For the children

How many times have we heard this? I can't tell you how many times I said it to other and to myself. I continue to hear it from other women I talk to about their situations their in. When asked why do you stay or why did you stay one of the most common answers is because of the children. I said it and it is only now that I realize that not only was that not a good reason it was one of the worst reason why I stayed. We don't realize that while were in it that staying is not good for the children and is doing more harm than good to them. I actually had a judge tell me in the courtroom in front of William that my children were better off not having a father than to have one that could not control his anger. He saw it, everyone else saw it but I could not to see it.
You see when I met William I was looking for a father figure for my son. His dad was not in the picture at the time and I thought he needed a male role model. Sure it is important for a child to have his father in his life and I'm not trying to down play that but I just wish I had know then that I could be everything my son needed.
When I think back to all the internal scars he has left in my children I get so very angry. When he told my son that I didn't even know who is father was. When he told him that even his own father didn't want him. I know he said these things to him to hurt me and there is no worse pain then when someone hurts our children. I will never know how these things have impacted my son's life. How seeing his mother bruised and beaten on the floor scared him. All I can do now is try to make it better try to make sure that he never has to go through those kinds of things again. I don't know if I'm making things better or if I'm making the right decisions now all I can do is pray that I am.
Then you have my beautiful daughters. To look at them you would never know the things they have seen and witnessed. I'm thankful that most of the really bad stuff they will never remember as they were just to young. I actually thought that they needed their father in their lives that even if he was not a good role model that the fact was he was their father and they needed him good or bad. WRONG! I always thought that he was doing this to me. That he was hurting me not them, that is the way I looked at it. He was a good father, he never hit them. WRONG! Even to this day my daughter associates a white daddy with being a good daddy because that is what they have seen in my family. I try to teach them that this is not true that not every black man is bad but the truth is I didn't instill this in her....HE did!
This day I will never forget. It was March 2004 I was working for a temp agency when I got a phone call that Kiah was running a fever at daycare. William was not working and I knew he was supposed to be at home all day. I tried several times to reach him by phone each and every time the call went straight to voice mail. We had one vehicle which he always had possession of and I was not allowed to drive. After an hour of not being able to reach him I left work and got on a bus to go get Kiah from daycare. Those of you that know how public transportation is here in Wichita will understand how long it takes to get to any one destination. It took me another good 45min to an hour to reach the daycare. You also know that they cannot give your child medicine at the daycare so at this point Kiah had been running a fever of about 102 for over 2 hours. Once I reached the daycare I tried again and again to reach him by phone leaving messages but no answer. I had no money and therefore had to walk with my daughter to the nearest bus stop and board the bus back to my home. This took another hour and a half and I also had to walk 4 blocks with her in my arms to the house.
When I reached my home I found the dead bolt locked which I had no key to which also meant that someone was in side. I knocked and knocked with no answer and was about to walk around to the back of the house when our car pulled up in the driveway with some strange man and woman driving it. They informed me William was inside the house and it was only when they came up to the door did he open it. I walked inside my home to find about 6 people whom I had never seen before all sitting in my living room. I walked straight into my bedroom and laid Kiah on the bed. William came into the room and began to badger me as to why I was home and not at work. He didn't believe that Kiah was sick and thought I was just trying to check up on him. When he refused to make everyone leave out our home I picked up the phone and called 911. I then proceeded out into the living room and informed everyone that I had called the police and they were on their way. I had never seen people scatter so fast in my entire life. I knew they were doing drugs in my house and I knew that the police was the last thing they wanted to see. When the police showed up I told him what had happened and also told him about how a few nights earlier William had grabbed and thrown me off our bed. Since I still had marks on my arms the police tracked him down about a block away from our house and arrested him. When they brought him back to the house to confirm that this was my husband I asked that they give me the keys to the car which he had in his pocket so that I could get my daughter some medicine. Since the keys were in his possession they asked him if I could have them. He chose instead to give them to one of the crackheads that had been in my house. It was then that I realized that he would always choose the drugs over everything else including his children.
When I was able to get back to my daughter I found that she now had over 104 degree temperature. Thank god the police officer was nice enough to take me to the nearest store and bought me some Tylenol. He didn't have to do that and I am so very thankful to him for that. I still had to figure out how I was gonna get my other two from daycare that day back to the house and luckily within a few hours I was able to get a hold of a friend who had her son take me. I could not believe how he could do that to us, to his daughter. Kiah recovered within a few hours from her fever but things could of turned out much worse. It only took me a few more months before I left this time for good, or at least I thought.
That was just one of many times that I put my children in harms way by being with him. It was my fault and I own that and no matter what the reason was for me being there I was wrong.
He doesn't see the scars he does not witness their hurt. I do, I was there when they woke up with nightmares. I was there when they could not sleep in their own rooms for over 3 months. I was the one who saw the looks on their faces when they thought someone was at the door. I found my daughter one day crying in her room and when I asked her what was wrong she said to me...."I wish I wasn't pretty anymore!" I kinda chuckled and said why, why would you wish that. She replied to me..."Then you and Daddy would not fight over me." "If I wasn't pretty then you wouldn't fight!" He will never know the pain that WE caused in their life. I see it! I feel it! I deal with it! I love my children more than anything in this world and I be damned if I EVER let them hurt like that again. I'm sorry and I've asked for forgiveness and I'm trying very hard to do right by them now.
So for those of you that stay for the children............DON'T. There is no better way to put it.........DON'T. My best advise is to leave ......leave for the children.

What did I do wrong???

It's hard to explain the torment that goes on when your living in an abusive home. Sure there were good times, when he would hold me or do something special just for me but those times were few and far in between. The whole time your just holding your breath waiting for it to come and you know it's gonna come. You try to prepare yourself for it but the truth is you never can. It always felt like someone was sitting on my chest....it was hard to breath, hard to relax ever. You are going back over everything you did for the whole day in your mind trying to make sure you didn't slip up somewhere. "How much time did it take me to walk from the bus stop to the house?" "Did I buy the right cut of chicken for dinner?" "Am I wearing to much make up?" "Did I look at anybody wrong?" I know it sounds crazy and you begin to make yourself a little crazy. I've had to retrain myself that it is ok to look someone in the eye when they talk to me. I would never had done that with William around because he would think I was flirting with them. I can remember being at a family gathering with him (his family)and all of us having such a great time. We were laughing and drinking and I had let my guard down because we were having such a good time. We left the party and as soon as we got in the elevator I could tell something was wrong. His demeanor changed, it was if he was boiling inside and I could not figure out why. The whole way home I am going over the whole night in my head trying to figure out what I had did wrong. He was silent all the way home. I put the kids in bed and I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed when all of the sudden I has hit in the back of the head. I fell to the floor where he started to kick me. He started yelling...."So you wanna fuck my brother?" "You let him touch you? You smiled at him?" All I could do was curl up in the fetal position and protect myself the best I could till he finished. Soon enough he left as I lay on the floor crying and just holding myself. Where did I go wrong???? I had no idea what he was talking about. I don't know what I did, but it didn't matter he saw what he saw and there was no telling him otherwise. There never was any telling him different. He was right......he was always right.
He would interrogate me for hours trying to get me to admit to whatever it was. William would disappear for days at a time and I always knew when he came back home I would have hell to pay. When he would finally come home it was always the same thing. He would starting going through the house, apartment or room depending on where we were living at the time like he was looking for something. He would question the kids to find out who had been in the house or where we had been while he was gone. When they would not give him the answers he was looking for he would turn to me. I remember him cornering me in the kids bedroom one time. I sat curled up in a ball which was my usual position early on. He would ask me a question and if I didn't give him the answer he wanted he would attack me. Hit, kick what ever he felt like doing. After hours of this going on I tried to leave the room and he was not having it. He wanted me to admit that his father had been to our apartment while he was gone. What was crazy was his father was not even in the country at the time but he was certain he had been to our apartment. I was telling the truth I didn't know what else to do to make him stop so I tried to leave the room. That's when he jumped on me pulling me to the ground. He was on top of me with his hands around my throat....Yelling.....TELL ME HE WAS HERE......MY FATHER WAS HERE YOU SLUT!!!!! I remember the room started to close in on me. Everything was fading to black.....he was going to kill me.....I was going to stop breathing and would never wake up. No one would ever know....he would be left with my children and no one would know he killed me. I was astranged from my family, I had no friends, no one would come looking for me. I WAS GOING TO DIE!
I started shaking me head yes. YES HE WAS HERE! I said it...I said what he wanted me to say. I made up some story and that was that....he left me alone. It was at that point that I learned that I just needed to tell him what he wanted to hear in order to survive. No matter how terrible or disgusting it was if I just agreed with whatever he wanted me to admit to I could live to see another day. The whole time William and I were together I never once looked at another or cheated, but according to him I slept with everyone from to all his family members to anyone he ever worked with to people I had never even met. Hell the reason's he beat me were from one extreme to the other. There was no rhyme or reason to it....it just happened!

WHYs

When I talk about the things I went through while in my abusive relationship with people in my life now I find myself still trying to justify why. Why I stayed, why I didn't leave, why I kept going back, why I didn't tell anybody. Sure most of the questions are by people who have no experience with domestic violence, but none the less these questions are still hard to answer to this day. It all goes back to the fact that the victim feels like it was us that did something wrong, that we are getting punished for his actions even after were out. I think that is why a lot of people choose not to talk about it. They choose to hide it away like a deep dark secret that you just don't talk about. Then there are people like me who talk about it maybe way to much for some people's liking. I know that it may seem that I'm proud of what I went through but I don't know if proud is the right word. It's more that I'm proud of who I am today and where I am in my life. I understand why it's hard for people to understand they WHYs of why victims stay. I'm not quite sure that I understand them but then it's easier for me to say that now that I'm out. I currently have friends that are in abusive relationships and it's hard for me to wrap my mind around why they stay.
I know how hypocritical that sounds of me. Me the girl that went back more times then I can even count on two hands. The girl that explained away all his behaviors and bruises to family and friends. I am the girl who stayed.......stayed for way to many years. I have to allow myself to go back to the person I was while I was i it to understand why they are staying. When she talks I realize those are his words and not hers. He is in control of everything she does and I have to understand and continue to be there for her no matter what. If you were to read any article on domestic violence they will list all the reasons that women stay or go back. Tear away the layers of the WHYs and what it comes down to is that we just want what everyone else wants. We want to be happy. We want a family, we don't wanna be wrong about him, we don't want to be alone and we believe that our love can change him. We don't go back because of the wrong that's within us but the good.

William tore down myself esteem. He constantly reminded me that I was a bad mother and no man would ever want someone with three kids. He controlled EVERYTHING from when I slept to when we ate. I finally realized that if I left nothing would be any different except that I would now be in control of my life. I was already broke and raising three kids on my own.
People who are not in abusive relationship will never be able to fully understand the reason's why I now know that. I often compare it to a drug addict. Our abusers are our drug and they have a hold over us that is just hard to explain. Even to this day I'm afraid to have contact with my ex. Im not afraid of what he might do to me physically but just like an addict he will always have a pull over me. As time goes by I fell stronger and strong and I can tell you "I will never go back to him!" However I don't want to risk it at all. I'm safer just being away.

GO AWAY!

Here it is 11:30 @ night and I'm up wide awake not wanting to go back to sleep. Anyone that knows me knows that I don't usually stay up past 10pm. I was extremely exhausted from my day so I went to bed early right after I tucked the kids in bed. This is the first time in about year that I woke due to a nightmare. This is what I can remember of the dream: I was standing in my daughter's room and I closed and locked her window. I left her room and came right back in and the window was unlocked and open. I remember feeling a panic come over me. I shut and locked the window once again then rushed to the kitchen looking for a broom or something that I could put up in the window (u know like a stick) to keep anyone from being able to open it again. I was tearing through drawers and just in a panic. When I could not find anything I rushed back around the corner into her room again to find the window wide open. I knew there was someone outside the window taunting me saying "SEE I CAN OPEN THE WINDOW EVEN WHEN IT'S LOCKED, YOU CANT KEEP ME OUT!" Those were the words I head in my head even though no one was speaking. I then ran up to the open window and just started to scream at the top of my lungs...."GO AWAY...I KNOW YOUR THERE!" Then when I stood up I sensed that he was standing behind me in the room. He being my ex husband.
It was then I woke up in this panic. I've checked all the windows and doors. I set looking out the windows making sure I didn't see anyone out there. I feel like someone is sitting on my chest. WHY? WHY NOW! Where does this come from. What has triggered it? Then I start to play tricks with my mind. I'm not afraid of this man, or am I? He is not stupid enough to come back around here, or is he?
The window in my dream was the same window my son had to jump out of to go get me help the last time my abuser attacked me.
The truth is I feel safe in my home and I don't really think about him coming back around here, but I know it's only a matter of time. It's gonna happen he is gonna show up or contact me in one way or another that is just the type of person he is. I have no restraining order because of the fucked up judicial system. So there really is nothing stopping him not that a piece of paper ever did that anyways.
I am so exhausted and I just sit here listening for any little sound. Close my eyes? I don't think so. Turn on the lights? I don't want him to know I'm awake. So all there is left to do is sit here and pray. Soon enough the sleep will come and I hope that when it does it's peaceful.

Home for the Holidays

It's been a minute since I posted to my blog and I apologize. Just like everyone else I get all caught up in the daily struggle we call life and it seem like with the holidays things get a little bit more complicated. Holidays are really special to me and once again I think it is because of having to go without that has made me more thankful for each year that I get with my family. For another year that I can see the joy and amazement in my children faces on Christmas morning. While I was in my abusive relationship the holidays seem to just disappear all together. There was no family gatherings, there was no joy, no tree and no present for the kids to open on Christmas morning. Most years we would just pretend that Christmas didn't even exist. Now to an adult Christmas day can seem just like any other day of the year but when your a child it holds so much more meaning. We never really verbally addressed it and the kids were young enough the day would come and go without them even knowing. That was until one year, one year that will forever live in my memory and bring tears to my eyes every time I think about it.
Just as the years before Christmas day came and went without a word. Tavian was five years old. It was a few days after Christmas and I can remember waiting in the cold for the bus to take me and the kids to the grocery store. When the bus came Tavian sat down and I sat across from him with his two little sisters. The bus driver turned around looked right at Tavian and said "So were you a good boy this year? What did Santa bring you?" I will never forget the look in his eyes when he turned and looked at me for the answer. He was confused and didn't know how to answer the mans question. I don't remember what I said to the bus driver that day but I will never forget the look in my son's eyes. It still brings a lump to my chest. After that day I promised that I would never let that happen again. I would never let my children go without.
Now I know that people always talk about the true meaning of Christmas and that it is not about getting presents, but you know what those same people have gifts under their tree to give to their children. They have a Christmas Tree.
The year following that Christmas was full of struggle and growth. We went from the shelter to a transitional housing program that provided us with a 3 bedroom house. We moved into that house in October 2003 just in time for Halloween. I have to say that because of the guilt I felt that Christmas was a little over done but the kids so deserved it. There was a program that donated us a real Christmas tree that they left for us on our front porch to surprise the kids. There were so many present under the tree that it took them hours to open them all. I've since scaled down our Christmas a little each year but just as I promised I will NEVER let my children go without for another Christmas.
I'll never lose the guilt of that day on the bus and I should of done something then but we can't go back and change the past so all I can do is continue to make our future the best it can be.
Merry Christmas to all of you!

Internal Scars

I'm not really sure where it comes from or why it comes when it does, but when it hits it hits hard. Watching the Rihanna interview today has brought back a lot of my own feelings and memories. She talked about the internal hurt or what I like to call the internal scars. Like she said the bruises fade away but what people don't see are the internal scars that are left. The hurt that is left for us to deal with for the rest of our lives. Sure we would like to forget and move on and for the most part we can do that but like Rihanna said we have flashbacks. If you have ever went through something traumatic in your life then you can truly understand what that is like. For the most part I can talk about my past and what I went through and it not affect me. The hardest time for me is when I'm alone and especially at night when I'm by myself and the house is quiet. There is something about being still and silent that allows your mind to open up to go places sometimes you are really not wanting to go. I don't know if other women have the same experience as I do with flashbacks but what I experience is extreme. When my mind starts to visualize places and events that I went through I go right back to that time and place. I feel exactly whatever it was I was feeling at that time and place. It is not usually one time or one event but a series to explosions in my mind. I know when it is coming and I allow myself to go through it knowing that at the end I will be one step closer to where it is I need to be.....mentally.
Tonight was one of those nights. I don't know if it was watching the Rihanna interview or just this whole past month of domestic violence awareness that has stirred it up but it came and it came hard. I laid down in my bed and when I closed my eyes it started. All over again I felt scared, I felt hurt, I felt anger but what I felt most of all was alone. The feeling of being alone like there is no one there to help you. Nobody to save you. You can't run where will you go. You can't scream cuz no one will hear you. You can't leave because you have three small babies to carry. Your alone you have to stay. You have to endure each hit, each ridicule until he is finished and hope that this wont be the last time. You curl up in a ball and just rock back and forth and hope that this time he does not go to far, that this time he doesn't choke you to long. I set up in bed and just rocked and I cried wanting the feeling to go away but the pictures just kept coming. "Make it stop! Make it stop!" It gets hard to breathe but I want it all to get out. I want this feeling to get out so I allow myself to go through.
I hate the feeling of being alone, being alone is one of my biggest fears still to this day. It is something that I've been working really hard on and it is getting better and I'm getting stronger. The difference now is that I'm not alone and I just have to remind myself of that. I get up and I walk through the house and go into my children rooms where they sleep peacefully and remind myself of that. I'm not alone and I am not there anymore, I'm not in that place.
It's been quite awhile since I have allowed myself to break down like this but I do believe it is necessary. I believe that in order to heal you have to allow yourself to feel. You cannot close yourself off to your emotions. Now don't get me wrong there is a time and place to break down and it is not healthy to allow yourself to stay in that place for long. So I allow myself an occasional break down and then I get right back up and continue on with my life. I have three exceptional human beings that come 6am in the morning are going to be counting on me and I can't let them down and I hope I never do again.

Going Public......

As a victim of domestic violence you never think that the people around you know what's going on in your life. You try so hard all the time to keep it secret that when it finally comes out no matter how bad it is there is a sense of relief on your part.
We moved to Baltimore in July 2000 and our daughter, Kiah was born in February 2001. They say that when a victim becomes pregnant that the violence becomes worse and I'm not sure that is true in my instance. I think he remained pretty much consistent throughout our whole relationship. It was the end of February and I remember getting to go out for the first time with out the kids to the local mall. I remember I had bought this dress that was a little form fitting and it had this chain belt. I couldn't wait to try it on for him thinking that after being pregnant for the last nine month he would find me attractive again. I returned to the apartment to find it empty so I went upstairs to his parents apartment to find his mother watching the kids. I was a little disappointed because I had been impressed that he had offered to stay home with the kids while I went out. Now I found out he took the kids to his parents and had went somewhere. I picked up the kids and took them home just waiting for him to return so I could show him what I had bought.
As soon as he walked in the door I could tell that he wasn't himself. He just walked throughout the apartment and was very silent as if he was looking for something. Thinking I could cheer him up I decided to put on the dress. This only made matter worse. He started to question where I had been and who I had been with. I proceeded to tell him every little thing I had done in the past few hours, even showing him receipts from the store and my bus pass. I learned very quickly to be able to account for my wear about down to the minute. I don't know why I did this cuz he never believed me. I could have receipts, witnesses but as far as he was concerned I was a liar and a cheat.
He started to tell me how I looked like a whore in the dress and proceeded to rip the dress off of me. I remember being crouched down in the fetal position in the corner as he would come and go from the room hitting and kicking me each time he would return. He then took a pair of scissors and cut up my favorite boots and most of my cloths. This lasted what seemed like hours all the while my 2 year old boy was in the next room and my newborn daughter lay in her crib. Things would die down for periods at a time but I dared not move as it might spark something in him to start up again. At some point my daughter began to cry and still I froze and did not move until he told me to. I was allowed to get up and fix her a bottle. I decided to hold her and try to feed her thinking that as long as I had her in my arms I would be safe from his attacks. Oh was I so wrong. He decided then as I sat there holding our 1 month old daughter to take the scissors and cut off my hair stating "IF YOUR GONNA ACT LIKE A WHORE THEN I'M GONNA MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE ONE!" I could not do anything I had to just sit there and let him do it. I had my daughter in my arms and I dared not try and fight him when he had scissors in his hands.
He then took our daughter out of my arms and put her back in her crib so that he could resume his attack on me. This time ordering me to strip down and give him oral sex. It was at this time while he lay in the bed that I started to undress in the doorway and saw my chance to escape.
I was able to get out the door with just a t-shirt on and make my way upstairs to his parents apartment.
Knocking on their door was a hard thing for me to do because now my secret would no longer be a secret. Truth is they already knew but as long as we never talked out about it I could pretend it was a secret.
I thought knocking on their door was hard, but the truth is what came next would mean breaking my silence to my family. The same week this all happened my mother had planned a trip to come visit me and I now know that this is what sparked some of William's rage. He knew with my mother coming our situation would become public and his secret would be out. Calling and telling my mother what had happened was hard but having to meet her at the airport with a bruised face and my new hair cut was humiliating. I hated that I had to let my mother see me in this condition. My secret would now be out in the open and everyone would know.