If anyone would like to read it. My aim was to help people understand why people don't leave abusive relationships.
I've name changed obviously.
Please don't read if feeling sensitive to things.
I know I need to adapt/change it and add more detail about the pitfalls of abuse in same-sex relationships.
I am fine now, for what It's worth :)
TIA :)
A frightening thing happened to me once. And I don’t remember being frightened. Maybe if I go into detail, you’ll know what I mean.
I have heard people say that when they fall from a great height, or similar, that they don’t remember the fall.
There is an activity some people do where they’ll jump from a great height, landing (painfully I imagine) in water-but the reasons for this I saw on a documentary once were said to be something like ‘The urge to make contact with pure air and atmosphere’ so for these people, they do remember the ‘fall’ but it isn’t a fall as such.
For many people the trauma of falling isn’t remembered-and for many others the trauma of any other event isn’t remembered, but rather the aftermath. People say they don’t remember feeling pain when they’re stabbed or punched in the face. We hear or read a lot of ‘And the last thing I remember…’ for this reason.
What I find strange is I do remember my fall. I’m not sure why, but I am grateful for it. I feel that the memory has protected me from any form of post-traumatic mental repetition illnesses. My brain doesn’t try to remember it-because I already remember it.
I digress.
It was backwards down a flight of stairs. I didn’t actually hit any of the stairs. I fell through the air and at some point momentum depleted and I landed somewhere at the bottom.
I was falling, through the air backwards and I remember it. I have absolutely no idea how long that would take, I can only guess at about a second or less? A standard staircase, and I had been thrown from the top of it. I don’t remember landing, but I remember the fall.
Upon landing I remember crying. I’m not sure what exactly had made me cry, it wasn’t pain, I didn’t feel much pain at the time, and I don’t tend to cry with (physical) pain. I felt winded, and was in some sort of shock.
Steve (our lodger) came and took hold of my arm and helped me get up.
So how does one fall backwards down a flight of stairs?
I wasn’t pushed-I was thrown.
She had hold of me by my neck and at some point she changed her mind on strangling me and thought it fit to throw me.
Allow me to tell you how it came to this.
I will be honest-we had both had a bit to drink. I was drunk, and probably being irritating. I do remember I had spilt a drink on the bed and she was in the middle of changing the bedding.
She was less drunk than me-perhaps drugs in her system means alcohol doesn’t affect her.
We had been out drinking for too long, I was ready for home much earlier than her, I like to be tipsy on occasion but no more- and it was an act of kindness on my part that, although I was ready for home, when some friends wanted to meet us and she wanted to see them, I agreed. She wasn’t one for going out much, and had never been much into the social drinking scene-I was a gig-goer, I had friends who would meet for food and drinks often, it was normal for me and when she first became a part of my life, it took her a while to become part of it so for whatever reason, I had usually welcomes it on the odd occasion she would be happy to join me.
I don’t know what happened between my spilling the drink on the bed and her beginning to throttle me but I remember her eyes, they had gone, but I believe the eye contact I made prior to her throwing me is what made her decision to stop strangling me.
She has since told me that she suddenly had a realisation of what she was doing that is, strangling me and that she could kill me and she knew that wasn’t a good idea. So she threw me. According to her, she never meant to throw me down the stairs-she just threw me to get me away from her so she stopped killing me.
I am not sure about this account, it somewhat makes sense, but I also don’t believe a word she says for good reason.
I want to talk about domestic abuse in same sex relationships.
Me and her were split at the time. I was in the process of healing from her psychological abuse. I was getting there. But she’d never hurt me physically in this way before. I was scared of her, in the sense I’d walk on eggshells constantly and I watched my words around her, but I wasn’t in fear of physical attacks.
She had actually threatened to throw me down the stairs before-and this had made me tell her that there was no coming back from such a threat. But I did go back, because I loved her.
What happened after Steve scooped me up, was bizarre.
I don’t know why my actions were thus, but I went back upstairs. I spoke to her-and she was crying, and screaming, very brutal crying. She asked me to call her an ambulance because she was going to kill herself. I still don’t remember any pain at this point. I did as she asked. They asked to speak to her-and she didn’t tell them what had just occurred, but did tell them she felt she would harm herself. I told her it was okay, we’d sort it out tomorrow, and after some toing and froing with this sort of conversation, I went to bed in the bed me and her shared, the one I’d bought when she moved in.
At some point some hours later, Steve came and woke me, saying the police wanted to speak to me. I got up and made my way downstairs and saw police officers through the glass door that separates the kitchen from the sitting room. Steve was about to open the door when I said ‘No, Steve tell them I’m fine, I am going to bed’ and I walked back up the stairs.
I learned the next morning, that what had happened was, she had fallen asleep downstairs. The ambulance staff had arrived and found the house in silence. They had looked through the door and saw our friend asleep on the sofa. He has long hair-and they thought he was female, and the one for whom the concern was.
They had rang the police, believing that what we know as ‘the big red key’ was required in order to allow them to access the house.
For some reason I have never figured out, the fire service also turned up. I am not sure if they were the ones rang for access, but if so, it makes no sense that the police also turned up. As luck would have it, Steve awoke and let the ambulance staff and police officers in. The ambulance asked if our friend was okay, and she, had by that time, become sober and she spoke to them and told them she was the one the concern was for but she felt better. The police had asked where I was, as I’d given my name, and Steve had gone and got me but I had come down half asleep and changed my mind, figuring I may say something I would regret.
I’ve been eternally grateful for my sense in that moment-although I was half asleep and quite possibly still drunk, I knew talking to the emergency services at that point could have given me a huge panic the following day.
The following day.
When I woke up I was in the most agony I can imagine. It hadn’t sank in what had happened, and she was next to me. I was due at work early the following morning and I had to drive back home. I was heartbroken. That is the feeling that stuck. This is the person I had given my love to for so long, my life and my help and my time.
She helped me put my T shirt on as I was in so much pain whenever I moved my arm.
My shoulder took the brunt of the fall. I have realised since that, how much my shoulder was hurting reflected how hard I fell, and how lucky I was that it wasn’t my head. I like to think that I purposely manoeuvred myself to ensure that my head wasn’t hit, some fluke maybe but more likely just luck. A lot of it.
I felt strange as I winced and she sympathised. I think now, the sympathy was fake. She has since told me that she feels ‘robbed of emotion’ (her words not mine) because she never got the thrill out of throwing me down the stairs, that she feels she should have had. She feels she should have been euphoric, at that feeling one gets from managing to throw someone like that, and she wasn’t.
Make of that what you will.
Driving home I was numb. I didn’t cry. I was still rather shocked and upset and bewildered but I didn’t feel any of it at the time, I just feel I must have been. I rang a friend of mine who talked to me most of the way home. I didn’t tell her anything.
The pain the next day was incredible. No better than the day before. I struggled to put on my police staff uniform, each movement to my arm was agonising. I considered calling in sick. But I don’t call in sick so I didn’t.
One strange thing that happened, was a mark never appeared on me from this fall and the impact of landing. Nor did any marks appear around my neck. I can only attribute this to my having drank too much. I can’t think of what else it could be.
I walked into work the next morning, terrified although I am not sure quite what of. I shuffled up to the supervisor’s desk as we all did upon our shift beginning, as this is where they keep the document that tells us what time our break is as well as other information about the shift.
Allow me to tell you a little bit about my supervisor.
An ex police sergeant in his fifties with a strong build, a swagger and a definite ‘presence’ when he enters a room, he is the kind of man I am naturally wary around for his size and the characteristics that come with that.
But Claude had always understood me and I’d always cared about him. He had kind eyes and a kinder face, and he liked people, accepting them for who they are. He was interested in everyone and respectful of all, and I trusted him.
That morning, he noticed something.
And I still don’t really know what.
I caught his eye and said good morning, as I always would.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, I’m fine. How are you?’
‘You don’t look right, are you sure you’re okay’.
‘Yes.’
‘You’re not walking okay, are you in pain?'
My face must have fallen because I felt it change. I had not at all I knew I couldn’t lie to him fully and depend all was well, now. Despite my lack of obvious complaint he had noticed something.
I lied, but not fully. I still don’t remember what I said, but it involved falling down the steps. I believe I said I drank too much and fell over the dog, or similar.
He didn’t believe me, but Claude is very empathic. And I believe he knew pushing me further wasn’t a good idea for me or conducive to the shift being a success, nor my relationship with him.
He knew.
And I knew he knew, and he knew, that I knew he knew.
What is it, about that?
He has my evermore respect for it though.
Since this event occurred, I have been out for drinks with her. We’ve been out for dinner several times. We’ve slept in the same bed. I’m not afraid of her.
What I am trying to say, I suppose, is this.
For an outsider, an abusive relationship is perilous, frightening and sometimes downright mad
Why would you stay with him!? (It’s usually him, isn’t it?)
Why would anyone put up with that?
Why would anyone be that stupid?
I can tell you why.
I’m not stupid. I’m far from it.
I’m also afraid of losing my life.
I am also scared when I look back at what she did.
The human mind is resilient. It does things.
We carry on making mistakes if we have taken a long time making them.
We can be intelligent-but also very much attached. We’re designed to remain attached.
This is even before one considers things like children, financial ties, commitments, friends and families.
It is NOT easy to leave an abusive relationship.
It is NOT the same as getting out of a situation whereby a stranger walks up to you, assaults you and your first instinct is to run away.
It quite often isn’t scary. It’s normal. It’s expected. It’s in the remit of being with that person.
It isn’t a ‘run away now’ situation-It’s a situation to be managed-like any difficult one is to any adult.
Vulnerabilities exist only when they’re shown-and abusive people are good at making them visible.
It can happen to anyone.
Anyone can lose their way and fall in love with someone not good for them
Anyone can be a victim of their partner who they’re meant to receive love from-by our very intelligence to crave that and need it, we allow it.
I invite replies to this post, personally if you’d rather.
Many Thanks for reading