|
|
|
I have so much enjoyed the past year or so of my life with my children and with myself. I feel moments of true happiness again after going through a long spell of feeling little or nothing. Gateway has had a large hand in reviving my soul.
I have two children, a son age 20 and a daughter age 11. My children were the ones that opened my eyes to myself, my life, and to seeing how abuse pervades lives and generations. Four years ago at this time my daughter and I were actually living in the Gateway Shelter. We stayed there for 27 days and during that time the shelter was our home. To this day, if we pass by the shelter my daughter may call out, “There’s our house”. Ultimately, my son and daughter became my motivation for seeing a life of peace-that they might enjoy the same.
When I was about seven years old I recall being in the living room with my father and realizing that my mother was locked out on the nearby porch. The main door was open but the storm door was locked. When my mother caught sight of me, she pleaded to me to come and unlock the screen door. My only thought was to do just that but my dad stopped me. While my mother continued to plead with me to unlock the door, my father sat by quietly, saying to me, “Don’t you dare unlock that door; don’t you do it”.
My dad was a big man. I always had a certain amount of fear of him just because of his size and strength. For one thing, I knew I could not stop him whenever he was on one of his tickling bouts with me, no matter how hard I tried, even using all my might. He’d do anything to get me to smile and I didn’t want to mess with him.
Another incident that I recall occurred when I was about 14 years old. It was a school day and I and my brother and sister were upstairs getting ready for school. We became aware of angry voices downstairs in the kitchen. We all stopped doing whatever we were doing when the sounds of a scuffle began to ensue. We found ourselves moving toward the staircase and down the steps, listening each step of the way, trying to figure out what was happening. We all felt afraid and didn’t know what to do. My brother was 12 years old and my sister was about 8. We had a “new daddy” now and we were still trying to get used to him. I leaned out over the banister to get a better look into the kitchen and saw my step dad trying to push my pregnant mother out the back door onto the porch. When it became apparent that we were taking this all in, my step dad dispersed us and likely continued with my mother after we went to school. I did not want to leave my mother that day, I was afraid for her.
The next incident took place several years ago in my own married life. My son was 15 years old and we just moved to a new neighborhood. My son was beginning high school after having difficulty with attendance and grades in his last two years of middle school. In all of this he was very self-conscious about his appearance and compensated for his lean build by wearing big, baggy clothes and smoking cigarettes. Confrontations between Dad and stepson were frequent. One night during a confrontation about cigarette smoking in the backyard, when it looked like a fistfight would break out between my husband and my son, my son left the house. After he left I was horrified. My husband went around the house and locked all of the doors and windows. He took an electrical cord and tied the side-by-side front doors together, tying them further to a nearby railing in the staircase. It was made clear to me and my daughter that neither of us were allowed to let my son back in the house. My husband slept downstairs in view of the door just to make sure. I went to bed upset, but I believed my son had gone over to his friend’s home. The next morning I was crushed to see him at the door after my husband had gone to work. He had not gone to any friend’s house. He chose instead to walk all night to keep warm. Temperatures were near freezing through the night. My son eventually did leave the house permanently, over some incident. Recently my daughter mentioned to me what a horrible incident this was and that she will always remember it.
What strikes me about each of these incidents is that in none of them did I ever think about calling anyone for help or telling anyone. My sense was that this was a private matter. I couldn’t speak up or tell anyone. After looking at my mother’s life and then my life, I even concluded that this must just be “the way men are”. They do things differently; they don’t want to talk about it. I remember my mother in her despair praying out loud that my life would be different. And yet it seemed that I followed in her path. My mother’s way of handling conflict was being silent and passive; my way became one of adapting to change. Over the years I saw my relationship with my spouse change from what I hoped would be nurturing and mutually caring, to a silent, menacing, emotional vacuum where I experienced days and sometimes weeks of nonexistence, impertinence, and silence from the love of my life. These emotional trials got more intense, especially through the struggles between dad and stepson. Sometimes I felt like I was back with my mom and dad—each wanting me to take their side. I could not please one without annoying the other. Still to this day I have difficulty making decisions. I have a sinking feeling that no decision I make will be the right one.
I thought I knew my spouse long before we got married. We worked together as young professionals for a large company. That was my baseline relationship with him. When we married I believed I had come a long way from that troubling school day morning when I saw my mother being pushed out onto the back porch. I believed my marriage would have equality and respect, but I began to notice similarities between my mother’s remarriage and my own. My step dad moved us out to a farm to minimize contact with my father, who was still living. In my marriage I moved 1500 miles across the country, leaving all my friends and family to start a new life with my love. The isolated living situations my mother’s remarriage and then in mine, were perfect breeding grounds to allow abuse to take place with little notice by the outside world.
It was a wonder to me through the years to stand by watching my husband pound his fist on the table to make a point, punch holes in the walls when he was angry, or drive irrationally with me and the kids in the car when he was angry with us. I hadn’t seen this kind of behavior. I never saw my husband’s property damage violence as being a pre-cursor to physical violence. But after awhile, this violent behavior started to be focused on me. He became more physical with me. When this first began to happen, I felt startled more than intimidated; I was mainly annoyed. It seemed out of character to me for him to start pushing me around. I’d ask him to stop the behavior or I’d try to ignore it. These displays of physical anger were easier to tolerate for me than the ones that would go on for several days or even weeks. It reminded me of Princess Diana referring to “being dismissed” by her husband. When I read this about her life, I felt a great deal of compassion for Diana. I was familiar with this treatment. Being completely ignored and rejected by my spouse was one of the most fundamental ways he sought to control me. But I couldn’t see these dynamics in work at the time. After all I couldn’t have married an abusive, controlling person. In my marriage I would insist on being treated as an equal with respect.
Years later in thinking about my parents, I realized that my parents were so wrapped up in their conflicts with one another; they weren’t able to notice their effect on me. As a child, I knew well what it was like to feel invisible. And now, as an adult, I was seeing these things in my marriage, and with my son and daughter.
I thought about the day I signed my divorce petition. I felt shattered and distraught about my situation so I went to visit my priest. There was another priest there as well. We sat down together and all I could think of or say amid the tears was, “I can’t do this”. We talked for awhile and at one point one of the priests looked me calmly in the eye and asked me if this was the kind of life I wanted my daughter to have; this kind of marriage. From that vantage point, the answer was simple and clear—“No Way!”
In the end, I felt so menaced and terrorized by my spouse’s angry behavior toward me that I no longer felt safe. He went from intimidation tactics, like body checking me, to finally hitting and spitting on me. He was always careful to try to hurt me without leaving any marks. My spouse expressed complete hatred of me and I heard the words, and felt them. I thought about my daughter and myself. I thought about what a huge role model I was for my daughter, especially in the absence of any other extended family. I’ve since concentrated on understanding how easy it is not to notice red flags, when you grow up with these things and I’ve determined to keep educating my children and myself.
I’m determined to keep learning and growing. My memories of my shelter days are fading, but I still remember things like the food stored in the kitchen and the housekeeping chores being divided among the residents. It was weird; in the middle of this chaos doing house chores seemed like the only familiar, normal act. I remember sitting around the dining table hearing the other women’s stories and feeling an incredible emptiness but not of being alone. I felt safe.
Although I’m divorced from my abuser, I am required to co-parent our daughter with him. I still have a restraining order in place. My abuser knows little about my present life, but he still takes any opportunity to make judgments on my life, my decisions, what I spend my money on, and my care of my daughter. He still pushes his weight around emotionally, as he had done during our marriage.
I have a lot to be thankful for and I’m determined to lead a peaceful life. Holidays are still hard without family near, but I’ve found a shared tenderness and compassion among the women and counselors. I thank my Gateway sisters for all the sharing we do in group. I’m thankful for my counselors, and the caring souls who held my hand and heart in the shelter in the early days. I’m determined to live a peaceful life.
|
|
|
The reasons I want to help women and children who are victims of
Domestic Violence are: assist women and children in domestic violence
situations to become strong enough to have a voice of their own; help
women and children realize their true value and worth; nurture those
who have been beaten down physically and emotionally and help them
resurface their self-respect; teach everyone that they have the "right"
to say "No, you can't treat me like that".
-Penny Heffernan
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Survivor Stories 
