In Their Own Words

By Pam Harding

All the women I interviewed for my book thought of themselves as an “unsafe woman”. They all had strong statements and emotions around fear and safety. Some of them felt that they would never again feel totally safe or unafraid, while others had achieved a certain sense of peace... at least most of the time. But all of them knew what it was like to live with either physical or psychological fear for long periods of time.

Here they are four unsafe women in their own words...

Nora’s Story

Safety is still a big issue for me. In fact, I often felt so unsafe around my husband that I slept in a closet for awhile.

Once you've been in a relationship like that, you always worry about your safety, and the safety of your kids.

And even though it's been several years since I was in an abusive relationship, I don't really feel safe even now. I mean, I'm always watching, always wondering, always thinking to myself, 'When will the other shoe drop ... when will I see him out of the corner of my eye?' Fear has just become a part of my life. I have to worry whether my daycare provider will release my son to the wrong person, or whether my boss will let me leave on the spur of the moment to protect my boy.

Years ago, I moved to California to get away from my husband. But he found us, and he took my son back to his home state. That was a long time ago, but even now I can't fall sleep without worrying whether the windows are all locked and whether my kids are safe. In fact, I've gotten used to sleeping a kind of half-sleep where I drift off but can still hear little things that go on around the house.

I don't think my life will always be like this. I mean, I hope not. I do see rainbows somewhere down the line. But there's always going to be the issue of safety. Always.

Carla's Story

I moved to Reno to be close to my parents, and then I put an ad in the paper for roommates. That's how I met Bobby. After awhile, we fell in love. We spent every day together. It was everything that a 24-year old girl would imagine love would be. But it got scary very quickly.

Bobby worked at one of the casinos doing stand-up comedy. What I didn't know was that he was an alcoholic with a horrible gambling addiction. He covered it up pretty well, but I found out. Then the violence came. In the midst of all this, 1 got pregnant. In a fit of rage one night, Bobby threw me down a flight of stairs and broke my arm. Another time, he fractured my jaw.

Two weeks after I gave birth, Bobby shook the baby violently. I rushed him to the hospital and, thank God, he was fine. It was the last time Bobby ever got to see our son. I had the sheriff come out and take him away, and I changed the locks. After that, I only saw Bobby in court.

I did whatever I could to get away from him. Moved four times in two years, changed phone numbers five or six times, and I sought help from a domestic violence agency. Even now, after 10 years, I know Bobby is trying to find me, still stalking me. Of course, now I live in a different state, but my experience changed me forever. The way I look at the world ... the way I think ... where I go. Because of the stalking, and because of the violence, and because of the injuries, I think my level of fear will never change. It hasn't so far. I've just learned to live with it. I still won't go out anywhere without large crowds around me, and it took a while before I could even do that. And I still look for Bobby out of the corner of my eye. To this day, if I see a man with sandy blonde hair and the same build, my heart stops. I clench my son's hand. I want to run. But I force myself to look closer and say to myself, 'OK, it's probably okay.' It's these kinds of feelings that never leave.

My biggest fear - an ache, really - is that something would happen to my son, Christian. That Bobby would find us and take my boy away. Bobby is a charming manipulative abuser, and once he tried to take my child away from me through court proceedings. Thank goodness, the judge saw right through him. But that time in court was still a life changing event for me."

Ava’s Story

I was 18 when I met John. I was an accident about to happen, or maybe I was an accident already happening. Anyway, we had two children right away, and then a child a year for four years. The abuse started after his Mother died. He said I was always nagging, that I wanted too much. He was either putting me down or he was gone. Then he started having affairs. I kicked him out and I lived just with the children for eight months. Then he came back. We were going to try and make it work. Then our son died. John moved out two years later.

The kids and I moved to a different place. He came by one day and started throwing things around in the house and call me names. I went next door and told my neighbor, “Come quick. John is going to kill us.” So he came over. I got in my car and had all of the children with me. I backed out of the driveway and started up the hill, but John drove after us. His bumper would tap my bumper, and he would push my car faster. Then he would back off and then bump my car again. And you know what the crazy thing about it is? Instead of stopping the car and screaming to the neighbors to come and get this bastard, I was embarrassed they would see what was happening. All I could think was, “What were the neighbors going to think?”

Lynette's Story

I left my husband five times in 17 years. I always walked on eggshells around him because I never knew what would set him off.

And then we would argue. We called them 'arguments,' but they almost always involved property damage – holes in the wall, or damage to the furniture, TV, radio, telephones.

My most severe physical assault happened about six months after we separated. That day, my husband came to the house for my daughter's birthday. We argued. It escalated. Before you know it, I was on the floor and he was on top of me, and our second daughter had to pry him off. I remember looking in the mirror and seeing a bruise in the shape of a hand-print on my jaw, and there were other bruises on my head and neck. For days, people would look at my bruises with a what's-wrong-with-you look. Nobody asked, 'What happened, or are you okay, or what's going on?' They just looked at me like they thought I had a disease. I felt so alone. Some days, I don't know how I lived through it. Fortunately, my mother was able to hire a lawyer.

Raising the kids on my own was tough. I had to learn how to set rules, how to set boundaries, and how to uphold those boundaries.

When my kids got mad at me and say, 'Oh, I'm gonna go live with Dad,' I'd say, 'That's not an option. You're staying here, and those are the rules.'

Back then, I just constantly talked to my kids. I'd say, 'Look, I made mistakes, my marriage didn't make it, and it's okay because I'm learning from those mistakes.

My kids taught me what I needed to know. They taught me it doesn't matter what I say, it matters what I do. They taught me that if I'm truthful they'll be truthful, and that role-modeling is everything. When I realized that, whatever he said or did, their father was not going to be emotionally available for his children. That's when I realized they deserved at least one parent who cared about them.

One of the parts that really triggered me leaving him for good was the realization that I was becoming more like him. That isn't who I wanted to be, and I was determined that it wasn't who I would be. So, to save myself – whatever was left, anyway – I had to leave that situation.