Demolishing the deadly silence of abuse: Fighting forward

His hulking arm was fastened too tightly around my hip; eyes shamelessly absorbing anything that happened on my phone’s screen. Always searching for the next imagined slight against him, when in reality he was the one who was regularly, and unapologetically, unfaithful.

Bulbous fingers constantly itched to stroke the bulge of metal barely hidden by his inflating beer gut. His favorite tools of violence: gun, beer, and cock, were within arms reach at all times, making it painfully clear there was no escape. Additional firearms were hidden in every room of the house, like some nightmarish NRA-sponsored Easter egg hunt.

So many guns (over 20) that I could never get a definitive count.

I was marionetted around, bending over backward to cover for my narcissistic puppeteer’s bigoted “jokes”, his explosive jealousy, his violent streaks of anger. Every moment was a potential eruption. I crept around on eggshells, hoping to avoid setting him off while knowing it was inevitable.

Any passwords protecting my personal information or conversations were relinquished. I couldn’t even keep a physical journal about how scared I was because he regularly snooped through my things. Even in therapy (which I was only “allowed” to be in because of the trouble I was having “getting over” his infidelity), I felt compelled to lie, softening his edges, too terrified of what would happen to me if my therapist hotlined us. I was completely isolated, without the benefit of ever actually having a moment alone.

Securing my silence was a stifling combination of shame, fear, dissociative amnesia, and the sickening knowledge that every law enforcement agency in the area was already aware of, and apparently unmoved by, his violent tendencies. I imagined someone seeing through the act, into the nightmare that had become my daily reality. Yet for so many reasons, I couldn’t fathom the fantasy of someone actually stepping in.

Coping after escape

Years after escaping that relationship and moving across the country to reclaim a feeling of safety, my brain still routinely sounds the alarm that my abuser is still with me, just out of sight. My amygdala operates on overdrive as a default, in a near-constant state of stress response. Because my brain is typically busy screaming at me that I’m in danger, I’m plagued with focus and short-term memory issues. A dull ache feels permanently lodged behind my left eye as a result of adrenaline-fueled racing thoughts. Crowds are overstimulating to the point I find them physically painful. As a result of the gaslighting I experienced, I often doubt my own reality and feelings. I battle insomnia at night and exhaustion during the day.

So much of my current life is shaped around the symptoms of what I now know to be Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), but you would never guess my diagnosis by looking at me. Not even when you consider that over 1 in 3 women in the US experience rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner.

We all know someone who has been impacted by domestic violence; we just aren’t often aware of it. It’s common for people to have a certain picture in their head of an abuse victim with one-size-fits-all characteristics or behaviors, but this is simply not true. We are not a monolith.

Even if someone appears to be thriving in their personal and professional life, they may be privately struggling. This is why it’s crucial to create a safe and supportive environment for both current trauma victims and survivors to feel comfortable opening up about their experiences.

It’s not easy to admit I was in an abusive relationship for five years. While logically I know the brutality wasn’t my fault, there’s still a lot of residual shame when I think of the ways my abuser controlled me and how long it took me to escape.

I was inspired to write about my experience in part because of how uncomfortable it made anyone I tried to confide in. An extremely common abuse tactic is isolating victims from loved ones, and we play right into their hands by not learning and addressing signs of abuse when we see them. We don’t want to risk an uncomfortable conversation, so we ignore the warning signs.

The silence of victims and survivors is a learned defense mechanism, one that highly benefits abusers and contributes to massive underreporting. We encourage this silence societally, however unintentionally, by our unwillingness to address it. But I, for one, am sick of feeling complicit in helping abusers hide their cruelty behind closed doors.

Silence is killing us. Let’s talk about it.