This is the Story of Domestic Abuse

This is the story of domestic abuse, it is a story that does not have a happily ever after ending, because this story is based on fact, actual events in so many womens lives and is not a fairy tale.

And the story goes like this:

Once upon a time in a small rural community in Wyoming lived a small town girl named Trish, now Trish was a happy girl always laughing and singing. Which drove her three brothers crazy! They couldn't figure out how anyone could be so happy that they sang all the time, I mean all the time.

One day Trish met a man and his name was Sam, now Sam was a lot older then Trish and had been married, recently divorced and was raising three children.
In fact, Sam was the brother of Trish's dearest and closet friend, Sally.

Sam was in a pickle, he was constantly being thrown back into court fighting his ex-wife over custody of his three children. His attorney, Charlie told him that the only way that the court will issue sole custody to a father is if that father was re-married and showed that he could be responsible by holding down a full time job.

This concerned Sam because he did not want his ex-wife to have the children. There was no way that he would ever allow a woman to beat him in anything, no matter what the consequences were.

So Sam voiced his concerns to his Mother, Evelyn. She too, was concerned about this situation, so together Sam and Evelyn devised a plan. Oh, this plan was so perfect they could hardly stand it. Slowly, they began to put their plan in the works.

Now Trish was graduating High School and her Mother was not adjusting well to the idea of her daughter flying the coop, so fights and arguments began to occur between them. Trish wanted so much to be able to go do things, go to college and just spend time with friends, but her mother put her foot down. This frustrated Trish so much that she was beginning to think about going to stay with her Grandparents just to get away from the control of her mother.

One day, while Trish was visiting her friend Sally over at Sally's house she was introduced to Sam. Sally was polite, but very shy and after being introduced to Sam insisted that she and Sally go find something to do.

A few days later, Trish received a telephone call from Sam asking her to go out with him. Trish was surprised that he would ask such a thing, considering he was so much older then she was. But, Trish agreed to go to the movies with him and a whirl-wind romance would begin within a short time. A few month's later Sam sat Trish down and explained his situation, then followed up by asking her if she would marry him. Trish was aghast by the very suggestion, after all they had only been dating for seven months and it wasn't consistent at all. But Sam had a proposition, since Trish was having so much problems at home and Sam needed a wife in order to get the court to agree to give him custody of his children,if Trish would agree to marry him and stay in the marriage for three years, at the end of that three years he would give

Trish a certain amount of cash and pay for her to go on a trip anywhere she wanted to go.

Now, to a nineteen year old high school graduate, this sounded like a really good thing, so Trish agreed. But after she agreed she was beginning to have doubts about it and didn't know how to approach the subject with her mother.

Well, days turned into weeks and weeks into months and soon Sam and Trish were married, and living in the basement of his parents home.

But that didn't help Sam's situation at all, no in fact, Sam's ex-wife kidnapped the children and would be absent for a year before they would be found.

After the children were returned to Sam, he and Trish and the children moved into a home of their own.

Now this is where the story takes and evil twist.

Sam began to show his true colors. He, in fact was a very angry person and would explode over the slightest thing, hitting Trish, calling her names and making her feel worthless. He began to humiliate Trish by walking up behind her in a crowded room and pulling her pants off, or raising his voice at her telling her how stupid she was.
Soon Sam began coming home less and less and this started fights between him and his new bride.

One day, Trish did something that she was never suppose to do, she checked the mail. And there in the mail box was a card addressed to her. Trish couldn't figure out who would be sending her a card, it wasn't her birthday or a holiday, so with excited anticipation she tore open the card. What she read inside made her heart sink to the very pits of her stomach. The card was a birth announcement letting her know that her husband had strayed outside the marriage and had fathered a child.

Trish was devastated. When Sam returned home that day she showed him the card and asked what it was about. Sam just smiled and told Trish not to worry about it, it wasn't true. He explained that the girl that sent it was jealous because he had married Trish instead of her and that they had gone out once and that was long before he had met Trish.

One day, Trish was giving her step daughter a bath and as she was shampooing her hair a small amount of shampoo sled down the child's face and into her eye. The child began to cry uncontrollably, bringing Sam back to the bathroom to see why his daughter was crying. Trish explained the situation and told Sam it was nothing to worry about. Sam became extremely angry and picked up a wet wash cloth and slapped Trish across the face, then he shoved her backwards into the outside door. The door was bolt locked, but the force in which Sam shoved her made Trish bust open the door where she landed on her back in the yard.

A couple months later the children had gone to their biological mother's home for a visit,. Sam had decided to use this time to do some repairs on the house. He noticed that he needed a certain size nail and told Trish that he was going to run to the store to get some. As he was walking out the door, Sam told Trish not to do anything because he didn't want it messed up by a woman.

Well, this comment didn't set well with Trish and she decided that while he was gone she would continue working to surprise him with just how much she was capable of doing.

When Sam returned home, Trish rushed to greet him and asked that he come see what she had done. When Sam saw it he became irate and shoved Trish through a pile of storm windows that had been lying against the couch. Trish picked herself up and checked to make sure she wasn't injured. Then she grabbed her boots and purse and was going to leave, but she was so upset she couldn't get her boot on. Out of frustration she threw the boot across the room, just a Sam was walking in the direction she threw it. The boot hit Sam square on the back of the head, making his knees go weak. He picked up the boot and threw it back at Trish calling her vile names and swore she had done that on purpose.

Trish finally got her boots on and headed out the door to the car, where she promptly left. She headed straight for her mother-in-laws house.

As she walked in the house of her in-laws she was crying and very upset. Her father in law told her to get out, he didn't want any part of it. Just as Trish was leaving the telephone rang, it was Sam. He asked to speak to Trish, so the telephone was handed to her. Sam told Trish that she only had three minutes to get home before the house was torched to the ground. The drive home was fifteen, Trish knew she wasn't going to make it in time, but hung up the phone and left.

As she was pulling into the driveway she was feeling very frightened and apprehensive. She didn't know what to expect. Slowly, she got out of the car and walked up the steps to the front door. Just as she reached the last step, the front door flew open and Sam grabbed her by the throat and held a gun to her head. He pulled her inside and began yelling at her. He told her to drop her purse, which Trish had held up against her chest as a make shift shield.

She refused, Sam yelled again and Trish still refused to drop it. Suddenly, Sam stepped back and took the gun away from Trish's head and threw it at her demanding that she shoot him to get him out of his misery. The gun landed on the floor at Trish's feet. She stood staring at it not wanting to touch it. Sam kept yelling at her to pick it up and shoot him. Instead, Trish kicked it and it slid across the room under the couch.

This made Sam very angry and he stomped off. Trish took the moment to survey the house. Everything in the livngroom was completely destroyed and lay in a mass of debris on the floor. Trish glanced towards the kitchen, the direction that Sam had gone, and noticed that every dish in the kitchen lay broken on the floor. Past the kitchen she could just barely get a glimpse of the dining room, there again everything was broken on the floor.

Suddenly, Trish remembered her hope chest and gained enough courage to walk down the hall to the bedroom to check on it. As she entered the room she saw everything had been pulled out of the Hope Chest, and was smashed into tiny shards of glass on the floor. Trish's heart sunk, this was items that had been in her family for generations, and now it was all gone. Why? Because she painted a wall.

Trish felt her knees go weak and she fell to the floor in despair, and began to cry. Sam entered the room and just laughed at her. Then he told her to stop the crying and made her choose what was more important, her things or him.

Next, Sam took her into the bathroom to show her where all of her clothes where. They lay in the bottom of the tub, burned. Nothing remained but a few pieces of colored fabric. Trish began to cry again and Sam got angry and told her it was her fault. He did it because he didn't want his wife parading around like a whore. Trish was shocked by this statement, she didn't own anything but sweat pants and jeans, and a couple skirts and blouses.

Eventually Sam would lose his job and move Trish and his family to the west coast. It was here that the story turns dangerous.The cycle of abuse intensified, the children began to grow up and Trish became a hateful, angry, bitter person.

After twelve years of marriage, Trish would escape her abuser and move back to the safety and security if her rural Wyoming home. Eventually she joined the Army and meet her handsome prince who moved Trish to his castle in the prairies of the mid-west. Trish would learn to sing again, all the time, and a smile would be easier to find.

But the story isn't over, no...in fact it continues in a sad and horrible fate.

After living so many years with the abuse, Trish began to have medical problems associated with the abuse. She learned that she had been given an STD when she was 20 yrs old, that had destroyed her reproduction system, preventing her from having children of her own. The years of being pushed to the ground would present itself in the form of a compressed spinal cord in her neck. Pain, would be her best friend at varying levels through out her life. The memories and horror of the abuse would result in Trish being diagnosed with depression and PTSD. Nightmares of her ordeal would haunt her, fear of being alone would torment her, the need of her experiences to be acknowledged and recognized, would plague her.

Domestic abuse, is very real in our society. If you should suspect abuse, please do not be a silent observer. Report it to the local authorities. The women,living i abusive situations do not have the strength, or courage they need to move beyond the perimeters of their nightmare, so please do not judge them. Instead, help them.