Within minutes, I was buckled into the neighbors’ car. The drive to the emergency room felt like one of the longest of my life. My neighbor was so kindhearted and concerned, trying to fill the awkward silence with small talk. I replied to his questions with monosyllabic answers and nods. I could barely string two or three words together. I was so ashamed. I just wanted to evaporate. I couldn’t look him in the eye. All I could think to myself was, “This is so embarrassing. What must he be thinking of me right now? My life is so completely fucked up…”
Finally, we arrived at the ER. My neighbor came inside with me. I remember bright fluorescent lights and the sterile scent of cleaning products, old magazines, and unhappy patients who looked like they’d been waiting a long, dreary time. I walked up to the front desk to speak with the triage nurse and fill out the requisite paperwork.
“What happened?” the nurse asked me.
It was a simple question, but it paralyzed me. What happened? Where was I supposed to begin? I managed to stammer out a few details.
“I was home. In the living room. My partner came home and we ended up getting in a stupid argument. He just wouldn’t let it go, it kept getting more and more out of hand and then…”
My voice trailed off into silence.
“…And then he swung at you?” the nurse asked, filling in the details that I couldn’t seem to say aloud.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Everything replayed in my mind. That first blow had caught me completely by surprise. He’d never struck me before. Sure, there had been some red flags about his temper, but things had never escalated like this. I would never have believed he could do something like this. After punching me full in the face once, I figured he would recoil and apologize immediately. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”
But that didn’t happen. He didn’t apologize. He didn’t step back.
He didn’t stop.
The blows came down hard and fast, one after another. I instinctively curled into a ball on the living room floor, trying to cover my head. I thought if I just stayed perfectly still, eventually he’d stop hitting me. I could feel my cheeks swelling up, narrowing my eyes. He still wasn’t stopping.
After I lost count of the blows, the horrific truth dawned on me:
“If I just lie here like this, I’m going to die.”
I staggered to my feet and ran from the room. He caught me halfway across the room and took me by the throat, choking me and lifting me off the floor. My survival instincts kicked in. I don’t exactly know how I did it, but I managed to untangle myself from his grip and escape. Adrenaline pumped through my body, making everything feel lightning-fast and slow-motion all at once. That’s how I’d made it to my neighbors’ doorstep. And now…here I was.
The doctors asked me to climb onto the X-ray table. They needed to make sure my orbital bones—the bones surrounding my eye sockets—weren’t broken. As they placed the heavy lead X-ray blanket over my chest and flashed the bulbs, that’s when it really sank in.
“I might have a shattered skull,” I thought to myself. “How is this my life?”
I felt so ashamed that I had gotten myself into this situation. I knew he was the one who had done something that was so wrong. But nonetheless, I felt exposed, embarrassed, and humiliated at the consequences of my life choices.
The doctors left to examine the X-rays, and they promised a police officer would come by soon to collect a statement from me. Nearly an hour went by. No one checked on me. I sat alone in the painfully bright examination room, left to contend with my thoughts.
“How did I get here?”
I had to admit, there had been plenty of red flags. He had trouble controlling his drinking, and he got loud and aggressive after a few cocktails. That was one of the many warning signs that I’d chosen to ignore.
He liked to be in control, and I’d willingly given control over
to him. He was in charge of our finances, our social life, where
we lived, and where we went. In spite of our affluent financial situation, I didn’t even have my own credit card. Everything was under his management.
And of course, we fought all the time.
During one of our worst fights, he drove so aggressively that he skidded the car off the road and we smashed into a wall. Miraculously, we weren’t hurt, but the car was wrecked, the airbags inflating in a jarring split second. I was terrified and embarrassed. I remember calling a girlfriend later that night, standing outside in the rain as I sobbed into the phone, explaining what had happened…hoping that she’d say the “magic words” that would give me the courage to leave him.
That’s what I always did. After a really bad fight, I would call a family member, or a friend, pleading for advice. I was waiting for someone to tell me, “Andrea, you need to leave him,” and, “It’s OK if you don’t have any money. Just go. You’ll figure things out.” I was waiting for someone to give me permission to walk away. But no one ever did—not even on the night I wound up in the ER; in fact, when I called my parents to tell them what had happened, my father told me, “What are you going to do? You can’t leave him.” True story.
I guess as far as my dad was concerned, I couldn’t survive on my own, since I had no money, no college degree, and no immediate job prospects. Staying with my current partner was the only viable option, because he could support me financially. Sound crazy? Especially coming from someone’s own father? Yes, it totally did sound nuts. But that’s what he said. Even in the midst of my own rock-bottom moment, I knew this was beyond messed up.
After that phone call, I realized: “No one is coming to save me.
Not even my family.”
When you get beaten so badly that your eye socket might have been crushed, it has a funny way of shaking you awake. Sitting there in that examination room, suddenly everything became crystal clear.
“Nobody is going to fix my life for me,” I said to myself. “I’ve got to do this myself. I don’t know how, but it’s got to happen. I need to take charge of my life. No matter what.”
Later that night, after we got tired of waiting around at the hospital for the police to show up, my neighbor drove me over to the sheriff’s office and I gave my official statement.
In the days that followed, I contacted a local support center, and they connected me with lawyers and advocates who could help me…for free, thank God. Piece by piece, we put together a plan to get me out of that relationship, out of the state, and into a new chapter of my life.
It wasn’t easy. I couldn’t just waltz out and get my own place. I was unemployed. My credit history was a disaster. I had no credit card, no bank account, absolutely nothing. Everything, even my cell phone plan, was in my partner’s name, and he could cut me off at any time. Financially speaking, he owned me. I owned literally nothing.
And the worst part of all was that…I’d allowed this to happen. I let myself become completely dependent on him. Whatever type of woman he wanted me to be, I tried to be, even if it felt like a complete lie. Whatever he wanted to control, I let him control. He had promised me a lifetime of security and comfort. At the time, that kind of offer seemed too good to pass up. Even with his erratic temper, and the frequent fighting, I didn’t think I’d be able to find anyone better than him. I never dreamed that my golden handcuffs would come along with violent consequences. I never thought it would get as bad as it did.
That night in the ER was the most horrifying experience of my entire life. But I don’t regret going through that experience, because it was the wake-up call I so desperately needed. It was the night I stopped waiting for someone to rescue me. It was the night I stopped blaming other people for my own shitty choices. It was the night I stopped thinking about myself as a helpless character in a story