Victim or Survivor?

Remember one of my recent posts and how I talked about fight and flight responses? Nature will tell you it is the most common response for animals in the wild to fight or flee when confronted with a dangerous, overwhelming circumstance. That’s why certain animals have protective coloring, sharp claws, teeth, and can run 25 miles per hour. I don’t have sharp claws, teeth, and the only way I am willing to run, is if my life depends on it. My lack of protective coloring and razor-sharp claws however does not keep me from fighting or fleeing. Dangerous overwhelming circumstances happen in my life every day. I have an ex-husband who makes it very hard for me to think clearly. He has done everything one person can do to another to make me feel trapped, afraid and overwhelmed. I have tried my hardest over the past decade to keep my sanity, stay alert, keep my son safe and decide whether or not to fight or flee. I have done both.

When I was married to The Mistake I chose to fight, chose to stand by him, listen to him, try to understand him and ‘work things out.’ I went to marriage counseling, I read books about men and women and their differences, I tried ad nauseam to see his point of view. I feel I exhausted every resource I could, in order to stay. After years of extreme mental and physical abuse I took my son and left.  The last fight we ever got into did not end well. He had purchased a big-screen TV, which cost over $400 while we had a young child and were trying to save for a house. Our rent at the time was $350.00. He had mentioned wanting to purchase this TV and a surround sound system to go with it. I told him that was something we needed to talk more about.  We had a new son who was less than a year old.  It was just after the Christmas-holiday hoopla season and I had stayed up one night to take down the tree and all the season’s festive trimmings. There was a fireplace in our small apartment, oddly enough , and I remember looking in a box at our wedding photos. Several frames, and mementos remained in the box and I was going to place them on the fire place mantle.

  I kept staring at the framed photographs in the box and I knew that on that day, three years earlier when I had promised myself to that man and no other that I meant what I said. I meant I would stand by him through thick and thin—I had certainly changed clothing sizes post-baby, through sickness and health---I had been emotionally sick and taken anti-depressants, cared for our young son, and even cared for my husband when he was ill. The part I hadn’t made it through was the ‘til death do you part.’ Staring into the box of wedding photographs I realized I was dead inside. My love for this man was waning, the torment and excruciating pain he put me through was overwhelming.

                The mistake stormed through the door almost two hours after he had gotten off work, close to midnight. His brother helped him carry the TV into our apartment. Naturally I was furious. I was upset that I wasn’t important enough for him to have at least called to tell me he was running late, I was furious he had not asked me how I felt about making such a large purchase and how he expected me to keep paying for things we could not afford.  I made some snarky comments about the giant television being placed on the floor. My young twenty-something brother –in-law sensed my distress and exited, stage left. Our son was asleep in his crib, the box of wedding photos remained unpacked on the mantle, and I began fighting with this man I promised to love with all my heart, might, mind, and strength, until death did we part.  I cannot tell you all that was said, I cannot tell you all that I did. I can tell you that my son woke up and was bawling. I went in his room to console him. My son was crying out for me in his tiny frightened voice. He was afraid, he was screaming in terror.

I tried to pick up my wailing child, to console him, to hold him close, and The Mistake threw me on the ground. He pushed me down so hard he knocked the wind out of me. I stood up, my child and reason for fighting less than 10 feet away from me still upset and frightened from having watched his father push me to the ground. I stood up with a fire in my eyes that still remains. I stood up and I punched The Mistake as hard as I could, giving him a black eye. I told him he would NEVER TOUCH ME AGAIN. He took our son out of his crib, tried to console him, but all my son wanted was me. He wanted me to take him in my arms, to know that I am okay, he was afraid of his father. I tried everything I could to bring The Mistake to his knees so I could take my son and leave.  The Mistake kept hold of our son, clutching him tightly screaming obscenities’ to me all while my son was still wailing.

At some point after I had injured The Mistake and had gotten my son back, I comforted my sweet fearful baby, and called my mother to tell her what happened. I locked the front door. I knew there was no way The Mistake could get in the door while it was locked, because it was a chain link lock and would only lock from the inside.  At the time all of this was happening in my marriage, I had befriended the neighbors down stairs.  They were an older couple trying to start their life over, sell their home and relocate until something more permanent became available. They were my life raft at the time. I would spend hours talking to them and talking to the wife who was also a mother and grandmother. She had fallen ill and had surgery and I spent several days cooking and making extra food to take to them because we had become so close. I remember the phone call I got the next day from her vividly. This elderly couple lived directly below me, they had heard the fight the night before. They had witnessed my son screaming out for me and the sounds of The Mistake throwing me around. She told me I was a wonderful mother, that I was capable and strong, that she almost called the police, than her husband came up to see if I was alright, but The Mistake had already left. She told me I shouldn’t ever put up with that kind of abuse from a man or anyone else. I told her I knew, that I didn’t know where to begin to start over, but that I was tired of feeling afraid.

                Over the next few weeks I had to move all of my stuff out of the apartment and into storage. I learned The Mistake had started an affair with a co-worker whom I assume he told he was already getting divorced. I had to move in with my Mother and Father. I had no job, and The Mistake had left me with no money by cleaning out our joint checking account. When I asked The Mistake how he expected me to pay for our son, to even feed him his response was: “you have food stamps.” I had to deal with The Mistake coming over to harass and threaten me while I was trying to move our things in storage, to start over, begin a new chapter in my life. He returned to the apartment again and again to turn all of the lights on because the power was in my name and he thought making the power bill more expensive was a good means at getting back at me. I dealt with The Mistake taking my name off the car insurance so that the vehicle I was driving was uninsured, him not caring if his son and I were in a wreck what might happen to us. I dealt with threat after threat, act of isolation after act of isolation. I felt alone, financially penniless and emotionally broken.

                Over time, my bruised ribs healed, the bruises he left on my arms from grabbing me so hard, the bruises up and down my back from being thrown into the door and the door knob landing squarely and painfully in my mid- back. I imagine the land lord of the previous apartment I vacated had to patch the hole in the wall where his fist went. I imagine the land lord had to patch the hole in the wall where I had thrown a jar candle across the room, when I learned I was pregnant; Even though my son was planned, even though I wanted to be a mother more than anything else in the world.  I had a conversation with my best friend, who married the exact same mistake I had. We spoke of how messed up it was that our desire to become mothers out -weighed anything else in our lives. We spoke of the blessing our children have been , the source of joy, and how the lack of support and love from their father’s have gravely affected us.  The toll this journey has taken on our hearts, the pain we live with, the fears we’ve outgrown.

                While living with my parents, my belongings in storage, waiting for a divorce to be finalized on a marriage I entered with hope and exited in sheer terror, I began to think things through.  My son slept with me every night in the hide-a-bed that folded out from the sofa and I cried myself to sleep. I cried so hard I didn’t think I had any more tears to cry. I didn’t understand why I had let my life get to this point, why I had married a man that was so cruel and unfeeling. A man who would never truly understand the  bond between a mother and child and how that cannot ever be broken, not even in death. I had married a man who blamed me for the extra weight I put on from pregnancy, but did not support me well enough to watch our own child while I worked out and did anything about getting back to my pre-pregnancy size. I had married a man I thought was religious who hid pornographic magazines all over the house, who spent money we didn’t have to finance an addiction he said he didn’t have, yet I kept finding the proof of everywhere I turned.

                I am the crazy one. I am psychotic, I am fearless. I never quit fighting, I never backed down, I have not given him the upper hand since. My son is afraid of him, he has concerns that he only tells me, and a few he shares with a counselor, he has trusted me with information he cannot tell anyone else, that I promised to never tell anyone, not even in a court of law. I will continue to fight, and to protect my son. I am still the young mother and woman who got thrown down in front of her son in so many ways, but I am no victim. I will always stand and fight. I will always be courageous. I will never stop helping people, and I will never be afraid of any man ever again. Especially The Mistake. He will never threaten me, belittle me, undermine me, or frustrate me ever again.  He can say what he wants; he can believe I am a crazy heartless bitch who is constantly keeping him from seeing his son. His opinion of me does not matter. He can call the police, he can throw me in jail, he can try to keep me cornered and afraid. I will not be afraid anymore. I will not be silent. I will stand up for what I know is right, I will continue to fight. I will not run away.

                That seems to be the tricky thing about fighting and fleeing; sometimes they resemble each other and fighting looks like running away and staying looks like leaving when your heart isn’t in it. It doesn’t matter what it may look like from the outside, it only matters how it feels to you, and what you need to do to keep yourself safe, and keep yourself sane. No one is perfect, no one person has all the answers, but what is inside each of us pre determines what comes next. We are all the master’s of our own destiny and no matter how many times we get knocked down, we can stand back up. No matter how many times someone tells us we’re the victim, it is up to us to decide our own fate.  I have decided to be a survivor, and I will not go silent into the night. I will not be afraid any more.