*This is written to raise awareness about domestic abuse and how to deveolpe a safety plan and find help to get through it. This is not about any one specific person, but I hope someone can see they don't deserve to be treated like "the girl" did. *
She sat and watched to clock tick, it ticked past the hour mark he was suppose to be home, and then eventually it ticked pact the three hour mark he was suppose to be home from work. As the minutes pasted her heart sank deeper and deeper because she knew where he was and what he was doing. He had decided to turn to that bottle again instead of coming home to her, and just like every night he went to the bar she knew this night would night end well. She prayed and prayed that she would do everything right, that she wouldn't say or do anything that would push him over the edge from drunk to the monster alcoholic that comes out most of the time when he drinks himself into a black out. For a moment her heart stopped when she heard him coming up the front steps.
The girl answered the door and before she even had the chance to speak she caught the look in his eyes. The man she loved was somewhere else, he was blacked out and the monster was out. As angry as the girl was the he had made the choice to drown himself in a bottle, she knew it wasn't the time to do anything, but smile and do whatever he needed to get him into bed. While she turned on his TV, grabbed his blanket, he crashed to the floor for the first time in his drunken stupor. Secretly she had a hope deep down that he would be passed out for the night and all she would have to do was cover him up and clean up whatever mess came with it in the morning. On this night she was not so lucky because he got back up, and he got back up angry.
The girl was caught off guard when he slammed her into the wall, before she could react he had her pinned with no chance of her getting away. He started in immediately... if she had been better he wouldn't have disappeared for hours after work, if she loved him enough he wouldn't need the whisky, why wasn't the house cleaner, why wasn't his food ready, and how could she let him fall like that? All the girl could do was cry and try to remind him that she loved him and would do anything for her...that he didn't want to hurt her. When he grabbed the girl by the throat she followed her instincts and since he was drunk and off balance she pushed him in the chest and he fall to the ground again, this time she ran to the bed room and locked the door while looking for her phone.
Before she could call the cops he kicked the door in and was on top of her. The girl fought so hard that she managed to climb away. He caught her as she belly crawled across the floor, to stop her from moving he bawled up his fists, the same hands that had caressed her when she cried, held her when she was afraid started punching her in the back repeatedly. Girl screamed and cried, begging him to stop, betting him to remember the man inside of him that loves her so much and doesn't ant to do this to her. she saw the light flash in his eyes for a moment and he saw the blood coming out of her mouth and that she was curled up on the floor crying he ran out of the room and out of the house crying.
The girl lay there until the morning wondering if he were going to come back, but he never did. When she managed to pick herself up off the floor she felt the horrible pain in her back and wiped the dried blood off of her face. She walked into the bathroom to take a shower to wash the blood and alcohol smell off of her. When she took her shirt off to see her back she had black and blue fists marks all over her back, and in that moment she knew that this had to stop. By the time she had gotten out of the shower her phone had blown up with txts from her boyfriend telling her how sorry he was for what he had done and how he would never do it again. The girl didn't respond to the txt, she was twenty five years old and she knew that she deserved better than this. As each beep of the phone came in another pain of clothes entered into her suitcase.
She had no family, no one who would understand what she was going through, so many people would blame her for what she did wrong what she did to make he him her. She found herself at the door step of the Women's Shelter and they opened the door, gave her a place to lay her head and unpack her clothes, they fed her, and they helped her through the tears that came when things became real. They respected her wish to not press charges, but helped her fill out the paper work for the restraining order that would make sure he could never hurt her again.
This girl is so many of us, so many of us live in situations that we don't deserve and they don't always have to be physical. When someone tells you all the time how worthless you are, or doesn't trust you to go to the grocery store because they are convinced you are sleeping around on the. They tell you who you can't and can be friends with including your family. No one deserves that, no one deserves to be afraid in their own house. Do I believe that it is possible for someone to quit drinking or using and never raise a mean hand or voice to a woman again...I do, but I also believe you have to draw a line in the sand and you have to have an escape plan. The second he breaks the rules set forth by the therapists and whom ever else you have involved it is time for you to get out.
I know how it feels to think you have earned it, but no one earns to be treated like that. The Women's Shelter offered me a safe place to live after I was raped when I was 21 years old, it was scary and it wasn't the Ritz, but it was safe and full of people who could understand me, and didn't judge me for how I handled anything. I met my best friend who is like my sister there. You don't have to be the girl, there is freedom, there is counseling for you and for him, and I am the last person to judge you. If ou are trying to make things work then you have to have a plan in place...a therapist, anger management, and you have to be prepared to do what you have to do to if he or she refuses to follow the guidelines agreed upon in therapy and anger management. Please have an escape plan, I hope that your loved one can put down their addictions, but sometimes they are hard, and even if they love you they can't put their addictions aside for their safety or their own, and if that is the case you have to protect you. There is no judgment and you are not alone. You don't have to be "the girl". There are support groups everywhere if you want to reach out, just know you aren't alone and no one is going to judge you for what happened. You are a survivor and deserve to be loved.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Saturday, January 9, 2016
The Girl
*Wrote this a few years ago while I was still very much in my anorexia*
The floor rushed up to catch her as she collapsed. The last sound she heard was her mother screaming as she watched her daughter fall to the floor. The girl, who had been shopping with her mother for the day, was immediately rushed to the hospital, her frail heart barely holding on.
The girl's parents pace the blue waiting room awaiting news of their daughter's condition. They go over and over in their heads what could be wrong with her, she was only 18, she was healthy, why did this happen? The girl's parents freeze as the doctor walks into the room.
"I am so sorry to tell you this, but your daughter suffered a massive heart attack. We did everything we could, but we just couldn't bring her back", as the doctor spoke the girl's parents stare in shock, not allowing themselves to believe what they are hearing.
The girl's father spoke in a flat tone saying, "18 year old girls just don't have heart attacks and die", he spoke as if to deny the fact that his baby was dead, she was sleeping and would eventually wake up.
"They told us she would was ok, they said she would get through this", her mother's voice came in a weak whisper as the tears began to over take her.
"I want to see my daughter", her father's voice shaking in terror.
Her parents are led into a dark trauma room where their daughter is laying still on the table as if she were only sleeping.They grab her cold, pale hand and are both overcome with tears for their baby who had been alive only hours before.
"18 year old girls don't just die", her father kept repeating himself over and over, "this wasn't suppose to happen, she was fine", he wiped a tear from his cheek.
The next time the parents see their daughter she is laying still on a satin pillow wearing the dress she had worn only months before as she walked across the stage at her graduation. Secretly her mother prays that her daughter will awake and smile like she had done when they were shopping the day of her death.
"I'm so sorry for your loss", is the phrase repeated over and over as the parents are greeted by visitors paying their respects. Their comments fall on deaf ears, their casseroles go uneated, and the house remains dark.
The months pass and the days turn cold. One snowy day in December the girl's parents make their way up the concrete sidewalks and step on the frozen grass. They stop in front of a big willow tree where there is a head stone that reads, "Our beloved daughter taken a young angel". The girl's mother pulls out a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolds it and begins to read:
Today would be your nineteenth birthday. You have been gone for three months, and there isn't a day that goes by that we don't think of you. There are so many things I want to tell you. I'm so sorry for not pushing the issue, for not telling you that I knew, for pretending not to notice that you were missing meals and the cuts on the back of your knuckles, for not insisting something be done for you, for not understanding, and for not accepting the fact that just because you looked fine on the outside didn't mean you were ok on the inside. I wish I would have taken this more seriously and picked up on the many warning signs, the being cold and tired all the time, the fact that you ran to the bathroom after meals, and you only ate when we made you. You had such a bright future and now its gone, you will never get married, have a career, or have babies. We miss you so much, we miss your smile, your jokes, your talent, and even your attitude. If only we could have understood what you were going through. We hate that thing that was inside you, that eating disorder they called anorexia. They said we caught it early, they said you were fine...you weren't. I should have known, I was your mother, I knew you better than any doctor. But, the told me therapy was enough, but it wasn't. This sickness called and eating disorder took my beautiful daughter away, and its happening to young men and women everywhere. Eighteen year olds don't have heart attacks. I wish I would have known, but they said she'd be ok.
Love- Mom
The tears pour down the parent's frozen cheeks as they place flowers on their daughter's grave. Another victim of the epidemic known as eating disorders, taken in the prime of her life. She couldn't stop, and they said she was fine, they didn't know her. She seemed "normal", "healthy"... looks can be deceiving- she wasn't "normal" or "healthy", she DIED.
The girl I speak of could be any one of us who suffer with an eating disorder. Doctors think they know their patients, they don't. They insist that everything will be fine and they will "fix" the problem. Sometimes they are right, but sometimes they are wrong and being wrong means that another young person is lost. "She wasn't that thin, she wasn't emaciated", they say, well, she's dead. Appearance can be deceiving her insides were deprived, they got little to no nourishment, she threw up when she had the smallest amounts of food in her body, and she exercised uncontrollably, her body couldn't take it anymore. She needed someone to understand, she needed to be heard, she needed help. She was lost before someone realized her needs. They said she'd be okay, the girl is dead.
The floor rushed up to catch her as she collapsed. The last sound she heard was her mother screaming as she watched her daughter fall to the floor. The girl, who had been shopping with her mother for the day, was immediately rushed to the hospital, her frail heart barely holding on.
The girl's parents pace the blue waiting room awaiting news of their daughter's condition. They go over and over in their heads what could be wrong with her, she was only 18, she was healthy, why did this happen? The girl's parents freeze as the doctor walks into the room.
"I am so sorry to tell you this, but your daughter suffered a massive heart attack. We did everything we could, but we just couldn't bring her back", as the doctor spoke the girl's parents stare in shock, not allowing themselves to believe what they are hearing.
The girl's father spoke in a flat tone saying, "18 year old girls just don't have heart attacks and die", he spoke as if to deny the fact that his baby was dead, she was sleeping and would eventually wake up.
"They told us she would was ok, they said she would get through this", her mother's voice came in a weak whisper as the tears began to over take her.
"I want to see my daughter", her father's voice shaking in terror.
Her parents are led into a dark trauma room where their daughter is laying still on the table as if she were only sleeping.They grab her cold, pale hand and are both overcome with tears for their baby who had been alive only hours before.
"18 year old girls don't just die", her father kept repeating himself over and over, "this wasn't suppose to happen, she was fine", he wiped a tear from his cheek.
The next time the parents see their daughter she is laying still on a satin pillow wearing the dress she had worn only months before as she walked across the stage at her graduation. Secretly her mother prays that her daughter will awake and smile like she had done when they were shopping the day of her death.
"I'm so sorry for your loss", is the phrase repeated over and over as the parents are greeted by visitors paying their respects. Their comments fall on deaf ears, their casseroles go uneated, and the house remains dark.
The months pass and the days turn cold. One snowy day in December the girl's parents make their way up the concrete sidewalks and step on the frozen grass. They stop in front of a big willow tree where there is a head stone that reads, "Our beloved daughter taken a young angel". The girl's mother pulls out a piece of paper from her pocket, unfolds it and begins to read:
Today would be your nineteenth birthday. You have been gone for three months, and there isn't a day that goes by that we don't think of you. There are so many things I want to tell you. I'm so sorry for not pushing the issue, for not telling you that I knew, for pretending not to notice that you were missing meals and the cuts on the back of your knuckles, for not insisting something be done for you, for not understanding, and for not accepting the fact that just because you looked fine on the outside didn't mean you were ok on the inside. I wish I would have taken this more seriously and picked up on the many warning signs, the being cold and tired all the time, the fact that you ran to the bathroom after meals, and you only ate when we made you. You had such a bright future and now its gone, you will never get married, have a career, or have babies. We miss you so much, we miss your smile, your jokes, your talent, and even your attitude. If only we could have understood what you were going through. We hate that thing that was inside you, that eating disorder they called anorexia. They said we caught it early, they said you were fine...you weren't. I should have known, I was your mother, I knew you better than any doctor. But, the told me therapy was enough, but it wasn't. This sickness called and eating disorder took my beautiful daughter away, and its happening to young men and women everywhere. Eighteen year olds don't have heart attacks. I wish I would have known, but they said she'd be ok.
Love- Mom
The tears pour down the parent's frozen cheeks as they place flowers on their daughter's grave. Another victim of the epidemic known as eating disorders, taken in the prime of her life. She couldn't stop, and they said she was fine, they didn't know her. She seemed "normal", "healthy"... looks can be deceiving- she wasn't "normal" or "healthy", she DIED.
The girl I speak of could be any one of us who suffer with an eating disorder. Doctors think they know their patients, they don't. They insist that everything will be fine and they will "fix" the problem. Sometimes they are right, but sometimes they are wrong and being wrong means that another young person is lost. "She wasn't that thin, she wasn't emaciated", they say, well, she's dead. Appearance can be deceiving her insides were deprived, they got little to no nourishment, she threw up when she had the smallest amounts of food in her body, and she exercised uncontrollably, her body couldn't take it anymore. She needed someone to understand, she needed to be heard, she needed help. She was lost before someone realized her needs. They said she'd be okay, the girl is dead.
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