Memories? Domestic violence has no end
The first memory I have in life is lying on a kitchen table screaming in pain while my mother held my bloody foot and my father wrapped tape around it to close the wound.
I had snuck a cookie out of the cookie jar against my father’s wishes and, to teach me a lesson, he beat me with a wooden hanger until it fell apart and the nails holding it together ripped a gash across my right foot.
I learned later that my father refused to take me to a hospital because he did not want to answer questions as to how it happened — and my mother did not dare defy him.
That is what it is like growing up in a domestic violence household, where fists and fear keeps your lips shut and prayers go unanswered.
I write often about domestic violence and how it affected me and my family in more ways than anyone can imagine.
Although I have dropped plenty of hints when writing about my life since becoming a columnist, I have never really opened up about how domestic violence left me emotionally and mentally crippled. .
I am still reluctant to write about it, but, it suffices to say that since I lay on that table with my small foot torn apart and the trauma that followed, I have been battling PTSD.
I sought help many, many times to fix a broken mind that had completely collapsed, but it didn’t take long to realize that if I was going to have any kind of mental stability, I had to build myself back up because the resources were not there to help me.
But like any layman doing a job outside his expertise, not all the pieces came together in a tidy package for the big reveal. There always was and always will be missing parts, but it was the best I could do and I know I could have turned out so much worse.
So, this isn’t a column about domestic violence as much as it is a plea to get mental health treatment to kids who have experienced and witnessed domestic violence.
Because the long road to heal the mental trauma lies ahead of them.
Earlier this week at a rally on the New Haven Green, a speaker called domestic violence “the longest pandemic in history.”
I don’t recall her name but when she talked about the long-term trauma domestic violence causes, she found a kindred spirit among the approximate 50 people at the rally.
Nothing prepares any kid for the emotional distress they feel listening to the sound of his or her mother screaming as she is beaten. There is nothing you can do except sit and wait for it to be over — and pray you are not next.
I don’t know which was worse: hearing the screams, seeing my downtrodden mother’s despair when it was all over, or feeling guilty because I was glad that this time he
left me alone.
More than 5 million children every year witness domestic violence — and those disturbing images and the booming rage that accompanies them are on a reel that replays over and over as their brains are developing and soaking up lessons.
And as that reel plays, many children of domestic violence mentally retreat and even hide from themselves.
It’s been about 58 years since my mother gathered her courage and left behind a husband and his paycheck and entered a world hostile to single mothers and their children.
I don’t think anyone
looking had anything good to say about our mother as they saw us huddled in abandoned doorways, sleeping on park benches or dragging our meager belongings in garbage bags behind us as we searched for shelter, day and night.
But what they didn’t know was that she was saving our lives, and her seven children have never forgotten.
Domestic violence is the defining element that created me and would determine the path I would be on for the rest of my life.
And I would be lying if I said it didn’t continue to haunt me.
Every time another woman dies violently at
the hands of her spouse; every time I hear a child crying or see them being hit; every time I see a child with a far-away stare and defensive posture; and every time a child dies by the hand of his or her parent, I am transported back in time.
And I remember, in
America, no one hears abused kids screaming — until it is too late.
Whether it is happening in upscale communities or on the streets in New Haven, the madness of domestic violence is on the rise — and deadlier than ever.
It took a long time, but I am now able to smile when I look at the 1-inch scar my father put on my foot 64 years ago when I was 3 years old.
It had always served as a grim reminder of the abuse — but now, it serves as a triumphant symbol of my long journey because I survived.
And maybe that is why it didn’t fade as it healed, even as the skin on my foot withered with age around it.
The road is tough but you can survive domestic violence. You can move beyond it and live with the scars. You can take what is broken and mend it.
But it is a journey like no other.
Memories? Domestic violence has no end.