My Voice

Ok we are back another week. By now I am sure you are aware I have friends and I like to give them a voice as well. So I met my friend Chentrelle back a number of years ago while in Tallahassee. Our meeting was a bit awkard. My pastor, Clarence Jackson pulled me to the side after church and said, Hey JT talk to this lady and her son. He said he wanted to give his life to Christ. I said o.ok. In mind head I am like I really do not know what you want me to say or why you even want me to talk to them but I will. So I introduced myself to this young man name Michael, who at the time was at the precious age of I think 8 or 9. My memory is a little off do not judge me. I asked him a few questions and said I would follow up with him later. I spoke to his mother Chentrelle and exchanged numbers. I said I will give you a call this week so we can speak about your son. The week goes by, and Chentrelle agrees to meet me for lunch. We talk and I tell her I would like to see her and Michael today. She agreed and I actually met Michael and his 2 older siblings at the lake. I got a chance to observe the kids in real time. Moving forward, me and Chentrelle continued our friendship and that is when the onion peeling started happening. Brace yourself. Let me preface this by saying, all the women in my life growing up and now presently have all been very strong and powerful. I am going to be honest and say I knew what sexual abuse was but not really domestic abuse. Never seen it growing up and could not understand the concept until I meant Chentrelle. Chentrelle brought me into a place I have never been but she also prepared me for my journey in the helping field. Here is a little about Chentrelle which sheds light on this issue of partner violence. Married, Single, Relationship or Situationship. It's Real. Note real quick before you start, I watched Chentrelle’s ex husband control her from states away from a phone. This is not a joke, like she was literally terrified, shaken, confused, hurt and mad as hell. Here is a little bit of what she had to say.

Did you know, three women die each day because of domestic violence? I mean, really let that marinate. That’s a lot! So, what’s domestic violence? Well, it’s important to know that domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behaviors as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, psychological violence, and emotional abuse.

Around the age of five, most children are learning how to write their names, alphabets and numbers but, I was learning how to survive physical, emotional, verbal, psychological and social abuse. As a child experiencing such abuse I felt hopeless, lonely, confused and most of the time I felt responsible. I felt as though it was my job to protect my mother and siblings from being abused yet, when I could not protect them, I felt as if I had failed them in some sort of way. I became an expert as a child of reading the temperature of conflict, I knew exactly when the shouting was going to start and when a hand was about to be raised or when to insert myself between my mother and her abuser’s and that is a skill no child should ever have to learn.  

As a child, I vowed to never follow in my mother’s footsteps of being domestically abused however, those were the footsteps that I unfortunately followed. I continued the pathology of domestic abuse by exposing myself and my children to the exact same experience with abuse as I had during my childhood. 

I was determined to break that pathology to prevent my children from experiencing partner violence. I knew it started with me. Leaving the life of abuse was not an easy task, it was indeed a process. The abuse with my spouse was only getting worse and more aggressive by the day. I begin to live in fear of not surviving the physical abuse, I mean what if the punches to my head, being thrown across the house, being kicked all over my body or being beat with objects like chairs and hammers would be the end of me or what if he actually succeeded at strangling me. I couldn’t live life not knowing if it was going to be my last day with my children, I didn’t want to die this way so, I made a choice to lose everything in order to gain my life back. So one day after another attack and with the help of my neighbor, my children and I left our home with the clothes on our backs, on a 24-hour bus ride to stay with family in another state. My children and I were diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and spent over a year in therapy. That was five years from today. Five years from today, I remember being alive yet was living a dead life, I remember crying myself to sleep due to the abuse I endured, I remember a nightmare. Life after abuse has been a hard transition, it hasn’t been easy losing everything and starting all over again with three children, yet it has been worth it.  Ladies, one thing that we must remember is that we cannot change him or love him into being a good man. The good news is we can CHANGE ourselves and with the right support system we do not have to remain in a relationship that is abusive, bring unhappiness, dangerous or is toxic to our very existence. Trust me, I have been there. I am guilty of saying things like: it’s not that bad, he is just having a bad day, he isn’t mean all the time, he only yells and screams sometimes, he doesn’t throw things every day, the hitting, pushing and spitting really isn’t considered “REAL” abuse or I know he loves me because of how jealous he gets. No, ma’am those are clear signs of abusive behaviors. I know that he is handsome, extremely charming, apologetic and romantic but, have you ever stopped to consider that he is especially charming, apologetic and romantic after the cheating, lies, hitting, silent treatment, belittling and the manipulation, just a though, just know that you can #DoBetter!