I met Betty sometime in the mid 1980's. As we got to know each other, she confided something that was almost too painful to hear or bear. Her story was riveting, repugnant and like something straight from your worst nightmare. Many years later when I recall what she told me, my throat still aches with unshed tears.
Betty's Story:
Betty had lived in another state. She was married and had one child. Her husband had a severe drinking problem and was most likely an alcoholic. His moods were extremely volatile, leaving him with an angry, filthy abusive mouth and a hair-trigger temper. He would rage and rant when things were not the way he insisted they be. Consequently, it would be "his way or the highway". Betty and her little one, who was around three or four, lived their lives walking on egg shells and tiptoeing around him when he was in "one of his moods". Unfortunately, he was almost always in "one of those moods".
Betty was extremely intelligent, very articulate and well spoken. To hear her talk, one would never have believed that this could be her life. However, if you were to have taken notice of her appearance, you might begin to think otherwise. Betty was missing some very prominent teeth, and her remaining teeth were rotted and discolored.
Upon discovering she was pregnant with her second child, her husband was furious. In no way did he want another baby. If life had been hard before, her child's and her life was becoming more unbearable by the day. After one particularly horrible day, Betty decided that she could take no more and planned to take her little one and make her escape. Now, through the years with her husband, she had been called every name under the sun, and had been berated about how stupid, inept, disgusting and worthless she was to him. However, by the same token, he let it be clearly known that she would never be rid of him.
On an awful evening, after her husband had fallen asleep in a drunken stupor, she crept out of bed, grabbed her sleeping toddler and tried to sneak down the stairs. She had packed just a tiny bag of things. But, she was not quick enough. Her husband was awakened and lurched to the stairs. Upon seeing the bag, he lunged at her, pushing her down the full flight. She was a mess, battered beyond belief. She did not miscarry, but months later gave birth to a severely developmentally disabled baby. If her life had been, to say the least, painful and difficult before, now it was a living horror. She was continually threatened, abused, debased and lived in constant fear and terror. She once again decided that she had to find a way to leave.
Upon asking her if she had people in her life who could have helped her and her children, she said that the few she might have turned to would most likely have "ratted her out" instead. They would have told her husband of her plan to leave.
And once again she waited for her chance. One night while her husband lay snoring and sleeping like the dead, she snuck from her bed, grabbed the baby and toddler and hurried down the stairs. She took nothing with her but the children and the clothes on their backs. She got into their old heap of a car and drove away into the night. And they drove and they drove. She knew that she had to get as far away as possible because so terrible would be his rage and so great would be his revenge if he found her.
Fact: When an individual tries to leave a domestic violence relationship, their risk of being murdered by the scorned spouse/partner increases by 75%.
Copyright: Jane Okasaki, 2011
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