Hornet's Nest Hair and Telephones

Wow! It took me about a while to get over all the feelings I felt dredging up those memories from my last post to the point so that I feel I can start writing again. The feelings are still there and may never go away but as long as I don't let them rule my life, I'll be okay.

Once violence occurs in any home, unless the abuser seeks counseling or something bad happens to them (jail, lead pipes, bullets, etc.) it's going to happen again and again. And, like me, many who are the victims of domestic violence begin to thing they deserve it and they stay. It's easy to sit back and say, “I would leave and never go back”. Maybe some people have that kind of fortitude but from the psychological abuse I had been subjected to all my life, I just felt that I was not worthy of anything better. So, I stayed.

Let me see if I can give you an idea of some of the violent things that went on in our house. Kay broke an acoustic guitar over my head into small scraps of wood. Once she grabbed my long hair from the back and twisted me every which way but loose. That made a knot in my hair the size of a hornet's nest that I had to go to my hairdresser (also one of our group) to comb out. He even had to cut some of it so I had a completely different, much shorter, hair cut. He was one of our circle and knew how she could be and even came into his shop on a Sunday afternoon to fix my hair and saved me the embarrassment of coming into a shop full of questioning eyes. She would throw things at me like vases, lighters, telephones and not an itty-bitty cell phone. We're talking an old fashioned telephone and then beat me in the head with the receiver.

I'm kind of like a pit bull that sinks their teeth into something and won't let go no matter what. My mind, and the alcohol I began to drink on a regular basis, told me I could change her. That I could be sweeter, quieter, put her into treatment, all these things that I could do to make changes and stay out of her line of fire. But, of course, that never happened. The drinking, physical, and by now, emotional abuse, continued for 3 years.

The final straw was her meeting someone who was just as much of an alcoholic as she was but who also would not stand up to her in the face of abuse. I quickly moved out into a small duplex apartment of my own. I had never lived all by myself. But there was Samson, my sweet little Pekingese puppy and we adored each other. He was great company and full of the unconditional love that I desperately needed.