Sunday, April 20, 2014

Stand Where I Stood: “It”

I couldn’t breathe, gasping desperately like a goldfish out of water I lay there my head swimming with the realities of what had just happened… No this couldn’t be real… this has to be a dream or a concussion or something… something else, not real… please not real. It took a few minutes for me to come back to the surface and like bobbing up out of a deep pool I came to and he was there. I can still see his face from that first time. He did not say anything. He didn’t even ask if I was okay, he watched me lay there and catch my breath, after he had knocked it out of me with a swift and decisive punch to the stomach. He watched me, head cocked to the side, like maybe he wasn’t sure what had just happened. Looking back, into those eyes I know it was less of a surprise and more of realization that he could do it… he could hit me and I would fall and not fight back. Those eyes, soft and brown like the velvet coat on a chestnut horse, they were clipped with hardness now and it cut through me like knife. Finally he just said

“Get up.”

That was how it began. He swore it wasn’t on purpose; that he’d never do it again, if only I just knew how angry I made him or how crazy I made him feel.

“I love you, so much, I couldn’t stop myself. I’m sorry, so sorry… it will never ever happen again. I swear.”

That night I wanted more than anything to believe him. I’ve had the wind knocked out of me before; always on accident in a crowded hallway or something like that. It never feels good; it always takes you by surprise, but this time, this time I never saw it coming. I didn’t even see the fist or the punch; I only felt it land and the impact and then the ground as I slumped down trying to breathe. I fell to my side, with tears stinging in my eyes, trying to figure out what I had done. Surely I ran into him or he stopped short or something… I did not want to be an after school special. I couldn’t be, not me. I was so deliberately normal, a practiced façade I kept so that no one would know that I dream of a future like Star Trek or believe in fairies and that I wish books like Tolkien’s were real.   I read everything that comes in front of me. I read the encyclopedia growing up. I was nerd. I am a nerd, I wanted to be popular, well liked, adored, loved… wanted. I practiced entire conversations in my head and out loud, working out every feasible outcome so I would know exactly what to say and do should any eventuality arise.


This was not eventuality I had ever practiced.

I was still just 15 that first time. That first fist, first bruise, first lie; all of it was more galvanizing to me than the loss of my virginity. I remember it clearly; all the way to the bottom like the lake my family had once come across on a day trip through the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.  I can tell you what I was wearing, what he was wearing, that he hadn’t shaved that day and was scruffy looking, no one was at his house it was just us. The day was a typical dreary Seattle day, nothing special there. I had just had my hair trimmed, he didn’t like that. He said I took too much length off. When I told him it was my hair that he did not get a say in what I did with it… I could shave my head… that was it. It.

Burning in my lungs, rolling onto my side and then back seeing his hand still in a fist above me… his eyes… oh God his eyes. Once I thought they might be what a doe’s eyes looked like if I ever got close to a deer. Now they were like black coals, dark and frightening, black and full of something I couldn’t place. His mouth was open he was panting a bit; he ran his other hand through his hair. He smelled of wood, gasoline, cigarettes, and Drakkar. It all happened so quickly, one minute we were joking around, making out, he put his hands in my hair and pulled it free from the knot I had twisted it into. It was too short. I had only taken an inch or so off, I often wonder now if this moment is why I keep my hair so long. He stood up and smiled this smile I came to know so well… this was the bad smile, the crazy one… he asked

“You cut your hair?”

I dismissed the question. It was so silly. Of course I cut my hair, it needed a trim. I shrugged and turned my head to grab my things and that’s when my innocence, my world, imploded. Everything sort of blurs for a minute I just remember pieces of things. I remember reaching out and grasping at his leg, the feel of the jeans and the tension in his body. Perhaps he fully expected me to get up and come right back at him, but then again no.  I am not and never was that kind of person; even with all my bravado and fiery temper, I just couldn’t find it in me to stand up and fight back. I do not know why; all I know is that I have worked a long time to forgive myself for not fighting back that day. The trip in his old beat up, truck was quiet except for his pleas of mercy and forgiveness. He filled my head with promises and oaths of fidelity and “never agains”. By the time we got to my house that was maybe three miles away, I was having trouble focusing on all his ways of loving me and the impossibilities of it ever happening again and all the reasons we should never talk about it or say anything to my parents.

He was right, about that, I knew I couldn’t tell my parents. The shame of it was just too much.  My parents, the only people who know me better than myself, the people I could say anything to and often did, this was my secret now. My parents love me unconditionally and it pains me I couldn’t talk to them, it hurts I kept it all from all my closest friends. I had a secret, a real secret, something I could never tell another soul; this was my burden. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, right? So surely it wouldn’t be a huge deal.

If I knew then what I know now, I would have known there is predictable pattern of behavior. A clear cycle that every man who batters women follows. The only thing I knew then, was this was a guy I had given my body to, he had seen me at my most vulnerable and precious moments.  This was something that happened in movies and those stupid films, the cautionary tales, that they show in Home Economics or Health class. This wasn’t something that happened at my school, or to people like me. Girls like me are all sunshine and rainbows; we don’t have dirty little secrets, we don’t have anything to be ashamed of.  This sort of thing happened in other places, to girls who came from broken homes and did drugs or slept with everyone or so many other things I deemed to be not normal.  I was 15 and I didn’t know shit.

8 comments:

  1. Thank you for your openness .. thank you for putting words to a silent scream that I have held inside for so long .... thank you for not being beaten into shame. Surely if more of us could speak out ... if only we could be heard without being judged. Or pitied. Then this cult of silence, of hanging our heads in shame, for apologising .... surely we could find a community voice that would be heard by those who will benefit from our experiences. I want EVERY woman to stand by her sister without lectures about never letting a man lay a hand on you ... WE HEARD THOSE LECTURES! The one thing that isn't explained to you when all the wonderful things about love are being extolled is that when a woman is in love she wills herself to believe what she is told by the person she loves. Thank you for showing that this abuse can be visited upon the intelligent and the verbally adroit ... thank you for confirming that not all of us who have known this horror are submissive mice who buckle ... absolutely NOT ... we are women who shoulder the pain of someone else's inadequacies ... we take the pain inflicted because we know the pain that drives the person we love to do this thing. Only when we begin to love ourselves as much - if not more - than the sick perpetrator can we begin to care for ourselves. I salute you for your humanity and your astute retelling of my story .. and the story of every other woman who has been abused. In gratitude .... CeltCat

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    1. CC,

      I hope that I am able to continue to bring a voice to it. I plan to write a series and it would be my ultimate goal when complete to work at getting them published in a magazine... as that is my career aspiration. I want to tell these kind of stories, the real and raw, the kind of stories no one else wants to tell. The only way I know to heal a snake bite is to suck the venom out. For so many years of my life and through several more men like this I have allowed it all to stay buried and not talked about the details. The dirt is in the details. I am so sorry that this has happened to you. It breaks my heart as this has only been up less than 24 hours and I have heard from so many women telling me how old they were or pieces of their story. Your right I did hear the lectures, I have been judged, pitied, and felt ashamed... when logic tells me that none of those things should be. The judgement shouldn't pass on me, but him. The pity needs to go to the man with something so broken this is his manner. There is in no way any woman need to feel ashamed of this at all. We survived, we are braver than one might think and we have stared hell in the face and been able to rise above.

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  2. I want you to know I love you and I was 22 when it happened to me. You aren't alone and I will forever be your friend. ~Your Scarlett (Christi)

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    1. I love you too. I am so sorry that this has happened to you also. My heart hurts for you. I hope that my continuing forward with my story allows women to know they are not alone, we are a twisted sort of sisterhood. We should stand together and bring a voice to this issue.

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  3. So much shame we carry. WE carry. we feel ashamed that we were struck, beaten, abused by those who vowed to keep us safe. to be judged by those people who have no idea of just how helpless, powerless one feels when this happens. You're brave Belle, i want to thank you for this, i understand your feeling of rawness, of vulnerability, the message needs to be out there. Rich, poor, man, woman, it can happen to anyone regardless of race, social standing or colour, so speak loudly, publish, unless we make people hear and actually LISTEN the cycle continues.

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    1. I have never been able to wrap my head around the shaming of the victims. Or the pity that's handed like candy on Halloween. I hate it when people say "I know how you feel" and you ask them about their experience and they say "Oh I've never had that happen to me...." Then no, no you don't know how it feels. You don't know that certain sounds, smells, songs, even foods make me freeze with panic, or raise goosebumps on my arms and I start shivering. They don't know how it feels to wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat because you just had a nightmare about him or thought you felt him next to you. It CAN happen to anyone, and in as many different ways as there are abusers. The worst, to me, are the words... Bruises and bumps heal with time, fade away... but it is the words that stick and follow you for the rest of your life. I have more to say... a decade worth of experience. It is terrifying but also freeing. Thank you for sharing your comment and I am so sorry that you have had your own experience.

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  4. I was 16 the first time. It continued for 15 years with a string of wonderful men. Your posts remind me of mine a few years back when I decided to tell a bit of my tale. I truly hope it is as cathartic for you as it was for me. Much love from your Bovine Goddess

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  5. Hey love, my turn to reply...my first time was 16. Mine rarely hit, and the physical aspects were the occasional push, arm twist, etc...he got me with words. I remember thinking at one point that if the person who claimed to love me so much thought I was worthless, it must be true. I can't even begin to tally the times I was called ugly, worthless, fat (which, oddly enough I wasn't until much later), stupid, weak, bitch, whore, and "lucky to have someone like me because no one else will ever want you." He told me what to do, when to do it, what to wear...by the end of it all I was a nervous wreck and perpetually walking on eggshells because I was so psychologically beaten down. I lost all confidence in myself and lost all confidence in relationships because I was afraid I would never be good enough for anything or anyone. The resulting low self-esteem led to abuse of alcohol and drugs. It took me years of being in a black hole from that abuse to emerge and begin to build myself up again. I may not have carried the physical evidence of abuse, but I carried it with me for oh-so-very long.

    Yes, it can happen to anyone. The people who perpetrate these violations of others are manipulative and know exactly how to reel their victims in and hold them there. I've told my story before only to have people say, "Well why didn't you just break up with him, sounds easy enough to me." Which is why I stopped telling my story...it almost felt as if I were being victimized again, being called "stupid" and "weak" because I didn't see a way out. It makes me sad that so many of us have experienced abuse of some kind. And it needs to stop. Thanks for sharing your story. ~Yet another Belle, Shelbs~

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