When I found out I was pregnant, I was thrilled. I was tired a lot of time. All I wanted to do was sleep. The physical abuse stopped, but the emotional and verbal abuse kept on. It was more the tone of his voice and the looks than anything. When he would start, I would just close my eyes, ignore him as much as I could, put my hand on my belly, and in my mind talk to my baby.
My son (age almost 5) was excited about the baby. He did tell me that he wanted a sister, not a brother. He said that he wanted to be the baby boy and no one else could ever be my baby boy. Since my older son had visited when my younger son was 11 months old, I had not mentioned him again (actually I had been forbidden by Jeff to mention him). My younger son didn't remember his big brother. (When my younger son was older and I did remind him about his brother, he got angry and refuses to accept he has an older brother).
Although it made Jeff angry, I went and applied for food stamps, WIC, and a medical card. I felt it was the right thing to do. I knew I was a high risk pregnancy and wanted to be sure that I received the medical care I needed. Jeff didn't want me to use the food stamps, claiming only "trash" used food stamps. We had words several times about it. He raised his fist to me, I glared at him, told him to go ahead and hit me. I also told him if he did that I would call his mother and tell her. Then I closed my eyes and waited for the blow. It didn't come. He finally said "ok, you stupid bi.ch, use them, but go to the (insert racial remark here) part of town to use them. I smiled and said ok. (note, I went by myself and went to the store I wanted to go to, because they had the best prices). Jeff might not have wanted me to use food stamps, but he sure didn't mind eating the food I bought with them.
The pregnancy was very hard for me. I was tired a lot. Most foods upset my stomach. Strong smells upset my stomach. Jeff dipped tobacco snuff, and spit. He would spit in an empty jar. The smell made me very ill. One night for some reason, he set it on the edge of the kitchen sink. I went to the sink to get a glass of water. I didn't turn on the light, because I didn't want to disturb anyone. I bumped the jar of his spit, it fell onto the floor. The smell make me ill, and I threw up. I turned on the light to clean it up, but wasn't able to do anything, because whenever I smelled it, I got sick. Finally I left the kitchen, woke Jeff up, told him he had to clean it up. He yelled at me for waking him up, loud enough to wake my son. I told my son to watch his step in the kitchen. Then told Jeff to clean it up, don't clean it up, I couldn't go in the kitchen until it was cleaned up. He finally did clean it up.
I felt a small thrill of victory that I had stood my ground and Jeff had actually done it. Jeff complained for several days about it. He called me several names. One time after his verbal barrage, my son called me a bi..h. I told him that was not okay. He didn't call me a bi..h but after that when he would get mad at me, he would call me "B". Just the letter, not the word. I tried to explain that even that was not ok, but his dad laughed and encouraged him.
One afternoon I was very tired, and asked Jeff if he would take our son outside to play, while I took a nap. He agreed. I laid down and fell asleep. I am not sure how long I was asleep, but Jeff woke me up to tell me our son had fallen off the swing, and couldn't walk. Jeff had carried him from the yard to the couch. My son was crying, saying his leg hurt. I looked at his leg, felt it and told Jeff I thought he needed to go the Dr. Jeff said it was just a bump and that it would be okay in the morning. He said a few more things about making the boy into a sissy. I started to insist, but realized it would do no good. I gave my son some children's pain medicine and did what I could to make him comfortable. I do give Jeff credit for helping as much as he did, as I wasn't able to pick my son up to help him to the bathroom or other things like that.
I asked my son what happened. He told me that he was on the seesaw swinging part of the swing and told his Daddy that he was a teenage mutant ninja turtle and was going to jump to the top of the trailer and do a back flip at the same time. He said his daddy was smoking one of his funny looking cigarettes (marijuana) and told him to go ahead. My son said he jumped backwards off the swing, fell and the swing came back and hit him. He said his daddy stood there and laughed at him and finished his cigarette. Then his daddy came over to him, told him to get up and when he couldn't, picked him up and carried him into the house.
The next morning, my son's leg was worse. I suggested we take him to the Dr. This time Jeff agreed, but then told me to stay home, because there wasn't room in the truck for the three of us, without hurting the boy's leg. I suggested he call and ask his mother to borrow her car. Jeff's mother took us to a local hospital emergency room. My son had broken his leg in two places. The boy got a big cast.
While we were at the hospital, I was in the examining room and my son was in X-ray, the Dr came in and asked me what happened. I told him that I was asleep, and told him what my son had said (leaving out the funny cigarette part). He told me about the double break and that it was a very unusual break. I asked him what he meant. He said it was just unusual.
When my son came back in the room, he told me that he had got to talk to a real nice lady that said she was like a cop. I asked what he had told her and he said, she just asked him about his leg. They talked about the turtles and things like that. He said that the lady said she was going to go talk to his daddy. A little later, the woman talked with me. She was a social worker and was just checking things because the break was the type of break usually seen when there was abuse involved. I told her that it was just an accident. She said she agreed, but that now there was a record of it and she hoped that there wouldn't be anymore "accidents". I told her that I would do my best to be sure there weren't. She gave me her card and said when we had an appointment for a follow up to call her because she wanted to see us. I said okay.
When I told Jeff about the social worker wanting to do a follow up, he panicked. He denied any abuse (I believe him). He said that once a child is part of the system that the parents had no rights and then blamed me, saying that because of me getting food stamps and a medical card, it brought us to the attention of THEM. I started laughing, because it sounded so silly at the time. That made him madder. I told him to just be quiet and not to worry. My son was sitting in a wheelchair, and Jeff's mother was waiting for us.
We went home. Jeff calmed down by drinking and smoking his funny cigarettes. My son had everyone sign his cast. Life continued. Jeff seemed mad most of the time and talked nasty to me. I ignored him, took care of my son, slept a lot, and sang.
Although there was no physical abuse, there was verbal and emotional abuse. The aim of emotional abuse is to chip away at feelings of self-worth and independence. Emotional abuse includes verbal abuse such as yelling, name-calling, blaming, and shaming. Isolation, intimidation, and controlling behavior also fall under emotional abuse
The scars of emotional abuse are very real, and they run deep. In fact, emotional abuse can be just as damaging as physical abuse—sometimes even more so. It takes years to recover from verbal and emotional abuse, some people never do.
If you feel you are being abused or know someone who is being abused call the National Domestic Violence hotline. 1-800-799-7233.
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