Quote:
Originally posted by OnyxCougar
My first husband (the one that murdered Steven) abused me from the time Justin was born until he found another woman he thought was better than me a year and some later. This included dislocating my fingers and knees, rape with a knife, an involuntary tattoo on my hand, carving his "mark" into my chest with a knife, having sex with women in our bed WHILE I WAS IN IT (God Forbid I give any sign of waking up) and threatening my family and me if I left him or told anyone what was going on.
If you think for one minute I would have confronted him while he was awake, you have another think coming. NOW I would kill anyone who even seriously thought of that as he slept, but then, being a scared, 18 year old dumb ass that believed the poison he was spewing? Not a chance.
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I'm right there with you. I have a knife scar down my chest from my personal psycho. I was choked, beaten, sent to the hospital twice (this was before cops were required to arrest whether charges were pressed or not--these cops just told me, "well, we don't see him, but if he comes back, call us"...Yeah, right.), and emotionally tortured. He had people following me, he checked my gas gauge to make sure I didn't go anywhere except work.
I finally got away the time he attacked me, choking me, and I just freaked the hell out. Next thing I knew, my hands were around HIS neck, and if I'd have gotten a better grip, I'd've done my best to kill him. As it was, he threw me back against the wall and left. I used that time to get away and hide from him. It took six months before he stopped looking for me.
I was 18 at the time this happened too. It took two years for me to get away from him. The abuse happened so gradually that I didn't really see it coming until the first time his hands went around my throat. It was just an explosion of violence out of the blue, a massive escalation. By that time, I was walking on eggshells.
For example: if I didn't clean the house well enough, I was attacked. If I DID clean it well enough, then I was fixing it up so that I could meet someone and have an affair. There was no way to win. The psychological torture is such that when they tell you something, you believe them. He told me he had people following me, and that he always knew where I was and what I was doing. He was 28. I was 18. He was my first serious relationship. What did I know, right? I was a kid, more or less, and he used that. He could be charming when he wanted to be, and in front of other people.
I get so tired of hearing people say, "well, why doesn't she just leave?" I'll tell them why: IF you're allowed to have a job, it's a shitty one, so you don't have the money to leave. Some people don't have family or friends, or anyone to help them. Some have children. And 80% of domestic violence that ends in the death of the woman happens AFTER she leaves. You're so psychologically tortured, and so brainwashed, that you have no will, and the strength you do have is put into escaping abuse by doing what you think he wants. Some women don't have vehicles. There are a lot of reasons it's hard to leave.
Abusers don't stop abusing. They just move on to someone else. I see that as a serial criminal. Just because they don't always kill doesn't mean they don't ruin lives irreparably. Perhaps if abuse were considered more than a minor infraction, and people got more than a slap on the wrist for it (if that), we might not have so many murderers out there (since they all claim abuse as kids). Anti-DP's want to start being proactive, start THERE.
But you know what? That abuse didn't lead me to kill. I didn't decide all men were like that and therefore needed to die. Ultimately, it's not our childhood. It's the choices we make. As grown men and women, we have the option of making our own choices in behavior. I'm not going to justify my behavior by blaming it on something that happened when I was a kid, and I'm not going to accept it from a murderer.
Sidhe