Demolishing the Deadly Silence of Abuse
Fighting Forward
His hulking arm was fastened too tight 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.
His 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 that I could never get a definitive count (but it was over 20).
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 originally only “allowed” to be in because of the trouble I was having…
