"I thought I was going to listen to you die." - my mother, January 2018
In January 2018, I left my fiancee after two and a half years together. In February 2019, I started counseling for victims of domestic violence.
Everyone interprets narratives a little differently. We can all read Harry Potter, but we're all going to interpret it differently. Some people may see Dumbledore as a bad manipulative man for instance, while others may see him as a hero.
I saw my fiancee as a hero, but everyone else saw her as a villain.
We met on Tinder while I was working in Sherman, Texas as a Teaching Assistant one summer in undergrad. She was in her mid, while I was just 19. She was an officer at a Juvenile Detention Facility and in grad school. She had her life together, and I couldn't believe she was interested in someone like me.
In domestic violence situations, the victim does not often see themselves as a victim. They think they deserve the abuse.
When she started making me call her at 2 am every day, I thought it was because she just wanted to talk to me. It didn't matter that I had a test or presentation in the morning and that I needed my sleep. She had to talk to me. Of course, she would get upset if I didn't call her; after all, she worked nights and that was when her break was.
My mom never understood why I couldn't just turn my ringer off or not answer the phone. Neither could my roommate. But without fail, every day at 2 am, I would go into the hallway of my dorm wrapped in a blanket and talk to her for 10 minutes.
When she started questioning my choice in friends, I understood. Of course, she wouldn't want me to be friends with my ex or with single people. A long distance relationship is difficult. It's hard to trust someone not to cheat, right?
My friends didn't understand. They didn't see anything wrong with us hanging out and didn't understand why I had to be back at my room by 2 am to make a phone call.
When I started planning my senior year, I had enough credits to either graduate early or get another major. When she told me she wanted me to move to Texas with her, I understood. She encouraged me to just graduate early. You couldn't get a job with a major in religious studies anyways. So, I started looking at graduating early and starting grad school in Texas. It would save me money. I wouldn't have to take out any loans for that last semester. I'd be able to be with her sooner.
My professors didn't understand. I was so close to another major. I could use the semester for another internship or get honors for my creative writing degree. I could stay at school and use it to get ready for grad school. My friends didn't understand why I was so desperate to leave. Neither did my family. But she wanted me to, so I did.
When she asked me to marry her, it didn't matter that I was only 21 and not even out of college. It didn't matter that my parents' hadn't given her their blessings. It didn't matter that I'd said I wasn't ready to get married. I said yes. That's what I was supposed to do. That was what she wanted.
When I moved to our one bedroom apartment in Texas, I had a North Carolina driver's license, and a couple of suitcases, and a happy narrative. I was in a beautiful relationship filled with love and joy. Everyone else, however, interpreted the narrative differently. They all read the story as a horror novel rather than a romance.
Within a few months, I was doing all the cooking and cleaning. At precisely 2 pm, I took a break from work to wake her up from her post work nap and to take her dog on a walk while she watched Cops. Every night, I would wake her up starting at 8 pm. She didn't like sleeping with an alarm so I would go into our bedroom every five minutes to help her wake up. I had to speak slowly and quietly. I couldn't touch her or she might hit me in her sleep, an instinctual defense reaction, she called it.
While she showered, I packed her work bag. Always four rolls of mentos, a V8 drink, and a cold Starbucks coffee that I had put in the fridge earlier in the day. It had to be in the fridge for at least two hours before she went to work to be cold enough for her.
I had dinner on the table at 8:35 pm. Any earlier meant that it would be cold and any later meant she wouldn't have time to digest it before work. It had to have chicken, cheese, and canned vegetables, usually green beans. It couldn't be spicy and had to be something that was easily chewable because she was losing her back teeth from smoking. I set the table and poured her Dr. Pepper from a can into a glass with ice. While we ate, I had to be sure not to hit my teeth with my fork because it made an annoying sound. I could never watch TV and could only talk about the good things that had happened that day. She had to leave by 9:15 pm at the latest because she liked to have 45 minutes to an hour to herself in the parking lot at work to drink her V8. After she left, I did the dishes. They had to be done right away or we'd get bugs. I couldn't leave the knives out because they would rust. And I couldn't do dishes while she was sleeping or I'd wake her up and her sleep was important. I would go sleep and she would call me on her work break to make sure I was home and sleep. She didn't like it when I stayed up late because it made me grumpy. I had to sleep in our bed because she didn't like it when I slept on the couch. But it had to be on my side of the bed with my blanket because she didn't like how the bed felt after I'd slept on it and didn't like how I made her blanket smell. I woke up at 5:55 am every day to take her dog out before she got home and to make her breakfast. She liked scrambled eggs but only a certain way. I wasn't allowed to go back to sleep with her because my Restless Leg Syndrome kept her from falling asleep, and she needed alone time to decompress. So I would start work or go back to sleep on the couch. She would get mad though if she caught me sleeping on the couch, so I could only do it once she was already asleep. She thought I should be being productive and that the depression diagnosis was made up so I didn't really need to sleep. I was just being lazy.
To be fair, there was a lot each day that had to be done. The cat box had to be cleaned every day because she didn't like the smell of ammonia. Surfaces had to be dusted. Everything had to be put away; clutter made her feel anxious. Laundry had to be done on Sundays (not Saturdays because that threw her schedule off). It had to be folded and put away as soon as it was done drying so it didn't wrinkle. The floors had to be swept and swiffered each week. Her car often needed to be cleaned. Meals needed to be made. The bathroom needed to be cleaned, specifically the tub, sink, and toilet scrubbed. There could never be toothpaste on the counter. The groceries had to be bought, and I couldn't take too long at the store because she didn't like not having me home, so I had to plan the grocery list first and get her to approve it. The bills had to be paid; she had so many personal bills with her loans that I paid all of our bills and bought all of the groceries. It only made sense since I worked from home that I pay things like the electric and internet after all.
Things had to be done on a very strict schedule to make things fit in with her life. It made sense to me, but everyone else saw it as controlling. They didn't understand that if I called them from inside the apartment, the sound of my voice would wake her up. And they didn't understand how badly she needed her sleep.
I understood it. I understood it all. I understood that sometimes she got mad and couldn't control it. I knew she did mean to punch things when she got mad. I knew she didn't mean to threaten the landlord and get us evicted. I knew she didn't mean to corner me against walls when we argued or block doorways. She didn't to get upset with me for writing or doing homework instead of watching TV with her. She didn't mean to ignore me or give me the cold shoulder. She didn't mean to get so mad and yell at me so loud the neighbors could hear. She didn't mean to hit the dog so hard. She didn't mean to insult me all the time. She didn't mean to get jealous and accuse me of cheating on her. She didn't mean to call me names. She didn't mean to force me to do things I didn't want. She didn't mean it. These were things she just couldn't control when she got upset.
She was entitled to certain things in a relationship: someone who was beautiful, skinny, and not depressed or anxious, someone to take care of her, someone to have sex with her, someone to make her food, do her laundry, clean her car and so on. That's what she told me she deserved and since I loved her, I had to make those things happen for her.
Everyone else said she wasn't entitled to those things that she didn't deserve them. They just didn't understand how much she had to put up with for me. According to her, I was gross, too gross to have sex with. I was getting fat. I ate too much. I dressed poorly. I didn't take care of myself. I thought I was smarter than I was. I talked too much. I snored too loudly. I didn't know how to clean or cook. I didn't know how to do anything right.
She told me all of these things until I believed them until I began to see my own narrative differently. Until I began to believe her. Everyone else told me that interpretation of my narrative was wrong that I was better than that, that I deserved better. But after being told for so long that I didn't, I struggled to believe them. I only believed her.
I first tried to leave in September 2017 after she'd gotten us evicted and me fired from my job at a marketing firm, after I became so depressed I began wondering if I even deserved to live. My parents convinced me leaving was an option, but I was scared.
She had said so many times the cops couldn't touch her because of where she worked. I'd seen her so many times not get pulled over when she was speeding or driving recklessly. She talked all the time about the people she knew on the force. She was untouchable. She always told me she was. It didn't matter that I had bruises from where she'd gripped too tight during sex I didn't want or that my yoga pants had a line of paint down the back from where I'd slid down a wall in fear.
So my mom flew out and in the middle of the night, while she was at work, we left. We packed as much of my stuff as we could in a few suitcases, grabbed my cat and drove and drove and drove until we got to the airport. It rained all that night. Just a light rain, a misting.
When she got home and saw my engagement ring on the table, she called me. She accused me of cheating on her and told me in detail how she would kill herself because without me her life was worthless. She blew up my phone every second of every day. She told me I needed her. She told me we needed each other that we were soulmates, the only two in the world out there for one another. She told me no one else cared about me. She told me they were all lying that everyone was against her. So I went back.
I believed her. I believed her interpretation of the narrative of our relationship. But I was the only one who did. No one else understood.
It took me another two or so months to break up with her for good and then another month living with her to get out of our shared apartment. During those months, I started changing my interpretation of our narrative. I didn't understand why we couldn't Skype with my family on Christmas. When I got sick with the stomach flu, I didn't understand why I was being yelled at and berated for being ill, for contaminating her space. I didn't understand why when I made Spanish rice one night she got so angry that she refused to eat, accused me of purposefully trying to starve her, told everyone at her work that I was a horrible cook and person. I just stopped understanding.
On average, it takes victims of abuse seven times to leave an abusive relationship for good. It took me three. It took my breaking off the engagement, breaking up with her, and then moving out. The day I moved out was the mos frightening day of my life. I don't remember what started the fight, but I do remember how she clenched her hands into fists. I remember how she got in my face. I remember how she pulled her arms back as if to hit me.
When things started getting really bad, I called my mom and kept her on the phone in my hand the whole time. I didn't know what was going to happen. My mom told me later "I thought I was going to listen to you die."
Two of my friends showed up and got me and my cat out. While I vomited in the bushes from fear and stress while she yelled at me from the balcony of what had been our apartment, they called the cops.
I just got tea with one of those friends last week. She echoed my mom's statement. She said they weren't sure they'd find me alive. She said she'd brought a knife with her that day and that they'd made a plan in the car of what to do if she wouldn't let me go. Who would go left and who would go right kind of a deal.
I was shaking too badly to drive my car, so I simply held my cat in my lap and let my friend drive me away. I couch hopped until I found a place I could afford. My family helped me pay the bills for the old apartment. Overall, I got lucky in that I got out of it with minimal scars, but I'm also just lucky I got out of it alive.
In my interpretation of the narrative I both experienced and recounted here, I see her as an antagonist, a villain. I don't see her as a hero anymore. My interpretation aligns more closely with those of my friends and family. I still struggle, though, with seeing myself as a victim, as someone who didn't deserve it all.
I've only just started learning about things like gaslighting and the power and control wheel. Not all of it makes sense, but that's what counseling is there to help with. I still sometimes think that what I went through wasn't domestic violence, just a bad relationship. There are still times I think that nothing was wrong with how she treated me. It's taken time to even admit what she did. In fact, it took me several hours just to write this.
My interpretation of this narrative will never fully match that of my mother's, father's, or friends'. They all saw a narrative of abuse when I didn't. Going back and reinterpreting things with a new lens is difficult. But I'm getting there. I called my story a domestic violence narrative after all. I'm finally admitting at the very least that it was domestic violence, and that is a big step to changing one's interpretation of the narrative.
Comments
Post a Comment