I interviewed a police chief who was retiring after decades, and I asked him the one thing he had learned from all those years that surprised him. His answer...
"How hard it is for abused women to get out of an abusive relationship." He said even though he was a veteran officer by the time he was a chief, he always had the attitude that if a woman was abused, and wanted out of the relationship, she'd just go. He had disgust for women who kept going back.
He said as a chief and seeing so many cases of DV, he came to the realization that it is a heartbreaking and often impossible step for a woman to take. Not only are they MOST at risk when they leave, they have to deal with either leaving the kids behind with someone they fear might hurt the kids or prevent them from seeing them, or taking the kids out of the home with nothing..no money, no transportation, nowhere to go, and depend upon complete strangers or family to support them until they are able to become self sufficient.
And they generally have barriers. They may be missing teeth (try to get a job missing your front teeth), they may have psychological and physical issues, they may have addiction issues and fear issues and social issues.
I deal with the attitude from my co-workers almost every day. We have money available to help DV victims become safe...but over and over I see my co-workers deny this money to women because they want money to move into an apartment in the same city...where they're families are, and according to the workers, this won't make these women "more safe" so they deny the funds. It makes me so mad I could spit. How is it more safe to require the women to leave the country....they can be traced, they can be found. Our own workers have idiotically given out location specifics to "secret shoppers" who are testing our practices. How many more times has it happened when the actual abusers are after the information?
Anyway. I could go on and on. It gives me a fucking rash, though. Glad you got out, I'm glad for anyone who gets out.
I've lived it. It's the most helpless,
hopeless feeling imaginable. Being someone's punching bag is one thing; the mental abuse is far, far worse and (IMO) is never healed completely. Not only could I not see any possible
means of escape, he'd beat me down to the point I believed I wasn't smart enough or capable or worthy to even
try.
He convinced me I was a totally worthless piece of shit. I don't know that I believed I
deserved to be abused, and I didn't blame myself--- i.e. that only if I were a better [wife, lover, companion, person] he'd stop. I knew he'd never stop. And he convinced me that as bad as he was (unlike the 'typical' abuser, he never felt remorse for what he did, never apologized), I'd get the same from anyone else... and they'd never stop either.
It's hard to describe and if you haven't lived it, it's nearly impossible to understand.
To this day, I have no idea what triggered me to leave. And even so, it wasn't really leaving. I left the state to attend nursing school with the full intent on
going back after I graduated. It's a testament to how deeply I'd sunk, and how utterly complete his control was over me that he never once doubted I'd return--- except for his warning that if I didn't, he'd find me and kill me. I knew he meant it. Even 27 years later, that fear is always there. I don't think about it (until I get into discussions like this lol), but just typing this out I'm starting to shake.
I was out of school and working in my first job (not yet having returned, but trying to earn enough to go back, as crazy as that sounds). I don't recall what we were talking about one night at work, but I must have said something about him (not the physical abuse; no one knew of that) that a co-worker picked up on his emotional abuse and control over me. She looked me in the eye and said "You deserve better than that."
This was a woman who wasn't a friend; she barely knew me. But NO one, not even those over the time I was with him who I knew suspected the abuse had ever said that to me. No one had ever told me I deserved better. It seems rather simplistic, but that comment hit me like a ton of bricks.... and it was the turning point.
I moved to VA to be with my parents while I went to school for my RN. In 1992, ten
years after I'd left him to attend LPN school, I was still married to him. I'd never attempted to get a divorce, because I was certain he'd come after me, and I did not want him to know where I lived.
I decided to buy a house; at the time, I couldn't do so unless I was divorced. Being 'separated' was not allowed. So I saw an attorney, told my story and was adamant that he NOT find out where we were. The attorney said by law he had to serve him, but would do so in a manner that would guarantee he wouldn't actually be served. Since I didn't know his (then) current address, they'd serve it to him without an address, and that the officials wouldn't try to find him.
Well, he wasn't counting on the fact that the local law enforcement knew of his whereabouts, as he'd been in trouble numerous times. They took it right to him.
I came home a few days later to a frantic call from the attorney who'd received a call from him
demanding to know where I was, why I was divorcing him, and promising to *get* my daughter, too.
The schools were instructed under no circumstances was anyone but myself allowed to remove her from school or pick her up from any school event. No matter what ID or documentation they showed, no matter if they thought they recognized them as a family member, no matter what my daughter had to say.
So I was living in terror all over again; 10 years after I'd left and over 1000 miles away. I felt I'd never get away from him.
After she became an adult, my fear subsided. Until within the last year or so, when his SISTER hunted her down through the internet and began harassing her for info on how to contact her, her address, phone number, etc. I am certain he put his sister up to this. My daughter has never responded to her, and never has acknowledged her in any way, but she has continued. The most recent being just within the past couple of months.
27 years and they still won't let go.
