A serious issue....

I Got Flowers Today

I got flowers today.
It wasn't my birthday or any other special day.
We had our first argument last night,
And he said a lot of cruel things that really hurt me.
I know he is sorry and didn't mean the things he said.
Because he sent me flowers today. 

 

I got flowers today.
It wasn't our anniversary any other special day.
Last night, he threw me into a wall and started to choke me.
It seemed like a nightmare.
I couldn't believe it was real.
I woke up this morning sore and bruised all over.
I know he must be sorry.
Because he sent me flowers today. 

I got flowers today,
and it wasn't Mother's Day or any other special day.
Last night, he beat me up again.
And it was much worse than all the other times.
If I leave him, what will I do?
How will I take care of my kids?
What about money?
I'm afraid of him and scared to leave.
But I know he must be sorry.
Because he sent me flowers today. 

I got flowers today.
Today was a very special day.
It was the day of my funeral.
Last night, he finally killed me.
He beat me to death.
If only I had gathered enough courage and strength to leave him,
I would not have gotten flowers...today.  

By Paulette Kelly 

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Does this poem make you think at all?  This woman was beaten to death by her husband but it's not the only kind of abuse that's out there.  I know.  I was a victim of one of the most subtle and horrendous forms of it: Verbal and Mental abuse.

For years of my marriage, years, I lived with a man that thought that he was the king in our house and whatever he said or did was okay.  

At our wedding he looked the pastor in the eye and asked if he had to kiss me when he was told he could.  IN front of the church, he kissed me on the cheek.  

Our first years I wouldn't have described as that bad really.  He told me I couldn't cook and set to teaching me how to cook.  In my mind then, I had been an only child that never had to touch a stove so yeah, I needed lessons in the kitchen.  I didn't like that his mother basically held me hostage teaching me his favorite meals and not letting me go untl I had done something the way she wanted it done.  I started cooking that way and he was happy.

When my son was a little less than six months I did the laundry for the first time.  I'm serious.  The first time in my life being in charge of laundry.  I bleached everything.  The problem.  My son's clothes were blue and white and my husbands uniforms were white.  I thought the bleach would keep the white parts white and the blue parts would just get clean.  I was kinda wrong.  So when I had to stand in my living room in front of his friends and take the ass reaming Randy gave me I thought it was warranted.  I even went into my own pocket and took his uniforms to the cleaners to get the blue out.  From then, I handwashed his white and he was happy.

I got pregnant with my first daughter and when I showed him the pregnancy test.  He gathered his clothes in a bag and told me he was leaving.  He called drug stores trying to see if there was a test I could be given to verify that I had been taking my birth control pills.  I was daunted.  I was horrified.

I got AOL while he was on a deployment because he requested I have an email he could email me at to give me instructions.  Well back then there was no free AOL.  You had to pay for it.  This was fine with him.  Or so I thought.  Well the account that it was linked to suddenly didn't have money in it.  It didn't for maybe three months but I didn't know this because he had the main account, I had a satellite account.    AOL got smart one month and took three months worth of their money at one shot since it was there on payday.  This caused him not to be able to get a playstation game.  The result was that he screamed at me, told me to get out, and threw my clothes into the street.  

The next morning, I was rushed to Langley Air Force Base Clinic Urgent Care.  I had taken 8 Motrin 800 mg. pills.  At the time Motrin 800 made the pain go away and made me sleepy.  At that time all I wanted was for the pain to go away and to sleep.

Two years later, we had had Olivia and we were moving to California.  We got to Chula Vista and as I was putting the crib together, it fell on my ankle and I couldn't make it move.  I screamed for hours, but Randy who was in the next room sleeping, didn't hear me.  Or so I thought.  Later he told me that he heard me.  He just didn't feel like getting up.  He only got up when the neighbors next door pounded on the door because my wailing and screaming was getting to them and they, unlike my husband, had already called 911.  It was my left ankle and it was sprained really badly.  Randy told the paramedics that I had a history of hurting myself for attention and this was probably one of those times.  The result?  I sat in the room in the ER for HOURS being ignored by the doctors because I had been labeled drug/attention seeker.

A week later, I was putting away his underwear and found a love letter from his long time friend.  I won't go into details but a few things happened.  The first was that I began to see that I was not loved.

But what could I do?  I had three children, no education and no one out in California.  So I stayed.  I took it in stride.  I even moved to a house that was seven times worse than the worst place you could put your children and call it a home.

Meanwhile the fights got worse.

By the time we moved back to Virginia, I knew it was over but now I was in a position where I could go home to my mother.  But she wasn't convinced I should do that and she urged me to stay.  Stay for my children.  

But my children were not okay.  They saw their father screaming at their mother.  They saw their mother over compensating to make their life seem okay.  They saw there mother retreat further and further into herself.  They saw me dying.

Little by little, I was dying.  I was a shell of my former self.  My weight would go up and I would withdraw further and further.  My weight would drop and he'd pay attention to me but as soon as he did, his long time friend would come back and blow my temporary paradise.  So I began to drink.  I do believe I was quickly on the verge of becoming an alcoholic at that point.

At one point.  Maybe the most vital point in my life to that point I tossed aside the motrin and reached for the hard stuff.  I called it a cocktail.  I don't even remember what I took but I know it was a handful.  I wrote my children a note apologizing to them and locked my door so that they wouldn't find me.  Randy found me.  And he gave me an ultimatum. Either I seek help or he takes my children and lables me an unfit mother and I never see them again.

Bloggers.  The thought of that man being the sole parent for my children scared the shit out of me.  What if to Gods Horror, they turned out like him.  So I did it.  I walked to the base clinic and I told them that I had just tried to commit suicide and I needed help or it would be the death of me and quite possibly my children.

I got help.  I went to Bethesda.  There I met up with Capt. Marjorie Renior.  I may never forget that name as long as I live.  She saved my life.  She asked me why I stayed.  I said because my children.  WHere would I go that I could keep my children?  She pointed out that there were government programs like Food stamps and subsidy housing that could send me to school and feed my family while I got on my feet.  

The thought of being a welfare mother horrified me.  Growing up they were the peple from the unmentionable side of the tracks.  At least that was how I grew up.  I know now that thats not true but the captain asked me one very important question after that.  

What is more important?  Living as a single welfare mom or dying as an abused wife?

From that point everything I did was in an effort to live.  Live for myself.  Live for my children.

To live.

I know you are probably sitting there reading this wondering why I am telling my story.  Why I am finally after these years saying something?

Because I have friends who are being abused both verbally and mentally and all of them say the same thing.  They can't leave or they can't leave because of the kids.

Kids adjust.  Believe me.  Kids are made of strong stuff.  They adapt no matter where they are.  Or most of them do.  If where they are now, they see Mommy being treated like dirt under someone's shoe, they grow up thinking this is okay.  Mommy stayed so it's not that bad.  But if Mommy takes them someplace and suddenly Mommy is happy and confident and more sure of herself, they're going to know, what Daddy was doing is not okay.  Daddy has serious mental issues.  True the younger they are the better the bounce back but think on this.  Teeneagers have email and phone.  They have short scant years left until they can be trusted to go visit their friends back home alone.

If you are a woman in a situation like I was and you need to get out, there are ways.  There are friends.  Get away.  

Ask yourself.  Whats better?  Living as a single mother whose children will adjust to new circumstances or dying slowly and painfully each day because you don't want to uproot your children.

If you happen to be a child or teen reading this who is watching your mom go through something like what I described, ask yourself this.

You have probably have facebook, oovoo, AIM, Yahoo, email, texting, and phone calls to keep track of your friends.  You can make friends wherever you go.  Would you rather see your mother happy, healthy, confident, and self assured away from your father, or would you rather that she stay downtrodden, moody, and stress filled with your father until you turn eighteen?  Would you feel okay risking your mom maybe doing something permanent to end her daily pain just so you can stay in the town you, a teenager, grew up in?

Ask yourself.  Who benefits?

Please.  Don't let the poem above be about you or your mother.  

Single and Blogging is begging you.   Do something.  Get out.  Get away.