11 October 2016

“Mama’s Home”

     Before I could blink my fear-filled eyes, my boyfriend Christopher’s blow knocked me to the ground. Fear gripped me from all around, and I thought this day might be my last. “Would I ever see my baby girl again? ” I wondered.  This event took place during the summer of 2013. My traumatic experience was not an isolated event however, as so many women today experience this type of abuse. I am only one of the few lucky ones to be able to escape, for my daughter Adora, who at the time was only eleven months old, was able to open my eyes to my situation of domestic violence (D.V.). Unfortunately  however, children are not enough motivation to flee an abuser in many cases of D.V.

Up until July 17th, 2013 I had never considered how the abuse I allowed in my life  was affecting my future, nor the effect it had on my daughter Adora. Up until this point, I was just a statistic in the library of misfortune that found myself in the isle of domestic violence with no known value other than a number I had become. On July 17th, 2013 I finally realized I was a victim.

Being laid out on the ground, or thrown into walls, was normal to me as I watched my own mother suffer from this kind of abuse when I was small.  My stepfather tried to kill her when I was fourteen and she was finally freed from his abuse. I swore I would never let anyone hurt me the way my stepfather hurt my mother, but I too ended up in a cycle of violence. I was not alone in my plight.  Intimate partner violence is extremely common, and Kim Bullock, a physician who specializes in emergency victimized medicine, reports that “three to four million women” in the U.S. “are battered each year” (1905).  Due to the number of reported victims, and the history within my family,  it is no surprise to me now that I became one of them when I met Christopher in June 2011.

Christopher and I moved in together within less then a month of knowing each other. I remember how excited I was in the beginning to be with someone who wanted me by his side every minute.  I had never been loved like this before. I was deeply drawn to him, but three months into our relationship, he started to change and his affection for me grew cold and left me clinging to empty dreams. I was afraid of the changes in him and I tried to leave, but he threatened to hurt my family, so I stayed. Suddenly, I was trapped.

A few months later I became pregnant, and he started to beat me. I experienced several types of abuse with him, but it wasn’t until after I became pregnant, that I really felt hopeless in my situation.  Dr. A.M.B. Golding, a consultant in public health out of the UK, found that, “The risk of violence” with a violent partner “was doubled in pregnancy” (307).  My pregnancy was not the exception, and because of the beatings and being forced to use hard drugs throughout the first and second trimesters, I was devastated.  I thought my baby would never make it , and I was terrified to bring a child into such a traumatic life.  I was even more afraid to leave him though, and I could not live with the thought of an abortion, so suicide was my only rationalized option.  I had no other way out in my mind, just like the reasons in Golding’s study that cause the victim to stay with the abuser.  They are “unsure of where to go” and “fearful of doing anything that might make it worse” (Golding 307).  My fear, grew like a black hole, and stole my will to live; I attempted to take my life at six months pregnant, but that was not the plan God had for my life.  I did not realize that in just a few more months I would be free. I thought I was stuck with a monster forever.

How I made it through the next year I do not recall, but it was the grace of God that brought me through July 17th, and he used my daughter who at this time was almost eleven months old. This day she would be the tool I needed to change, and if it wasn’t for her, I would not have made it through the day that my life was ultimately threatened.  I remember the event as if it happened this morning, for it is etched along the pathways of my memory like lava, cold and unmoving long after an eruption.

It was mid-morning in Rainbow, California, and the birds were chirping all around my home outside. The windows were open to let in the fresh morning air before having to turn on the A.C.  I remember that the front door was open too, because I was worried about the flies coming in.  I can’t recall why Christopher got angry with me, though. Maybe I had tried to close the door, because, without warning, I was sprawled out on the ground, inside the open doorway, with him looming over top of me. His fists were raised above my face ready to strike again.  I could see the sun disappear with my courage as he moved closer toward my head, and I raised my arms up to block his blows, screaming desperately for the neighbors to help me. No one heard me but my little girl, and paralyzed with fear, she stood at my side to my left.  I had been blind to her presence, as I had always been during moments like this.  This time was different though, and through the sound of my fear, and the screams in my head, I heard her start to wail. “Mommy, Mommy!” she cried out, causing me to forget all else and look in her direction.  Our eyes locked briefly.  She started to sob, and put her tiny hands over her blue eyes.  My focus was consumed by her despair, almost  as if time stood still, and all I could see was her.  I watched the sun kiss her golden curls, and the dirty tear rolling down her right cheek onto her blue jean overalls.  With my desire to rescue her a rush of adrenaline set in, and I couldn’t feel the pain of the blows anymore, just a fire raging inside like never before, emerging from somewhere deep within me.  Then came the visions of how my mother’s abuse affected my life early on, as she had allowed it to go on and on, and the anger toward such violence burned brightly in my mind.  I saw myself doing the same thing to Adora that my mother had done by letting the abuse continue, and my passion to protect my little girl flourished forth like a rushing river.  I determined within myself at that moment that I would never let Adora suffer the pain I felt, and when I was able, I swooped her up into my trembling arms, and ran out of the door to the rest of our life.

The hot sun on my face smelled of freedom, and the gusts of wind as we drove off with the windows down, resuscitated my lungs like a defibrillator to my heart with each mile that I got farther away, until I could finally, breathe again. After a while, I looked back at Adora through the rear-view mirror and said to her, “Mama’s home baby girl. Mama’s home.”

Adora saved my life that horrible day in July as she helped me find my will to live again. I was finally able to see my  role as Adora’s mother, and shortly after our escape I had Christopher arrested, and last year I successfully fought for full custody of her. I never knew what love truly was until that moment of clarity when I looked into Adora’s scared little eyes, and now that I know, I have committed to be present for Adora ever since. My eyes were opened that day, and I was finally able to see the power I had to choose.  Unfortunately, the cycle of abuse is hard to break, and Bullock reports that “violence is generally unlearned over a period of years” (1906).  In other words, it’s difficult to overcome the “learned behavior”(Bullock 1906). The change is continuous, however, I have broken the cycle that, so many are still bound to.

I knew that day in July that I would never stop fighting for our lives, and now today I fight for the lives of others still suffering. I am not the only one that was at risk of being stuck in an abusive cycle, as each day I wake I know someone out there is hurting, and it has become my life mission to help other victims find their way out of the same tunnel that I was so helplessly lost in.

Works Cited

Bullock, K. “Recognizing Domestic Violence.” Canadian Family Physician 42 (1996): 1905–1906. MEDLINE®/PubMed®. Web. 25 Sep. 2016.

Golding, A. M. B. “Domestic Violence.” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 95.6 (2002): 307–308. MEDLINE®/PubMed®. Web. 25 Sep. 2016.