Cathy (Arkie Mama)
The following is a post I wrote two blogs ago, when I was writing and editing for a mama website in Texas. It dates back to 2005. This post is made up of two open letters — one to the man who abused me; the second to a friend who, at the time, was involved with her own abuser. I haven’t updated it. Can’t bear to. But I thought it might reach someone.
To D. —
Nearly 16 years have passed since I escaped from you.
In recent years, you’ve rarely crossed my mind. (OK, well, there have been a few times when I’ve indulged in fantasies involving your death by cement truck. I’ve imagined sending yellow tulips–such happy, sunshiny flowers–to your funeral. And dancing joyfully, in a ha-ha, fuck-you sort of way on your grave.)
Most of the time, however, I keep my memories of you tucked away, in part, I admit, because I’m ashamed that I ever allowed someone to treat me as you did. Today, I’m pulling out those memories, shaking off the dust and offering them up for very public view. Why? Because one of my closest friends is involved with someone who reminds me of you, and I’m worried about her.
He has a temper just like yours, although I still contend you’re the only human being I’ve ever met who actually froths at the mouth when angry. Still, each time I’m around this guy, I get the same fluttery, panicky feeling I always experienced around you.
I don’t know where you are or what you’re doing these days. You had a medical scare many years back, shortly after our breakup. You almost died. At the time, I felt only relief. I would never again have to worry about bumping into you when I went home to visit my family.
I heard you moved to Houston. Good. Stay there. Lose yourself in that big, stinking, polluted city.
I also heard you don’t have any kids. You’re the only person I would ever say this to, but I am glad, glad, glad.
Just look at what you did to me. I can only imagine–and it makes me shudder to do so–what someone like you would do to a crying newborn.
The rest of this isn’t addressed to you. You can keep reading if you want, but I doubt you’ll be able to stomach it. After all, what I’m about to share isn’t in keeping with the image you always tried to present. Well, at least up until the very end. Then you didn’t care who knew, did you?
Just know that once I’m done describing my years with you, the memories will go back into the deepest, darkest place I can store them. I now have a busy and fulfilling life, with no time to waste on thoughts of your pitiful and worthless existence.
Cathy
P.S. I hope your wife has left you. No woman deserves the misery of a life with you.
||
Dear M. —
You can see from the above paragraphs that the anger lingers.
But at least it’s sporadic, rather than constant, and its emergence these days requires a specific trigger. Like your current situation, for example.
I tried to broach this subject with you a few weeks ago, but you shied away from it. I know you’ve asked someone else with experience in this area about “signs” and “clues.” I know you’ve asked if your boyfriend is a “good” or “bad” man.
If you have to ask, you’ve already answered your own questions.
You didn’t want to listen the other day. But maybe you’ll read what I have to say–if, that is, I work up the nerve to show this to you. Right now, I’m worried that doing so would scare you away from me, rather than him.
Regardless, I’ll go ahead and write it. Maybe it will help someone else in the meantime:
I was 15 and he was 24. I see your eyebrows shooting skyward. Yeah, it’s a pretty big age difference, especially when one of the parties happens to be a teenager.
But D. went to our church, you see. His mom was president of the missionary circle and his dad was the Sunday school superintendent. He was one of three sons, all of them tall, good-looking and charming men.
I started “dating” D. the summer of 1985. Actually, what happened is that he encouraged me to sneak out of my house, night after night, so that I could meet him at the foot of our driveway, where he waited in his car.
Please understand–before D., I was a straight-arrow, straight-A (well, except for algebra) upper-middle-class virgin. So my parents were pretty floored when I finally confessed, over Thanksgiving dinner, no less, that I had been skulking around with this older man.
For some reason–and yes, there is still some residual anger at my family here–my parents decided that it would be better to allow me to see D. once a week than to forbid me from seeing him altogether. Now that I have a daughter of my own, I marvel at their naiveté. But anyway….
For the next four years, D. abused me emotionally, physically and sexually.
I never told, not until the day I came home with fingerprint-shaped bruises on both arms and my mother saw them. (That time, he had shaken me so hard, my teeth rattled.)
Why, people ask, do women stay with men like that?
Because men like that rob you of your confidence, dignity, friends, and, in my case, the remainder of your childhood. Because men like that are truly talented in making apologies and can convince you, time and again, that they have “changed.” Because men like that make you–yes, incredibly, YOU–feel guilty or responsible for everything that happens in the relationship. Because men like that are manipulative and cruel.
Example: During one of the many times I tried to leave him, D. faked a suicide attempt. He ran, sobbing, into the bathroom. When I walked in, he was sitting on the floor, crying, and clutching an empty medicine bottle. The water was running and a couple of pills lay in the sink. I ran for the phone, panicked that I would be responsible for someone’s death. Just as I began to dial, he emerged from the bathroom, laughing.
Yes, laughing.
“I was only kidding,” he said.
So let’s talk about how men like that will mindfuck you into a numbing, crazed sort of existence, one in which you’ll find yourself asking almost daily, “What is normal, anyway?”
Let’s talk about sex with men like D. For them, it’s a truly selfish act, and if it involves force, then so be it. Sex doesn’t reflect their love or passion for you. It’s all about control. And guess what? You’re on the losing end. If you’re lucky, you won’t have bruises on your thighs when he’s through.
Let’s talk about how they keep track of your hours, calculating how much time you spend with family and friends vs. how much time you spend with them.
Let’s talk about how their behavior only grows worse and more erratic–because they’ve realized just how much you’ll put up with.
My moment of clarity arrived in two-part form. First, there were the bruises D. left on my arms, the ones my mom saw. I finally had to tell someone what was going on. I saw the horror on my mother’s face, and suddenly, I realized that I wasn’t the one who was crazy.
A few weeks later, D. showed up at my parents’ home in the early-morning hours, pounding on the door and shouting. It no longer mattered to him that other people might witness one of his rages. He was that out of control.
By now I was completing semi-secretive plans to transfer to a new college in another town. I knew I would need that 200-mile buffer, as well as the safety of my all-girls dorm (with its strict male-visitor restrictions), in order to break up with him.
I did it by phone. Told him it was over. Really over. And yes, I meant it this time.
It took a lot of counseling and years of “practice boyfriends” before I finally figured out what normal relationships feel like.
Here’s the thing, M.–I don’t know how your boyfriend behaves when you’re alone, but I’ve seen how he treats you in public, in front of your friends, the very people he should be trying to impress.
You’ve described tantrums and dramas that reek in their familiarity to me. He’s mean to your dog. He’s mean to other women.
Lastly, and most disturbing, I’ve seen the changes in you. You’ve never been the type of woman to sit there, meekly, while someone berates and belittles you in public. But now you do, and I know why. You’re doing whatever it takes to keep him from getting angry. You haven’t realized it, but each time he starts in on you, there are two of us sitting there, thinking, “Please, don’t make him mad, please don’t make him mad.”
I do it out of sad, pathetic habit and worry for you. You do it to survive this facsimile of a relationship. I lived that way for four years. Trust me, you don’t want to do the same.
I’ll tell you what’s most frustrating: You may be reading this, nodding to yourself, saying, “I knew it wasn’t me, he’s the bad guy here,” but even so–I can tell you’re still not ready to leave him.
I believe you will, one day, I really do. But these relationships are so difficult to get out of, and that’s what most people don’t understand. Society is, for the most part, unforgiving and judgmental of abused women.
I remember my stint as a volunteer at a local women’s shelter, and how one night I was called to pick up a woman and her kids. When I arrived in my two-seater pickup, a brusque and unsympathetic cop loaded the woman and her four kids, one of whom was an infant, into my tiny truck. Two of the kids sat on the floor. Another straddled my gear shift. The baby sat in his mother’s lap.
The cop muttered something and slammed the door. Clearly, he considered this woman’s plight a waste of his time.
This attitude, along with the shame of having been that kind of woman, has often made me reluctant to discuss my past.
I’m doing it now because even if you aren’t ready to leave him, I want to make sure you know that when you do, I’ll still be around, waiting, and so will your other girlfriends.
There are several outstretched hands. Please, take one. Soon.
####
Cathy blogs at Little Rock Mamas.
27 Responses to “Cathy (Arkie Mama)”
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Thank you for sharing your powerful truth, and for the needed reminder for me to continue to be one of those outstretched hands, just in case it’s needed. Peace to you.
cathy- thank you for publishing this. your strength is incredible.
“If you have to ask, you’ve already answered your own questions.”
Good for all of us to remember. Thank you for sharing this Cathy.
Thank-you for sharing.
Thank-you for voicing this also ” …, because I’m ashamed that I ever allowed someone to treat me as you did.” It’s comforting to know I’m not alone in that shame.
I know it’s not my fault, I know he was the bad one, yet why do I still feel ashamed???
I hope your friend found the courage and strength to leave as you did.
Cathy, Thank you for sharing this. You offer insight into the dynamics of abusive relationships and encouragement for many who might be wondering about their own situation. Your courage is an inspiration and a blessing.
Thank you so much!
sorry, i had to comment a second time because i’ve read this numerous times and keep finding myself in awe of the fact that you’ve had this letter since 2005. the lessons learned and the wisdom put to paper apply now just as much as they did then and even before.
gosh, that timeframe just really blew me away for a moment.
sorry for the second comment. thank you again for your post. so pertinent. so needed. please post it again in another 4 years and let’s see where we’re at.
cheers to you.
Thank you.
It’s painful to drag that crap back out of the recesses, but bless you for doing it — then AND now. I HOPE to God your friend listened and let someone help her get free.
For you, I hope you can let go of as much of it as possible. During the past year, I, too, dredged childhood memories (including some on VU) and found myself reliving things I no longer choose to house in my psyche.
Putting it out there and explaining how you’ve since been able to find “normal” in a relationship will definitely go a long way in helping someone else find the courage to get out.
This is so, so beautifully written. And your intention, albeit created back then, I think still has such an ability to resound in those people that stumble across VU and finally go “I can escape”.
Thank you for sharing. It means a lot — not just to me, but to all of the people out there that need to hear that what they’re suffering is *not* okay.
You’re a great friend and strong survivor.
Thank you for sharing.
I am so glad that you survived and are brave and share your story. I hope the friend who you wrote this letter for got out of that relationship.
Thank you.
First, let me say I’m so very thankful you got free of “D”, and so glad to know you’re safe now. Second, I hope that in the period since you wrote this, your friend has also made that decision to be free and is coming to the place where “normal” means “normal”. Third, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for having the guts to publish this once again, even though I know it must have hurt like hell to do it. Also, I want you to know that dredging it up once again you’ve helped someone to wake up to what’s happening and to find the courage to leave. You’ve given them a future, and for that I’ll take the liberty of thanking you on their behalf. I hope you’ll get those thanks firsthand someday.
And finally, I hope you’ve been able to purge yourself from that anger that the first letter was so steeped in, not because he doesn’t deserve it but because you don’t. Someone very wise once said to me that carrying around a bucketload of anger and resentment was like drinking poison and expecting the other fella to die. Nobody could ever blame you for having it, and nobody would ever expect you to forgive him for what he did to you. And frankly, he deserves every bit of venom that comes his way. But you don’t. And that is probably the hardest thing to get free of, and the most damaging thing to remain trapped by. Because it colors everything in a vile shade of green, taints everything good with a bitter taste of suspicion and reservation. It keeps you from being you. And because of that I hope you’ve gotten free of it now.
Because God knows you deserve the best.
One of the most difficult aspects of friendship is communicating truth in a forthright but nonjudgmental way. You, my dear, are an excellent friend to this woman.
I’m glad you are not just standing, but singing with a voice that is clear and strong. AWESOME.
Wow. Thank you for reviving this for us. I know a few women who I might refer here, if that’s okay.
I so, so hope your friend reached out.
Thank you for having the courage to survive and to share your story.
I love you and am so proud to know you.
Thank you for sharing your painful story and the lessons you’ve learned. You are so brave. M is blessed to have you as a friend, and I really hope that she has taken hold of the helping, understanding and caring hand that you’ve reached out to her.
Let’s pray that your friend finds the strength to take control of her life and create a new beginning. You answered a difficult question asked by people on the outside looking in, “Why do women stay with men like that?” You answered it very well. Thank you for sharing your story here. I hope that you share it with your friend, too. Blessings to you.
I hope that your friend found your strength. Thank you for sharing this.
Thanks so much for your answer to why women would stay with men like that. I look forward to a day when society stops asking “why women stay” and starts asking “what is wrong with a man who would treat a woman like that?”, putting the blame where it belongs. Thanks for your courage to share.
~Aerin
Thank you for sharing your story. My first serious boyfriend was emotionally abusive and it forever altered the way I see myself and others. I am stronger now because of it, and I can tell that you are too. I’m also glad that the friends I shied away from during that time because of my confusion and shame were still there when I came out on the other side.
Taking the bad and turning it into good by helping others is the best way to overcome evil. Thank you for what you’re doing by telling what happened to you.
Thank you for sharing.
I sat here nodding my head in agreement the entire time I read this. It’s so poignant and on-target. I am so sorry you ever had to go through this and I hope your friend escaped before she got too hurt.
Cathy, I cannot thank you enough for sharing your story. Both letters are testaments not only to your skill as a writer but also as to the deep, enduring damage abuse can cause.
I have never, thank God, been abused. But I have reason to believe someone very, very close to me is in an abusive situation. I do not know all the details – she has shared only the tiniest details with me – but my intuition tells me whatever it is is not good.
After an abusive incident six months ago, I reached out to her and she pushed me away. Since then, I and others close to both of us have been the recipient of his abuse in a variety of ways. She stopped talking to me after I tried to take a restraining order out against him.
This person is my sister. This person is my heart.
I wake up every day thinking your words, “Even if you aren’t ready to leave him, I’ll still be around, waiting.”
I commend you for writing this letter, and I hope you let your friend read it. Thank you so much for writing this and for sharing it here. You might not even know who you’ve helped.