Choices

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

I am doing laundry in the basement and I look over and see his two hooded sweatshirts, hung on the corners of a shelf. They’ve been there all along, but only now, after all this time, do I notice them. It’s as though he just hung them there, just went upstairs for a post walk shower, they are so normal where they hang.

I do not touch them, or take them and hold them and cry like I did when I went through his closet, lying amidst his ties and shirts. Now I am emotionally detached, observing, as I have come to be when I see him in my bedroom, standing at the foot of the bed, and the final scene replays in the early morning hours. Instead I sadly reflect on a day in August two years ago.

I think as I have so many times about the choices he made, his choice to shoot me, so irreversible, it left him none. I made choices too. I did not choose to be mistreated. To be abused. I did choose to stay, to engage. Like any other victim, I saw no clear way out, so I stayed to fight. He chose to continue his abusive behavior.

It was a day that last summer we had planned to go away for the weekend, just the two of us. He thought that was all we needed to get back on track. I wanted to grasp anything that felt like hope, so I agreed. Despite my better judgment, I was so desperate to hold on to my dream, I agreed.

It was my sister who saw something I could not when I told her of my apprehensions about the pending weekend. She emailed me a website that showed the cycle of abuse. It shocked me out of my denial. The word ‘abuse’, the characteristics, were real. The cycle was real. In that instant, in my heart, I knew. I knew as soon as that weekend was over, if not during, he would revert back. I would be lured back into complacency, believing it was possible to go back to normal when we had never been normal. He would simply abuse me again. Spending the weekend with him was like inviting the devil into my soul. It felt like a final defeat, a white flag.

I called my therapist, desperate, and asked him to walk me off the emotional ledge. He offered me a calm, impartial perspective in the middle of the chaotic tornado of my indecision. After more than an hour, we ended the call that day that I had to make a choice.

I changed my mind. I stood in front of my husband and told him I’d changed my mind. That I couldn’t go. He begged to know why, begged me to go. The only thing I could come up with was ‘I’m worth it’. Through tears he continued to beg, insisting it was what we needed, all we needed. He, too, I realize now, needed to hold on to something. I knew if I went, there would be no turning back. If I didn’t go I could finally move forward.

Watching him cry, unable to let my guard down and comfort him, I chose me. For the first time perhaps in our entire relationship, I chose me. Sadly, it had to be a ‘him or me’ choice. He’d made it a winner/loser proposition to be with him. Some 6 weeks before he shot me, I unknowingly made a choice that started a waterfall so powerful the momentum was unstoppable. Inescapable. I was to be swept into the torrent that followed.

“We have escaped like a bird out of the fowler’s snare; the snare has been broken, and we have escaped.” Psalm 124:7

In the settling of his estate, I paid the bill for the un-cancelled hotel room, once again bringing alive that painful day of decision.

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The Cast

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

I have this incredible faith. While the trust aspect is at times missing and I want to tell God what He should be doing, the faith is unwavering. As I read back over my journal, kept sporadically early into my journey out of abuse, then a few times a day post shooting, to a few times a week now, I see how that faith evolved. It sustained me as I fought to survive the aftermath.

Although I realized how wrong what had happened was in the scheme of things, I still had a sense of peace that God had enveloped us (the children and me); that He protected us and left me for some very specific reason. To some non-believers or those on the faith fringe that may seem like fanatical thinking, or shock induced delusion. For me it is simply an acknowledgement of my truth. I thought both coming into consciousness in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and upon waking up to absolute darkness after surgery that surely I was dead. Yet no time during my conscious awareness did it ever occur to me I could die. Once I was aware I was indeed alive, I assumed it; that I would live.

That faith extends to a clarity to me that a cast of people were placed purposely in my life to play a role in this one event and what was to follow. Again, this is surely not in keeping with any religious doctrine, it is simply my belief based on my experiences.

None of the cast came to October 4, 2009 willingly. In retrospect, the series of events preceding that day gathered momentum in that final week that made it unstoppable. I believe God had prepared a framework to support me through the event and in building a new life.

My therapist Dr. Brown, to whom I attribute saving my emotional life, moving me from fear into hope, finally exploring the truth about my marriage, helping me see my worth and a life beyond an abusive relationship. He has been an amazing guide on this journey; someone for and to whom I will forever be grateful.

Priest, friend, spiritual leader and blesser of homes, chief encourager the Rev. Margaret Watson, who held my love for my children in her heart as she sat in my stead to tell them of their father’s death, the possibility of mine, and fought to have them stay with friends in Richmond rather than be isolated from any familiar comfort they knew an hour a half away. Her prayers, the prayer vigil, the funeral were all things that she is trained to do. The circumstance, however, no training could have ever prepared her for. No stranger to trauma and loss, she has been here.

Lynne, my almost lifelong friend who was in the inner circle and witnessed what virtually no others had or would admit, who had the strength to risk our friendship by sharing what she observed when she could no longer stand by and watch me continue to be destroyed, who concerned I was still in increasing danger, kept and shared an email in which he’d made a death threat years prior.

Mary Ellen, the friend who listened and listened and listened. Who supported me in every decision I’ve ever made, who like Lynne was steady and did not abandon me when I persisted in staying. Her daily calls are like the sun rising, thankfully rousing me from a bed of self-pity on many a day.

Gretchen, who so many times explored with me why we were in each other’s lives, who sensed something had gone terribly wrong when I didn’t show up for our walk together that day, who searched for and found me, who has lent me perspective when I needed it in her no nonsense way.

Kevin and Kitty, who showed my daughter the only stability she knew through their family life, who provided shelter from the storm before and after for me, emotionally and physically.  Their loving strength gave me a chance to get my legs under me again.

Gordon, a friend, who has come after, who has not abandoned me as I have tried to leave it behind, remaining steady watching my constant emotional volley between piecing together the puzzle of a broken life and rediscovering who I am and who I can be; not clearly in any one space.  Who has read what I’ve written, and listened.  He listens, steady, unwavering, solid, strong.

The hundreds of people who I knew through church, BNI, my volunteer efforts, and a community at large; friends, family and strangers who sustained us with more than food; who offered service and companionship and encouragement on some very long, dark nights.

Friends, priests and doctors do not compare to the simple love of my sister. She was here as soon as she could be, and did for my children what I could not, including intervening on their behalf, comforting them at the funeral home and funeral, and being there.

I’ve always had some sense that life would resume for them, not skipping a beat, that time would fade the blunt of it, the event forgotten. I have known only we would be left with what remained. Now life is resumed. Lynne moved to Arizona, friends feel better about where I am with it all, Margaret is leaving our church. Yet I don’t feel solid enough, formed enough, to go it alone. The supports are falling away, and I fear once they are completely removed, so then too will be the strength I have surrounding me. Which takes me back to that sometimes fleeting trust in faith.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” Jeremiah 29:11

And Frank. Thank you for setting up and maintaining the blog, for the encouragement, for sending this verse when I was in the thick of it.

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Exit Here…part 2

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

9. No one knew. Everyone saw someone so different than who we experienced. They saw who I saw when I first loved him. Not who he really was, or had become.

10. It didn’t exist. He acted as though nothing had happened when confronted, or denying any wrong doing, that I made him do whatever he’d done. There was never, ever, an ‘I’m sorry’ out of his mouth or a gesture to indicate regret for things he’d done, no acknowledgment of responsibility, so it almost seemed as though maybe they didn’t happen the way I thought they had.

No empathy, no sympathy. Not when my friend died, not when my parents died, not when my cats died, not when he called me names, not when he pushed or shoved or pinched or poked or hit or choked or cheated.

10. Fear. He threatened to kill me. I did not take it seriously enough, but it hovered over me like a black cloud. There were three incidents before he shot me. Outwardly I worried about who would run interference when the children were with him without me to protect them. I was willing to sacrifice my freedom for their safety. Inwardly I had no example, no mental file to house I was gambling with sacrificing my life and the possibility I would not be here at all to watch over them. I simply could not believe someone who professed to love me would do something like he threatened.

11. I deserved it. Somewhere, deep inside, untouchable, I had this quiet voice sometimes telling me maybe I deserved how he treated me. I didn’t hear it. But I see it now. Maybe it was because he was constant to tell me everything he’d given up to be with me. How could I leave after all the sacrifices he’d made? Maybe it was my own guilt at my choices prior to being with him, my choice to be with him. Maybe it was just a self-flagellation, self-hate perpetuated by him that I hoisted on my back and carried.

12. More than scars. He had taken something from me and replaced it with what he thought would insure no one else would want me. He had me convinced at least.

To this day there is still some degree of disbelief; that it all happened, that any of it happened. I suspect it is an instinctual self-preservation mechanism to protect our fragile psyches that we forget the pain on a conscious level. It is, however, branded on us on a cellular level. Our bodies don’t forget. I suppose it is a matter of outwitting our cells, replacing the pain with pleasure.

I’m sure everyone has their own reasons. These are mine.

Husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man is actually loving himself when he loves his wife. No one hates his own body but lovingly cares for it, just as Christ cares for his body.

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Exit here….

Posted on July 14, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

Part 1
My strict adherence to plans, my inability to accept conditions change, require a variance from the original plan, has yielded to a now anxious need to have a plan B.

My sister and I sit at her dining room table, drinking our morning coffee, and she asks with the red flags, even before I was married, why did I stay.

22 months later, (yes, I count the months as a mother counts the weeks and months in her new child’s life) I have moved from being convinced it is some defect of character that kept me in an abusive marriage all those years, to the reality that it is too complex a question to answer succinctly.

I think her question is rhetorical, asked out loud to process possible answers with no real expectation of an answer. I find those who ask that question are people who have never experienced abuse. That I, or any other abused woman, wasn’t out the door at the first ‘incident’; they find it most puzzling.

I thought it might be cathartic to actually write out the reasons, as much for me as for someone who insists they would leave immediately.

1. My mental model of marriage. I married for life. I had a model that was supportive and stable for 45 years, interrupted only by my dad’s death. Since abuse was not part of it, I had no ‘exit here’ example to follow.

2. Impressions. We had limited contact for the first few years of the relationship, thus it was all a honeymoon. There were some episodes of jealousy, but not over the top and I felt it simply an uncomfortable reality of being in an uncommitted/non-monogamous relationship.

3. Timing. By the time the verbal abuse surfaced we were in a committed relationship, but even then it was borderline. The lines between observation, comment, criticism and abuse were blurry.

4. Beliefs. I bought into what he was saying. He would pick something he knew or sensed I was insecure about. I was overweight (though nowhere near the level I ended up in an effort to be as unattractive to other men as was humanly pssible, hoping to quell his need to possess me solely), I get irritable, I am emotional. I did have a struggling business.  I  heard it so much sometimes his voice was louder than my own in my head.

5. Cycles. Beginning with long periods between, long enough to think it was just a bump in the road to growing as a couple, long enough to forget; narrowing and accelerating with the years and his drinking, it cycled. Abuse is very cyclical.

6. Unpredictability. He was not predictable. It was not whether he’d been drinking, or tired, or had a lot going on at work. It was something we could not identify with a particular time or event and head off. Thus we weren’t sure if, or when, it would occur. Eventually I learned it was just a matter of time, but that was not immediately evident.

7. Who I am. I take people as they come. Love them as is. My reality is perfection is humanly impossible. Certainly I wouldn’t have loved him had I met him at the end. But at the beginning, I saw someone charismatic, charming, attentive, kind, romantic; except when he wasn’t. I forgave him everything.

8. No Plan B. I married for life. I could not envision anything else. Perhaps I didn’t allow myself to go there, to dream, until the end. I had become emotionally numb. Survival doesn’t allow for fanciful dreams of lives unlike the one you are living. He constantly said I needed to face reality, when I felt like that was all I did. I have an ability to shut down, go somewhere else when I needed to, which kept me able to continue without losing my mind, but kept me married too.

to be continued

And you husbands must love your wives and never treat them harshly. Colossians 3:19

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Independence Day

Posted on July 4, 2011 by Lisette d. Johnson

We are spending the fourth of July in this small Colorado town in which I have summered over the past 25 years. This is a bucolic little town where doors are not locked, they are simply left wide open; keys left in unlocked cars, everything is within walking distance, and I don’t get lost with a mountain as a reference guide for where I am at any given time. A place where quaint houses are buffered by delicate delphinium and aspens quaking in the breeze and the hot sun of midday in the clear blue sky yields to snuggling under a quilt in the cool early morning hours.

As I walk this morning, I think how in the quietness, sounds carry. I clearly hear whispered voices through open windows. I wonder how he and I could have managed living here. The peaceful quietness shattered by shouting, resonating through this pleasant little town. I wonder if we had lived here, and everyone had known, would it have been easier to leave because it would have been harder to hide?

I received a welcomed call from a friend at home, and we both laugh at my story of profusely apologizing to my house sitter about not having cleaned enough. My friend is sympathetic and reminds me our norm was being on the receiving end of anger triggered by the most obscure things. We could never do enough to avoid some tirade on our perceived imperfections.  We were continually trying to be sure it was all done and even then, it was never enough.

She remembers her husband affectionately grabbing her hand as they watched fireworks a few years ago, confessing his hopes that they would always be together, only to be completely out of control just hours later, precipitating her leaving with her children to be safe. I listen and reflect on my own similar memories. I am reminded she and I are unwilling kindred spirits, seeking to find some peace, to reconcile our experiences. There is no file for the inconsistency, the absurdity, the ‘I love you’, followed by a violent enragement over some perceived wrongdoing; experiences we both knew well.

I have a renewed compassion for her as I ponder how we are processing our individual pain and loss through the variety of distractions in which we hide. There are days when we want to forget this ever happened to us and just enjoy the moment. We seek solace as it is so difficult to be continually working, working, working through it. This day as she calls to check on me, I celebrate this friendship that has been forged out of the common grounds of our losses, and our attempts to recapture ourselves.

Today, after all the memories are filtered out, I am happy to have a friend who is regaining her self-worth, who, too, appreciates the beauty of this day; our day to celebrate our independence. 

and to our abusers…Live or die, but don’t poison everything. Anne Sexton

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