While I have experienced almost everything under the sun in my many lives, much of the lives I've lived have been stuffed in a closet. It is my hope that throughout the course of my life, I gradually - and consistently - clean out my closet. By the time I die, the only skeletons I want to carry with me are those in my body.I believe in sharing openly as much as possible...as much as is appropriate. My blog is an extension of my philosophy that by sharing with one another we can learn, grow, and find comfort and encouragement. For every time we think no one would understand, some one does. And every time we think no one has experienced something so shameful, some one has.
In this spirit, I've decided to open up and share some of the skeletal remains in my closet of a life I lived many lives ago. (With all I could write on this blog, I'm wondering if I should change the title to "The Bone Collector." On second thought, there's so much more to me than skeletons in my closet, such a title would be too limiting.)
Below is my narrative of some of the darkest days of my life, climaxing with my near death experience at the hands of a violent husband. Thankfully I have lived many lives since then and am now happily married to a wonderful man who has been nothing but loving and supportive all the days of our marriage.
Rewind 20 years...
At the age of 19, I experienced my first punch in the face. Unfortunately, this punch came from the hand of the man who fathered my newborn child and to whom I had committed myself in marriage. Because I was not experienced with the cycle of domestic violence, nor had I learned the conditioning of fear associated with the control intended through physical force, it took me a while to adjust to my new world. In other words, I had to endure many beatings, at increasingly severe levels, before I started to learn how dangerous arguments-turned-violent could be.My ex-husband was a very strong, conditioned, muscular marine, skilled in violent techniques and the ability to detach from his humanity and emotional connections on a moment’s notice.
With this combination of strength, expertise and predatorial animal lingering beneath the surface, he could transform himself without flinching, from a man that I trusted to love and protect me into a raging, hateful monster. I was a lost little girl in the body of a “legal adult” who could not conceive that the only home I had in the world (with this man) could be the hell it had become. The fact that the same physical being who hugged, loved, nurtured and made love to me could morph into this violent, threatening abuser was an irreconcilable notion for me.My attempts to fight back combined with his convincing post-abuse remorse sustained the relationship for a while. I felt like I wasn’t a complete victim because I had at least “fought” and he was always so sorry that I believed he wouldn’t do it again. And so this cycle regurgitated itself in my life for almost a year. Then the incident came – the one etched in my memory.
It was in spring of 1988 that I thought my ex-husband was going to succeed in killing me. I had found out about another affair he was having. At the time of my discovery, he was confined to the Marine base (for a previous incident of domestic violence against me – punished by the U.S.M.C. via restriction to the base).
I was pregnant, at home with our infant daughter (now the oldest of seven children, a recent graduate of American University living a full and thriving life - proud momma moment!); I came across something (don’t remember what) that revealed to me my ex-husband was, again, having an affair with yet another woman (this was the umpteenth affair about which I had learned during our marriage). Fed-up and enraged, I packed up all of his things, threw them in a suitcase and drove to the Marine barracks at the Concord Naval Weapons Station to dump his suitcase out on the parking lot.
As I pulled up to the barracks, someone recognized me and called out into the barracks to my ex-husband, “xxxxxxx – your wife’s here.” I parked the car in the middle of the parking lot (intending to remain there just long enough to get his suitcase out of the trunk and thrown into the parking lot). I turned the car off and took the key out of the ignition to open the trunk. By the time I got to the trunk, he was there, grabbing me, slamming the trunk shut and slamming my head into the just-closed trunk. I guess he knew my intention or suspected as much.
I began to scream as he forced me from the back to the front then the outside to the inside of the car, yelling at the top of my lungs “HELP!” He manhandled me to the front, shoving me into the driver’s seat, threatening me in that clenched teeth with enraged hushed voice that perpetrators use against their victims to provoke fear and coerce submission. Despite my desperate cries for liberation from this tornado of fury, I found myself helpless and alone as my body descended into the seat of my car, joined by this large dark spirit hovering over me like death.
He flopped me like a rag doll into a position of lying flat on my back across the front driver’s seat and into the passenger seat, in which position he proceeded to strangle me. I could no longer call for help under the choke hold – my voice muted by the immense pressure of his powerful hands around my throat. All I could do was reach the horn by the tips of my fingers, and I did. As air fought to get into my lungs, I pressed on the horn of my car with all of the might I could get to the few fingers that could reach. I honked and honked as best I could, but the honks were weak - inconsistent in intensity and length because of my limited ability to reach the horn. I could hear the honking, but it was such a far cry from the frenzied screaming in my head that I frantically attempted to express through that horn.
Just at the point I thought I was losing consciousness, his grip released. He backed off of me. I was in shock and hardly alert. As oxygen began traveling through my body, I could hear from somewhere outside the car several voices calling out his name. The tone of these voices was like that of a hostage negotiator – firm, cautious, accommodating and yet intimidating to a perpetrator.
The voices of a dozen marines outside of my car sounded like the harps of a thousand angels. I was saved.
My ex-husband who had just ceased from strangling me still lingered right outside the door of my car – the same door through which he had thrown me flat on my back…the same door from which my legs still dangled just inches from his now frozen upright body. Disoriented, I slowly sat up to see what had stopped my attacker’s aggression, drawing his attention away from strangling me. When I first was able to see out of the car, my ex-husband was slowly moving away from me and the car and walking into a circle of fellow Marines.These mighty warriors had congregated in the parking lot, surrounding my vehicle in a circle formation. While my ex-husband was strangling me, they banded together to rescue me and began calling out to him from their impenetrable circle of heroes.
He felt their presence, saw they had surrounded him and heard them calling his name; this brought his homicidal rage to a screaching halt. In a state of post-trauma shock, I stared at this scene, mesmerized. He cautiously moved to the center of this circle of Marines, and they gradually enclosed around him – like a narrowing spherical fence. With every step they took to enclose him, my soul felt another latch lock on my mental door of protection.After being rescued by these Marines, I remember very little. My ex-husband was charged with felony battery and his superiors in the Marine Corps took care of me, took pictures of me and pursued his prosecution. He was confined to his barracks on base for the duration of his time at that base, and then he was transferred to another base 8 hours away while I remained in the apartment we had shared. I was fearful of divorcing him, and basically in a state of limbo during this time. Then he was shipped overseas and I filed for divorce shortly after his return from his tour overseas. To the best of my knowledge, he never physically assaulted me after this incident, but my memory is foggy, and I do know we spent very little time actually together after that point.
What I remember clearly is that I was saved from the brink of death. And after this experience I grew and blossomed.
Over time, over years and over the course of several more lives lived between that life and this life, I have learned, observed, experienced and grown more than I ever could have imagined. I was a battered, fragile caterpillar then. A nurturing husband and a core group of loving and supportive friends and family members sustained me for many years in a cocoon of safety. And now, two decades after my season of abuse, I am proud to say, I am in the process of growing into the beautiful butterfly I was meant to be. But if I didn't live the life of a caterpillar and spend my time in a cocoon, this blossoming butterfly would not be possible. So I am grateful for all of the lives I've lived. They each serve a purpose.The experience of domestic violence about which I have written left two distinct impressions on me that will last forever:
- I love Marines. They are my heroes. Not just in media or war, but to ME...in MY life. Marines saved my life, and I will forever hold them in the highest regard because of how they rescued me.
- I understand abuse, the cycle of abuse, and how women get trapped in it. I was fortunate to break free from it. For me and my two infant daughters, we went on to live a happy life, leaving the trauma of abuse far behind us. But my heart is never far from the knowledge that all around me, beneath masks of smiling faces on women I encounter everywhere I go, domestic violence, fear and all forms of abuse are live skeletons actively tormenting innocent victims. I seek to eradicate such skeletons and help others to purge the fossils in their closets as they find healing in a cocoon of safety and hope in new life.
Visit The National Domestic Violence Center or call 1−800−799−SAFE(7233).
