Double take

A familiar look, hand gesture, the same full head of gray hair ~ even the same style of shirt he wore.  Seeing a man of the same age from the back of his head ~ in the distance ~ and doing a double take to see if it is really him.  Could it really be him?

Creeping by slowly, studying every mannerism, every voice inflection as I inspect the man in the distance ~ now getting closer ~ as I approach from the side.

Waving his hands, he rants and raves at the other guy in the parking lot of my local donut shop.

Yes, it could be him, I think.  That is how he used to wave his hands to make a point ~ to be dramatic ~ to be important ~ to seem smarter than other people.

But this guy seems drunk or on drugs, and I am hoping my ex is still clean and sober after being released from jail nearly four months ago.

Why would my ex being sitting on the parking chock in the parking space ~ waving his hands dramatically ~ not really making any sense to me ~ as I approach?

I squint through my eight-year-old prescription on my beat-up eyeglasses and keep thinking it could really be him.  It has finally happened, I think.  I will finally come fact-to-face with my abuser after years, or will I simply bolt away to my destination of a greasy meal at Denny's?

I would like to come face-to-face with my abuser and ask him point-blank for the $5000 he extorted from me back in 2003.  I could really use that money now ~ now that I have been laid off from my job.

But I will never see that money for as long as I live, and that money is living proof that I survived four years of abuse.  That money is a symbol of my strength to survive.  So, no, I do not really need that money that bad if it meant coming face-to-face with the man who abused me for four years.

I creep slowly past, listening to every deranged word from the gray-haired man's mouth and finally realize it is not him like I thought it could be. 

Just another drunk to dodge on my way to Denny's.

Tsunami Warning

There was a time when I began to hide my whole world from my father when it came to the abuse I was experiencing.

Dad stood by when I moved out of my tiny cabin-style studio in Ben Lomond ~ in my first attempt to end my destructive relationship ~ a mere nine months before I ended up moving in with my abuser.  I had to get out of the Santa Cruz Mountains in order to break free from the man who had begun to destroy my life in a short six months.

So the day after my 37th birthday, he stood watch in the van while I packed up the rest of my stuff.  My nephew Cameron and his friend Nick had already came for the furniture days before my final visit. 

I had not even really been living in the mountain studio for a couple of months having already rented another studio near the university the previous November shortly after I drove myself to the E.R. on Halloween night.  Looking back, this was my first attempt at some sort of safety plan ~ securing some secret housing that would wait for me until I could sneak away completely.

But The Bad Man soon found out where I lived, and he began to come by at all hours of the night, tapping on my windows with his motorcycle keys, calling out my name, begging me to let him in ~ just this once, he would plead.

And sometimes I did let him in just to not wake the landlords in the house next door.  Other times, I would stay as quiet as I could behind those four walls ~ like Anne Frank in the Attic Apartment ~ waiting for him to finally leave ~ and then I would call the police to make an incident report.

He wore me down after four months of stalking turned to wooing, and then he began another four months of fighting with me about his wanting me to move in with him and my wanting to remain alone.  I remember Karen at Walnut Ave Women's Center telling me that once I did move in with him it would be very hard to leave. 

But I gave in to stop the fighting ~ the main topic of our arguments ~ that I did not want to live with him.  I gave in, and I did not want to tell my father.

And so I called Quicksilver.  A local voicemail service where I could set up a Santa Cruz phone number so my dad could stay in touch with me and never find out that I moved back to the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Three more years of secrets began on the day I acquired my secret voicemail number that I still have to this day.

Dad would leave me messages about family get-togethers.  And I would call him back from work.  He would send me cards to the old apartment, and I would get them a week later with the yellow forwarding address sticker on them.  I did not think ahead to how I would handle the situation with the mail once the year ran out for forwarding.

The secret voicemail then became the only weapon I had against my abuser from finding other ways to contact me once we finally broke up three years later.

I had changed my home phone number multiple times during our on-and-off relationship that I was not about to give him my phone number once I was finally free.  So I kept paying the $45 quarterly bill to give him only one way to contact me.  He would leave me long, lengthy messages at times ~ always wanting to see me again ~ using the animals as ways to get me to miss the dogs and cats ~ telling me they missed me and did not understand why I did not visit.  I made a copy of each of the messages, especially if they were abusive ~ always with the notion that one day I may need to finally file my own restraining order on him ~ and not just one that cops had automatically placed on him the night he bashed my head into the wall.

Last summer, the voice mails stopped.  And I started having nightly dreams and daily flashbacks about him.  I instinctively knew that something was wrong.  I emailed his sponser and found out my ex was finally in jail but not for any charges of domestic violence.  The whole idea of him finally being in jail really caused me to tap into those horrible four years I spent with him and to all the heartbreaking years of verbal abuse that escalated into physical violence ~ so much of which I had blocked out simply to get through another day.

For six months, I processed those flashbacks.  By the third month, I knew I had to continue writing about my experience.  The blog I had started to honor my mother at Christmas immediately transitioned to include stories of domestic violence.  All the titles in my head from all those years together were typed up and out in a frenzy of writing for four months all with the idea that he would be locked up for 2 years.  When I heard his release date had been bumped up to February and that his sentence was reduced to six months, I began counting down to that day in February and wondering just how long it would take him to contact me.  Maybe I should have had Vegas take bets.

"You have one unheard message," informed the familar voice to my voicemail service of 9 years.  And there he was on the other line ~ same as he ever was ~ as if another marriage and domestic violence and being locked up for drugs had not even happened since his last message to me ~

There he was warning me about the tsunami.  Asking me to check on his grown son who was staying in the old house in Felton.

I felt nothing inside at the sound of his familiar voice. 

There was no pain.  No sadness.  No fear. 

  

Uncensored

Stage Four

The Cancer Year has already begun.  Mom's story technically starts in January 1994 with two months of misdiagnosis and treatments for conditions that did not actually exist.

But to me, Her Cancer Year officially starts on March 9, 1994.  And so every March, I do relive those last moments as each anniversary unfolds ~ not in a morbid way or even a sad way ~ but in such a way for a person who has a calendar in her head and remembers key days of the week, days of the month, and days of the year.

We had been waiting for the call.  And the call came just shortly before I had to leave for work.  I remember Mom and Dad huddled together using the same hand-held phone.  Two words: lung cancer.  Words that shattered our world in a single breath.

Looking back, I wish there would have been some way for me to cancel my shift.  I did call the video store to at least ask if the morning shift person could stay a little longer.  We all worked shifts alone, and she could not stay longer.  I did not want to leave my mother or my father.  But they did not want me to lose my job.

So I left for work in a daze.  Drove 14 miles to Scotts Valley.  Started my shift at 4.  And cried between customers the whole night. 

I was wearing my favorite windbreaker ~ the torquoise one she and Dad had bought me for my trip to New York the previous summer ~ tears streaming so fast that the sleeves were saturated with sadness ~ really knowing this was the end ~ we had not even gone over concrete details and treatment plans with her doctor yet ~ still more tests ~ but I knew ~ I just knew ~ this was the end of life as I knew it ~ and at 29 years old, I knew right then that I was about to lose my mother.

I endured the six hour shift and came home after 10 p.m. later that evening.  Mom was already asleep.  Started the next day on automatic pilot with a new found strength that I never knew was within me.  Began a series of appointments with her and Dad.  Went to the cancer resource library and brought home books.  Really should not have brought home books as the information only scared her more ~ she thought she was going to have to have surgery based on the information in those books ~ she envisioned being cut open and having a lung removed ~ she studied diagrams and read information on other types of lung cancer.

She had been having pain in her back and in her ribs for two months which originally started the whole series of testing and missed diagnosis back in January.

After her official diagnosis of lung cancer in March, I went with her to the dressing room for the X-rays at Dominican, and she came out of the X-ray room all excited. 

"It's only a broken rib!" she exclaimed joyously, ''I broke a rib on the exercise machine.  That's what is causing the extra pain!"

For a fleeting moment of perhaps a few days, we thought she could really still be Stage One.  And during that moment, the situation seemed manageable, bearable, and slightly less scary.

But it was me who looked the doctor right in the eye at our next appointment and asked him what stage was my dear mother's cancer.

"Stage 4," he answered point blank.

Silence broken by winces of shock and then tears.  The three of us huddled in his little office, taping the whole conversation to fully comprehend all that he was saying later.

Any remaining hopes and dreams I had for my mother were crushed with two single words ~ Stage Four.

And so it turned out that the rib had broken from the lung cancer spreading to the bone. 

Both chemotherapy and radiation now were the plan.  And she dived right in as if the world still held all her hopes and dreams.  She believed in the 5% survival rate given to Stage 4 lung cancer patients.  She had to believe if not for herself then for her husband of nearly 34 years, her three grown children, and her two beloved grandsons.

Her Cancer Year had officially begun.  We packed our fears into our bags and traveled with her throughout this journey into this unknown world ~

Stage Four ~

Lie after Lie after Lie

People may wonder how these domestic violence cases often get dropped.  I can tell you why.

First, I was forced to make payments for the lawyer and the bail money.  One day, I even dropped a check by the lawyer's office on Water Street and handed a check for $1000 directly to the receptionist.  Nearly half my pay before taxes.  I wonder what that receptionist thought of a domestic violence victim bringing in a check to her batterer's lawyer.  Something tells me I was not the first.

Then came the district attorney.  He needed a letter of explanation.  Of why I was changing my story.  A detailed explanation.  All typed up and fancy.  I wonder if I still have that word document on an old computer file somewhere after I left my old office.

Good thing I am a good writer.  Good thing I took acting all through elementary, junior high, and high school.  Because I sure gave the performance of my life that day in the county building.  Oh yes, I was a very good actress.

I had practice with Good Cop/Bad Cop two years earlier.  But this time the District Attorney was mostly All Bad Cop.

He was all over me that November Day in 2003.

Why was I changing my story?  Am I telling the truth?  How could the head bashing not be domestic violence?  What really happened that night?

I need that word document to remember how clever I was to create a scene where I was the crazy one ~ out of control ~ that the head bashing was an accident  ~ only a mere accident ~ all three blows to my head ~ only an accident, yes, an accident ~ all because I was out of control that night of August 22, 2003.

I rounded up a freaky psychiatrist ~ the one who prescribed Zoloft in my fourth attempt to handle the anxiety of domestic violence ~ told him to write a note saying I could have a bad reaction from missing a dose ~ that I was out of contol ~ yes, just missing one dose caused it ~ yes, missing a dose could make me feel out of control ~ enough to have someone accidentally bash my head into a wall when trying to restrain me.

So there it was.  A psychiatrist agreeing to write such a note ~ all for the price of another $100 visit ~ note written and attached to word document taking it all back ~ it never happened the way I said it happened ~ No, Mr. D.A., it never happened.

"What about the 911 call?" he asked.

Because 911 does not lie.

"I don't know why I called 911.  Must have been the missed dose of my medication making me think something bad was happening to me.  Yes, I forgot to take my Zoloft that day."

Over and over again.  Lie and lie after lie.

"I forgot to take my Zoloft that day.  He was not trying to hurt me.  He was trying to help me.  He thought I was hysterical.  Oh, yes, and that's why he kept throwing water all over me.  I was definitely hysterical."

"Did he make you say this to me?" he demanded.

"No," I looked him straight in the eye, emotionless, as if I were the one who should have been on trial.

Over and over again.  Lie after lie after lie.

"No, nothing happened.  Nothing happened.  Nothing happened.  It was all my fault.  I was hysterical."

He looked me in the eye and knew I was lying.  Now just as emotionless as me.

He bowed down and dropped the case.

Wiped the blood off his hands.

And said goodbye.

August 22, 2003

Thursday started out with warm Felton sunshine peeking through the redwood trees.  

But soon a dark cloud of fear took a hold me of me, and I knew something bad was going to happen that beautiful summer day.  

Before I left for work, we got word that she was loose.  That she "escaped" ~ walked right out of the Sunflower House in downtown Santa Cruz ~ in violation of her probation to finish an alcohol and drug treatment program.

I knew it was just a matter of time ~ minutes ~ hours ~ before our lives crossed again ~ as she always came back ~ to the place where all her troubles began again after a few failed attempts at sobriety.

She was his housemate when I met him.  A single mother and young baby from the midwest.  Out to California to begin a new life ~ after drugs and alcohol had destroyed her life back in Arkansas.

Naturally, I befriended her as I did all of the newcomers from his A.A. and N.A. programs.  Even though I had never touched drugs and alcohol in my 36 1/2 years, these newcomers and old-timers alike were practically the only consistent connection to the outside world I had during my time spent in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

I went to work and came back by 6 p.m.  Still no word from her.  Where is she? I wondered.  Would she come here to hide?  Would she turn herself in?  Would the police come looking for her here?  As they had been called so many times before when she lived here in 2001-2002. 

I went to bed and could not sleep, wondering if she had made her way to San Lorenzo Valley yet.  Or maybe she had finally skipped town all together ~ since technically she was a fugitive again ~ there was a warrant out for her arrest ~ all because she gave up trying to get clean and sober as mandated by the courts.  I wondered what drugs she had found before she found us.

I suddenly sprang up in bed, awakened by the sound of pounding on the heavy green door in the master bedroom.

"Stella! Stella! Stella! Let me in! Let me in!" she demanded.

I recognized the sound of her voice.  I knew it was her.  I recognized the sound of drugs and alcohol in her voice as well. 

I screamed back, "No! No! No! I can't let you in ~ the police are looking for you."

"Let me in! Let me in!," she pleaded again, "Stella, let me in!"

"I won't! I can't! I can't do it!" I shouted back through the heavy door that separated us.

He came at me from behind.  Grabbed me on each side of my head.  And with a force beyond anything I had ever felt before ~ slammed my head into the heavy wood.

Slam! Slam! Slam!

Over and over again.  Instead of the door being slammed in her face, my head was being slammed into the knotty pine.  I spun around and felt the abrupt splash of ice cold water on my face.  

Over and over again.  Water being thrown all over me. 

He's finally going to do it, I thought to myself, he's finally going to kill me.  It's finally happening.  The kind of abuse I always feared would happen.  The life-threatening kind.

I wanted my mother in that moment.  To protect me from this man.  Keep me alive, just this once, Mama, I prayed.  Mama, I love you.  I need you here.  Watch over me, Mama.  Mama!

God, are you there?  Are you with me?  God, please help me, God.  Please help me now.  I have to get away.  I have to find my way out of this room, God.  Can you hear me, God?  God, keep me safe.  Dear Lord, please spare me.

I somehow made my way to the kitchen away from him ~ my head was pounding ~ I could not turn my neck ~ fumbled for the phone in the dining room in the dark ~ Where was he? Why had he not followed me in there? I found the phone ~ the same one he used to do all his motorcycle business ~ I thought of all those calls he made to sell those motorcycles as I dialed those numbers I could never dial before ~ 911 ~ I found myself back in the kitchen  ~ looking out the bay windows ~ he was outside on the driveway as the sheriff drove up ~ I watched at what I had done ~ bringing the sheriffs to our doorstep at 3:30 in the morning ~ what had I done?

I thought, "Oh, My God.  I finally did it.  I finally called 911."

And where was she now?  Nowhere in sight.  Where had she gone?

There were two sheriffs.  One to talk with him.  And one to talk with me.  

A sheriff probably just slightly younger than me.  A boyish face.  Kind eyes.  He examined my head.  Could find not any open cuts.  I told him I could not turn my head.  

"Why are you all wet?" he asked delicately.

"He would not stop throwing water all over me," I answered weakly.  I told him I was not hysterical.  That I was only trying to tell the woman with a warrant out her arrest that she could not hide at our place.  

He talked with me about my wound.  He called it a "closed head injury" ~ asked if I wanted an ambulance.  I told him, "No."

"I have to take your picture, " he informed me, "Water can also be used as a weapon."  He explained that heavy water can be used to block vision and keep someone from escaping the episode of abuse.  He took out the polaroid camera.  And snapped away.

Snap! Snap! Snap!

He let me look at the images.  Of me.  Twenty minutes after having my head bashed into a wall and then being showered with water.  I looked at my eyes in that sorrowful picture.  Full of fear and fatigue.  My hair and clothes matted and damp with water.

No visual bruises.

No, they were hidden beneath my long brown hair.  

How convenient.  Bruises hidden so my secret stayed hidden.

Except from the kind officer who took my picture and let me see it.  

Let me see The Face of Abuse.  

A Harrowing Reminder of What Lie Ahead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dedicated to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office, the 911 dispatcher who took my call and stayed on the line until help arrived, and the kind officer who showed such tenderness and compassion during the darkest moment of my life.  Thank you for saving my life.

 

Dominican

I went to the E.R. only once during our relationship. 

I drove myself to Dominican in the middle of the night ~ after being together a little over three months.

I was not bleeding or bruised.  The physical violence began in the second year ~ technically ~ although looking back there were moments of physical restrainment that pushes the transition time up a bit earlier.

Halloween Night 2001 started out okay ~ but with his usual wishy-washy behavior of never knowing if he really wanted to see me that evening or actually take his son trick or treating with his ex-girlfriend and her son.

He finally agreed to bring his son to my cousin's house in Santa Cruz for their annual Open House of Chinese food and hundreds of trick or treaters.  His son has recently turned 13 but still liked the idea of going out in a neighborhood that was full of magic and completely safe compared to navigating Highway 9.

Everything changed upon our return to Felton.  The crazy-making was out of control ~ the mind games ~ the verbal abuse ~ the round and round altercation of him pitting me up against his ex-girlfriend in his defense of finding it perfectly okay to see both of us even though he told me we were exclusive since summer.

I felt as though I was spinning ~ not physically ~ but emotionally ~ I felt like I was losing control of reality at that moment ~ that I needed to get away from him ~ I was numb yet I was full of sadness and anger at this man who was already torturing me in my mind. 

I told him I thought I should go to the hospital.  That I did not feel right.  Something was wrong.  I think I was on the verge of some type of breakdown.

My honesty angered him in ways I still cannot comprehend.  He yelled and screamed, "Go to the hospital!  But I'm not taking you.  You really should just go out and kill yourself!"

I had not mentioned anything about killing myself.  I was not suicidal.  But his chilling words were enough to get me to leave his house in Felton and drive myself down Highway 9 at 1 a.m. to Dominican.

What was I going to tell the doctors when I got there?  That my boyfriend was driving me crazy ~ both literally and figuratively?  Is there such a thing?  Could my body have really started having a physical reaction to his crazy words and vulgar put-downs?  To his demand that I go right out and kill myself?

The doctor was very kind ~ not much older than I am today ~ he took all my vital signs and then got to the bottom of what was really going on ~

First, I made sure I made no reference to the word "suicide" ~ fearing any mention of the conversation would make them think they needed to take me to the Mental Health Unit in the back parking lot and keep me there for observation for three days.  So I was on guard when he asked me what happened that night.

I confessed that I was having problems in my new relationship.  That I had been verbally abused that evening. 

"Did he hit you?" the doctor asked.  I whispered, "No."

"Has he ever hit you?" he asked this time.  I whispered, "No."

But suddenly, I blurted out, "He told me to go out and kill myself."

The doctor expressed compassion and concern for my revelation and then looked me in the eye and said, "If a man tells you to go kill yourself, he will hit you."

I drove myself back up the highway and passed his house on the way back to Ben Lomond.  Lil' Red was waiting for me in the window like he always did.  I held him tight, looking at the knotty pine walls of my tiny studio which felt like home to me even though I was rarely there anymore.

I wondered why my life had changed so drastically in the last three months ~ why this man continued to hurt me one moment and love me profoundly the next ~ I wondered if he was home wondering what happened to me during my visit to Dominican.  There were no voicemails on my answering machine.  No concern for my well-being in any way. 

Haunted by the doctor's words, I told myself that I would go back to Walnut Ave Women's Center.  I would try to pick up where I left off last summer when I tried to break free from him after only 9 days.  I needed answers.  I needed strength.  I needed to tell someone else what was happening to me.

But I did not realize that Halloween night that the biggest foreshadow of my life had just happened at Dominican.

Damaged Goods

I sometimes feel vulnerable now having shared all this garbage with the world.

I have always hated the word "vulnerable".


I spoke about my being worried that people will now think I am damaged in some way, and the subject was brought up again when I watched a video by a woman who had written a book about her experience with domestic violence.


Although I have been encouraged to write by many people, I also feel a distance from some of them now because of the subject matter.  A possible avoidance.  Is it the subject of domestic violence, or do they think I am damaged goods?


I do not think I would even have the guts to ask.


And so I try to just focus on the cause and try not to worry about what other people think of me.  But I still do.  Especially if the person is a man.  What does he really think of a woman who was badly beaten and verbally abused for four years?  Does he pass judgement even if it is unspoken?  I sit and wonder and then wonder why I even care.


These are not people that I am closest to in my life, so why do I even care?  But I do care.  I do not want to be viewed as damaged goods by anyone. 


I wonder why I felt compelled to put myself out there in the first place.  It almost was not even a choice.  I had to put myself out there in order to fully heal so I could never be considered damaged goods.  Damaged goods.  Sounds like some sort of broken commodity.  Does not even sound human to me.


But the stereotype exists.  I have been dealing with jokes when the subject of my blog comes up around casual acquaintances.  People who have not even read the blog but hear me talk about it.  So I took a break of only five days from writing about the sensitive subject of domestic violence and posted animals stories instead.


But the titles still filled my mind this past week, and I finally had to start writing again.  Wondering if I am just giving people more proof that I am damaged goods.  Wondering why I can be so strong and no longer silent and still buy into sick stereotypes. 


But I will buy into the stereotypes as long as the avoidance continues.  And in the end, if people begin reaching back to me, then I can say without question that I was wrong.  That they do not think I am damaged goods. 


I still have this last bit of work to do before I can say I'm done with domestic violence.  That domestic violence has not left a permanent mark on me in a negative way.  That I have fully turned a bad experience around and used it to help other women in need.


I need to work on my insecurity of being viewed as damaged goods. 


My spirit was stifled.  My spirit was damaged.  During each day of the abuse.


But my soul survived.


Unmarked and undamaged.


And lived to share my truth.

~ Uncensored ~