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Elizabeth's Musings

Chronicling I

4/17/2020

10 Comments

 

​Precipice

     It began with the photos. Really, not even photos, so much as the mention of them. To be accurate, it began with an entry in a blog. Not an email—not any sort of missive—and certainly not a phone call. A bland, innocuous, update to a blog it’s entirely possible no one ever really read. What it represented, though…I knew, even then, at least in part. The reaching out of it; communicating with, caring for, considering someone else. More particularly, to family, but really wouldn’t anyone at that point have been equally perceived as some sort of threat?
     The way he phrased it, what I had done wrong was to deceive him. It wasn’t that I’d written the post, but rather that I’d hidden it from him. Or tried to, anyway. Obviously a job poorly done, that. Yet, why had I even the impulse at all to try to keep it from him? A personal blog, started before there was an “us”—back when it was still just “me.” An update from my first real trip abroad, from what should have been a brilliant, grand adventure. An apology for silence, for a recent lack of the sharing that so characterized not just my upbringing, my family, my acquaintances, but me.
     I’d tried to keep it from him because I knew he didn’t want me to talk to my own family. He feared they influenced me. Surely, given time and effort, I’d prove myself to him and show him where he was wrong, and we’d all get along just fine. For now, though—for now, I’d just go along with what he wanted on the surface even if underneath I was drowning; screaming soundlessly, clawing at the edges of the transparent prison in which I’d allowed myself to be sealed, vision growing dim at the edges just as it had when his hands had gripped my neck. The scarf from his mother that had been a Christmas gift a few months prior almost hid the bruises entirely from view. I don’t think anyone even noticed. I sincerely hope they didn’t, not for the sake of my own shame or embarrassment, but for theirs. If they noticed, and they—none of them—said, did, anything at all…They didn’t see, surely. What was obvious to me, what had me anxiously tightening and adjusting that silk scarf about my neck, was not even noticeable, really. Surely.
     Minor sign of the constant inward struggle, that blog post. He found out. I was scared—so scared—of him so angry, so I fled. Tried to lock myself away, to beg him to please stop, please calm down, please see what he’d become.
     I can hear him, still, banging on the door. See him climbing over the edge of the stall. Hand bleeding from a cut he got struggling to get in to me. Did I see what I’d done to him? How I’d hurt him? What I’d turned him into? His voice, accusing, was a buzz within for so many years—Did I think he wanted to be a monster?
     Nothing more dangerous than him no longer caring what happens to himself. If he doesn’t care what others think, then even public places aren’t safe, you see.
After he chased me into the girls’ bathroom, and I fled from the stall where I’d sought sanctuary, I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t loud enough. I still cared too much—didn’t want others to know, not really. Didn’t want him to get in trouble.
And so he caught me. Struck me, grabbed me, took me by my hair and dragged me down the hall. The dorm-room doors we passed were closed, indifferent as the occupants they shielded from view.
     I was pleading, I was crying, I was trying not to cooperate, but the pain in my scalp had me scrambling; torn between the sharpness of that sting and the burning where my legs and arms dragged against the carpeted floor. His grip, even with that wounded palm, was unyielding.
     Flung to the floor in the relative privacy of the small shared kitchen space, I was already half-blinded from tears when he took my glasses from me. Or, rather, knocked them from my face and didn’t allow them back to me.
     I kept the pieces, carefully preserved, rattling about in a case, for years. He still has them, probably. Along with everything else I left behind.
     You see, he snapped them—my eyeglasses—into an irreparable number of pieces. Such a smart move, really. An early indication of a skill he’d cultivate over the years to follow. First step to instilling terror, to maintaining control over a person: make them as vulnerable as possible. What’s more vulnerable than to be blind? How better to control me in that moment than to take my sight from me?
     He then proceeded to threaten to take my life.
     My response wasn’t to ask for pity, but to beg him to consider his own life. He wouldn’t get away with it, you see. It was too obvious. Everyone would surely know he’d done it. He didn’t want to go to prison, did he? To lose his own life? His own goals and dreams?
     Which returns us, again, to the lesson: the scariest moment is when he no longer cares about himself enough to truly try to hide what he is doing anymore.
That moment someone walked in. What a sight we must have been. Me, a disheveled mess with hair in wild disarray, snot- and tear-stained, bruised and scraped, sniveling and crouched in the corner upon the floor. Him, hand bleeding and clutching the remains of my eyeglasses, clothing askew from his own exertions, damp with his own sweat and tears.
     Someone walked in, alright. Paused a moment, hesitant upon the threshold of the room. Just long enough to cause a brilliant, painful, flare of emotion in me—a dizzying, kaleidoscopic mix of trepidation, horror, shame, and hope. Then, a single phrase, “Oh, sorry,” and the stranger was gone just as suddenly as he’d come.
     Enclosed within a building with hundreds of residents, yet entirely alone, I talked him down, that night, from the verge of killing us both. Somehow, I talked him down.
10 Comments
Julie V. Wilcox
4/18/2020 09:50:40 am

Not the first time I have read this, but still very difficult. So glad you finally escaped from that hell.

Reply
Mary Jensen link
4/18/2020 12:59:25 pm

I knew it was bad, but it's still heartbreaking to hear the details. Hard to read, but necessary. So glad you are in a better place now, and hoping your sharing will help others. *many hugs*

Reply
Elizabeth Wilcox
5/1/2020 07:18:03 pm

Thank you. My hope is that my experience can help someone else, too.

Reply
Traci Kincaid
4/19/2020 01:30:53 pm

Thank you so much for sharing your experience, your emotions, your hopes, such that others in your situation may find the incredible strength necessary to escape their own nightmare.

Reply
Elizabeth Wilcox
5/1/2020 07:19:29 pm

Thank you, Traci! If even just one person finds some comfort and strength from reading about my experience and knowing they're not alone, I'll call this project a success.

Reply
David Edgecomb
4/19/2020 10:10:03 pm

Wow, Elizabeth, I'm so glad that you are in a more healthy place now. Thank you for your willingness and ability to truthfully and artfully share your story. You are a gifted writer and your expression is valuable and helpful on many levels. May you continue to reach up and out for those things you desire and deserve. Joy is worth the risk.

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Beki
5/1/2020 06:35:45 pm

I know people who haven't lived through similar circumstances struggle so much to understand, "who don't you just leave??" It's always so, so much more complicated than that. I'm so proud of you for sharing your experience, and I'm hopeful that it will help save someone else.

Reply
Elizabeth Wilcox
5/1/2020 07:22:20 pm

One of the most difficult things after leaving was hearing people, even with the best of intentions, saying that they just couldn't believe "someone as smart as [I am]" stayed so long in an abusive relationship. I hope they can come to understand that people don't stay in toxic relationships because they're stupid or lazy, and that it's very difficult (and scary!) to try to leave.

Reply
Paula Plunkett
5/2/2020 10:24:05 am

First; my apologies for your experiences. Second; thanks for sharing them with others as it sure helps the population of abused not seem so alone. Third; it has always amazed me how quick people are to look away instead of help. I grew up witnessing these situations and many times being the target in them. We can never say too much, or be too honest.

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Debi
7/24/2020 01:28:52 pm

I think I put off reading this because I already knew it was horrible for you and I felt guilty because we hadn’t been able to find a way to help you. I think it’s so much easier for people to discount or look the other way when it comes to abuse because they don’t understand or see everything that happens. Reading this makes me so mad at myself, the stranger in the kitchen who should have gone and called the cops at the very least, at your ex for how atrociously he treated you.... my heart bleeds for you. I love you sis, I’m so glad you were able to finally get out.

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    Elizabeth Wilcox. Writer, Avid Role-Player, Amateur Mixologist. Survivor.

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