My Journey – Breaking the Cycle of Domestic Violence

***TRIGGER WARNING***

October 1 marked the beginning of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. However, you only need to turn on your local news station to grasp that thirty-one days of awareness is grossly insufficient. I laugh, maybe cringe is a better word, at the irony of October being slated as Domestic Violence Awareness Month. It's the month of Halloween, where instead of the ghouls and monsters hiding, they are on full display. However, domestic violence victims are acutely aware that the monsters do not take a reprieve until October. The ghosts of the past and present haunt them even when they lie their head to sleep.

What I am about to share with you is a classic American horror story. Classic in the sense that this account of events is far too common in homes across our country.

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Every little girl needs her daddy to scare away the big bad monster, but what happens when her daddy is the monster? Picture a mid-July summer day. Like most other weekdays, during that summer, a nine-year-old girl watches her two-year-old sibling so her father can sleep while her mother works. The children quietly play for some time. The nine-year-old isn't feeling well and goes to the bathroom. Several minutes later, she hears shouting. The terror wells up in her as the angry voice orders the petite girl out of the bathroom. After opening the door, she is dragged from one doorway to the next. Her body is lifted and tossed against her bedroom wall, like a rag doll. Once she hits the carpet of her bedroom floor, it is only a moment before the belt begins flying, striking everything in its path. She pulls her arms and legs against herself to shield her face and head from the leather brutally assaulting her body.

The belt stops. The young girl looks up through her tear-stained glasses, hoping the worst is over. The hard fist begins pummeling her head and face. Her glasses fly off, splitting in two. She cries out, "Please stop." Her pleas are ignored. When the fists finally end their assault, she receives a kick to her side before he waves his hand and yells, "Clean this shit up." The "this" he refers to is her blood on the baby blue walls of her room. 

Time slowly passes before the girl's mother comes home during her lunch break. She discovers her daughter on the floor of her bedroom. Her back is propped against the side of her bed as she sobs in pain. "What's going on? What's wrong?" She looks up at her mother, only to be met with a gasp. The mother's voice whispers, "You need to put ice on that." The girl lifts her pale, blonde hair, which hides the right side of her face. Anger wells in her as she exclaims, "What part do you want me to put ice on?"  From her hairline down to her chin, a layer of black and blue covers one half of her face. Her eye is swollen. The dried blood conceals some of the bruising from her broken nose. 

She spent the remainder of the summer in the house, forced to quit gymnastics and instructed to lie to anyone who questions her appearance. In the years that followed, often she would run her fingers over the dent in her wall, tracing the outline, grateful that the current abuse was not as bad as that day. The dent would remain ingrained in the wall of her room for another ten years before her parents sold that house of hell. 

She recounted the incident to people she naively believed would help her, but instead of assistance, she was met with this question: "What did you do to cause this?" Her answer, "My baby sister spilled the sugar bowl while I was in the bathroom."

Every one of those individuals, the young girl entrusted for help, was a mandated reporter. Yet they did nothing. The church did nothing. When she returned to school several weeks later, they did nothing. Instead, she was labeled as rebellious and troublesome.

The night before this horrific violence, that same man who had brutally attacked the young girl, hugged her and said, "I know I don't tell you enough, but I love you." 

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Too often, victims of domestic violence suffer in silence to keep the peace at the expense of their own peace. It's a coping mechanism. A way to survive. How do I know this? At the age of nine, on an ordinary day in July 1980, my childhood effectively came to an end. In its place, another person emerged from the trauma. That person was a shell. A little girl, who over time learned to build an exterior fortress. She became an expert at putting on a smile, while she internally isolated herself from the world, as the invisible parts of her lay bloody, bruised, and scarred.

That summer day destroyed my trust in those I should have trusted the most. I learned that the actual monsters do more than lurk in the shadows. They don masks, hiding their true nature as they stroll in broad daylight. Their smiles, charisma, and duplicitous calm demeanor are the facade that deceives the world around them into believing they could never commit such heinous acts of violence.

That afternoon and the days that followed led me to believe abuse was ordinary. My dad told me he loved me one day, and the very next, he made me his personal punching bag. At nine, I couldn't comprehend that love shouldn't leave bruises and broken bones. His actions laid the foundation for fifteen more years of abuse at the hands of some of the most deceptively charming and cruel men to walk this earth. Their instruments of destruction—coercion, intimidation, threats, manipulation, shame, blame, denial, twisting your reality and sanity until you're convinced you are insane—otherwise known as gaslighting, and always a fist. 

I woke up each day hoping the next day would be better. The only thing that believing there was a chance for a better day did was perpetuate the cycle. To survive, I learned to be quiet, to be small, to be pleasing. In the end, none of it mattered. It served everyone around me—except me. 

As age and maturity allowed me to fully discern the events that transpired, it became apparent that only an individual who has never endured the hellfire of abuse could believe the misconception that when a DV victim escapes the abuse, it is over. In time, the bruises, broken bones, and lacerations will heal. However, the vile, humiliating, and degrading words linger. The fear, self-doubt, and lack of worth settle into the bones. The memories replay on an involuntary loop. The body's autopilot turns on, and you find yourself walking on eggshells for no reason and apologizing for things that do not warrant an apology. Asking for help goes against everything within your nature because no one helped when you needed help the most. Independence becomes a shield. The relentless trauma becomes a part of your DNA, leaving an indelible imprint and invisible scars. 

Twenty years of abuse gave me a parting gift many survivors silently carry with them after suffering through years of abuse: Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Hypervigilance is my weapon—it's also an affliction I despise. I find it difficult to trust or feel comfortable around most men. I can count on one hand the men with whom I have complete confidence. I've turned our home into a sanctuary of safety and acceptance. The reasons for the above need no explanation.

It took years to recognize and understand my PTSD triggers. I try my best to avoid them, but not everything is avoidable. Moments vividly etched in my mind brought about days and nights when darkness consumed me. I describe my CPTSD as a curse that no amount of therapy is capable of altogether breaking. My mind does its best to block out the worst, but the body never forgets. Something as benign as a lantern falling out of a tree, breaking my nose, transports me back forty-five years to a room with baby blue walls where I cannot escape the wrath of an irrationally angry man. Instantaneously, the invisible becomes visible as my mind cannot rationally differentiate the past from the present while I'm sitting on the ground in my backyard, trembling and crying.

It was the worst episode I have ever experienced. Several weeks after the "PTSD fog" settled, I experienced a gamut of emotions—sadness, anger, and overwhelming disappointment. One singular moment felt like it had erased years of progress.

Over the years, the explanations and conversations with Brady, Jayde, and Jackson were the most difficult. The first time I shared anything with Jackson, before he was my husband, I was terrified he would say, "Nope, I didn't sign up for this." Nothing in me would have faulted him for leaving. Instead, he wrapped me in his arms, promising me it was over. He unknowingly began the healing process by being a father to a child that wasn't biologically his. After Jayde arrived, observing the way he loved and protected our little girl, I wholly and finally understood what the love of a father should look like. For the first time in my life, I knew I was safe, and it scared the hell out of me. And almost thirty years into our relationship, sometimes it still does.

My children endured witnessing me break—before the breakthrough. They watched their mother crawl on the ground, pick up the pieces worth saving, stitch myself back together, and heal. It is why, at the age of sixteen, my son told me, "Mom, some things are unforgivable." I proceeded to explain to him, "Forgiveness is not absolution. I forgive him for you, your sister, Dad, and me."  I extended grace that was never asked for, to release the pain and anger that would have consumed my family. I won't lie, it wasn't easy—some days it still isn’t.

The forced proximity of spending holidays and family gatherings with a man who, to this day, has no remorse for the emotional, mental, and physical hell he put me through has come at a cost. Why should an abuse survivor be forced to communicate or spend time with their abuser? The answer is simple—they shouldn't. The complicated answer is this: The man who did this to me also adopted and raised me. A part of me loves him, but another part of me despises him and his actions, which have affected my life and the lives of my husband and children. Two completely opposite things can be true at the same time.

Observing him be loving and kind to my children was bittersweet. It was also frightening. The hypervigilance in me was always on alert, worrying if, at some point, was he going to snap and harm my children. Thankfully, my fears never came to fruition, but still the stress of that situation was unhealthy.

I had to take a few steps, ok a lot of steps, back and really see what this was doing to my family. For too long everything that happened had been normalized, but that did not make it healthy—for any of us. How was this a good example for my children, regardless of their age? It wasn't—it isn't.

With distance I realized one family broke me, while the small family we created helped rebuild me. Together, the four of us discovered that forgiveness doesn't require us to erase our boundaries for toxic individuals just because they are family. 

My family watched a woman who allowed herself to shrink, because of shame, stand tall. They observed their mom and wife, who had been forced into silence by threats and fear, find her voice. They witness me break the generational cycle of abuse. I despise that any of this ever touched their lives. I am sorry I couldn't present myself to them after the healing, so none of this ever touched them. But they see it differently. They are quite vocal regarding how they feel about the abuse I survived and their disdain for the individuals who inflicted and allowed the abuse. In simple terms, when a parent abuses their child, they are also abusing their future grandchild. I could write for another hour about the generational curse of abuse, but you have read this far, and for that I am grateful.

I know my story is anything but pretty, BUT I SURVIVED. Every man who physically, emotionally, verbally, and sexually assaulted me chipped away pieces of my heart and soul until the day finally came when I believed I had nothing left to lose. Something within me broke. I kicked and scratched my way out until my life was free from abuse. In many ways, that was the easy part. Healing is ugly, and day by day. The journey is anything but linear, and it is different for every survivor. There have been days when I barely survived, and now there are many days I proudly thrive. I recently read an unknown quote, "Healing doesn't mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life." That is my goal every day.

One in three women and one in four men will experience domestic violence in their lifetime. In our country alone, five children die every day at the hands of abuse, and every nine minutes, a woman suffers through abuse. Around the world, a woman dies every eleven minutes at the hands of her partner or family member. The grim statistics speak for themselves, but those statistics are based solely on reported incidents.

People read the statistics, and hear the stories, and they question, "Why didn't she leave?" As if it is her fault for being beaten and broken. Instead of stopping to question, "Why did he use her as a physical and emotional punching bag?" Similar to adults questioning a nine-year-old, "What did you do to cause this?" 

Why do we need more than a month of domestic violence awareness? Our world is a dark and evil place, where forty-five years later, nothing has changed for the better. We live in a society where monsters still hide in plain sight, mandated reporters insist on pretending it's not their problem, the court system will reunite a child with their abuser any given day of the week, and individuals still bury their heads in the sand claiming, "It's a domestic issue, not criminal." Abuse is not something to be overlooked or tolerated. It is not a political, racial, gender, or religious issue—it is a humanitarian epidemic. Every day I wonder, "When will it all end?" Unfortunately, I don't have that answer, but what I do know to be true is that if we collectively don't do something, who will?

A few final thoughts for victims and survivors—Your trauma is not your fault, but you are responsible for your healing journey. Never apologize for the steps you must take to arrive at your destination. Some individuals will be a stepping stone, helping you along the path. Other people will simply be stones who want to hold you down. Learn to discern the difference. 

Darkness cannot live in the light. When a survivor uses their voice, it shines a light on the all-consuming darkness of violence. Your dignity, your voice, your consent, your power, and your light were carelessly and callously taken—but it is only temporary—they were always yours to reclaim. The damage inflicted upon you does not define you. Your abuse did not make you stronger—you did that all by yourself. By the way, you are allowed to politely, or not so politely, depending on the person and the day, tell anyone who is attempting to unload that platitude upon you to be quiet. Life is meant to be lived in peace, not pieces. 

SAFETY 💜 SUPPORT 💜SOLIDARITY