No Laughing Matter

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No Laughing Matter

Excerpt from my novel, When a Man Loves a Woman: A Season of Change:

            “Things weren’t good with me and Randy almost from the beginning.  He was stationed in Virginia where I was going to school.  Originally he was from some little small town in South Carolina.  Humph.  Just goes to show you that you can take the boy from the small town mentality, but not the other way around.  Anyway, I liked him.  He had this southern gentlemanly charm about him.  Everything he did was real slow, like he had all the time in the world.  We met at a local restaurant and immediately started dating.  Six months later we were married.  I was so in love with him I couldn’t see straight.  I didn’t pay attention to all the small ways he tried to change me. 

            “You know how they do.  ‘Oh, baby, I was hoping you’d wear the red dress tonight’ or ‘I love you so much I just can’t bear to have you away from me.’  Pretty soon it turns to ‘You know I don’t like rice on Tuesdays, where are the potatoes?’  Let’s not forget about ‘You’re so stupid can’t you even follow the simplest of instructions?  You are lucky to have me, no one else would want you.’  ‘Why are you wasting your time with that art mess?  You don’t have any talent.  No one’s going to buy that stuff.  What you should be doing is taking that time to clean this pig sty we call a home.’  The longer you stay the worse the insults become until you either start to believe them or your spirit is so broken you don’t have the strength to leave.  So I stayed.  I thought I loved him.  Thought he knew what was best for me, even when the little voice in my head told me he didn’t.

            “That was right where he wanted me.  Feeling bad about myself and questioning things in me that I’d never questioned before.  And when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the beatings started.  I was so broken in spirit by that time that I really don’t think I saw the severity of what was going on.  That is until I wound up pregnant.  All of a sudden I had a will to live again.  That’s when I started making clothes on a regular basis.  I put all of my energy into getting things ready for the baby.  Picking out names.  Painting a mural on the wall of our spare bedroom.  I knew that having a baby would put things into perspective for him and make him see the error of his ways.  He was angry all the time.  Going out with his buddies drinking and whatnot.

            “Then he’d come home and beat on me.  Even while I was pregnant.  I was stupid and naive.  Kept thinking he would change.  He changed all right.  He got worse.  When I was eight months pregnant he came home picking an argument with me about something so mundane I can’t even remember.  Who knows what any of them were about?  All I do remember is being in the kitchen cooking when he came home.  Right away he started an argument, I suppose it was for no reason other than he thought he could, so he did. I was also doing our laundry.  Figuring if I left the room maybe he’d calm down.  As I walked around him he grabbed a handful of my hair and slammed my face into the wall.  When he let me go I ran towards the basement, as fast as my big body would permit.  That’s when he rushed up behind me, kicked me in the back, sending me tumbling down the hard wooden stairs.  He followed, yelling obscenities and stomping me.  I begged him to stop.  One minute I was screaming and pleading, the next I was unconscious.

            “When I awakened, I was in the hospital.  Battered almost to a pulp.  I had been hospitalized after some of his attacks.  The nurses would look at me and shake their heads.  They knew.  Each of them would come in and plead for me to leave him.  Telling me I deserved better, that he was a lowlife dirtbag.  All of their pleading fell on deaf ears.  You see, I loved him and it was my fault anyway.  Or at least that was my warped frame of mind at the time.  If I could only try harder, cook better, lose weight, gain weight, fix whatever the issue was he griped about, things would be okay between us. 

            “When I found out I lost my baby and due to the severity of the beating I’d never be able to have kids again, I lost it.  Had a breakdown of sorts.”

            Kate’s voice was almost a whisper as she relived that horrible experience that forever changed her life.  I held fast to her hand and cried the same tears she cried.  Tears of frustration, anger, bitterness.  Tears for the unborn baby whose face would never be seen.  For the unfairness of it all.  For loving men more than we knew how to love ourselves.  For my pain, as well as her own.  I never knew that she was a part of the secret society of women living in hell at the hands of abusive husbands and boyfriends.

            “Oh, Kate.  I’m so sorry.”  For the first time in my life I was utterly speechless.  What do you say to someone after they’ve shared such unspeakable horrors.  Together we hugged and wept.  Companionable silence lingered between us like the old friends that we are.  I never loved her more than at that moment. 

“What happened when you were released from the hospital?” I asked her some time later.

“Well, I made up my mind that I was leaving him.  Anyone who could kill their own child could certainly kill their own wife.  Besides, I had so much hate for him that I could’ve killed him with my bare hands.  The only thing that stopped me from killing him was a kindly nurse who’d lived through her own struggles with domestic violence.  Against hospital rules, she risked losing her job to let me stay with her.  I’ll never forget Shelley for her kindness towards me.  She said there was no rush for me to move, but I still wanted to have my own so I worked a couple of jobs to get money to move.  For a short while I felt safe, but Randy was a stalker.  Somehow he managed to find out where I worked and followed me home”.

            She sniffed with disdain, as if the whole scene left a bitter taste in her mouth.  I didn’t blame her.  I thought I was regurgitating the same bile as she.

“The whole scene was pathetic.  He’d call day and night.  Show up at the house and where I worked.  Even followed me to school.  He was everywhere.  He’d even started harassing Shelley.  Enough was enough.  Every time he bothered me I’d make a police report.  Unfortunately, during those times the laws didn’t do much to protect women from abusive husbands or stalkers. 

“One night I packed up my little car and headed out of state.  I’d decided when I first moved in with Shelley that I would come to Michigan.  Most people think to move with their family members, but with the way he harassed Shelley, I didn’t want to put anyone else in the middle of our mess, just in case it escalated.  Going back to Iowa was out of the question, since that is where I am from.  Plus in small country towns everyone seems to know everyone else’s business.  I didn’t want to be the talk of the town.  It’s also the first place Randy would’ve looked for me.  I needed a fresh start.  Michigan seemed like the ideal place.  It didn’t seem as flighty as the west coast, as back woods as the south, or as cold as say New York or Chicago.  It’s been my home ever since.”

“Why did you tell me now?”

“I felt it was time.”  She looked me directly in the eyes.  “Contrary to popular belief time does not heal all wounds.  Instead if left to fend for themselves, the hurt will bury itself so deep in your soul.  One day you wake up and realize that you are so used to living with your pain that you don’t know how to live without it.  That’s the scary part.  The hurt runs so deep that it spills over into other areas of your life.  Other relationships, friendship, even marring your dreams.”  Kate shook her head as though trying to grasp the depth of emotions from which her conversation originated. 

“So how do you get beyond that point?”  The question came out as a whisper.  I wasn’t sure if I was asking her or myself.  “When do you get to the point where you can move on beyond the pain?”

“You can’t go on unless you address the hurt.  If you are holding on to the pain then you aren’t making healthy decisions.”  I took a deep breath and sat really still for a long moment.  I needed time to digest all of this information.  I was on emotional overload.

“So at what point did you hit rock bottom and knew that you needed a change?”
            “Truthfully Alicia, it’s only been in the last five years.  I have gone through extensive therapy for this.  My breaking point was when it dawned on me that I hadn’t had a relationship with a man since my divorce.  I couldn’t even look at men without cringing.  I would look at complete strangers and think ‘I bet he beats women, he’s an alcoholic, he’s a control freak, he’s a potential pimp’.  All kinds of crazy thoughts.  I finally took a good look in the mirror and said ‘Kate this is not healthy.  After all of these years you are still under Randy’s control. 

            “Until that point I’d been pouring my energy into creating things.  After the divorce it took a while for me to get back into the groove of things.  All those years of hearing how I was wasting my time and how I had no talent had begun to take a toll on me.  Then one day I felt like something was brewing inside of me.  I picked up my paintbrush and before I knew it I was doing what comes naturally to me.  That picture won me so many awards.  I can’t even remember how many offers I had from people interested in buying it.  No offer was ever high enough.  How much is the price of freedom?  For that is what the picture represents to me.  Freedom.  It gave me my wings to fly.”

“So how long has it taken you to get to the point where you can talk about it?”  She still hadn’t answered my question.

“Um, surprisingly just this year.  That is partly why I’m telling you now.  It’s the first time I’ve been able to talk about it with anyone other than my therapist.  My family still doesn’t know.  I never told them.  Of course they had their speculations about what happened, but no one knows for sure.”

“Whatever happened to your ex?”

“He’s been remarried a few times.  Old habits die hard I guess.”  She shrugged her shoulders like it was no longer her problem.  Which is exactly what I imagine she was thinking.

Copyright 2012 Tumika Patrice Cain, When a Man Loves a Woman: A Season of Change ~

October is National Domestic Violence month and I would be remiss if I didn’t address this issue at least once.  This is a subject very close to my heart as my life and the lives of many of my family members and friends have been affected either first hand or inadvertently by this powerful and damaging epidemic.

I don’t need to get into the reasons domestic violence is wrong.  Some things are just self explanatory.  What I do want to focus on are the ways in which this crime sneaks up on one who might be unsuspecting.  Believe it or not, there are signs and signals to alert a person before the abuse actually starts.  Being aware of what to look for and taking those signs seriously may very well save your life or the life of someone you know.

According to New Choices Inc., the following is a list of questions to ask yourself to determine if you are in an abusive relationship.   Feeling uncomfortable or being afraid in your relationship is the number one red flag that the relationship is not healthy.

1.      Does your partner teases you in a hurtful way and play it off as a “joke” or tell you you’re being too sensitive?

2.      Does your partner call you names such as “stupid” or “bitch”?

3.      Does your partner act jealous of your friends, family or co-workers or coerce you into avoiding or not spending time with them?

4.      Does your partner get angry about or make you change the clothes and shoes you wear, how you style your hair or whether or not you wear makeup and how much?

5.      Does your partner check up on you by repeatedly calling, driving by or getting someone else to?

6.      Has your partner gone places with you or sent someone just to “keep an eye on you”?

7.      Does your partner insist on knowing who you talk with on the phone, check your call log or phone bill?

8.      Does your partner blame you for his problems or his bad mood?

9.      Does your partner get angry so easily that you feel like you’re “walking on eggshells”?

10.  Does your partner hit walls, drive dangerously or do other things to scare you?

11.  Does your partner often drink or use drugs?

12.  Does your partner insist that you drink or use drugs with him?

13.  Have you lost friends or no longer see some of your family because of your partner?

14.  Does your partner accuse you of being interested in someone else or cheating on them?

15.  Does your partner read your e/mail, check your computer history, go through your purse, or other personal papers?

16.  Does your partner keep money from you, keep you in debt, or have “money secrets”?

17.  Has your partner kept you from getting a job or caused you to lose a job?

18.  Has your partner sold your car, made you give up your license or not repaired your car?

19.  Does your partner threaten to hurt you, your children, family, friends, or pets?

20.  Does your partner force you to have sex when you do not want to?

21.  Does your partner force you to have sex in ways that you do not want to?

22.  Does your partner threaten to kill you or themselves if you leave?

23.  Is your partner like “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, acting one way in front of other people and another way when you are alone?

Despite the messages portrayed in the media, domestic violence does not just affect poor people or black people.  Anyone regardless of race, socio economic status, religious status, age, class, geography can be a victim of domestic violence.  If you are being abused, there are people who are trained to help you and safe places for you to go.  National Domestic Violence Hotline  1.800.799.7233 (SAFE)

Changing lives one word at a time….Tumika Patrice Cain

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Tumika Patrice Cain is an award-winning author, media personality, and motivational speaker. Through her imprint, Inkscriptions Publishing & Media Group, she provides high quality, affordable, mentor-based publishing services to indie authors, as well as inspired, empowering messages of hope and abundance through her media outlets. Her works can be found in many publications, including Fresh Lifestyle Magazine. To learn more about Tumika, her books, and her services visit the following websites. http://www.TumikaPatrice.com and http://www.InkscriptionsPMG.com