Renee from Cutie Booty Cakes
Chris Brown and Rihanna. I feel you…..
The flutter of butterfly wings tickled my insides as I awaited his arrival. Have you ever noticed butterfly wings of happiness feel the same as fear? His love was wrapped around pain, frequently expressed with an open handed slap, a rough elbow to my side or fingernails digging deeply into my skin. A motion to reach for the revolver that was kept beneath the car seat packed more of a punch than his hands did. It was all very confusing. Love mixed with pain, never knowing what was in store for the day. It was like a rollercoaster in the seventh circle of Hell. Climbing to astounding heights and suddenly plummeting, fast and furious, stomach dropping. Dangerous. Torturous. My life.
I was sweet sixteen, a pretty girl, intelligent and bookish, with very few dates. An outsider looking in saw a girl that had it all, excellent grades, too many extracurricular activities to count and acceptance by all of the cliques because I refused to allow myself to be boxed in. Yet loneliness constantly plagued me. Inside I remained the shy, insecure, only child that was more often than not playing the violin or reading a book instead of learning the latest dance step. I suppose my flurry of activity kept me from finding meaningful relationships. He filled that void.
He was charming, handsome, well liked and known for his explosive temper. Unafraid of confrontation, ready to battle at a moments notice. Knowing that he was an undercover bad boy may have been one of the things that attracted me to him. The romance began quickly and without skipping a beat my world soon revolved around school, homework, and Him. The few friends that I had were systematically detached from me. His ubiquitous presence hindered girl talk with friends and our volatile behavior (fighting –that at times was physical) encouraged the few friends that we shared to simply drift away. We soon become our own private island. Isolated. Utterly and completely wrapped up in our own little world.
I believe our physicality opened the door for true violence. I vividly recall when we reached a turning point. I lay sprawled on the hood of his car with his fingers wrapped tightly around my neck, as my feet dangled off the ground. In that moment, everything changed.
And yet, I stayed. After my first attempt to leave I realized that staying was easier. By ending the relationship I opened myself up to his stalking, he lurked around every corner, wild-eyed and crazy. There was less danger in the possibility of his wrath than the guarantee. At one point I begged a mutual male friend for help but given our history he dismissed my request. It took me a long time to forgive that slight. I later learned that he believed we were up to our old antics but I know fear was evident in my eyes.
Convinced that no help was forthcoming, I resigned myself to play tiptoe in the tulips in my relationship for many months, never knowing what action would incur his wrath. After our “encounters” he would apologize profusely, tears streaming down his face, accompanied by gentle whispers of “I love you.” Gifts of jewelry or flowers were the norm.
This cycle repeated for six months and when he accosted me at school I finally went to the police. They were no help. During our “altercation” I split his lip and he was aways careful to leave no bruises on me. The victim became the criminal, he could have pressed charges and had me arrested for assault. Never mind he’d spent the better part of two hours slapping me repeatedly as I stood my ground. My only recourse was to stop talking to him and continue my life.
Easier said than done.
I suddenly found myself alone, a castaway with nothing and no one to lean on. When he wooed me with the magic words “anger management” and “therapy” I grabbed that lifeline and stayed on for the ride. This continued until the fateful day when he calmly said, “I’ll go to jail for you and no one else will have you.” His words were easily delivered; I believe a tear rolled down his cheek. Comprehension briefly escaped me but his allusion to a girl that lost her life at the hand of a lover placed the writing on the wall. He was ready and willing to kill me.
I tried to formulate an escape plan but it was impossible. I could not tell my mother, after our first visit to the police she believed the relationship was over. He knew my every move. He had people watching me and when a male friend came to take me to the movies for my birthday, all hell broke loose.
Someone saw us at the movies. A phone call was made. He arrived at my house as my friend was leaving and with the vein in his forehead pulsing he asked my friend to “talk” to him at the back of his car. I screamed No! My mother asked him to leave and a crisis was averted. You see my “beau” kept a gun in his trunk, so there would be no ‘talking.”
For the next couple of hours we stayed holed up in my house, I explained the situation as my friend took it all in. Around eleven my mother asked him to go, she didn’t know about the gun but figured He had gone home. Twenty years later the scene that followed is still vivid. My friend took careful dance-like steps to the car and I felt immediate relief when he made it in. My hopes were quickly dashed when I heard shouting and the screech of wheels hitting the pavement. An explosion of gunshots rang out in fast succession. The car whizzed by my door. He ran in pursuit, revolver drawn, shouting “I will kill you Mother Fucker!”
The rest passed by in a flash. Hysteria and mayhem ensued. My life was turned upside down. After taking my statement the police called me at every turn – we’ve arrested him; he turned over like a baby, this event likely the highlight of their career. Meanwhile, with conflicted emotions I knew this could have been averted, why did they turn a deaf ear to my cry for help?
I later learned that a “stakeout” had taken place. His friends watched and waited for the drama to unfold. Crazy. One girl knocked on my door and tried to coerce us to come outside. Funny, today she asked me to be a friend on facebook. The account was reported in the daily newspaper but few uttered a word. In my desperate silence I still remained alone.
When my grades went from A’s to D’s the guidance counselor conducted an intervention and the story came out. The school psychologist provided a sympathetic ear, an unbiased perspective and enabled me to let the healing begin, a welcome respite from the craziness that dwelled in my head. I’d love to be able to say that I was “cured” but I am unable to tell that lie.
Although I have never allowed a man to physically abuse me again, I have experienced relationships that entailed verbal and emotional abuse. I have never been ignorant about it, even when I was 16 I knew I was caught up in battered woman’s syndrome. I hate to say this but knowledge is not always power.
I am married now and the days of abuse are far behind me. I tell my story for several reasons. I hope that young women realize that this type of behavior is not normal, is not love and no matter what “they” tell you, abuse grips you like a vise and never completely lets go. I also implore those of you that have never experienced this to “judge not, lest you be judged.” You can cavalierly say “just leave” but my story and so many others have proven that these situations are most dangerous when you attempt to leave and it takes carefully planning to do so successfully.
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Renee blogs at Cutie Booty Cakes.
Help is available to callers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Hotline advocates are available for victims and anyone calling on their behalf to provide crisis intervention, safety planning, information and referrals to agencies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Assistance is available in English and Spanish with access to more than 170 languages through interpreter services. If you or someone you know is frightened about something in your relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or TTY 1-800-787-3224.
Kate
It wasn’t a big deal to me when it started. My oldest brother brought me to his bedroom and pushed a book into my hands, telling me to read it. I remember reading a page or two–a story about a girl named Crystal who was using her hairbrush for a very different purpose than styling her locks. I looked up and my brother, who is five years older than me, told me he wanted to try something. He had me lay sideways on his bed with my 2nd grade-sized sneakers hanging over the edge, then he pulled my shorts and underpants down and had oral sex with me.
I remember laying there doing nothing, not feeling anything except the wetness of his tongue, but I noticed he got very sweaty and kept one hand between his legs. After some time passed, he stopped and told me to pull up my pants and get out of his room, adding that I’d better not tell anyone what had just taken place.
It became routine for Bob to seek me out at various times of the day and on family outings. I would want to play on the big slide shaped like a rocket on the playground, but Bob would want to take me for a walk. If I balked, my mother would tell me to knock it off and go with my brother. I still don’t know why she never questioned what we were doing when we trudged off into the surrounding forested area near the river rather than hanging out with everyone else at the park.
I don’t remember how old I was the first time I told Bob that I wanted him to stop and that I was going to tell our parents what he was doing, but I know that when I threatened to tell, that’s when he began hurting me: a broken wrist, a chunk of flesh removed from the back of my thumb with pliers, holding me underwater until I thought I would drown. He terrorized me during camping trips, taking my twin brother and me for walks through the woods at night and suddenly sprinting off with the flashlight, leaving us alone in the dark. As we’d make our unseeing way along the dirt path, Bob would explode out of the brush or from behind a tree, grabbing me and making me scream. Even now, I am still terrified of being alone outside in the dark.
As time went on, my brother got bolder. There was one afternoon when my sister and I were lying on our parents’ bed, watching TV. Bob came in and began molesting my sister. She did not fight him or act surprised by what he was doing, which made me realize (as an adult) that was not the first time Bob touched her. At some point, she said she didn’t want him to do that (oral sex) to her anymore, so he should “just do her (me).” Which he did. On our parents’ bed. As my sister watched.
There was the time in his bedroom when my twin brother walked in on us. When Bob saw my other brother, he yelled at him to get the eff out and then rolled off of me so that he could chase him down. I don’t know exactly what was said, but I remember hearing threats made if my twin brother dared to say anything to anyone. He never did.
When I was in 8th grade, my brother left for college and I thought the abuse would stop. But when Christmas break arrived and Bob came home, he picked up right where he’d left off. At this point, my body was reacting to what he would do to me and while my nerve endings sent the message, “This feels good!” the rest of me was screaming, “Stop! I hate this!” I loathed myself for physically responding to something I mentally hated with every fiber of my being.
I decided to tell my math teacher what was going on because I wanted the abuse to stop but I knew I couldn’t tell my parents. I wrote him a series of letters telling him everything, and he obeyed the law and told the authorities, who then told my parents. At first, in the principal’s office where they’d received the news, my parents made a show of concern and sympathy. I let down my guard, thinking that maybe it was going to be okay after all. Once we were in the car, though, my mom turned around in her seat and asked me why I had made up such a lie about my brother. When I insisted that I hadn’t lied, she reached out and slapped me. I sat in stunned silence until we got home, where my mom told me to go to my room and stay there. I ran up the stairs and almost collided with my sister. She had a panicked look on her face as she told me very quietly, “I am going to deal with this my own way. Don’t tell mom and dad anything about me and Bob, okay?” I didn’t want her to hate me, so I agreed to keep quiet.
My parents called my siblings into the kitchen to be interrogated and each denied knowing anything about the abuse. I don’t understand why they chose to protect Bob rather than stand up for me. It’s something I have never understood. When my mom called my brother, Bob told her it had happened once. Apparently, my parents didn’t have a problem with their oldest son molesting their youngest daughter if it was just one time. Interestingly enough, years later, Bob admitted to abusing me twice. Then four times. I don’t have a total number of incidents, but I would say he needs to add a couple zeroes behind that four to even begin approaching an accurate estimate.
Because my brother was 19 when I finally told, he was arrested on his college campus. My mom hated me for “deliberately trying to wreck Bob’s life with my lies.” She wrote a letter that she distributed to every faculty member at the junior high school I attended, saying that she knew they’d heard the accusation against my brother, but it wasn’t true. She said I had lied for attention, but that she and my dad were going to get me help for my problem. I was given no sympathy, no compassion, no understanding. When I was subpoenaed to testify in front of a grand jury, my mom told me that if I sent my brother to jail, I would be kicked out of the house. I tried to minimize what had happened, but the court already had my deposition and knew the truth. Bob was found guilty of sodomy (a Class A felony), and sentenced to 100 hours of community service and four years of probation, with the stipulation that his record could be expunged if he completed the terms of his sentence satisfactorily (too bad he couldn’t erase the newspaper blurbs mentioning his arrest & conviction).
Through the years, I engaged in cutting myself as a means of making myself cry and while I was not promiscuous, I gave too much of myself too early into every relationship I entered. I was left out of family discussions because of my supposed inability to keep my mouth shut, but when I would retreat to my room to read, I was berated for being antisocial. In public, my mother tolerated me, but in private, I was loathsome to her.
In 2004, after spending years in therapy, I wrote my siblings identical letters, telling them that all I wanted from them was an admittance that they knew I did not lie about Bob sexually abusing me and a willingness to talk about that time of our lives for one afternoon so that I could ask my questions and hear their answers and hopefully get some closure. Each of them refused. One sister told me that I was never to bring up the subject via email, phone or snail mail again because it was not appropriate discussion material. The other told me that she thought it would be best if we had just a superficial relationship. And my twin brother told me that Bob was a great guy, one of his best friends, and that he remembered me seeking Bob out, “looking for it and wanting it,” which was a blatant lie. I chose then to cut them all out of my life. I decided I was going to end the cycle of abuse by not exposing my children to my family’s dysfunction. It was a decision I have never regretted. I stopped talking to my mom at the end of 2007 and have been happier since she has no way to hurt me anymore. My dad reconciled with me on my 19th birthday and we were able to develop a genuine friendship before he died in 1993.
I found Violence UnSilenced and realized this was a place where my voice could finally be heard. I don’t feel the need to relive my past every day of my life, but I do believe that if I WANT to talk about it, I have every right to. It may not be “appropriate discussion material,” but I refuse to pretend it never happened just to make things “look good” (sorry, Mom). The truth often isn’t pretty, but that doesn’t mean it should be hidden away.
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Kate blogs at Life With Special Needs Kids. Please keep all comments here where it’s safe, rather than on her own blog.
Tabatha
It comes back in waves, erratic waves that send chills down my spine, covers my skin in goose bumps and brings tears to sting my eyes. Little things, like tripping over my own feet, the boy next to me grabbing my wrist in an effort to keep me from falling.
And I scream.
*****
I don’t even really want to talk about it anymore. I’ve talked about it so much, so often, too many times, to too many people who haven’t believed me or didn’t want to listen or who shut it out or who used it to hurt me, again and again. I’ve told it so many times through the mania and the depression that in retrospect it probably triggered that sometimes the details change – God, don’t the details always change after this long? – and sometimes I’m not sure what really happened and what didn’t anymore. And too many people will tell me my version, any version, is wrong. I’m wrong.
And since, my God, since. That was the first time I almost died. It’s happened so many times since then it’s become silly to count. That party, where I was roofied. That guy, who tried to bash my head in, who broke into my house. The other guy with the raging coke habit. That car accident. Those pills. And those other pills. The booze, the late nights-come-mornings, the loss of brain cells and burial of events so far in my psyche that I became free in my captivity, fell in love with my captor so rapturously that I sang my sorrows like an aria from the darkest opera that I never saw when victimization became characterization and I was a shell of a soul, talking but not walking my own sordid path.
And I became haunted by a ghost.
A ghost I can’t remember.
A person I can’t remember.
A night I can’t remember.
A life I can’t remember.
*****
Ten years later.
This August marks a decade.
I’m married now. I have a son – oh, what a mindf*ck that is – and more pets than any quasi-sane person should own. I have friends who don’t know, and I’ve quit telling them, no longer wanting to let that be my signifier, stopping wearing that scarlet letter on my chest.
I try to fill my life with love now. Real love. Where how damaged and broken I’ve become doesn’t matter any more than my ACT scores. And where the people who see me as Less Than are no longer the markers by which I judge myself.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t still struggle. That it doesn’t adversely affect my relationship with my too-good-to-be-true husband, because no one can really be trusted, nor can they really love me. That I’m not still caught off guard by a scene in a movie, causing me to bolt out of the room without explanation. That the sound of metal hitting bone makes me throw up in my mouth. That I will never sit in the backseat of an American made car. That I still hate driving that stretch of highway. That sometimes it’s too much and I drink or shop or exercise my demons away, for now.
That someone grabbing my wrist will forever make me scream.
And that sometimes, a story, these stories, pull commiseration out of the depths of my shattered, walled-off soul and I can’t help but this one last time to finally stand up and say, me too.
Me, too.
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Tabatha blogs here and tweets here. She asks that you keep all comments here on this post, rather than over at her own blog where it isn’t as safe. Thank you.
Deb
It started at 15. My boyfriend at the time thought it was great fun to hit me when he was drunk. I stayed for five years. He was the typical “I’m sorry it won’t happen again” but it always did. He cheated and I always took him back. I loved him.
One of his best friends raped me. My boyfriend didn’t believe me. I stayed. He brought his friend around and forced me to be nice to him. I started to doubt myself in a very big way.
I moved 500 miles away. Looking for a new start. With a person who treated me right. I thought I had found him. We went place and did things. He bought me stuff. Didn’t hit me. Once again I thought I was in love.
I moved in with him, and a month later, it started. It was subtle, I didn’t really catch on then. He came home drunk and threw a potted tree at me. Did the whole crying, “I’m sorry, won’t happen again” thing.
I got pregnant with number one, and my life totally changed. He said I was a worthless, useless piece of shit and a horrible mother because she had colic and wouldn’t stop crying.
I was totally frazzled and actually believed him. I should have known what was going on when he forced me to have sex while the baby was in her bouncer chair screaming and he wouldn’t let me get her.
Ended up pregnant again. By this time the only friends or family that I had around was his. Luckily, somehow, he started letting me go to my mom’s for a month during the summer. His control was still there, he would always call me, accuse me of cheating on him, other stuff like that, and I never knew when he would show up.
When my second child was two, my grandparents needed a place to live and he actually said that they could move in. I was blind and grateful so I didn’t realize it was so he would have to do less and I would end up carrying the whole burden. (I wouldn’t change that, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and I got to spend his last year with him.)
Over the course of all this I started drinking. A lot. It was the only way that I could spend any time with him at all. Made me numb to when he would rape and/or sodomize me. I just blocked it out. Alcohol made it hazy. Then along came number three.
It got much worse after my grandfather died. My grandmother moved out so there was no need to pretend niceness anymore.
I went back to work. He worked days, I worked nights. The kids were 7, 5 and 1. I figured that we were saving money by not having a sitter. What I found out later just about killed me.
He would come home from work, and start drinking. Or he would have my grandmother come over and sit so he could go to the bar. He would buy pizza every night, and if the kids didn’t want it he would send them to bed hungry. If he caught them trying to sneak food, he would beat them. Their bedroom door had louvers in it and I would ask them in the morning what had happened to them, as they were missing. They would say that the baby knocked them out, or they tripped into it or something. I just didn’t see what was happening. He was taking them out and hitting my kids with them. He would go on a rampage and make the kids get up in the middle of the night because he had lost the remote control. Mind you he was only doing this to the two oldest. The baby never had a hand laid on her, she just got to watch it all.
That fall we had lost the house we were living in. By some twist of fate, the only place to go was to my mom’s. That happened to be 500 miles away. When we got here, and the kids started to relax a little and realized that he couldn’t touch them here, they told me what was happening back with their dad. So after being gone for only three weeks, realizing that we were all happier (for the most part) and safer, I called him (two days before Thanksgiving) and told him that I did not want him to come up, I wanted a divorce. I told him that I was miserable and I wouldn’t live under his thumb anymore. He did the whole crying “I love you I’m sorry it won’t happen again” bull. When that didn’t work he told me he was going to kill himself. I told him to just let me know before so I could call and have the mess taken care of.
Once I left, I started to be me again. It took a lot of hours of looking at myself and not liking what I saw. Up until I met him I was a pretty strong person with not bad self-esteem. He turned me into an insecure, emotionally wounded wreck. I was never sure if that punch was going to land on the wall or me. Was the next thing that got thrown going to go over my head or into it. Once I was somewhere I knew that he could not hurt me, I saw a lot of things clearly.
My ex-husband can still bring out the worst in me. When I divorced him, where I live they only have “no-fault” divorce and I would have had to put my kids through hell to take care of the other issues. I know that sounds bad, but I just couldn’t put them through anything else. He has to come to where I live to see them, he isn’t allowed to take them more than 45 minutes away, he is not allowed to drink when he has them.
My kids know that we are survivors and that he can never physically touch us again. I have learned through therapy and friends and family that he can’t get to me emotionally unless I let him. I hold the cards.
The healing is close. There are still a few itches here and there, but I feel mostly complete. I married a wonderful, caring man who treats me like a queen. He is great to my girls (they wanted him to adopt them, but their father said no way) and they are actually starting to call him dad. I realize and am teaching the kids that they ARE worthy and that it was never their fault. That their father has something missing inside and he just never wanted help, even though I begged for years. They know that they have the control over what happens and what doesn’t and that help is now always a phone call away. They know that they can eat what they want, when they want and won’t get hurt for doing so.
It’s been a long hard road, but we made it. We will continue to make it, helping and healing each other along the way.
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Deb blogs at Downeast Vixenne.
Help is available to callers 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Hotline advocates are available for victims and anyone calling on their behalf to provide crisis intervention, safety planning, information and referrals to agencies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Assistance is available in English and Spanish with access to more than 170 languages through interpreter services. If you or someone you know is frightened about something in your relationship, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or TTY 1-800-787-3224.
