16 Days of Abuse. [Part One]

tabuse

I was 17, pregnant & stuck in a relationship I didn’t want to be in, but felt I had to.  I had run away with this man, chosen him in an ultimatum my mother had given me, and moved 8 hours away without telling anyone.  We left in the middle of the night and I clearly remember my best friend Britt phoning me in tears when she’d found out I was living in Jo’burg.

“You’re making a mistake, Sheen, you know you are” were her words.  “But I love him, and he worships me like no one else has ever done” was my reply.

Three weeks into having me isolated from every one, every thing and every place that was familiar to me, I met the true side to my boyfriend for the first time.  Suddenly, he wouldn’t let me out of his sight.  I wasn’t supposed to speak to men.  He called me every hour, on the hour, at work – “just to check”.  For what, I have no idea.  Infidelity, maybe?  Playing hookie?  Lying to him about where I was?  Who knows.  Except him, because he called me every hour, on the hour.  So much so, that I was eventually fired.

Little did I know, this was perfect according to his plan.  Now I was at home all day, right where he wanted me.  “No temptation” he called it.

I wasn’t stupid.  I knew this wasn’t right.  I knew that Love wasn’t like this.  I knew that I had to get out.  I also knew, however, that if I angered him, I’d feel it emotionally, sexually, physically & mentally. Just like the time he walked in to find me smoking.  I was made to eat an entire box of cigarettes as if I were a 12 year old school girl.

You see, every time I wanted to leave, he’d threaten to kill himself.  Once that novelty had worn off and I started realizing it was his rationality, he threatened to kill my family.  That scared me right down to the very soul of Me.

Eventually, after a year of my friends not being allowed to call, or my dad not having the ability to see me without him around, or the idea of my mom having me for a few days on holiday alone was shot down, I chose to leave.

Despite the threats.  Despite my fear.  Despite the anxiety leaving him left me with.  Despite being pregnant.

I spoke to my father, who was near by.  I spoke to my mom, who booked me a ticket.  And then I made my plans.  I remember very clearly one afternoon packing my bags hurriedly while he was away at work, looking over my shoulder and my heart freezing over at every chirp, foot step or leaf rustle, in case he was home and I was too late.

When I broke away, to the safety of my fathers house a few kilometers away, I lay in bed and cried.  Eventually, when I had no tears left – I closed my eyes.  But the image of his face, anger and psychosis in his eyes, his hands wrapped around my neck, me with tears pouring down my cheeks, appeared.  Every time.  I was too terrified to stay, too terrified to leave, too terrified to breathe.

I answered my dad’s home line the next day.  What I heard chilled me to the bone.  Gulp, “that’s number 1 down”.  Gulp, “that’s number 2… number 6… number 10… number 46” Gulp, gulp, gulp.  Sleeping tablets, I was told.  I was in such a state that words couldn’t form in my head.  “The reason I’m doing this, so you can inform my old mother, is because of you.  You don’t love me.  You love someone else.  And so, I’m going to die.  Engrave this in your head and retell it to my mother.  Tell her what a whore you are.  Tell her that you broke my heart.  Tell her that you are evil, and come from Satan’s loins”.

Engraved in my memory, it certainly is.  Except the man went and had his stomach pumped straight after the phone call, I’m told.  A month later, after being home with my mom and transforming myself into a total hermit, I wouldn’t leave the house.  Everytime I changed my number, he’d call me.  He’d phone the family house phone at 4 am in the morning.  He stalked a male friend of mine at work.  He pitched up at the house one Friday night with 2 cars loaded with armed, black men.  The minute they saw my cop brother, in uniform, they fled.

That was the start of a long, threatening and very scary time for my family and I.  It ended with him in a jail cell, knees shaking and my mom crying.  I refused to go to the holding cell, and with me not there – my mom begged him to leave me alone.  He’d given me a beautiful, blue eyed and red haired daughter and she saw all her grand daughter’s features in the biological father he was but never stepped up to.  And so, he was put on a bus and that was the last I heard of him, for a few years.  But the next meeting was on my terms and purely for closure.

I was one of the lucky ones.  Yes, I’d been abused.  Yes, I was traumatized.  But more importantly, yes- I survived.  So many other women are not so lucky.  My great aunt, for instance, was abused for years and finally murdered by her abusive alcoholic husband.  My mom’s sister nearly went insane with the abuse she endured from her fiancé.  My own mother was abused for many a years by a man I no longer wish to remember. My gran was married to a sick, sick man who abused not only her, but her daughters as well.

I’ve experienced it, loathed it, feared it and ultimately, over come it.  Help me, to help others, to do the same.  By spreading the word.  By creating awareness.  By encouraging those loved ones you know are going through a similar situation.

Save a woman.  Save a child.  Save a life.  Stand up and help us to say NO MORE ABUSE.

Please notice the banner I’ve had displayed on this blog for a few days already.  Click through to the site, educate yourself and pass it on. I encourage all fellow bloggers to put up the banner on your site.