Early years

A bit on crazy making They do it, sometimes its very subtle, sometimes out and out intimidation. A brutal act of violence and then days of apologies and always the attention. They know how to manipulate you, they know how to judge your actions and your moods, as well as you do their it’s a form of brain washing, mind control on a very vicious level.

I was always trying to figure out how, why this man could say he loved me and the children, yet do the things he did. Taking money that was needed for food and caring for the family and spending it on his needs for drugs and alcohol. Did I enable this behavior, yes, I felt I had to. If I did not, I would reap the abusive behaviors, my children, my home would be at risk, I always wanted it as calm in the home as possible for them, but I always minimized the affects so to ease the pain in my mind.

Why doesn’t she just leave. I did, more than once. On average a woman in an abusive relationship will leave several times before she finally gets away. The longest separation, during the last few years of marriage was 7 months. The first few times I left when we were first married, before children, I would call my mother, she would come and get me. On one occasion, my ex followed us and raced ahead of us, parking horizontally in the middle of the highway. My mother was terrified. I never called her again. After one particularly brutal attack, I think I was in shock for a few days, by then it had calmed down, I had forgotten the pain and he was being loving and nice. These are the times I am sure I have dreams of, often waking up wanting to fist the wall. During these times in the early years, I was so depressed and desperate to get away I tried suicide, I purchased a 100 tablet bottle of over the counter sleeping pills and a pop and went to the lake and took nearly all of them, big big mistake. I was able to drive home, my ex called my mother and then they called and ambulance, I was taken to the hospital. luckily they didn’t have to pump my stomach. My ex never ever asked me why, or talked about it again. Now, I was giving up hope of ever being free. A few months after that incident, my ex was in an accident, and the relationship changes again.

It was winter, cold and snowy, we always had older used cars, but my husband had always been able to keep them running and maintained. During our early years of marriage we had a different car every year or less. He was working on the old station wagon we had. We were at his best friend Willie Horn, they were drinking Boone’sfarm wine and beer, smoking and laughing, working on the car. My ex tells me to go ahead and lay down on the couch inside and we will be leaving soon. I was exhausted, it was 2AM, I just wanted to go home. I go inside and try to rest with my coat on.

6AM, Willie comes out of the kitchen; “Where’s Jimmy?” we race out to the garage. We go in through the side door, its choking us both, I run back in and call 911, Willie opens up the garage door, Jimmy is in the car, his head slumped back and snoring as loud as I had ever heard him before. We manage to pull him out and tried to wake him up. Water, slapping, yelling, nothing was getting any response. It seemed like an eternity, the ambulance came. They couldn’t wake him up either, we followed to the hospital.

There maybe some brain damage the doctors said, he was exposed for nearly 4 hours, carbon monoxide poisoning. We had now been married 4 years. I am hopeful this will get him to change his drinking and drug abuse, that I was blaming all the emotional and physical abuse on. That next year was the year of silence.