Just when I feel I have made so much progress ~ that the writing I am doing is giving closure to the post-traumatic stress ~ I am reminded that a mere phone call or email will bring back all the pain right back up to the surface, and the tears flow as if I were transported back to 2001-2005.
He is in jail for what I thought was two years, and for the first time in my life, I felt more than a bit safe. Then I hear that he may be released early, and then I wonder will I go back to completely watching my back again.
I always wonder if he could be somewhere on campus watching me leave work ~ following me back to my second of two apartments in two years ~ that he never managed to find out the addresses.
And then I get an update on our cat from his former neighbor who now cares for him. Lil' Dickens, my precious boy. He would not let him come back to Scotts Valley to live with me after we broke up five years ago. Said he did not want him to be an indoor cat. And even though I managed to see my precious kitty for a few times during 2006, the ache of not seeing this special cat for nearly 4 1/2 years can bring me to my knees in tears. This was one of those days.
He would not let me have the cat just like he would not let me have the little puppy that we fostered before Lil' Dickens arrived. He always like to watch me get close to an animal and then take away all contact just to hurt me. He knew I would never have my own children ~ that these beloved furchildren were like humans to me ~ and he made sure that he used these animals to manipulate and control me.
Lil' Dickens was meant to replace the puppy that I had named Beanie that we nursed through two weeks of kennel cough. I had never seen a wiener dog puppy, and this little underweight baby captured my heart. At first, I was allowed to take full care of the little guy, but by the second week, restrictions were put on my contact, and finally he found a buyer for his friend who ran a puppy broker business. I remember asking the buyer who was an acquaintance of his if I could visit the puppy ~ a sort of play date with Jack ~ the dog we had brought into our home the previous summer, merely one week after I called 911 on him. But the buyer refused, and I never got to visit Beanie ever again.
One evening after work, Lil' Dickens was waiting for me in my rocking chair, sitting upright next to his new buddy Jack. And I did not want to love him. But love him I did from the first time he slept curled up next to my head ~ a little three-inch ball of buff fur ~ while The Bad Man was out of town on a motorcycle trip.
Lil' Dickens was soon whisked away up north when he bought the second house. And the next 9 months was spent counting the days in between visits before I could see my precious boy again. I remember when 21 days between visits was sheer agony as my abuser would come back to Felton where I ran his original home but not allow me to visit him or the animals at his second home many times.
Looking back on all the sad, scary years of my life with him, it was the animals that somehow got me through the daily agony of being abused. The animals were pure and sweet and full of love for a woman who felt no love from the man who claimed to be her boyfriend.
My contact with Lil' Dickens and Jack ~ and eventually another wiener dog named Jill and Sunkist, the cat that came with the house up north ~ was truly the only beauty in my dark world. I do not know how I could have survived those four years ~ filled with mind games and verbal abuse that escalated each year into physical abuse ~ without the unconditional love of my animal friends ~ my furchildren ~ the true loves of my life ~ who stood by my side and protected me in their own selfless way ~ just by being precious souls with only one goal of giving me love.
When you see the sweet faces of animals ~ when you look into their soulful eyes ~ you see the face of God.
"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened."
~ Anatole France
Lil' Dickens and Me
So heartfelt and honest. Thank you. Keep writing Robin! xoxo Melanie
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