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:
My final straw was when my ex hit me when I was holding my son - I thought I didn't want him to grow up thinking that it was ok. I worked for several months at a car wash, drying cars for $3.50/hour cash + tips. I moved to a not-so-great neighborhood to a 1 bedroom apartment where I shared a twin-sized racecar bed with my son. I didn't even have a couch. I also had a 12 year old dog with me, he was my shoulder to cry on. It was the scariest time of my life! A month later, the garage at the house where our apartment was, was lit on fire.
About a year later I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had to have surgery, then radioactive iodine therapy. I had 5 surgeries in total, but have been cancer-free for 25 years.
A year after that, I started college. My son was 8 when I graduated nursing school. He was 11 when I finally married a great guy.
midnighter94, ADN
13 Posts
Thank you for sharing!
My final straw was when my ex hit me when I was holding my son - I thought I didn't want him to grow up thinking that it was ok. I worked for several months at a car wash, drying cars for $3.50/hour cash + tips. I moved to a not-so-great neighborhood to a 1 bedroom apartment where I shared a twin-sized racecar bed with my son. I didn't even have a couch. I also had a 12 year old dog with me, he was my shoulder to cry on. It was the scariest time of my life! A month later, the garage at the house where our apartment was, was lit on fire.
About a year later I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had to have surgery, then radioactive iodine therapy. I had 5 surgeries in total, but have been cancer-free for 25 years.
A year after that, I started college. My son was 8 when I graduated nursing school. He was 11 when I finally married a great guy.