Ellington

Leading up to the 2010, the Jackson Free Press asked domestic-abuse survivors to tell their stories. This is one of the pieces we received, republished verbatim.

(Name withheld)

"He will make your crooked paths straight," the minister said as I sat there on the pew next to him with screams ‘knocking my chest down,(tm) trying to get out. I wanted to die or either I wanted him dead. I wasn't supposed to feel this way, I thought, especially sitting in church, for goodness sake. There I was, sitting there with my pasted-on smile, everyone thinking we were the happiest couple on the face of the earth. But it was so fake, so false, living a lie by being silent. Deep inside, I hated him. I hated him for the me he locked in his prison and I didn't know how to get escape.

"You can't decorate!," he squawked. 3AM, lights lit up like I'm in Vegas, lying in bed trying to catch some winks was like smelling the exhaust of a city bus before it came down the street - - can't drown it out. "Vampire" decided to crash about the time I greeted the morning, heading to the kitchen for a toothpick to prop my eyes open.

He had been up most of the night nailing his thrift store antique treasures to the wall and wanted me to praise him for his mighty decorating abilities. Crackled pictures mooched together, pillows and fractured dollies in every old chair, the two-ton player piano and the musty fragrance were a norm for us. "Untouchable" and "picturesque" would best describe our living room - - better not dare sit on anything very long.

That stupid hammer belonged on top of his head versus the pounding he had buried in mine the night before, especially since I was the bread maker, at "home and abroad."

"You can't cook, Susie Homemaker" he would say, poking fun of the very thing I took pride in - - taking homemade biscuits with jelly, or my famous apple pie with homemade crust to my co-workers for breakfast, brightened my peevish planet of counterfeit love.

"You don't know how to dress the kids, so I will buy their clothes," he would boast. I couldn't tell you my favorite color from a hole in the ground. I was "told" my favorite color. I was "told" what style suited the kids and I the best. My mom would buy me new clothes with much thought and love, only for them to be returned to the store for money, which he would playfully spend on himself.

"Boot camp" - - did this describe the life I was living or more yet, what I wanted for him... to give him the boot and send him camping? I think a little of both.

"Crippled." It's the wheelchair I live in when I remember. Perhaps it's because of the way he made me feel…crippled. Mental abuse is not physical, they say, but is that the truth? Your mind becomes the wheelchair you continuously try to escape from and despite everything, you slump back into the leather sinking seat all over again.

Yeah, sure, the strength in your arms overpowers your legs and makes up for the things your body refuses to do - - but you're just not like the rest - - not really, because you've been tainted with unnecessary guilt and drank from the fountain of intoxicating words that can never be taken back.

What are you living for? Your kids, others, who? How can the batterer only live for himself?

All my life, I heard the story taught of the crippled man at the gate called "Beautiful." His faith made him well again and he walked.

Perhaps if you believe in yourself, you can enter the gate "Beautiful." Maybe you get out of the bed of "sickos" and just start walking.

Perhaps the little bird that's thrown out of the nest, lying crippled from the impact finally discovers he has wings to fly.

July 4th, 1996 after making plans for my first "separate" outing with just the kids and I, pushing me up against the wall of the apartment and bruising my chest, jealous because of his lack of control, for the first time, I had flown on my own. The freedom from crying in the carpet with no breath left, freedom from waiting on him to decide if he loved me, freedom from brainwashing my inner soul - - the same freedom I felt was now his prison - - his wheelchair now.