[Author's Note: Due to the sensitive nature of this subject matter and being mindful of potential safety concerns for both the people and places represented in this post, I have made an intentional decision to protect all parties and entities with anonymity. -j.n.]
"Now there's gravel in our voices and glasses shattered from the fight; In this tug of war you always win even when I'm right. Cause you feed me fables from your head with violent words and empty threats and it's sick that all these battles are what keeps me satisfied; Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, well that's alright because I like the way it hurts; Just gonna stand there and hear me cry, well that's alright because I love the way you lie; I love the way you lie..."
[-Skylar Grey]
October marked my skin with the reminders of the past. In ways that I didn't want nor in ways that I did not need. It was everywhere, at least in my world. Buzzwords and articles and even billboards announcing, 'Domestic Violence Awareness Month.'
An endless field of landmines.
It was a lifetime ago when I met her. She was a patient, as was I. We shared a room. We didn't sleep, she or I. It was the monsters underneath the bed, you know, the things that go bump in the night. And so we talked those hours away, chasing our demons away with words and lessons learned and sorrow upon sorrow, and the resolute promise of never again. Never again.
I admired her. She was a strong woman. Hers was a story that would break you. But as she would tell it, it broke her, yes, but it also built her.
Even in writing this, it seems strange to me that we have been friends for years but it is a quiet friendship, void of social media, no Snapchats, no Facebook banter, no Instagram pictures. They are her rules, not mine. And while she knows that I am writing this, she has imposed the rule of anonymity- one of which I would have followed just the same.
I remember in the early days of my sobriety journey last year, those horrific moments, face in the mirror, the bruises, my hands frantically trying to assure the woman staring back at me that it was all finished now, those were merely the phantom ghosts of Jillian Past.
I called her on the phone, "What did you do?" "How did you get through it?" "Am I going crazy, I swear I feel like I'm losing my fucking mind."
And she was calm. And steady. "I talked about it. I talked and I talked and I talked until my voice was louder than his hands. And I did not stop talking. And no love, you are not going crazy, you are getting well, one fractured memory at a time."
But I do not talk about certain chapters of my life, that is my rule.
****
A few months passed. I was a little stronger, not as easily broken by the memories. But I was not her. And I did not have her courage. Nor did I want her courage. No thank you, I do not want what you are selling. My account is overdrawn. End of story.
Only it's never really the end. Not for her. And certainly not for me. And not for the women like us.
Years earlier, after the hospital, she started her own version of a women's shelter and support group. She asked me to come. I politely told her that I didn't do groups. She said that she understood. But then she asked one thing of me, there is a girl, a little slip of a thing, she doesn't talk much, she reminds me of you, if not for your own healing, would you come for hers.
It would be a sentence, one of many, that would haunt me for years.
"If not for your own healing, would you come for hers."
****
Present: January 2017
It was in the cold of January this year present that she called me and asked me to come again. She has a fierce heart for her girls as it were and as we've maintained our connection, there was a part of me that always knew that one day she would call and she would ask of me the one thing that I could not give. Not ever again anyway. I told her that it was not a good time, that I was not as grounded as I would need to be, that my sobriety was fragile. And after the long line of other things that I listed out for why I could not come- I steeled myself against the memories and I said there was no way in hell that I would come. And furthermore hell would freeze over before I willingly step foot in that place again.
As it turned out, hell froze over like an artic tundra. And we all felt the ripple of the ice on our bodies...
"J, she came in last night. She's so much like her. I need you to come. We all have that one person that pulls us off this ledge, I know you know that- she needs you. Please"
She needs you. Just like the she that came before her.
I read those words and threw up on the sidewalk outside of the local Sprouts with a small trickle of curios stares passing by.
And I got into my car and drove. I drove for two hours and forty-seven minutes until I was sitting in a cemetery a few cities away. Thinking about a girl who is now six feet under. And a time that was a lifetime ago.
When they laid her in the ground on that October day a few years back, I swallowed down the dirt of guilt and buried the words in my mouth and sealed my lips shut like a mausoleum...
****
Past: August 2007
It was a warm August day. The sun hung high in the sky against a backdrop of marbled blue. The smell of fresh cut grass. Bright, cheerful flowers. An ordinary house, in an ordinary neighborhood, on an ordinary street. It was all so normal. A Norman Rockwell slice of suburbia. A clever facade to evade detection. It was just like long sleeves on arms that had been gripped to the point of breaking. It was a mirage. Because that is the trick of it all, smoke and mirrors and bright smiles. It is all so normal...
Crossing the threshold, it was filled with thrift store couches and tables and lamps and this and that; and thrift store hope that lingered over strong black coffee.
She really was a little slip of a thing. Nervous. Quiet as a church mouse. Her ivory cream skin still bearing the tint of yellows, blues, purples- the fading relics of the life she was running from.
I sat across from her, holding a Garfield mug that said "I hate Mondays."
To this day, I feel sick if I see that caricature.
Her hair was dark and long and a tangled mess of curls; Her eyes set wide, a brilliant green. I always marveled that she was like a living doll. If I'm honest, I will tell you that there are times that I swear I still see her in the faces of other girls.
I talked. She listened. We cried. It was a strange dance.
I would spend countless hours with her over the next few weeks. Drinking coffee and courage.
In the years that have followed, what I came to understand is that you do not get to control the outcome.
It was a little over two months when I would get the call that came in the dead of the night.
I did not go to the funeral. There would have been too many questions and not enough answers.
****
I did not want anything more to do with that place and I said as much.
I know she understood. She wasn't immune to the pain. But as I said on my way out the door for the last time, it was her mission, not mine. It was never mine.
We didn't speak for awhile. I was a merry-go-round of disaster. And she remained this clam, solid, determined force to pull her girls from the burning fire as it were.
Have you ever lived in hell, I wonder? It is no easy feat to reach into that pit and pull body after body after body out. It will at some point burn you. Or incinerate you.
Looking back, I could see the singes on her tired fingers, the smoke in her lungs, the soot in the dark circles of her eyes. I could see the burn.
And I thought of the woman that I was then. And there she stood, ash to ash and dust to dust, a cremated surrender.
****
Present: January 2017
It was surreal driving up that street. Walking up that driveway. Knocking on that door. Sitting at that table. Drinking coffee in those thrift store mugs.
She really was so much like her. It hurt to look at her. I told her that I could not save her. I told her that only she could save herself. I told her that silence was her enemy and words were her strength.
She asked me questions. And I answered in no particular order. It was a painful stream of consciousness:
Document everything.
If you go back, please understand that it could be the last time.
I told her about the other her. It was her last time.
Love does not hurt, and fear is not love.
It's all so fucking cliché.
He will first break your sense of self and when he does that, he will move on to wage a war of isolation and image.
He will take everything away from you and you will drown in aloneness while from the outside looking in, you will be the perfect couple.
And you will tell yourself time and time again that he really loves you, he does. And it's your fault, you should know better than to say that or wear those clothes, or not do that, etc.
The first time his hands strike you, you will blame yourself because the shock of it will be too much- and by this time he will have broken you to the point of doubt, confusion, and fear.
He will almost never hit you in the face and when he does, the bruises that confront him will only make him angrier and more sorry just the same.
He will apologize, he might even go as far as putting his hand on a bible or a gun to his head while he apologizes and begs you to forgive him.
He will always find a way to blame you even when he is apologizing.
It will only ever get worse.
One day he might even try to kill you.
Because it will go too far.
Because history and experience will tell you this- once this starts, if you do not get out at the first signs of danger, it will go too far.
IT WILL GO TOO FAR.
I looked her in the eyes and I knew that she knew; she knew what I knew and I in turn knew what she knew. And we sat in that space together, both of us on fire.
We talked a few more times after that day.
She asked me if I would make her a promise so that she would always know that someone was fighting for her; she asked me to promise to not stay silent. She said that she heard how I was asked to come before, you know not for your own healing, but for hers, and she said to me it was because you came back that I am listening- please, she said, please promise me that you won't stop speaking.
I promised with certain stipulations. It was the best I could offer.
And she accepted.
It was in February that I would find out that she moved to a town in the mid-west, close to her extended family. I smiled. And I cried. She got out.
She got out.
It was a bittersweet circle.
****
Present: November 2017
These days that ordinary house, on that ordinary street, in that ordinary neighborhood is quiet. She made arrangements for the girls that she was looking after to be referred out to different shelters and such. Her past came calling. And she has had to move out of state. Mostly she has made herself into an ghost these days and I don't hear from her at all save for the exception of a random unmarked postcard. I think of her and I imagine that in her own way she is still full of moxie. Still searching out the burning houses, still waiting to be a rescue when called upon. She has taught me a lot in that respect. But again I am not her. Mine is still a house yet burning, at least in memories.
****
I am disinclined to discuss the details of my experiences with domestic violence. Because while the memories will always live inside of me, I do not want to live in the memories.
Once in awhile if I step on a landmine, I will talk. Mostly to my journal, at times to my therapist. I try to conjure up a wisp of her fierceness and in my own way talk about it, talk until my voice, my words, is/are louder than his/their hands.
So, what can I tell you of domestic violence?
It is emotional abuse in the highest form. It is a complex game of psychological warfare. It is a dirty little secret and an elephant in the room. And it can happen to anyone.
It can happen to ANYONE.
You will never forget that first moment when that one person that you trusted, that one person that you thought you knew, that one person that you felt safe with, that one person that you thought you loved- you will never forget the impact nor the imprint of his hands when all of those things lay shattered at your feet on the floor in a sea of broken glass. And you never saw it coming.
YOU NEVER SAW IT COMING.
Some women leave, never again to return. But most stay. And the world will always ask why, why did you stay?
Because domestic violence at it's core is a systematic indoctrination of guilt and shame: I did something wrong, I deserve this, This is all my fault.
And it works.
And it takes extraordinary outside and inside influences to break free.
And when you break free, there will almost always be apart of you that is one foot in and one foot out.
I can tell you about this, this strange and terrible duality-
There will be triggers. And you don't get to control the triggers.
One day you could be standing on aisle 3 in the supermarket and the couple at the end of the aisle are having an argument and the man raises his voice- and it's just the right tone and pitch- and suddenly you're a millions miles away in another place, on another day, wearing different clothes, and you hit the floor and your groceries fall and you're waiting for it, for that sting of his hands, and you lose time waiting- until suddenly you're back in your own body and you feel the hand of the store manager on your shoulder as he's asking you if you're okay and do you need him to phone 911. And you'll shake your head and run as fast as you can out of the store and get to the car and throw up on yourself while you cry.
I did not return to that supermarket for a good three months.
And then there is the loophole of all of your future relationships with men, be they friends, or significant others.
You will learn to trust these men. And you will tell yourself that you do trust them. Because you will have observed them carefully and engaged with them cautiously.
But the catch, the loophole is that when you are alone with them, you will always look for the signs. You will look for anger, you will measure it, you will watch closely the body language, you will listen intently for the tone, you will wonder to yourself, what will I do that will make this man hit me.
What will I do. WHAT WILL IT TAKE.
And it will break your heart. Because these men are not those men.
But you will wonder just the same.
It won't always be as pronounced and there might even be times when you can feel 99.9% safe with these men. Because you do know them and they are good men- but you don't get to control the trigger.
One foot in and one foot out...
****
We do not fight this war with our hands. We fight this war with our words.
We fight in little rebellions everyday.
We speak. Louder. And louder. And louder still, until our voices are stronger than their hands.
This is how we survive.
This is how we heal.
And this is my voice, small though it may be, standing with my sisters, fighting on.
And as I promised her, I will keep speaking in time.
-Jillian Nichole, speaking...
