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Testimony Concerning Domestic Abuse
by Anonymous
I was married to an ex-marine on November 11, Veteran’s Day and also the birthday of the Marine Corps. I joked and said we were declaring an eternal truce. In actuality, the trouble didn’t begin until we were married.
When we walked out of the church and got in the car, I discovered I’d made a mistake before we’d even pulled away from the curb. Sad to say, this 20-year-old bride did not have the courage to walk back into the church to tell my parents I needed an annulment.
I had not recognized the signs of his true character during the eleven months we had dated. I soon discovered he was an evil, manipulative, two-faced wolf in sheep’s clothing. The sheep’s clothing was never worn at home, but regularly was worn in public.
I lived in fear and intimidation, and the positive self image I’d once had was soon lost in a conflict of emotions. Most of his abuse was emotional, some physical, but nothing that left marks for the first eight years. However, the mind control over me was so great that about a year after we were married, as he reached in his back pocket, I was paralyzed with fear believing he was pulling out a gun to shoot me! He pulled out his wallet. I felt relieved and also stupid for reacting with fear, and never spoke of this to anyone for years because I was embarrassed. Looking back, I can see how horrible his hold over me was for me to even conceive of such a thing about my husband of only one year.
Time passed and we had a daughter whom he was jealous of and whom he abused in the most unspeakable way a man can abuse his child, keeping it well hidden from me. The stress of this caused her to have various forms of seizures from age two to about age twelve. At this time he and I were finally separated and in the process of divorce. Sent by the National Institute of Health to a children’s hospital, it was eventually proven my daughter’s seizures were not from true epilepsy but rather were her body and mind’s response to extreme stress!
Our second daughter was born and was by nature a happy child. Her older sister’s sibling rivalry was very strong because of her own problems. Unfortunately, even the littlest daughter’s easy camaraderie with her father didn’t protect her from the side of him he hid from me. When I was two weeks pregnant with our third and last daughter, he physically abused me in an extreme way. The story is fairly involved, but the end result was a set of broken ribs for me. I vowed that if he ever did anything like that again I would take the girls and leave. I wish I’d done it then, but I had that emotionally disturbed idea in my head that I couldn’t leave him in good conscience then because I was carrying his child.
When our baby was a year and a half old, I ended up in the mental health unit of the hospital for five weeks. I was released when the insurance ran out, but I knew that I wasn’t ready to go yet. I was just well enough, mentally, to know I could no longer live the way I had been, but I wasn’t strong enough to change things yet. So for the next year and a half, I craved suicide day and night. I had been taught that suicide cannot be forgiven, because there’s no time to ask for forgiveness after the act. That belief is the only thing that kept me alive.
After that year and a half, I chose to be readmitted to the hospital mental health unit to get away from everything and everyone and figure out what to do. I spent my three-week stay at the hospital this time praying, reading my Bible, journaling, and going to classes. God gave me peace about getting a divorce. He showed me that even though He doesn’t “like” divorce, if the alternative was a life so miserable that I craved suicide, then I had His blessing on getting a divorce.
I asked God for guidelines concerning my future. What would be right and wise for me instead of wrong or foolish. The guidelines He told me were very clear. I could trust any decision I made if it was based on what was “of good, of love and of light”. The Bible says that only God is good, that God is love, and that Jesus is the light of the world and the radiance of God’s glory.
Since my hospital stays those many years ago, I’ve been treated with anti-depressant/anti-anxiety medication. Physically, I need it and that’s OK. Far more important, however, is my walk with God. I am as certain of His constant presence with me and His help in all things as I am of the fact that I am a live human being.
I'd like to refer you to some poems at Door2Hope that have helped me. They are
The Chained Slave
The Diamond
Kaleidoscope
They are filled with hope!
If you are in an abusive relationship, contact http://www.thedwellingplaceshelter.org.
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