked, blind, her head in a pillow case, and trussed like a turkey.
And her soul died.
Her spirit mercifully left her body as he violated her. She floated above her bed, and watched it all. She was poked. She was prodded. She was tortured. She was raped.
But nothing hurt.
She felt nothing anymore.
She lay there shaking until she heard him leave, heard him run down the back stairs, and heard his footsteps disappear down the back alley.
The detectives said that all the light bulbs on the back porch were unscrewed. That the glass was broken at just the right height to reach in and unlock the three locks on the backdoor. That it was likely she had been watched for a long time before she was attacked–by the stranger she never saw.
A dear friend at the time went with her to the hospital where they combed and scraped her. This friend also called a counseling center on her behalf–step one on the road to recovery.
As I write this, it marks the seven year anniversary of this event. I marvel at how she has overcome such odds. I watched her become almost crushed by the weight of it all, by the never ending feelings of being… at fault… cursed… powerless… hunted.
I look back at her marathon of therapy, and anti-depressants, at the years of anxiety meds and pills for night terrors, and at the flood of memories from her childhood sexual abuse, that could no longer be ignored.
I watched as the little box that held a ruined eight-year-old girl, was reopened, and dashed. I watched her struggle with two traumas at once and cry, “Why me?”.
I must confess that I stand in amazement of her.
I am also ashamed to confess that sometimes I can’t tolerate her.
I grow impatient when something frightens her out of the blue.
I’m annoyed by her unwillingness to be social, and how she keeps everyone at arm’s length.
I find myself secretly thinking, “Shouldn’t she be over this by now?”
To be honest, she is extremely well-adjusted, no longer on medication, and living a happy life with her family.
This lulls me into believing she should now be perfect… or at least not be broken in any small places.
But she is.
Sometimes.
I write this to remind myself to be gentle with her.
To hold her to high, but reasonable standards.
To be okay with knowing that sometimes… grown-ups are deathly afraid of the dark.
To embrace all that she is.
I owe it to her.
She is remarkable.
She is sometimes scared.
She is always courageous.
She is thriving.
She is me.
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Jenni writes at Mommy Nani BooBoo and tweets as @MommyNaniBooBoo.
Calleah
I feel like I need a quiet place to sit down and reflect all that has happened in the short, yet so very long, 24 years I’ve been here. The truth is, a quiet place doesn’t stop the bombardment of memories, the instincts to protect myself, to protect those around me, and to stop looking for clues of abuse and trauma in those I meet.
There are a lot of gaps in my childhood, most of which I’m thankful for, but there are moments that are so drastically burned into my memory that I cannot erase them. No matter how hard I try or fight.
I remember the drugs, the nearly being kidnapped and being locked out of the house. Only to find myself beating against my own locked front door, screaming as loud as I possibly could, for my mother to let me in. Inside, an apartment full of people doing drugs, locking me outside was their way of “protecting” me from it. I remember fights, words so explicit I could only imagine at that point what they meant. I remember fists meeting walls and flesh; I remember locking myself in my bedroom trying to keep myself out of reach. Every drunken and drug-fueled rage my stepfather would fly into, I knew I had to stay out of the way. I remember so vividly the pot full of spaghetti sauce slung against a dining room wall, splattered red, the pot lying sideways on the carpet and remembering it looked like blood. I remember every night for a year, hearing my mom scream and protest his advances and him continuing. I remember wanting to turn the small radio on next to my bed so I didn’t have to hear it. Oh, but if he heard it, it would send him into a rage. If I cried, I knew I had to stop; otherwise he would surely give me something TO cry about. I remember my mom disappearing for days on drug binges, leaving me with him. I remember wanting to escape, to run away.
I remember him trying to rape me, I remember fighting him off and telling him that I will tell my grandmother. I remember him almost being too drugged to care. I remember running and locking myself in my bedroom and hiding and him beating on the door. I remember him coming into the bathroom while I was showering, sneaking peeks behind the curtain. I remember being touched and molested by a boy in the same apartment complex, him saying that we were playing doctor or house. His brother wound up molesting one of my friends at the same time. I was seven.
I remember the sounds of the Ferris wheel, the smell of the funnel cakes and cotton candy, and the laughter of those walking around the LA county fair. It’s probably one of maybe a handful of memories that are good that I have of him. He promised that he would protect me, that he would be a shoulder and a guiding light in my life. A support structure, as he should have been. Instead he took the trust of an impressionable little girl; he twisted it and abused it, just like he did to his wife. He pulled parts of my childhood that should have been filled with sugarplum fairytales, gum drop play scenes and other things brought about by my imagination, and turned them into nightmares. Nightmares of beatings, threats that no 8-year-old should ever witness, and scars. Scars that, while not visible, lie under the surface causing trust and emotional issues in that once 8-year-old child that has grown into a 24-year-old woman. I sat there as he told my mother matter-of-factly that he was going to blow up her car while I was in it. I stood up for my mom and told him that he wasn’t allowed to threaten her anymore and if he didn’t leave I was going to call the police. I was eight.
I heard a few months ago that he died. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but I can only assume with the lifestyle that he lived, it is. My mom was afraid to tell me. She was afraid that I’d actually care, afraid that I may have actually cried at the news. To be completely honest, I was so incredibly relieved that there was going to be no more hoping some unexpected person or family would have to deal with the possibilities of disaster that came along with him. That no child would have to go through nearly being raped by him. That no woman would have to deal with him raping them, beating them or threatening to murder them and then coming close. That no little girl would have to spend a Halloween inside the house in her costume, peering out the front window at him screaming and yelling at her mom. No child should have to go through any of that. Ever. But at the same time, I have to thank him for it. I’m not sure if I’d be the person I am today if those things hadn’t happened.
I hope he got what he deserved while he was in prison.
I remember living on the streets out of my mom’s car. I remember sleeping on her friends’ couches and floors and empty bedrooms. I remember moving in with my grandparents, giving my mom yet another shot to get on her feet. I remember it not working, her disappearing for days, only to come home in the middle of the night strung out. I remember her moving out of the state with her disgusting, attempting-to-be-intimidating, shell of a man that abused her emotionally, verbally and sexually. I remember telling a children’s lawyer that I wanted my grandparents to have custody of me and her willingly signing the papers. I was nine.
I remember being trapped in a community pool bathroom, after going in to take a piss. Being followed in by him and being held against the cold tile wall. I hadn’t slept for days before this, I was too weak to fight back, not able to scream loud enough. Not that the screams would have done any good, we were the only ones at the pool. I said no, I said stop, I said get off me, I said don’t do that, I said no. He didn’t care. He was older, a bad boy, a friend of a friend. I had already lost my virginity so I guess he thought he wouldn’t be taking much from me. I still cringe or turn around swinging when someone touches my back or grabs my shoulder. I was told he was murdered a year after, and I felt relief. I was fifteen.
I have tried to find validation in every relationship I’ve had. Either by trying to fix the man that I’m with, trying to make him see that he can be better than he is, by telling myself I deserved the shit I put myself through, by justifying a fight. It’s hard for me to trust people, to comprehend the way they function rather than the way that I function. In two relationships, the men had overstepped their boundaries and threw me into a completely defensive mode which resulted in them being thrown into a wall. I question whether I am now becoming the abuser instead of taking the abuse, but then I feel that even though I did physical harm to them, I was put into a bad position and took what action I felt was necessary to remove myself from it. I still don’t like being cornered or pinned against a wall with someone screaming in my face.
I wasn’t supposed to make it through birth or to live after I was born, the doctors said. I lived. My whole life I struggled to not become a statistic, to follow in the footsteps of my mother and her drug habits, to beat the odds. I made it. I’ve made it this far and I will be damned if I’m going to give up now.
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Calleah writes at Ninja Kitten, and tweets as @lythics.
