I Am Sam: One Survivor's Story of Healing After Domestic Violence

I Am Sam

Content Warning: This story includes graphic descriptions of domestic violence and may be triggering

That is me, Sam, short for Samantha.  This is a condensed version of my journey through domestic violence and my path to healing.  Violence can come in various forms.  In the world of abuse that I was in, it seemed there was no end to the forms of abuse that I suffered.

There was physical, psychological, mental, verbal, sexual, and emotional abuse.  That is a lot of abuse, plain and simple.  How did this, how could this, have happened to me?  I am not a stupid person by any means. I was raised in a loving, caring, and nurturing home.  I had no idea there were such awful things in the world.

Abusers have pretty much the same M.O., meaning that they all follow the same play book.  They start off so loving and caring.  My abuser whisked me off my feet! I didn’t know it at the time, but I was prime pickings for him.  I had left a marriage of ten years and was working three jobs to support myself and my children.  My first marriage left me financially ruined in every aspect.  I had been struggling for the past year to get back on track, treading water faster and faster to keep afloat.

I was showered with compliments about how beautiful I was, what great kids I had, what a hard worker I was.  He listened to my life stories with rapt attention, asking all the appropriate questions.  I thought to myself, “My heavens! How did I get so lucky?"  Not only was he handsome, strong, independent, but he cared about me and my life, my family!  The romance moved quickly.  Before I knew what was happening, he asked me to move in with him, kids and all!  We were going to be a great family. I was in heaven.

My place in heaven didn’t last too long.  There had been signs, yet I chose to see them not as red flags, but instead as a man that cared for me, wanted me to feel safe, protected.  I no longer need to work three jobs because he would help support me.  At his urging, I sold my house.

I was now financially dependent on him.  At the time, I didn’t see it that way.  I saw it as one less headache.  I didn’t have to keep renting my place out and find suitable renters. As it was, the last renters had to be evicted. Now there were legal bills on top of all my other bills. 

There were subtle things along the way that I should have noticed, but I attributed it as growing pains, so to speak.  I saw it as part of the process of us all getting use to each other.  The kids were being enrolled in new schools and making new friends, I got a new job. We were trying to make this house our home. There was an enormous amount of stress for all of us.   Little things became big things: that toothpaste left in the sink after the kids used it, the backpacks left here or there, showers that were perceived as too long.

I quickly realized I needed to be better at just about everything.   I was in the early stages of becoming “off balanced.”  I didn’t know that at the time, however.  I thought I was just in the throes of becoming a blended family, adjusting to everything new for me and the kids.

I became hyper vigilant, without knowing what that was or looked like.  These were all new feelings for me.  Each day something new was added to the list of things that were not permissible, things that made my husband angry.  Each day I had to remember all the different rules that were put into place by him.   By the end of a week, there was a lot to remember.  At the end of a month, six months, a year, there were too many rules to count.

This is how it began.  It is not where it ended.  As time marched on, I became less and less of the person I was.   I became a shell of the loving, caring person I had been.  I was demoralized, dehumanized.  I was thrown against walls, picked up by the neck and thrown against a car, strangled to the point of almost blacking out and what I thought was sure to be my death.   I was tossed out of vehicles and left alone and afraid miles from home in the middle of the night.  I had to find a place to hide until daylight so I could walk the long-distance home.  There was hiding in the house, hiding outside the house.  My shoulders still give me trouble to this day from being slammed onto the floor, having my arms pulled so violently behind me that I thought they would rip out of their sockets.  Trying to get away from him was next to impossible.  He was fast and agile.  I never knew what to expect, or when.  I always fought back, but I paid a hefty price for that.  He was too large and powerful for me. I could not fight him.  The pain inflicted when I fought back became worse, the hold became tighter, or grinding my face into the carpet became longer. 

When there wasn’t physical abuse there was always, always, always, the verbal assaults.  There were the threats, the meanness, the insidious rage that was inside of him; the vile things that came out of his mouth were unlike anything I had ever known.  Many times, over the years, when the assaults became too much for my mind to bear, I disassociated.  I didn’t know what was happening to me.  I could still hear him, see him screaming in my face, but I could no longer remember what had precipitated the assault.  I could not remember anything of what he said.  All I knew was it was vile.

Nothing was sacred: holidays, birthdays, special occasions, all ruined. The pieces of my life that once held such joy and beauty were now in ruins.  I was so lonely, so terrified, I felt I had no place to turn.   My shame, embarrassment, humiliation was so great.  All I wanted to do was die. 

So fast forward to the present.  My abuser died about five years ago.  It wasn’t until a year ago that the flashbacks started.  My hyper vigilance was going crazy.  The nightmares were horribly real.  I would wake up screaming.  Again, I was alone. No one knew of my horrid past, my horrible life, or the shame that I felt. 

I went to my doctor for something, I don’t even remember what it was for.  He asked me if everything was okay as I seemed a bit off. Not my usual happy, go lucky self, I started to cry.  He let me work through my struggle to say something.  I was finally able to say, “I need help.”   The tears came more quickly.  He told me it was okay, to take my time.  He offered such kindness, something that was foreign to me at this point.  I told him I had horrible things happen to me and I needed help.

I have just finished up a year of counseling with a wonderful man that works with people with PTSD and trauma, both of which I had.   My long journey back from abuse has not always been easy.  I had to tell a perfect stranger what was done to me, I had to learn and understand what had happened to me. 

As my therapy progressed, I learned of WomenSafe in Middlebury, VT.  How did I not know about this wonderful organization when I was going through everything?  How did I not know they would have been able to help me with housing, help me with my children? Help me regain my life.

In hindsight, I think there were a few reasons.  I was so terribly victimized that I became afraid of my own shadow.  Over the years he had proved more than once that he would, and could, follow through on his threats.  His greatest achievement was using my children as pawns.  He knew they were the dearest things in my life.  What better way than to keep me in line than to threaten me with the loss of them.  He had the means, the knowhow, and he made no bones about telling me, that he would have my children taken from me.  He was also a fairly well-known person in our small town. He left no doubt in my mind that no one would ever believe me even if I did say something.  Everyone loved him! What a great guy!

 My daily life was consumed with trying to keep him calm, keep him away from me, keep him away from my kids, juggle my job, kids, sports, everything.  I had heard about hotline numbers you could call, yet never even gave it a thought that the small town of Middlebury would have such an organization.  The flip side of that was I was also terrified that he would find out if I had called anyone for help. 

I have learned so much about domestic violence.  I now know it strikes all walks of life.  It holds no regard for race, religion, wealth or lack of wealth.  I now can see the warning signs, the red flags, not just in my own relationships with people, but in others as well.  I want to let those that don’t know about WomenSafe that it is there!  I want them to know that you can be safe, that there is a way to get help.  I want them to know there is no shame, for you are not the one that should be ashamed, it is the abuser that holds that title.