Domestic Violence Alive and Well

Domestic violence is still going strong in America. No matter the educational efforts, the increase in places to go for help, women are still being abused and brutalized. Those people in their lives who are watching this are afraid and angry. Every time someone tries to help, the victim returns to her abuser.

As much as I understand this anger and frustration, I also understand the other side. I am not eleven years Free and Safe, which means I finally made that total break and sought help.

Forget stereotypes. I was always feisty and strong-willed. All the women around me knew I was the one who would come running if they needed me. One autumn day I hobbled on a broken leg and crutches to the house of a woman who had called me in hysteria. When I got there she called out the door for me to go away, everything was all right. Did I go the next time? Yes, I did, the next time she might be badly hurt.

I was an abused child, which I believe has everything to do with my becoming an abused adult. My first marriage was to a very mild-mannered man, and I believe I left because I was raised by a brutal father and the only attention I knew was violent. He slapped my face once. I pushed him into a bookcase and stood over him, telling him to never do that again. Violence teaches violence.

Raising my two children alone for 10 years was hard. I needed training to get a job and I became a Hospice Home Health Aide. This was where I blossomed. Needed and respected, I at last came to value myself as worthy. My children were getting older and I saw the writing on the wall. One day soon I would be alone. There would be no one for me to care about. The future before was looking very empty.

After a lot of hard thinking I finally joined Parents Without Partners. This is a group for men and women who have children. There are activities and you meet people like yourself. When I met Diane I liked her right away. She was sassy and independent. We became close friends.

She told me one day that she knew a guy who needed "someone to talk to". . . I met him with her and fell in love. Never in my life had I felt such emotion. He was quiet and stand-offish, and that was just the opposite of what most men were with me. I hated the vulgar, groping and overly-friendly type.

Can you see where I might have been drawn to Michael because he was more like my own father? Michael had a lot of problems and it was ideal, I was going to "fix" that man. At first I did not know that he a drug problem - and I was totally ignorant of that world. Every child should be taught about drugs. But he never seemed to use them around me and I believed his story that he had quit.

Here it is in a nutshell: You can't fix anyone, they will drag you down to their level. I was much more educated, stronger and capable. He wanted me to be on his level and he beat me until I was no longer myself.

It is true that abusers isolate their victims. Soon none of my friends or family would come around. I had been extremely close to my son, who abused me also. Michael was firm about my son not hitting me. He did not raise a hand to Matthew, but backed him up to a corner with the force of his being. Matthew never forgave that. There is no contact between Mathew and myself - he ostracized me. I have two grandsons I have never seen. It was a little better with my daughter.

Here is what my "love" cost me: my career, my beautiful duplex, my Camaro I cherished, my self-esteem and my hope. Little by little I was too badly beaten to go to work. He would cry and say he was sorry - and do it again. He would drive me to the emergency room and wait for me, but most of the time he was enraged and would often try to push me out of the moving car.

Eventually we were evicted. By this time I was less than half-alive. For three years he drug me from one drug house to another. We slept in the car when we had one. I was so insane and beaten that I couldn't have left. I had no where to go, no one to trust. Half of that time is just a haze to me.

There is much more to this story, but the thing I want to point out is, they never change - ever. I left him and went back to him dozens and dozens of times. He would promise to change and I bought it every time. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time. Finally we went to North Carolina to live with his mother and stepfather, because he said, he would never beat me in his mother's house. The second night it began again.

Leaving for good was a struggle. It finally sunk into my head that this wasn't ever going to work. I see him at a distance once in a while, but I stopped fearing him because he won't come near me now that I stood up to him. A bully will bully those who let him.

If you are being hurt - leave. Leave and never go back. Here is the most important phone number you will ever need. Leave before you become a disabled and broken person like me.

24-Hour Access from all 50 states. Translators available. National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233 or 1-800-787-3224 ...