Written between 2013-2014
Part 1:
Written before restraining order, when my life was divided into times when I either fled my home after an assault or to escape one, or chose to stay away for an extended period (as I did one summer) to recoup from a sexual assault:
I am writing after a sleepless night...I dread returning to a home that is not a home for me. I dread rooms without peace. A place where shadows mix with light, and the light is the voices and footfalls of children. And the shadows...they are the detritus of dark thoughts and dark intentions that derail youth. What is a mother to do...this was the house she built for her babies...and this is the house that wounded them. What is a wife to do when she is never understood, when she is resented for taking time away to strengthen herself. What is a woman to do when she gave everything for a family...and the family is broken. I know the inner scars of my children with the same familiarity as my own c-section scar, a thin, white line that marks an emergency that cut through all my layers of muscle to yank out life before it was too late. I know my children's needs, their vulnerabilities, their strengths, perhaps even their call, just as I know when they are hungry or sick, need a tender touch, or a boost towards the goal.
Part 2:
Written after Restraining Order, now able to live (somewhat) peaceably in my own home:
Today I am sitting on my daughter's bed in a quiet home. It is a late afternoon in spring and I can hear the birds chirping in the maple tree outside her window. The house has settled into a kind of peace. I wouldn't say it is total because my mother-in-law lives in the apartment below and she resents the boundary I created for my family, the legal protection that removed her son from our home. She no longer speaks to me and since I filed the emergency restraining order has managed to avoid interacting with me, even though we live at the same address. In the last few months she's spoken with her grandchildren only a few times and if they want her attention they must seek her out. She also owns the home (we rent the upstairs apartment) which makes it a very uncomfortable situation.
I am trying to get my life in order, find work while also continuing to push my writing out into the world, screenplays and a novel. My children need frequent counseling appointments and support to finish up the school year. Everything is trying to settle into a new order. It's as if I re-broke a bone in order to set it right and the pain is great. The healing process may take longer than expected too. The outside world isn't always patient or understanding of the courage and perseverance it takes to remove abuse and fight for peace. The road is full of potholes and unexpected fallen branches from the years of storms that ravaged our family. We just have to keep going, despite the rough ride.
I doubt myself all the time...maybe that's normal, but I am going to keep on going, because the alternative, going backwards, is just not an option.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Saturday, May 17, 2014
I wrote this post some time ago:
Today is not an easy day...I am starting to see more clearly, like that feeling when you surface from a pool, pull off your goggles, feeling that pop of the suction around your eyes, and suddenly there is no blurred underwater glass, but clear-as-day vision and a breeze that makes you blink. I am seeing that I am suffering from a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
I am in love with a man who is so ill he cannot stop hurting his wife and children. Even when he wants to stop he can not stop. This is a man who has sexually assaulted me more than once, and the last time was not that long ago. This is a man who supposedly helped me heal from a date rape situation I experienced years ago at college. I say supposedly because now I wonder if there was any real healing that came from his words, or his touch, or his care, if he can turn around and do the same thing to me again and again?
I cleaved to him because he taught me that my no meant no; I closed my eyes against his chest and took a deep, ragged breath of gratefulness when I was twenty years-old and he was only nineteen, because he convinced me I was safe...but what does that word mean when SAFE can turn to terror once a ring is on your finger and you are living alone with him.
I excused the first attack. I excused the next one. They were spaced out by some years. I forget how many times now...I think four? He recently said he remembered four times he attacked me in that way. The mind loses its clarity under high duress, but I will never forget the last time. It was only a few months after my dad died...during my most vulnerable season of my life, when I felt the lack of protection of a father. I am no kid...I have kids of my own, but I still would have turned to my father if I could have after this last attack. But he wasn't there. He was buried. And I was without a cover, a shield, a father's defense. And I realize now that I never turned to my father when he was alive for two reasons. The first is that I was ashamed and excused away the abuse. My father never really wanted me to marry this man and I did not want to seem like a fool or a failure in his eyes. The second reason is that I had a very complicated relationship with my dad...he had serious psychological issues of his own...but I am confident that he still would have helped me if I had told him. I did call him only weeks into the marriage (when I was twenty-two years old and still living at college), letting him know that my husband hit me. My mother got on the phone and heard this too. My dad begged me to annul the marriage...but I did not. He got on the phone with my husband and made him promise never to hit me again. My husband gave his word. And then broke it...time and time again. Yet, each time he broke his word many many months separated the incidents, sometimes even years...and I often felt like I must have done something to cause his wrath, that it was somehow my fault. If I had been a better wife? If I had not spoken my mind so freely? If I had, had, had...I don't know.
I am intelligent, have a college degree, have won numerous awards in my lifetime...I am a professional musician and a writer...I am a successful mother and have many good friends. In the professional and social circles I move in, I experience the respect and favor of others...yet, and yet...
in my most private life I feel that I live a kind of hell. The hell of loving a man who is the father of my amazing children...loving his family too...but unable to fully break with his abusive ways. After the last sexual assault I went to my mother and my brothers and I asked for help. Not much help came. Sometimes it takes a strong rope to pull a woman and her children out of abuse. The rope has many threads, some are financial, others are psychological and emotional support, and then there is the thread of unconditional love and a non-judgmental attitude. There are more threads than this, but it would take a while to separate them all out and decide how to describe them, give them each a name. All I know is that this cord is very strong, truly a life line, and can change the course of history for a family, especially the children--the next generation.
When I talk to other women who finally escaped an abusive relationship they all had the help of their families. Money, shelter, love were all given. Many also had the help of a protective man. Nobody does it entirely alone. It is one thing to shift just your own life, another to shift children as well. There are legal issues, protection needed, sometimes you must even hide. Coming up for air, getting your bearings, all these things also need support. Post traumatic stress syndrome is very debilitating...for example, since I am still living in my war zone, I have not slept well for weeks now, not since I left a safe place I go to on occasion. I go to bed in deep anxiety and awake never knowing what I will face. Even my sleep is troubled, full of tight muscles, nightmarish dreams, and a sense when I awake that I got not one hour of rest. The fatigue is truly overwhelming and makes it hard to function during the day.
Last night, for example, my husband had a stormy response to a small purchase I made...a thirty dollar mattress cover for my son's bed, a padded one, to help him get sleep, because his mattress is cheap, broken, and he gets poor rest on it. Until we can buy the new mattress I thought I would get him this softer support and I knew we had the money in our budget for it. My husband admitted later that his anger was not related to money...he just felt angry because I did not consult with him on the purchase. He'd already bought an unpadded cover and felt insulted that I bought the padded one to go over it. And why did this insult him? He said he felt that his choices weren't valued and that I, in a sense, disrespected him for buying the new cover. He said he knew he was entering a bi-polar storm and could not stop it...his voice grew louder and louder, there was no reasoning with him. My son ran out to him with his hundred dollar birthday check from his grandmother and handed it to him, wanting him to take it, hoping that by giving away his gift his father's wrath would subside. This was such a sad moment for me, to see how my son would do anything to protect his family and calm the storm...to end the strife over a cover he never asked for and now would probably feel guilty about sleeping on!
The storm continued and, though my husband gave the check back to our son right away, he had to be pushed by me to calm down the kids and let them know that his wrath was an illogical response...and he knew this, that the rage made no sense, but he still could not make it go away. He awoke the next morning in a dark mood, as usual, entering the depression part of the cycle. The meds he is on right now only contain the worst parts of the storm, but they do not stop the storm from happening. There are deep rooted issues going on that he would have to work through in order to become a healthier man with a happier family.
And I end this post many months later with these new paragraphs tacked on:
And in order to work through these issues he would have to commit to intensive counseling, be willing and able to take an honest inventory of his own mental state, and also stay accountable to someone who could help him reign in his violent, combative behaviors that destroy the peace and equilibrium of his family. Ultimately, the marriage could not progress in any way, shape, or form without total restitution. Sadly, all these facets of the healing process are beyond his reach at this time...and perhaps forever.
Stormy people riddled with demons are the ones who need help the most and yet often are the last to seek it. That day so long ago was not an easy day...but this day is a different one (perhaps no less easy). I filed an emergency restraining order which was renewed for 60 days. I also filed for divorce. So much has happened since I wrote that post...I will have to fill you in soon. The bi-polar storms still rage but for now I am out of the pathway of the maelstrom...and thank God my children are too!
Today I can say I love a man who hurts his wife and children, yes, I love him enough to draw a legal boundary that protects the people he cares for from his own madness. And I love myself and my children enough to say no to the insanity that was tearing us all apart. There is always a cost for freedom but I am willing to pay it for a breath of unadulterated, fresh air. I try not to count the costs or let them tangle me up in fear because all that matters right now is trusting God for the pathway out of this hell we've all been living in.
I am taking this journey one step at a time, like a dogged soldier, marching up and out of the trenches with my bayonet pointing forward, bullets whizzing about my ears, the battle raging on every side, trying to keep going without showing fear as I head for a combat free zone I believe exists on the outskirts of all this madness. I won't stop heading that way, even if I am hit in the process. I trust somehow I will succeed and if I don't, I will die trying. It may sound melodramatic but there are no guaranteed outcomes in this process. If a judge decides to lift that restraining order I don't know what will happen. I hope it won't be lifted and we will make it...I can't even imagine his wrath and what punishment he will desire to inflict upon me if that restraining order is removed. How dare I send him away! How dare I put him through hell! I can see it now...
So I trust that God would not give me the strength to go if there wasn't going to be a victory in the end. The kids and I deserve to be safe...truly safe.
Today is not an easy day...I am starting to see more clearly, like that feeling when you surface from a pool, pull off your goggles, feeling that pop of the suction around your eyes, and suddenly there is no blurred underwater glass, but clear-as-day vision and a breeze that makes you blink. I am seeing that I am suffering from a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
I am in love with a man who is so ill he cannot stop hurting his wife and children. Even when he wants to stop he can not stop. This is a man who has sexually assaulted me more than once, and the last time was not that long ago. This is a man who supposedly helped me heal from a date rape situation I experienced years ago at college. I say supposedly because now I wonder if there was any real healing that came from his words, or his touch, or his care, if he can turn around and do the same thing to me again and again?
I cleaved to him because he taught me that my no meant no; I closed my eyes against his chest and took a deep, ragged breath of gratefulness when I was twenty years-old and he was only nineteen, because he convinced me I was safe...but what does that word mean when SAFE can turn to terror once a ring is on your finger and you are living alone with him.
I excused the first attack. I excused the next one. They were spaced out by some years. I forget how many times now...I think four? He recently said he remembered four times he attacked me in that way. The mind loses its clarity under high duress, but I will never forget the last time. It was only a few months after my dad died...during my most vulnerable season of my life, when I felt the lack of protection of a father. I am no kid...I have kids of my own, but I still would have turned to my father if I could have after this last attack. But he wasn't there. He was buried. And I was without a cover, a shield, a father's defense. And I realize now that I never turned to my father when he was alive for two reasons. The first is that I was ashamed and excused away the abuse. My father never really wanted me to marry this man and I did not want to seem like a fool or a failure in his eyes. The second reason is that I had a very complicated relationship with my dad...he had serious psychological issues of his own...but I am confident that he still would have helped me if I had told him. I did call him only weeks into the marriage (when I was twenty-two years old and still living at college), letting him know that my husband hit me. My mother got on the phone and heard this too. My dad begged me to annul the marriage...but I did not. He got on the phone with my husband and made him promise never to hit me again. My husband gave his word. And then broke it...time and time again. Yet, each time he broke his word many many months separated the incidents, sometimes even years...and I often felt like I must have done something to cause his wrath, that it was somehow my fault. If I had been a better wife? If I had not spoken my mind so freely? If I had, had, had...I don't know.
I am intelligent, have a college degree, have won numerous awards in my lifetime...I am a professional musician and a writer...I am a successful mother and have many good friends. In the professional and social circles I move in, I experience the respect and favor of others...yet, and yet...
in my most private life I feel that I live a kind of hell. The hell of loving a man who is the father of my amazing children...loving his family too...but unable to fully break with his abusive ways. After the last sexual assault I went to my mother and my brothers and I asked for help. Not much help came. Sometimes it takes a strong rope to pull a woman and her children out of abuse. The rope has many threads, some are financial, others are psychological and emotional support, and then there is the thread of unconditional love and a non-judgmental attitude. There are more threads than this, but it would take a while to separate them all out and decide how to describe them, give them each a name. All I know is that this cord is very strong, truly a life line, and can change the course of history for a family, especially the children--the next generation.
When I talk to other women who finally escaped an abusive relationship they all had the help of their families. Money, shelter, love were all given. Many also had the help of a protective man. Nobody does it entirely alone. It is one thing to shift just your own life, another to shift children as well. There are legal issues, protection needed, sometimes you must even hide. Coming up for air, getting your bearings, all these things also need support. Post traumatic stress syndrome is very debilitating...for example, since I am still living in my war zone, I have not slept well for weeks now, not since I left a safe place I go to on occasion. I go to bed in deep anxiety and awake never knowing what I will face. Even my sleep is troubled, full of tight muscles, nightmarish dreams, and a sense when I awake that I got not one hour of rest. The fatigue is truly overwhelming and makes it hard to function during the day.
Last night, for example, my husband had a stormy response to a small purchase I made...a thirty dollar mattress cover for my son's bed, a padded one, to help him get sleep, because his mattress is cheap, broken, and he gets poor rest on it. Until we can buy the new mattress I thought I would get him this softer support and I knew we had the money in our budget for it. My husband admitted later that his anger was not related to money...he just felt angry because I did not consult with him on the purchase. He'd already bought an unpadded cover and felt insulted that I bought the padded one to go over it. And why did this insult him? He said he felt that his choices weren't valued and that I, in a sense, disrespected him for buying the new cover. He said he knew he was entering a bi-polar storm and could not stop it...his voice grew louder and louder, there was no reasoning with him. My son ran out to him with his hundred dollar birthday check from his grandmother and handed it to him, wanting him to take it, hoping that by giving away his gift his father's wrath would subside. This was such a sad moment for me, to see how my son would do anything to protect his family and calm the storm...to end the strife over a cover he never asked for and now would probably feel guilty about sleeping on!
The storm continued and, though my husband gave the check back to our son right away, he had to be pushed by me to calm down the kids and let them know that his wrath was an illogical response...and he knew this, that the rage made no sense, but he still could not make it go away. He awoke the next morning in a dark mood, as usual, entering the depression part of the cycle. The meds he is on right now only contain the worst parts of the storm, but they do not stop the storm from happening. There are deep rooted issues going on that he would have to work through in order to become a healthier man with a happier family.
And I end this post many months later with these new paragraphs tacked on:
And in order to work through these issues he would have to commit to intensive counseling, be willing and able to take an honest inventory of his own mental state, and also stay accountable to someone who could help him reign in his violent, combative behaviors that destroy the peace and equilibrium of his family. Ultimately, the marriage could not progress in any way, shape, or form without total restitution. Sadly, all these facets of the healing process are beyond his reach at this time...and perhaps forever.
Stormy people riddled with demons are the ones who need help the most and yet often are the last to seek it. That day so long ago was not an easy day...but this day is a different one (perhaps no less easy). I filed an emergency restraining order which was renewed for 60 days. I also filed for divorce. So much has happened since I wrote that post...I will have to fill you in soon. The bi-polar storms still rage but for now I am out of the pathway of the maelstrom...and thank God my children are too!
Today I can say I love a man who hurts his wife and children, yes, I love him enough to draw a legal boundary that protects the people he cares for from his own madness. And I love myself and my children enough to say no to the insanity that was tearing us all apart. There is always a cost for freedom but I am willing to pay it for a breath of unadulterated, fresh air. I try not to count the costs or let them tangle me up in fear because all that matters right now is trusting God for the pathway out of this hell we've all been living in.
I am taking this journey one step at a time, like a dogged soldier, marching up and out of the trenches with my bayonet pointing forward, bullets whizzing about my ears, the battle raging on every side, trying to keep going without showing fear as I head for a combat free zone I believe exists on the outskirts of all this madness. I won't stop heading that way, even if I am hit in the process. I trust somehow I will succeed and if I don't, I will die trying. It may sound melodramatic but there are no guaranteed outcomes in this process. If a judge decides to lift that restraining order I don't know what will happen. I hope it won't be lifted and we will make it...I can't even imagine his wrath and what punishment he will desire to inflict upon me if that restraining order is removed. How dare I send him away! How dare I put him through hell! I can see it now...
So I trust that God would not give me the strength to go if there wasn't going to be a victory in the end. The kids and I deserve to be safe...truly safe.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
"The road to success is always under construction." Steve Maraboli
It is January. The streets tonight are slick with the fresh, cold rain that fell all day. In the flickering light of a sixty-year-old street lamp outside the local library, I stood and stared at the water forming in a large puddle behind my parked car. I saw dazzling reflections surrounded by darkness, the zig-zag of yellow light moving on the surface, a few dark leaves, like forgotten promises from fall, still floating there, and nothing of my own reflection. It was cold. I needed to go inside and return to my work. The rain began to fall again, pelting the top of my hood, like tiny fingers tapping. It was time to draw my eyes away from that dark mirror in the back parking lot, from the ever-widening ripples, the fizzle of heat on water. Hope is like that, isn't it? You don't always see your own eyes peering back at you, but in the stormy-wet mess left at your feet, in the confusing patterns of ever-moving light and dark, there can be a kind of beauty.
I am going into the library to write. It is the pattern by which I live. I slog through all the responsibilities of my day until I can get to the library door, to the house of books, stacks of dusty and new, or those long rows that flow from forgotten to memorable, to dearly beloved. I have discovered books here that I once took to my bed as a child, with an apple and a fake cough, missing school in order to enter their worlds. And I have located books that aided me in my lengthy searches for historical information that fuels my novels and scripts. Most importantly, I have found refuge in a certain carrel that works likes the blinders on a horse, helping me to stay focussed on the work at hand, while still allowing me the occasional glimpse to my left out the narrow window.
In summer, this window affords me a most entrancing view of an enclosed garden tenderly cared for by one of the older, Indian librarians. I've seen her moving there in her bright sari, clipping and pruning like a red and gold flower amongst the lesser blossoms. In autumn it is awash with the loss of all those leaves and petals, and by winter it is stoked to the top of the stone wall with snow, its bushes crouching like small animals hunkered under all that white. Tonight the garden is dark. I can see nothing but the black panes reflected back at me, my chair pushed out with my coat draped over the back and the sweep of my hair, the side of my face. I am looking and all I see is a girl who is a woman who is a girl who just wants to succeed.
She is willing to bend her whole life to the goal of writing. She's been doing it since she was five and first dictated a story to her Russian grandmother, then signed her own name at the top. She's been doing it every day, in some form, from that day forth to this one, whether it's observing the world around her, like that puddle gathering in the dip of the asphalt behind that house of books, or words gathered out of the books themselves, or even just the gathering of meaning and experience from the rhetoric of life.
Life...her marriage is slowly shifting away into failure, endless arguments and bi-polar rages, a husband both troubled and troubling, children frightened and needing, and she is the one who must hold it all together. She tries. She really tries. And she returns each chance she gets to her seat in the carrel, because it is by these words she carefully places on the page that a life can be built for others, not just her own family (so desperately needing), but the lives of those who might sit in a theater one day, digging down for the popcorn,while their eyes look up, aglow, or curling up on a bed with a good book, taking that bite from their own apple, and surrendering to the magic. Is it arrogant to hope she might create magic for others? Or is it simply her call.
Strife surrounds her. She is tired of "Streets that follow like a tedious argument/Of insidious intent." She is pressing hard for change.
To drive from her house, whose walls vibrate with discontent, to the quiet interior of her book-lined place--is a straight route. Sometimes the road is under construction, pot holes widened by winter storms, orange cones pointing out the new obstacle course, officers pink-cheeked in the cold, directing the flow around...always around. There were days she had to take five different turns simply to go a few miles and get back to her carrel. Other days certain sections had been restored and the path was faster. To write a few chapters could take a year if you divide those chapters by the time spent helping her husband in and out of psych wards, or the tears spent on his relentless rages and repentances.
Leave. Stay. Leave. Stay.
The kids want what is familiar, even if what is familiar is the racket of sorrow.
She wants to hope that love can be restored, like the ink on an ancient manuscript.
He wants her to make the magic happen in the library so that he can be released from his workhouse woes. He will read her stories in an hour and ask for more...it took her nearly a lifetime to write them and more frustration and trouble than he will ever realize.
She is not complaining. She is trying to adjust her eyes in the dark. To see who is looking down into the gathered water in a hole she must step over or around.
Who is this girl? This woman? This writer?
The library door shuts and opens behind her because she is determined to find out.
It is January. The streets tonight are slick with the fresh, cold rain that fell all day. In the flickering light of a sixty-year-old street lamp outside the local library, I stood and stared at the water forming in a large puddle behind my parked car. I saw dazzling reflections surrounded by darkness, the zig-zag of yellow light moving on the surface, a few dark leaves, like forgotten promises from fall, still floating there, and nothing of my own reflection. It was cold. I needed to go inside and return to my work. The rain began to fall again, pelting the top of my hood, like tiny fingers tapping. It was time to draw my eyes away from that dark mirror in the back parking lot, from the ever-widening ripples, the fizzle of heat on water. Hope is like that, isn't it? You don't always see your own eyes peering back at you, but in the stormy-wet mess left at your feet, in the confusing patterns of ever-moving light and dark, there can be a kind of beauty.
I am going into the library to write. It is the pattern by which I live. I slog through all the responsibilities of my day until I can get to the library door, to the house of books, stacks of dusty and new, or those long rows that flow from forgotten to memorable, to dearly beloved. I have discovered books here that I once took to my bed as a child, with an apple and a fake cough, missing school in order to enter their worlds. And I have located books that aided me in my lengthy searches for historical information that fuels my novels and scripts. Most importantly, I have found refuge in a certain carrel that works likes the blinders on a horse, helping me to stay focussed on the work at hand, while still allowing me the occasional glimpse to my left out the narrow window.
In summer, this window affords me a most entrancing view of an enclosed garden tenderly cared for by one of the older, Indian librarians. I've seen her moving there in her bright sari, clipping and pruning like a red and gold flower amongst the lesser blossoms. In autumn it is awash with the loss of all those leaves and petals, and by winter it is stoked to the top of the stone wall with snow, its bushes crouching like small animals hunkered under all that white. Tonight the garden is dark. I can see nothing but the black panes reflected back at me, my chair pushed out with my coat draped over the back and the sweep of my hair, the side of my face. I am looking and all I see is a girl who is a woman who is a girl who just wants to succeed.
She is willing to bend her whole life to the goal of writing. She's been doing it since she was five and first dictated a story to her Russian grandmother, then signed her own name at the top. She's been doing it every day, in some form, from that day forth to this one, whether it's observing the world around her, like that puddle gathering in the dip of the asphalt behind that house of books, or words gathered out of the books themselves, or even just the gathering of meaning and experience from the rhetoric of life.
Life...her marriage is slowly shifting away into failure, endless arguments and bi-polar rages, a husband both troubled and troubling, children frightened and needing, and she is the one who must hold it all together. She tries. She really tries. And she returns each chance she gets to her seat in the carrel, because it is by these words she carefully places on the page that a life can be built for others, not just her own family (so desperately needing), but the lives of those who might sit in a theater one day, digging down for the popcorn,while their eyes look up, aglow, or curling up on a bed with a good book, taking that bite from their own apple, and surrendering to the magic. Is it arrogant to hope she might create magic for others? Or is it simply her call.
Strife surrounds her. She is tired of "Streets that follow like a tedious argument/Of insidious intent." She is pressing hard for change.
To drive from her house, whose walls vibrate with discontent, to the quiet interior of her book-lined place--is a straight route. Sometimes the road is under construction, pot holes widened by winter storms, orange cones pointing out the new obstacle course, officers pink-cheeked in the cold, directing the flow around...always around. There were days she had to take five different turns simply to go a few miles and get back to her carrel. Other days certain sections had been restored and the path was faster. To write a few chapters could take a year if you divide those chapters by the time spent helping her husband in and out of psych wards, or the tears spent on his relentless rages and repentances.
Leave. Stay. Leave. Stay.
The kids want what is familiar, even if what is familiar is the racket of sorrow.
She wants to hope that love can be restored, like the ink on an ancient manuscript.
He wants her to make the magic happen in the library so that he can be released from his workhouse woes. He will read her stories in an hour and ask for more...it took her nearly a lifetime to write them and more frustration and trouble than he will ever realize.
She is not complaining. She is trying to adjust her eyes in the dark. To see who is looking down into the gathered water in a hole she must step over or around.
Who is this girl? This woman? This writer?
The library door shuts and opens behind her because she is determined to find out.
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