Davine

By Sarah A. Raskin and Davine Lynnette Mason

***Content warnings: Intimate partner violence; brain injury****

I don’t remember the surgery. I don’t remember the recovery. I don’t remember if anyone came to see me. I don’t remember any of that. First thing I remember, hmmm, the first thing I remember is waking up to my daughter giving me a kiss yesterday.

My memory works day by day. My kids can jog my memory. My kids say “do you remember?” and sometimes I do. But the memories are not a constant thread. They aren’t connected like they used to be.

To go from who I was before to nothing, to sometimes I can’t even spell my own name, sometimes I have even forgotten my kids’ names. I’ll forget birthdays. I find myself standing and staring blankly at people as they tell me stories that I should know, naming people and asking me if I know them. At times I’ve said yes, knowing full well I didn’t have a clue who was being talked about. Recently my good friend called. I had not heard her voice for a while. I was on the phone for 15 minutes before I knew who she was. I had to keep listening for key words, hints, to grab who I was talking to. I’ll forget if I have to go to the store for something. Even in the store, if I didn’t write it down, I will be like “what did I come in here for?” I can be in the middle of a sentence, knowing I need to tell you something, and I end up having to cut people off because if I don’t say it right away, I won’t remember what I had to tell you. I have lived here all my life and I don’t remember where streets are, or how to find places. I want to drive, but I am scared to. If I didn’t have navigation on my phone, I don’t think I would go anywhere. If it wasn’t going from here to my parents’ house or somewhere I am really familiar with, and even that can be a challenge so I drive less. It makes me feel worthless, which brings on the depression. I have to write everything down. I rely on my phone and writing everything down. If not, you can forget it, I won’t remember. I feel like I have the brain of an 80 year old, and I hate it. If I am like this now at 46, what will I be like if I make it to 60!

People say “don’t feel that way” and well that’s easier said than done.

***

On a test of the ability to pay attention, Davine scored 7 out of 12. On a test that asked her to remember a list of 12 words, she could remember 5 after hearing the list the first time. After hearing the list three times she could remember only 6 words and her recall was unreliable, in that she repeated several of the words more than once. After a brief delay she could only retain 4 words. However, when given a longer list of words and asked if each item was on the original list (requiring her to recognize the words rather than recall them), she could accurately recognize 10 of the 12 words with no errors. On a test that required her to inhibit her natural response — she was asked to state the color of the ink that words were written in rather than reading the words — she was slower than most women her age. In other words she was shown a page of words that listed color names “blue, green, red, etc” but each word was written in a different ink color (“blue” was written with green ink) and she has to say the ink color rather than read the word. She could do this accurately but took longer to do it than was expected. When asked to list as many animals as she could in 60 seconds, any kind of animals, she was able to name 16. The average for women her age would be somewhere between 30 and 50 names.

The most common cognitive effects of brain injury from intimate partner violence are memory loss, mental fatigue, and confusion, difficulty following directions, difficulty retaining information, difficulty concentrating, inability to initiate self-directed behavior, and difficulty with abstract thinking.

Davine speaks with her chin up and her inner strength is immediately apparent. But when she speaks about her children, her smile spreads quickly across her face. When she speaks of the night she was injured, she stops trying to fight back the tears.

***

The brain injury I have, I was struck over the middle of my head with a 2x4, so my head was split open. That is where my memory loss comes from. I don’t know how long I was unconscious. Nobody would know that. I was out of it and the person who did this, I don’t know. I don’t remember how long I was in the hospital.

***

Early one morning Davine heard a noise on the stairs. She turned on a light and saw him, her ex-partner, in the stairwell with a stick and a gun. He proceeded to beat her friend who was staying at the house. Davine’s son interrupted him and Davine tried to run out of the house. Her ex-partner grabbed her by the hair and dragged her back upstairs. That is when he beat her over the head with the stick. Because there was blood everywhere he ordered her to take a shower, but she could no longer stand and just slumped in the bathtub. He moved her downstairs and lay her down on a sleeping bag. She pleaded with him to call 911. He agreed if she promised not to tell the police that it was him that beat her. She agreed and he drove her to the hospital.

***

It is so painful to think about that night. I saw him on the stairs. And then he struck me over the head with a 2x4. There was blood everywhere. I was in and out of consciousness. At one point he had me in the bathtub. I woke up at the house at one point, once he realized the damage that was done. I guess he saw the injuries and realized “look what I done did.” I told him I have to go to the hospital. I can remember that. He had me in the bathtub with the water running. He was like “you just have to make one promise, that you won’t tell the police.” So I was like “yeah” if that is going to get me there.

***

Davine was admitted to the emergency department. There is no record of a Glasgow Coma Scale score. Her scalp laceration was stapled. A non-contrast CAT scan of the head and cervical spine was performed. A moderate sized focal soft tissue swelling was noted in the left parietal skull with suggestion of laceration and a few air lucencies. There was no abnormality in the ventricles, cisterna, posterior fossa, sela turcica region, visualized part of orbits and paranasal sinuses. There was no intracranial hemorrhage, mass lesion, fracture, or mass-effect or midline shift. In other words, there were no signs of bleeding or swelling of the brain itself. What this indicates is that she did not have any evidence of brain injury on the computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan, this classifies her injury as a mild brain injury although it is impossible to know since there is little data on the amount of time she was unconscious.

Brain injuries are classified as mild, moderate, or severe based on one of a number of different rating scales. In general these scales involve measuring the amount of time someone is unconscious, whether there is evidence of brain trauma on measures such as CAT scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and the symptoms the person experiences after the injury. These symptoms can be physical (headache, nausea, vomiting, double vision, tinnitus), cognitive (changes in attention, memory, executive functioning), or emotional (depression, anxiety, increased anger).

Davine was seen that same day by a psychiatrist who noted “the patient was doing well, however, due to the psychological stress she underwent due to the assault, being held at gunpoint…” she was given a prescription for Ativan, to be taken as needed, and told to follow up should she develop any symptoms of depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. She was also given a prescription for Percoset. The only follow up appointment made was to get the staples removed.

Thus, after experiencing a highly traumatic event and a potential brain injury, she was sent home the same day with no follow-up planned for either psychiatric or neurologic complications. Not surprisingly, her trauma from intimate partner violence did not start that night, but this does not seem to have been explored by any of the health care providers that saw her. Davine experienced domestic violence for 9 years. This included verbal and physical abuse. She has been thrown against the wall striking her head and causing whiplash, strangled repeatedly, and hit in the head with fists and a stick.

Intimate partner violence can cause not only immediate injuries but is associated with chronic physical disorders, such as chronic pain, hypertension, and gastrointestinal disorders. There is also evidence of increased risk of neurological complications, such as stroke. These chronic illnesses may be especially high in ethnic minority women due to lack of access to services and other social determinants. Thus, accurate diagnosis and management are important.

The most common areas of the body injured in are the head and neck from a direct blow to the head. And in individuals with multiple areas of injury, head and neck injuries were present in a majority of cases. Therefore, it is not surprising that significant, possibly repeated, injuries to the head could result in traumatic brain injury.

In addition to blows to the head, brain trauma can also be the result of shaking, or strangulation. Anoxia due to strangulation is a less commonly addressed mechanism of brain injury but the reported prevalence of strangulation is high. Recent publications have reported survivors who have been strangled to be 83% -89%.

Intimate partner violence with or without brain injury can lead to depression, anxiety, irritability and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. While it is difficult to tease out the cause of cognitive deficits as being directly related to brain trauma versus secondary to disorders such as depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), there is evidence to suggest that both contribute.

***

My emotions go all over the place because the brain injury makes me feel so worthless. I am not the same woman I used to be. My field is customer service and executive work. I was an Executive Administrative Assistant for the president of a large national company. Then this happened and I took time off. I went back to work as the Executive Administrative Assistant for the vice president of another large company. I was making a great salary and that was 10–15 years ago. After the brain injury I was doing a temp job in a file room. There were three of us, and I remember the other two people took a break. Next thing I know I am being wheeled out on a stretcher. They found me in the back on the floor. I guess I had a seizure. You talk about being embarrassed. All of these people looking at me. Now I can’t work. I receive $478 from the state. I am grateful, please don’t get me wrong but….we can’t live on that. It puts pressure on my parents, and they don’t understand why that makes me feel like crap. I have been denied over and over for disability because they say my disability isn’t severe enough and I should get any job no matter how low the pay, and then have to pay for someone to care for my children. In front of the doctors I had two more seizures. And still they won’t give me disability. I can’t get any help.

***

She is currently experiencing anxiety, nightmares, intrusive thoughts, and has considered suicide. She also reports an increase in fatigue, irritability, sensitivity to noise and light, difficulty with balance, and dizziness. When asked to rate her headaches on a scale of 1=mild and 7=extreme, she gives them a 10 and says they sometimes last for days.

***

I received no treatment, just sent me home. Went home to my parents and then my kids. They just throw you to the wolves. Just leave you. Even with the counseling that they give. I broke down quite a few times. Severe anxiety and depression. I tried to commit suicide. Because you are left to yourself, me with these kids. Being at the psychiatric hospital did not make things any better. You don’t get help over there. I was locked up each time for two weeks. You are locked up. You are on a floor with a bunch of other people who need help. The rooms after a certain time you are locked in. You are like a caged animal. They let you out in the morning. There is a shared TV and shared telephones. There is a guard at the front desk. They hand you your medications. You can’t get out. You have group meetings with all of these other individuals. They will bring a doctor in to review a treatment plan. I stayed in my room. Every day that I was there, I wasn’t expecting visitors, but every day I would have a visitor, my daddy. He would just sit there for the whole hour. Just sit there with me. Before they leave this earth they are going to be proud of me.

The only other therapy was for the seizures. I got grand mal seizures after the injury. I take medications. How do I remember to take my medications? My kids. Especially my 9 year old. She worries more than I do. She is going to my parents’ house tonight. So, she says “because sometimes you don’t remember, I am putting out your medicine for tonight and tomorrow. We can’t have you forgetting.” So she put it right next to my bed. I don’t have as many breakthrough seizures as I used to. At one point I was having 3–4 a day. Now it has been a few months since my last seizure. My main way to cope is relying on my kids.

***

The grand mal seizures suggest that she did experience a brain injury that night, as they are a common sequelae and she did not have them beforehand. Hospital records indicate that she was taken to the same hospital status post grand mal seizure on two later occasions over the next ten years. In these records her past medical history is noted to be traumatic brain injury and seizure disorder.

Women who experience intimate partner violence are likely to experience repeated head trauma over months to years. Just as with concussion, there is a chance for these brain injuries to be cumulative. Like many women in this situation, Davine had many reasons for staying even after repeated injuries.

***

I have 9 year-old twins, a 17 year old going off to college, a 21 year old, a 22 year old and a 26 year old. At the time they were little. This was years ago. And you want to do right by the kids. I want my kids to have their parents. I am listening to him saying I am never going to do it again. One day I can remember, there was one time when I was pregnant he put his hands on me. My mother, she had had enough, she put me in her car and drove me over to her house, I just remember her losing it. And you would think that after that I would leave him. But I still didn’t leave. The reason why I didn’t leave is, I am one of those people, I see the good in everybody. I can see that spark in you. I can see goodness in you, even when everyone else sees evil. I see the evil, too, but I see the spark of good and I think — I can get that out of them. I don’t want to just desert a person, because I know how it feels to be deserted. By the time I pour everything I have into you, you will never be able to say I didn’t give you my all. That’s just how I am. I saw what he didn’t have. I knew how he was raised. And I am like “I just can’t leave this man.” That’s just who I am. I know he can be a great man. I know he has that potential. I can show him what it feels like to be treated like a king, and maybe he will step up.

***

He was sentenced to 28 years. They are still in contact and provide each other mutual support.

I forgive my children’s father totally for what he’s done. I don’t blame him. I do but I don’t. Because he went through abuse as a child himself. He saw his mom being abused. How can I hold it against him when he was repeating what he saw? I lost a lot. I have lost everything because he decided to be a jackass. He really took everything from me. But he is in prison now, and he is saved. With all his heart, he is truly sorry for what he has done. When we were together, part of the reason I stayed with him was because I could see the good in him that he could not see in himself. But once he went into prison, he began to try to heal me. He was sending me books on healing and saying “just hold on because you know who you are.” I have learned to forgive him but I do not forgot and I do not condone.

***

She did reach out to law enforcement in hopes that they would protect her when the violence was overwhelming.

***

Trying to get help with the police, puhhhlease. They don’t make it easy for women to try to get help and to reach out. Police were called the first time and nothing happened. I don’t know if after that it is because I went back to him, but a lot of women do go back. But the police are looking at your track record, they kind of not taking things seriously. Or if they do come out, they may just write up a report and say-“use this case number, call the courts in the morning.” Then when you use the case number they take forever to come back out because they are looking at the track record. Sometimes they don’t even come back out at all. Oh, you have a restraining order? There’s really nothing that we can do. You feel ashamed and even more of a victim. It’s very embarrassing and it hurts when those who are paid to protect are some of the very ones hurting you.

A lot of people think coming from a Black family that good families do not exist. They think middle class, upper middle class families do not exist. But yes we do. I come from a good home, my parents are well educated, they have been married 47 years, we had plenty of everything.

I was not raised in a situation with abuse. How I got into it, I have no idea. I often ask how did I get into this situation? How am I going to get out of this situation? Am I even worthy enough to get out of this situation? What about me was not good enough for this man? I am not beautiful enough? Is it my body? What is it? But I am always there for everybody else but not for me. My best friend told me, Lynn, you make it so hard for people to love you because you run away. I am still trying to believe I am worthy of love. And many domestic violence survivors do not feel worthy of love — what was it about me that made me go through all of this. My kids were watching this the whole time They were always there watching this, the good and the bad.

I didn’t come from this. I never saw this coming. When I was in it, why didn’t I get out? I couldn’t get out. I didn’t know how. I thought I wanted to have two parents together for my kids, I wanted my kids to have both their mother and their father like I did — at least that’s what I told myself. Now I know it’s what I told myself to keep me in the relationship. But it’s just like, what did it leave me with-nothing-hurt. I was just like “enough is enough.” Get out of it. And I left. Then there was just this one last situation. A very traumatic incident.

I still don’t have money or an income. My parents are taking care of us. My poor parents. Every time I was in the psychiatric hospital, my dad was there visiting. They told me not to go with this man. If I had only listened. But I am free from that now. And before my parents leave this earth I want to say “I got you.” The vision that I have is that I will one day be taking care of them!

I have a mission. I have a calling. You have some women you have to go out there and get. I have three daughters that are looking at me. My nine year old tells me to look in the mirror and say “I am strong. I am a powerful Black woman.” And with tears in my eyes, whether I believe it or not, I repeat the words with her. Actually, I know for a fact, if you say it enough times, you will believe it. This Princess helped me with severe depression just by speaking life into me! A CHILD! MY CHILD! It is time for me to get out of my own way, and get to the women that need me. My dream, my calling, is to open up a Life Center. I don’t mean a domestic violence shelter, we already have those. A Life Center for women and children, to save them from going through like me. Save them from feeling like they have nowhere to go, or anyone that’s going to understand them. saving them from having to feel stuck like they have to stay. They don’t have to wind up like me. I will see a referral, I don’t care if it is at 12:00, 1, 2, I don’t care if she is in Alaska! Bring her in and we will have resources, emergency resources are going to be there. We are going to house them and resources will be there. The women are going to be fragile, in a mental state. I will work to build them back them up, to let them know you can do things, so they don’t have to rely on these men. Some of these women don’t have support or families to turn to, so we will be there for them and for their children. They don’t have other supports. They don’t have the housing, or jobs or funding, they don’t even know where to begin. That’s where we come in to help them. I will be there to get there and guide you, but you will have to do it yourself. Just to help them figure out where to start. At some point in time they need to learn how to fly. That’s what my program is for. I refuse to be another statistic, I choose to be a light to guide others, to help others.

I tried counseling, I told the therapist, have you ever gone through anything like this? Has anyone ever whooped you? You can’t meet me on my level. I needed someone who could meet me right where I was at with compassion and understanding. Someone you are supposed to trust that is supposed to love you, they hurt you and violated you, I understand.

My corporation I just started. I used to have anxiety and panic fearing death. But I know God gave me this assignment, so I don’t worry about death anymore. I have a jewelry business and a marketing and travel business, so that I can leave a legacy for my kids and so I can be there for the ladies who need me. I love encouraging people. What you see is what you get! I believe I was allowed to go through this situation — this test so that I’d have a testimony. I am now fully ready to fulfill my God given purpose here on earth. Mental and physical scars and all. NO, this is not what I dreamed, thought, or ever signed up for, but I’m now ready and equipped to walk it with you.

We have our issues but mine is a family full of love. We are there for one another. We are very tight.

Published in Buffalo, Buffalo, Buffalo, Trinity College, Volume 2, Fall 2022.