My daughters’ births helped me to leave their abusive father
Her name is Bella, and she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
She imprinted into my heart and soul the moment I held her in my arms. The nurses called her “Miss Charming”; I couldn’t agree more. With that sass and confidence, I knew she’d move mountains.
“I’m going outside for a little while”, her father casually said. He was leaving when she was born less than an hour ago! My bliss was eclipsed by the reality of the world I was bringing her into.
A world with a man who couldn’t enjoy his daughter’s entrance because he had to be high.
A world where the man I loved always chose himself over me, so how could I expect anything different with our daughter?
He looked at me with cracked red eyes.
As the door shut behind him, I felt so alone; I hated how he made me feel alone. One minute I was the most incredible human on the planet and the next I was the dust on his heels — the story of our life together.
But I didn’t know how to leave. I was in a city where I knew no one except my newborn and abusive partner. We’d arrive in Los Angeles three months ago. And I believed the litany of his verbal taunts: —
I’m not jealous, I’m just looking out for you. I love you, that’s why I get so angry. You can’t just leave me, you’re nothing without me. Every woman I’ve met wants to be with me, so don’t be stupid. Where will you go? What will you do? Who will love you? You’re damaged goods. Whore. Slut. Used up cunt. Dumbass. Bitch. I own you. You’re mine. If I kill myself it’s your fault. You don’t love me enough. You should want to do what I ask because you love me. I’ll just have to go fuck another woman to teach you a lesson. Do you know how many women want me? You’re lucky I chose you. No one else will love you knowing your past.
What he didn’t know was that I didn’t need someone to love me — I only needed to be led by the love for my daughter. And like Ashely Judd in Double Jeopardy I began training, educating and convincing myself that the only way out was my own willpower.
The ghost of me, the return of I
Bella was 7-months old when I looked in the mirror and couldn’t recognise myself. I was a voiceless ghost. Things had to change.
So I signed up for weekly counselling, thankful for insurance. He didn’t like how Bella’s crying disturbed his pot puffing, so he allowed me to go.
But I didn’t feel permitted to tell the truth, until the third week. Voicing it made me physically ill.
I thought death was the answer. But looking at my beautiful girl, I knew I could make it through one more day. And as my power returned, my counsellor and I realised what I was up against: a narcissist.
Now narcissism isn’t just someone who loves themselves a little too much. Deep down it’s an extreme insecurity and the superiority complex is to cover up self-hatred. There’s no love.
When this interferes with being a functioning adult (working, having stable relationships, managing responsibility) it’s a disorder — Narcissistic Personality Disorder. People like that only want to find a “supply” (usually an overempathetic and overgiving person), and break them until they’re just an extension of the narcissist.
A living and breathing puppet.
I’d read articles about it many times. I heard the sirens blast in my head as the telltale signs resonated with me. But I made excuses for him.
I’d become his puppet.
Taking a stand
August 1, 2016. My birthday.
I was offered a last-minute ushering gig at an awards show. It was my re-entry back into the world, untainted by him.
You see, he’d been taking credit for all my accomplishments.
He was furious. He yelled, called me names, and got his parents involved.
All because he wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on me.
Narcissists don’t want you to realise your value, which they’ve been insidiously eroding away. They don’t want other people telling you “You’re awesome!” because that undos their poisoning. My best friend — who was visiting that weekend — took Bella with her.
At work, I felt alive.
It was the first time I’d been truly away from him in a year.
But he demanded that I pay.
Games
He lied to me about a girl he’d been hanging out with.
I also found text messages from a woman he’d met at a club. “It was so nice to feel you”, it read.
I felt as though someone had injected ice into my veins and yet set my heart on fire at the same time.
This was the love-hate relationship I had.
I hated how he degraded me. Yet I loved him fiercely.
One text could make me feel so small, like I wasn’t worthy of his love.
But this was the story of our relationship — a man who jerked me around and then tugged at my heartstrings.
I’d been well primed for that.
Once upon a time, he showered me with affection and compliments. I felt special; it was merely the love-bombing that all narcissists do.
Then came the gaslighting — changing the reality I lived in.
Sometimes it’d be hopeful and bright. At other times, when I got too bold, he’d taint it with fear.
By shattering my confidence, he kept me wrapped around his finger.
But when I catered to his needs, he rewarded me with that affection I once knew. I’d think “There he is! That’s the real him”, as he told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world.
And when I stood up for myself, he’d break me, so I felt as though I needed to win him back.
Somehow it became my fault that he was cheating.
But that’s the game of the narcissist. I was always on my toes. That was the only way he could keep me playing a game I didn’t know I was part of.
What world do I want my daughter to grow up in?
I wondered what Bella would think of me when she was 16.
What would she think when she overheard her father call me a pathetic whore?
Would she assume it’s normal for a man to call a woman degrading names?
Would she end up with someone like her dad? The gentleman all the girls fawned over, but behind closed doors would tell her “Maybe if you got down on your knees more I’d actually appreciate you. I’ll find someone else to do it if you don’t. I love you and if you loved me you’d want to do it all the time.”
This thought made me sick to my stomach. I was irate at myself.
It reminded me of why I had to find the courage and make a plan to leave.
The stars aren’t aligned, the ducks aren’t in a row, but sometimes you’ve just got to go
The thing about leaving an abusive relationship is that there is never a good time.
His parents were supporting us financially.
He’d wrecked our car after quarrelling his father. I hadn’t worked in a year and all my interviews and applications were unsuccessful.
How the hell would I find a job, apartment, daycare, car, and all the resources necessary to live on my own?!
October 2016.
I cried in the bathroom of CVS when the pregnancy test showed “positive”.
I was a sad statistic about girls with daddy issues. “He does own me. Who would want a mess like me?” I thought.
“Sarah, I’m pregnant. What the hell am I supposed to do?”, I cried to my best friend.
“Hope, you have to leave.”
“I can’t do this.” I said between tears.
“Yes, yes you can, Hope. Do it for Bella. Do it for both your babies.”
Blood, tears and knives
A month later, we moved into a new apartment.
As always, he felt entitled that someone else would do the heavy lifting, while he lounged in an intoxicated haze. I dealt with the paperwork, and signed the lease as the sole renter. At counselling, I focused on safety planning.
But my Crohn’s Disease came out of remission at the time of my pregnancy, possibly due to acute stress. I’d been suffering from it for the six years, and bleeding for the past three months. Finally I went to the ER, and was hospitalised for two weeks.
“He’s killing you, Hope” my mom said to me on the phone.
“I know mom. I’m getting out, I promise.”
“Do you need me to come there?”
“No, mom, I’ve got this. His parents are coming to help and they know he needs help”, I replied.
I was determined to conquer this, and didn’t want my mother flying from Texas to get caught in the storm.
He had Bella for these two weeks. I felt agonised, but focused on healing my body, and the inflammation was treated.
His parents touched down at LAX, picked me up, and I was reunited with my little girl.
“See how she doesn’t give a shit about me” he told his parents as I embraced Bella.
He couldn’t bear not being the center of attention. So he competed with his little daughter.
“I love you Bella. I love you more than anything.” I whispered to her while I thought about how our life would look one day. Just me, her, and this new baby. The Three Musketeers.
The night before Bella’s birthday, I felt his hands on my hips and was pulled to face him.
I told him kindly I was unwell. After all, I’d been discharged less than a week ago. “You’re cheating on me aren’t you?”, he yelled, tensing his muscles with that dark look he always had in his eyes when he kept me up over nothing. That same dark look where I saw the devil.
“If you’re not fucking me, then you’re fucking someone else.” he yelled even louder. “I can’t believe this. You expect me to believe you’re not a whore like every other girl? I could have anyone I want. All I’m asking you to do is fuck me and you can’t even do that. I shouldn’t have to beg you because you’re supposed to belong to me. You’re my woman. You want to fuck my friends don’t you? I see the way you look at them. I see how you smile when they come over and talk to you. You’re such a slut. You don’t love me at all. I can’t believe I fell in love with a bitch. Just another girl who only wants me for my looks. You’re a leech. you used me.”
It’s a losing battle to reason with a narcissist. They choose what they want to believe and then run with it. They can’t feel or give love, they can only mimic.
And that’s what kept me trapped.
As an empath, I love to fix people.
I love to love people. I love to help in any way I can.
I felt empathy for him even while he destroyed me with his words.
But a narcissist always finds a way to make you feel sorry for them while they tear you apart and accuse you of the things you’re not.
This could be the rest of my life.
But I thought of sweet little Bella, asleep in the other room, her dreams disrupted by the yelling. I thought of the little one in my belly, absorbing my nervous energy. I didn’t want this new normal in my life to become theirs.
He shut himself in the closet. I saw that he’d wrapped the iron cord around his neck, choking himself. The look in his eyes was demonic. He muttered to himself, as though possessed, “She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t fucking love you!”
I grabbed my keys and jacket, ready to get Bella to leave. But he cornered me at the door.
“If you don’t love me, then there is no point in being alive”, he said, his hands shaking as he inched closer.
“If you actually want to kill yourself, you need help. If you’re just manipulating me, then you need even more help!”, my eyes darted around the room for a defence.
He grabbed a knife. “You’re going to watch me kill myself and you’ll always regret the night you didn’t just fuck me when I asked you to.”
Something inside me snapped.
“I’m calling the police.”
“You wouldn’t fucking do that”, the color drained from his face.
I did.
“My boyfriend is threatening to kill himself! Please send someone right now. He’s got a knife and keeps jerking it towards his stomach.”
“She’s lying!” he yelled, dressed frantically and left.
I locked the door.
I called his parents, who were staying in a nearby hotel. They convinced him to go for a psych evaluation. He blamed his way out
His father said, “He’s just really stressed out and not well. He told me you guys fight all the time. Maybe if you showed him more love and were less harsh he’d start to change.”
Woah, woah, woah….Are you fucking kidding me? I need to change?
His parents had experienced firsthand his suicide threats, extreme anger, mood swings and Lord knows what else. And yet, they considered me responsible?!
At that moment, I knew I had no support apart from God’s protection. It was me against the devil.
For the next month, I prayed the same prayer everyday: —
“Dear Heavenly Father, please remove him peacefully from my life. I’m done learning the lesson the person has taught me. Please show me what to do.”
Goodbye
9 January 2017.
In my nightmare, he choked me while he smiled and said “I love you”.
It was a chillingly accurate metaphor for our relationship.
Drenched in sweat, I felt prompted to look at his phone.
He was the one checking mine obsessively; perhaps it was projection. What secrets did he hide in his?
In it were Snapchats with ten different women.
On one, he wrote, “Your plastic surgery is a work of art. I want you”, complete with hearts and kissy faces.
On another, “I can’t wait to get my hands on you. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen.”
And on another, “I’ll show you a good time. Where do you want to meet?”.
It hit me that everything good I ever saw in him was an illusion.
The good man I knew during our first two months was a façade.
He didn’t exist.
He groomed me.
He only wanted my attention, adoration and love.
The moment I stood up for myself, he got bored and moved on.
I sat down under the piping hot water, and began to scrub my body clean. I cried. My heart physically hurt.
I was done loving him.
I was done mourning the loss of someone who’d never existed in the first place.
I was done getting burned.
So I woke him up and said my piece.
I told him to move out by the end of the day. He sobbed, promised he’d change, and said he was done with his secrets. He claimed I was his world.
But words are mere words. His words were never backed with action.
By then, they rang empty. Lifeless. Dead.
And the light within me shone brighter, like an unseen hand was turning up a dial.
Then his tears morphed into rage.
He wrestled me, twisted my arm, and tried to pry my phone. I managed to leave the house with Bella and had reached the sidewalk before I heard him blasting insults at me.
“You’re the worst fucking mom. Bella loves me more than she’ll ever love you. You can’t just leave with our child. You’ll fuck her up just like you’re fucked up. She’ll end up like you, loose women who will sleep with anyone. That baby in your belly means you’re mine. I’m not letting you go anywhere!”
People around noticed.
I asked him to stop following me. But he continued to yell.
A security guard noticed him, and asked if I needed help. Humiliated, I declined. But my abuser refused to leave.
I naively thought calling his mother would knock sense back into him. Instead, it enraged him. He lunged at me, grabbed my hand, and smashed my phone into my cheek.
As he swung me, I felt my hip dislocate. My belly hurt.
The only thing on my mind was my unborn child.
I was 20-weeks pregnant, and Crohn’s Disease meant I was at high risk of losing my child. As someone with O-negative blood, any injury causing our bloods to mix would mean my body would attack the foetus. I’d miscarry.
I struggled. He released me, and I fell to the ground.
In his haze, he tried to pry Bella from her stroller, but was hampered by the straps. So he shook the stroller and she screamed.
The security guard yelled, “Get the hell out of here, I called the cops!”
And just like that, the most terrifying thing I’ve ever encountered ran away. But before he turned the corner, he looked me with that cold dead look in his eyes and said, “This is all your fault”.
A new dawn
Her name is Eva, and Bella and her are the most beautiful things I have ever laid eyes on.
She was born May 27 2017.
We both survived Crohn’s Disease, a public assault, and at her birth a uterine rupture, followed by an emergency cesarean.
She was born completely grey and lifeless. But she’s two months old now and absolutely perfect.
Bella means “beautiful” and Eva means “life”. And together they give me truly the most beautiful life.
Today is August 1st 2017. It’s my birthday.
So much has changed in a year.
The biggest difference is that I can be myself.
When I look in the mirror I am different, but this time around I’m not confused about who’s looking back at me.
I see the real me — possibly for the first time in my entire life.
8 months ago when I left my children’s father, I said no to more than just him.
I said no to the guy who forced himself on me when I was 17.
I said no to the boyfriend who hit me and locked me in his room for hours.
I said no to the boyfriend who told me I couldn’t write music (and then I got into Berklee College of Music).
I said no to the guy who told me I’m “girl next door” pretty, not “model pretty”.
I said no to all the narcissists in my life who I allowed to take advantage of my empathy and loyalty.
I found something along the way called self-acceptance.
I found the real me underneath all the people pleasing and co-dependency.
I said yes to Bella, and yes to Eva and eventually, I woke up one day and said yes to me.
My daughters don’t have to suffer because I broke the bondage of the generations before me.
I have a voice. It speaks, it sings, it laughs, it cries, and it rejoices.
And it really doesn’t matter what all the abusers from the past do. They can be rich, successful, and have everything on the outside that makes them look complete. I don’t have to worry, because I already won.
I won the day I took responsibility for my choices.
I won the day Bella was born.
I won the day I spoke up and said no.
I won the day Eva was born.
I won when I never gave up all those times life broke me.
I won the day I looked in the mirror and was proud to see the person looking back at me.
I won, because I didn’t stay quiet like you wanted me to.
I will always win, because I won’t be silenced.
