I've written about domestic violence several times - if my story can help someone else to see their own situation through clearer eyes and perhaps get out of the relationship, it's worth the discomfort of reliving my experience. But I've never written about what happens AFTER you leave, and we all know that leaving isn't the happy ending to an instructive tale. Leaving is just the beginning of the struggle to rebuild and reclaim your life, your relationships, your self-esteem. If you counsel your patient or your sister or your friend to leave, think about what that might be like.
Leaving is the most dangerous time in a violent relationship. A man who senses - or fears - that he's losing control of his partner is a dangerous man. More women are seriously hurt or killed when they're trying to get out of the relationship than at any other time. I was lucky there. We were on vacation, away from our home and away from the guns he kept here. I got the door of the car open somehow while he was strangling me at the side of the road, and when I passed out, I fell out onto the road. My dog jumped after me. And I was stranded on the side of the road with the clothes I was wearing and my dog. (The other dog, the female, got her leash tangled in the gear shift when she tried to jump out; my ex-husband kept her until weeks later, when he decided she was too much trouble. Which was sad for her, because she was never the same afterward.) I left my purse, my jacket, my luggage , my camera and one of the dogs behind. And there I was at the side of the road, 300 miles from home with my dog and nothing else. I was grateful when my abuser drove off and left me there - I felt blessed to be alive.
What do you do in that situation? It was long before cellphones. I found a payphone and tried to call the police, but it was a small town and only one cop was on duty that day. I left a message, but never heard back. It's not as if I could have left a callback number. This was in 1987. No cell phones. And then I didn't know what to do. I sat in a laundromat, next to the pay phone, and waited for my situation to sink in and inspiration to strike. And then I called work, collect, to tell them that I wouldn't be in the next day. I was lucky that Alice answered the phone - an assistant manager who had been friendly to me. In between gigantic sobs and gulps, I blurted out an outline of my situation. "Where are you?" she asked. And when I told her, she said "IT's slow today. I'll be there as soon as I can." Five hours later, she had driven 300 miles to pick me up at a laundromat in a small town where I'd been sitting and crying for most of those five hours.
I was lucky. I had a job, enough money in a secret bank account to rent myself a place to live and found an understanding landlady who read between the lines of my situation and let me keep my dogs. I got to go back into my house a few days later and get some of my things. It could have gone so much differently. We were living in Air Force housing at the time, and my military dependent card was in the purse that I didn't have. Without it, I couldn't even get on the Air Force Base to get to my house. It turned out that the domestic violence counselor at the YWCA was married to a pilot. She drove me, Alice and Alice's boyfriend onto the Base and I was able to get into the house and load up my compact car (still parked in front of the house, with a spare set of keys stashed in the trunk that wouldn't lock) and the boyfriend's station wagon with as much of my stuff as we could get. The furniture, pots and pans, dishes - all of that was mine before I married. I got what I could and left the rest. My female dog wasn't there - turns out she was at the vet's recovering from an injury that she hadn't had the last time I'd seen her.
Alice's boyfriend, while willing to help, clearly didn't understand the situation despite having had it explained to him repeatedly. He kept saying "We'll go back and get the rest of your stuff tomorrow." He didn't understand that there wasn't going to be another opportunity. My husband changed the locks.
What do you take when you leave your house knowing that you have a few hours to pack what you can and you'll have to leave the rest? I took the photo albums, the family Bible, my grandmothers' jewelry, my clothes and as much of the other stuff as I could get. For years afterward, I'd go looking for something only to realize it was back in that house.
Forty eight hours after being stranded on the road side, I had found a place to live, moved in, unpacked and then sat down on my one chair staring at the wall and wondering what in the world I was going to do next.
For another one of my articles in this series about domestic violence please read:
I have read both your threads. I have a lump in my neck from holding back tears after reading it. I am so glad you got out alive and so glad you are "here with us". I hope your story helps out other DV victims. So so sorry this happened to you.
I am so fortunate to have never experienced this firsthand.
I worked in a community health center with mostly Hispanic immigrants and while we were on a first-name basis with the local DV shelter because we had a lot of women (and a few men) who were DV survivors in our population, one sticks out in particular. They had been married for more than 25 years, children grown and gone, and presented for chronic disease care together. I had them in separate rooms because I didn't at first put 2+2 together that they were married (Hispanic women don't always take their husband's last name). I remember her name and her face as well as his.
Anyway, every new pt got a DV screen and the stories that came out of her after a couple simple questions left me gobsmacked. She had scars up and down her arms from where he'd repeatedly tried to stab her and she had blocked him, and that was just the start.
Over the course of a few months the folks from the DV shelter came out to meet her when she came for her appts. She talked about leaving on occasion, and once was to the point of walking out the door and at the last minute changed her mind. "No matter where I go," she said, "he'll find me and he'll kill me." I just wanted to take her in my arms and protect her from everything that had ever happened to her and everything that ever would happen. She went back to him and as far as I know she is still with him. In the end, she knows her situation better than I do and is the best judge of what she's dealing with.
Specializes in CCU, SICU, CVSICU, Precepting & Teaching.
In the end, she knows her situation better than I do and is the best judge of what she's dealing with.
Thank you for understanding that. It's so difficult to grasp when we want to help someone and we think we know what is best for them . . . but the person in the situation really does know better what she's dealing with.
I had a co-worker some years ago that EVERYONE at work knew was being abused at home, and we all encouraged her to leave, offered her a place to stay (with her 3 kids) and she never would. He finally did kill her one night (in front of her kids.) He kept saying "I didn't mean to kill her." I believed him - he now had lost his "punching bag." (He was 6'2" and about 300 lbs, she was barely 5' tall and about 90 lbs. He strangled her with the phone cord.)
Oh my! Thank you for being a supportive coworker even if it still ended badly.
I say that as a survivor of DV. My coworkers gave me money to stay in a hotel room for the night while I figured out what to do. The local DV shelter was full and as an RN actively working without kids, I didn't qualify for assistance. My partner had control of EVERYTHING.
I got my payroll check direct deposits stopped & got a new account opened. Fortunately, I was able to get by for the 3 days until my check came. My manager let me off long enough to deposit my check and get some cash. No one would take money to get paid back; I had meals paid for by strangers!
I had moved across the country to be with my partner & he changed when I got there. I had spent all my savings buying a car, moving, & getting "our" home ready. I didn't know everything was only in his name.
Within 3 months, it all started. The morning I wokeep up for work, I learned he had emptied my account while I slept. I was emotionally abused & threatened with more physical violence (he did hit me, but said it was an accident).
I ended up sleeping on a friend's couch for a month. They risked everything for me to be safe. I had a restraining order, but I was followed several times.
I had several people ask me since why I couldn't get out sooner or have realized what was going on. You get convinced that joint accounts are better & the missing money was for gas, food, a surprise gift, etc.
I was fortunate. If you don't know how to help, call a DV shelter. I'm thankful we never had children & I will 2nd the post that the pets are never the same. I don't know why my pets were never the same as they were when I lived there with him, but we retrieved them with the help of the police and they were neurotic. My dog ended up being put down and the cat died about 6 months afterwards.
I had a short amount of time to gather items, but I couldn't take the animals with me. It's weird what you get when you're running for your life. I left & went to work where I knew I had help. When I gathered some things, I hadn't fully decided to leave yet. When I got to work, I had another nurse ask me out of the blue if I wanted to leave my partner. I hadn't said anything to anyone....I had been pulled to another floor to work where they were short.
I'm now happily married to a loving man. We have children together and I never want to look back. My former partner had to move back to his hometown.
I was raised by a single mom who told us (me and my sister) that all men were scary/unworthy/bummy/unreliable and it took many years for me to figure out the truth-in the meantime, I bought my own land and had my own account and even though pursued by many bums, still had somewhere to go, my land. I just never trusted any man until my 40's, when I found a nice guy and became the aggressor.
Ruby has written from her heart how hard it is to leave. Thank you for sharing your experiences Ruby. I've been following your other thread too and appreciate your honesty.
Leaving IS the most dangerous time. The abuser can feel it, so staying silent is key. I understand that many if not most times that planning isn't possible.
I left when my abuser was gone. Grabbed a few clothes, my photos and drove away. I had known the day was coming---the tension was so high I could barely breathe. I was physically unable to leave when I wanted to as I was recovering from surgery. I used that time to plan my escape the best I could. Confusion is common in victims of DV, but I knew I had to use that time to work towards leaving. I paired down my photos into one box. I kept my spare car key with me at all times-- Id left in a rush before after an abusive incident and forgotten my extra car key-- he found where I was, climbed over parking gate topped with barbed wire, unlocked my car, filled up the front seats, back seats & trunk with heavy boxes of my nursing textbooks & other odd items. Even after I'd left he desired control.
I gathered all important papers & kept them in my car. I had to be very careful & do these things when he wasn't home. My heart would pound that he'd drive up and see me.
The one thing that gave me the guidance and final amount of courage to leave was calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline. It was their expertise and reassurance that I was not crazy, that I was doing the absolute right thing by leaving ASAP and that gave me the ability to put my plan into action.
Leaving is scary. It's dangerous. It's certainly not simple or easy in any sense. Yet it is what saved my life. That night I changed my phone number, blocked him on FB and had instructed trusted friends and family to not respond if he contacted them. The next day I got a restraining order.
If you're reading this and you think you may be in an abusive relationship, I encourage you to call The National Domestic Violence Hotline. 800-799-7233. You can call them every day if you need to, they will listen, not judge, and give you referrals to shelters and DV advocacy organizations in your area.
Making that call gave me the courage to leave. I am eternally grateful to them.
The scariest thing is how some men don't turn violent until you're in a vulnerable position, especially a financially vulnerable position. That's how it happened with me, but thankfully I got out as soon as I could. Everyone and their dog thinks they know your situation better than you do, but what they especially didn't understand for me was I couldn't simply throw everything I owned away to go live in a homeless shelter. It sounds idiotic that anyone ever would've demanded that of me, that I just give him everything I own to stay at a shelter instead, but it's people like that that help keep you silent about the abuse. You get tired of being given horrible, victim blaming "advice" so you stop reaching out for help. You get tired of having people act as if you're the stupid one. So then it's like, why bother?
Unless you know every intricate detail of a woman's life, don't ask why they're not leaving. You don't have the faintest clue.
The scariest thing is how some men don't turn violent until you're in a vulnerable position, especially a financially vulnerable position. That's how it happened with me, but thankfully I got out as soon as I could. Everyone and their dog thinks they know your situation better than you do, but what they especially didn't understand for me was I couldn't simply throw everything I owned away to go live in a homeless shelter. It sounds idiotic that anyone ever would've demanded that of me, that I just give him everything I own to stay at a shelter instead, but it's people like that that help keep you silent about the abuse. You get tired of being given horrible, victim blaming "advice" so you stop reaching out for help. You get tired of having people act as if you're the stupid one. So then it's like, why bother?
Unless you know every intricate detail of a woman's life, don't ask why they're not leaving. You don't have the faintest clue.
The abuse began when I was in a vulnerable position. I had been in a bad accident where I fractured two vertebrae in my neck-small fractures, and was in considerable pain.
I was calling out from work because of the pain...that didn't stop him from dragging me around in my family room because he didn't want me to call out.
I didn't live with my abuser, and I'm sure it would've been just as worse, or maybe it wasn't-I still felt stuck and he even resorted to threatening my family when I left...he had a gun and used it.
Hugs to all who did live with their abusers and was able to escape, and my heart is with those who feel trapped and hopeless-surrounded by constant trauma...
The average amount of times a victim of DV leaves an abuser is 7-8 times before leaving for good. This means returning to an angry, controlling environment. There are the stages of Tension, The Abusive Incident, followed by the Honeymoon stage. As time passes, the time in between stages shortens. Sometimes the Honeymoon stage where the abuser shows remorse becomes non-existent.
I also experienced my abuser become more abusive when I was in a vulnerable place. Whether it was physical, monetary or emotional, that was when it got worse. Abusers wear their victims down, then play on that weakened spirit. Being able to think straight when constantly walking on eggshells and focusing on their next move is exhausting.
I know from my own personal experiences as a DV survivor that my biggest fear was others judgement of me. I was very young when I married my ex-husband and scarier than him was how he had convinced me that no one else would love me, that I was so broken that his loving me was the best thing I would ever be able to have, and that if I didn't appreciate what he was giving me, I was the bad one.
One of the best things I feel I can do for abuse victims is just be supportive and non judgmental. You don't have to understand why they stay in order to do something that helps them feel better and may just start the chain to help them leave. Something as simple as asking if they are okay or feel safe may feel unproductive but it was a random stranger asking me if I was okay and if I would like the them to call the police that made me realize I had to do something.
I'm sorry you had to go through that Ruby. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
f1j1nurse
114 Posts
I have read both your threads. I have a lump in my neck from holding back tears after reading it. I am so glad you got out alive and so glad you are "here with us". I hope your story helps out other DV victims. So so sorry this happened to you.