I was choked for joking that he had forgotten to take off his shoes at my parents’ house while they were in the next room.
Perhaps one of the most disturbing aspects of recovery is that for each memory that pops into my mind, there are multiple buried incidents that have not yet surfaced. Occasionally, my mind reaches out in a macabre fashion, revealing sordid details of abuse that will knock me out of commission for seemingly no reason. It can be caused by the smell of marijuana, a white car with black rims, anything. It is physically and emotionally exhausting when this occurs, and it dredges up new disbelief and shame that I didn’t leave when he first called me a whore for wearing jeans, the first time he swerved into oncoming traffic and screamed at me as I cried in terror.
I was too ashamed to admit to myself what had happened, I did not tell my longtime therapist about the abuse for roughly half a year after he moved out. When I finally told him, that point, I could no longer deal with my inner turmoil alone- I was drowning myself in liquor so that I could temporarily find solace.
At that point in my healing process, I was still terrified. I lived in fear that he could still hurt me, that I would be judged as though the abuse was my fault, or even that there would be legal repercussions for making allegations, even in private.
After I revealed to my parents that I had broken up with him, they asked if it was my fault, if I had cheated on him and if I was the reason we had separated. This was the final nail in the coffin that solidified my shame, my belief that I wouldn’t be believed or supported, and that I didn’t deserve to be, regardless of the fact that I had never committed an act of infidelity. I had heard for the last three years, of course, that I must be cheating, since god forbid, I occasionally wore clothes that showed the outline of my waist, though I was wearing an ankle length skirt that concealed my entire lower half.
I was scared to be alone, but I couldn’t stand being around anyone. The silence of living alone ate at me so I drank myself to sleep every night. I told myself it was artistic to live in silence, that if I arranged my room in a certain way, if I smoked enough cigarettes, drank enough, that I could turn myself into one of my paintings. Beautiful and alone, protected between a canvas and a layer of oil.
In my mind, I deserved the abuse. When he woke up and vomited for hours as a result of drug abuse, it was my job to apologize, even as he berated me. It felt like my job to pick apart his weed and pack his bowls, since he had long ago broken his last grinder out of anger for something I did. Even though I did not use, and couldn’t stand the smell or feeling of it, it felt like my job. Like I owed it to him as an apology for making him upset. In his words, I was a massive burden, a waste of space that was just a “typical white American girl”, spoken with more venom than one would believe possible.
I believed it was my fault when he would scream at me for hours, then block my number for hours more.
When his voice would break while trying to sing(since he somehow always had the delusion he could carry a tune), and he would start yelling and threaten to drive at seventy miles an hour into a ditch.
When he threw his phone at me multiple times, once bouncing off me and cracking the windshield of his car. The times he hit me for asking him a question while he was playing a video game, or stomped on my feet.
When he screamed at me for looking at him while having sex.
When he raped me. And that’s barely scratching the surface of what I survived during those horrible three years.
There were so many times I knew I needed to tell someone, anyone. I felt trapped. The turning point came three days before our three year anniversary, when my hatred overcame my fear. He called me a whore and I moved his bed into the living room and told him he was no longer allowed in the bedroom. That we were now roommates and nothing more. He berated me, spit on my face, deprived me of sleep and I woke up to him sobbing and trying to hug me. I felt such an intense disgust that I wanted to kill myself so I wouldn’t have to feel it anymore. He would force me to hug him, block me in my room, and go through my things. He would accuse me of being a slut, surprise, surprise! And once even looked at me as I broke down and laughed at him and he asked why I was such a horrible person, what he had done to deserve the way I treated him.
Even after he moved out, he would show up at my apartment and when I opened the door not knowing it was him, he would block the door open and force me to let him in. On one instance, someone had jammed paper into the lock to my front door, and I was horrified. I will never know if it was him.
After my then-boyfriend(current fiancée) moved in, I was forced to start the healing process as he helped me stop drinking every night, and weaseled his way into my life with so much love and care I believed I did not deserve.
When I woke up to noises in my apartment, and awoke my boyfriend, I was horrified, but assumed it was my PTSD acting up. When he came back and got down on his knees, and told me everything was okay but that we were robbed, my entire life came crashing down around me. It was clearly a personal attack, with raw steaks hidden behind my couch and cabinet, one of my paintings slashed and thrown in the dumpster, and my pills dumped on the floor along with all my potted plants. Over a thousand dollars worth of our items were stolen, and he came back the next night in an attempt to steal my boyfriend’s car. Thankfully, the apartment security saw him, or he would have gotten away with so much more. He was convicted for attempting to steal the car but never saw a day in court for any of the occurrences on the first night.
I couldn’t sleep, and when I did I ground my teeth horribly, and had extremely vivid nightmares. I felt extremely let down by the detectives working on the case, and devastated at the lack of compassion, or even belief that I was met with. In a later incident when I called the police after someone opened my outgoing mail, took a shit in the envelope, and left it on the floor of the apartment hallway, the responding officer knew him personally, expressed that he was sad he had “potentially” turned out that way, and told me that he could do nothing, that it was just a “shitty” situation, and half apologized for making a joke of the situation.
I am still afraid. Every single day. Almost two years since I left him, and I am still dealing with the emotional trauma on a daily basis. The thing that has changed is that I now know I am strong, and that it was not my fault. I have good and bad times, but things are getting better, and I’m extremely proud to be where I stand today. While it may seem impossible to gain independence and to live after abuse, it can work. There are always disappointments and setbacks, especially with the way our country receives domestic violence survivors. But my life is a testimony that abusers can’t win everything, even with the odds stacked in their favor. He can never take my will to improve my life.
Notice: The names in this story are fictitious to protect the request for anonymity.
