Sleep Through The Pain

I wasn't going to do this but I need to. I need to let it go....I need to get it out. This Blog entry is different. Different in the aspect that all of the past entries I have written about past events and the way things were. Well here I am in the present. I am present in this moment in this time in this place. My abuser was released from jail a few weeks ago. He is out. He is walking the same streets I am walking. He is looking at the same sky that I look at everyday and I am forced to deal with how I feel about that. I share my emotions pretty well here on my blog but in real life in face to face conversation I have to the the strong one. I HAVE to be the confident one. I can handle this just fine! He is out, so what! I really love it when people try to tell me how I am supposed to feel or how I should handle this situation. Nothing make me more angry because they were not there, they didn't look into his eyes to see nothing, no soul no heart no conscience. They didn't hear the empty threats that I took VERY seriously.
So how DO I FEEL? Truth is I am VERY upset, sick to my stomach and once again waiting for the ball to drop. I'm not scared of him, but I know that it is just a matter of time before we come face to face. It's gonna happen and until it does I feel like someone is sitting on my chest. It's hard to breath.......I've been here before this place is very familiar to me. You have no idea what the last 3 years have meant to me. I was able to BREATH.....I was able to EXHALE! I was able to live my life again without limits the world was mine to discover with a freedom I didn't have for so many years.
People try to tell me about his intentions and how he has changed but I say BULLSHIT! I say that will not happen in 3 years, 6 years or even 10 years. Everyone is SAVED when they come out of jail. You know how many times I fell for that line. How many times I took him back......How many times I picked him up from the jail to hear all the promises? Promises are empty! His words are Empty to me. I HATE HIM! I DO NOT FORGIVE HIM and DONT TELL ME I SHOULD! DON'T you DARE tell me how to feel or what to do with this!
I feel threatened! I feel scared for my children! Yes I do. I'm pretty up front with my kids and we discuss almost everything so yes I told them he was out so that we could talk about it so they could work their feelings out about how this made them feel. I wasn't going to wait till the just popped up and let them be surprised. A few night ago Kiah came to be a little after bed time and said "Mommy I can't sleep because I'm scared." I told her there was nothing to be scared of and to go back to bed. She then said "You want to know what I'm scared of?" So I entertained her and asked. "I'm scared that Daddy is gonna come to my window." Now I realized that she was not just trying to get out of going to bed I sat down with her and explained that he would not do that. He does not want you hurt or scare you. You do not have to worry about that. Daddy is not going to hurt you. She then looked at me and said "What about you? What if he wants to hurt you?" After a long pause and a very deep breath I told her to not worry that we are safe....we are all safe here. Kissed her goodnight and left the room before she could see the tears start to fall.
I will get through this just like I have everything else and I will come out ok and my children will come out ok because I have an angel that watches over me. My angle carried me for many years. She then walked beside me until recently and now she walks behind me in case I should fall she will be there to catch me. Now it is always there.....even when I sleep it is there. So now I sleep through the pain until I wake up and this nightmare is over.

Foundation

You know I've been thinking a lot lately about the people that I have in my life now. About my family and just everything that god has give and taken away from me. People think that domestic violence is something that happens to one person, the victim. Sure we realize that the children are affected but what we miss to see a lot of the time is the bigger picture. Abuse not only affects the victim and her children but it has a huge affect on her family, friends and everyone around her. Domestic violence is about so much more than just victim. The abuse took so much from me, my self esteem, self worth, pride, home, my family and any friends that I had. I know I've said it before but domestic violence is so much like drug abuse if that makes it any easier to understand. William was my drug. I was addicted to him. I felt like I could not live without him. William took my self esteem and self worth away from me. The control he had over me was like a drug. He made me believe that the people in my life didn't want what was best for me. He lead me to believe that they were jealous of our relationship. That all they wanted to do was break us up. So I in return started to push them away...anyone and everyone that ever cared about me. Anytime I would start to develop a relationship where ever we were he found a reason for me to end it. He didn't want me to develop any type of support so that I would stay depended on him.
We don't think about the families and the hurt that they go through. The helplessness that they feel. You see no one could help me until I was ready to help myself. It hurts when I think about all the pain that I put my family through. Only a few of my friendship survived and I can't blame those that did not. You see I just up and left with out a phone call. William made me believe that we needed to move to start over. We needed to go so that nobody else could interfere in our relationship, because you see it was all their fault the problems we were having. I was also pregnant with his child and I wanted to badly to prove everyone wrong, that I could change him. I wanted a family just like everyone else had. We sold what we could and packed the car with what it would hold. We left out late one night and that was that. I was half way across the United States when my family found out where I was.
Three years I was away from them and it's true that you don't know what you have it it's gone. I love my family more than anything and I'm so very sorry for all the hurt and disappointment that I caused them. I know that I will never be able to take back those years all I can do is the right thing now. It's really only been totally over for 3 years now and it's taken every minute of those years to regain those relationships. I have a sister......I can say that. I love my sister and I so look up to her as a woman and mother. I have a brother, who until recently I didn't think would ever forgive me. Now I can't speak for him I don't know that he has forgiven me but I feel that we finally have the type of relationship that I've always wanted. I love my brother. I have a father and I once again feel like his daughter. I feel like he can finally be proud of me, which is all I ever wanted. Then there is my mom. What can I say about her except that she is my rock. She never gave up on me and she never let me give up on myself. She has learned along with myself to give up some control. I know as a mother she wanted to save me, she wanted to fix it and she has allowed me to take control of my own life. I can't say much more than that because at this point i am a blubbering idiot.
My family is my foundation and they always have been, I just never realized it before. It took me a lot of time but I finally feel like an important member of this family. I will never again let anyone or anything take them away from me.

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!