My victim impact statement to my abuser:
It’s hard to Understand fear unless you’ve actually experienced it.
I spent three years of my adult life living in fear all the time trying to keep my head together and be strong enough to survive and raise my daughters. I feared the man that claimed he loved me like no other. Aaron you promised to protect me and you were the only person who ever wanted to hurt me. I had no one to protect me from you. I knew early on that I wasn’t getting away from you and that you would make sure of it. I was living and still am living my life in survival mode and that’s how I get by day to day. There are many nights that I questioned if I would even be alive to see the next day. I can’t count the amount of days I had to scoop my girls up fast enough just to get away just in case you would follow through with your threats. I’m very aware of what you’re capable of, in fact you made sure I was aware of that to keep my fear alive. I stayed quiet and suffered silently to protect the people I knew and loved. no one was safe. you threatened me with death to my closest loved ones. you put a rift in so many relationships I had with friends and family in fear that they would see what you were doing to me and try to help. you warned me what would happen if I ever had gone for help.
You made me think there was no help out there and that nothing would stop you. There was no place that I could go or hide that you couldn’t find me. That fear is what kept me silent, that fear is what stopped me from getting help.
You would constantly and consistently inform me of how you would eventually end my life. You had successfully put that fear in me and I do fear for my life. It’s not that I just believed what you said and promise you would do, it’s everything that you put me through for the past three years and all the fear that you instilled in me. The few times that I did finally get to my breaking point and call the police for help it was always such a battle in my head to make that decision. Because I didn’t know if that would possibly be the last thing I would ever do.
Then i constantly have to relive all the abuse over and over again to try to explain to people or police officers of why I need help is one of my biggest challenges. It’s so hard to sum up a series of abuse. Then the biggest insult of all is how you like to downplay what you’ve done. How dare you take the hell you put me through away from me by calling me a liar or an over exaggerator. You say that this was my fault I instigated you and I pushed you and that’s why I got what I deserved. It’s easier for you to ignore what you did to me then to face it and admit that you are a monster. And convince yourself that you don’t need help and pretend that this is all deserved by my doing. You chose to blame me instead of helping yourself. You blame me you said it was my fault and I always deserved what I got.
I’m an intelligent woman, and somehow you manipulated me into thinking that this was my fault. But I know now that this is not my fault. No man has the right to put his hands on a woman and vice versa. You don’t have any right to control my life. You’re not entitled to put hands on my body no matter what.
I understand you don’t wanna hear what you’ve done. But I don’t wanna have to live with the nightmares that you created for me either,but I can’t forget them. I am here today because I deserve to hear you admit your guilt. This is the closest genuine sorry that I will get from you, and I deserve the acknowledgment of what you’ve done to me. Because ultimately I will never be the same. My kids will never be able to forget these years that their mom was living in fear. Maybe they didn’t know exactly what was happening but they are not stupid and they were also affected by everything you’ve put us through.
You’re a selfish man, that’s very apparent. There’s got to be something extremely twisted inside of your head when the thought of your own children being without their father, because of the stupid actions that you’ve done, doesn’t phase you. that’s nothing less than selfish. You love to go to the polar opposite side of things after your manic episodes of completely destroying every part of me. You like to tell me how much you love me and how much I mean to you and how much you don’t wanna hurt me and that you’ll never do it again. Lies. It’s all lies. you need help. Someone like you needs to sit and reflect and feel the same pain that you inflicted. Because out here you just don’t get it. You seem to not understand that no one is obligated to do and be what you say. I don’t care what you tell everyone else, how you tell everyone that I’m crazy and I just wanna get you locked up or that I’m racist.
There’s two people in this world that know 100% what has happened and that’s you and I. And you know what hell you put me through. And for the simple fact that your pride will never allow you to admit that and actually mean it and actually have remorse for it, tells me you don’t deserve a spot in society. You’ve ruined everything that I’ve worked so hard to build for my kids and I in such a short amount of time. And I will take my part in that by allowing it to happen. But I live those consequences every day. And all that I ask is that you have to serve the time that’s deserved and at least somewhat equal the time that you have selfishly stolen from me and my kids and my family. Because you ultimately shattered my world and now I’m here left to pick up every little piece and try to stick it back together as best as I can but like I said before I’ll never be the same and neither will my kids. But I won’t let this break me for good. I will put myself back together and I will get back to being the person that I was as best as I can. I won’t let you win in that aspect. Because at the end of the day you will just become another bad memory for me. A mere blip on my radar. But as for you… I was the iceberg to your titanic. You allowed yourself to believe all of your delusions about me and ultimately sank your ship…
-Elizabeth Stahl
