Chapter 5 - Getting to the other side of IPA
escape strategies:
OPTION 1 - JUST THROW HIM OUT!
Now for the most difficult question of all. How can you escape from living with Intimate Partner Abuse, to a life after Intimate Partner Abuse.
Nowadays people ask me for advice. After all, I survived IPA. I attained the rare gift of Justice. I am a public speaker and the founder and driving force behind UNBEATEN and Room 2 Hope.
BUT the “what should I do?” question is a torturous conflict for me. Nowhere in my Blogs do I address the horrifying complexity of when children are in the mix. I can’t go there. I thank God that was not part of my experience. It breaks my heart and paralyses my brain.
IN ALL HONESTY I HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU SHOULD DO, OTHER THAN WHATEVER YOU CAN TO ESCAPE DEATH AND PROTECT THE PEOPLE AND THE ANIMALS YOU LOVE.
The only options I could ever come up with to escape the abuse were kick him out, or flee, or call the cops. Let me address the latter first. Right near the beginning of the years of abuse I did call the police. And I told you how that worked out. (Read my Blog “Staying, Part 4 – SOL”). So it hardly seemed like a viable option again.
It’s funny how nearly every feisty woman who hears my story looks at me with confusion, and asks, with a touch of justifiable disdain;
“Why didn’t you just throw him out?”
I’ve lost count of the number of Eviction letters, emails, texts and verbal requests/ demands I delivered. He laughed, destroyed them and smacked me across the head. Or anywhere else he fancied. Hmmm. Not proving to be a very effective strategy! I will visit the Eviction process again later, but it ain’t easy. It takes weeks, a court appearance and money. Try living with the person who is beating you to a pulp as you go through that. Subsequently I have learned from legal experts that there is something called a ‘Kick-out Order’. I wish I’d known. Now you do. Ask a legal expert if it is a viable option for you IN THE STATE WHERE YOU LIVE. I can’t provide legal advice.
lesson alert - be very considered about who you let move in with you!
“So why didn’t you put his stuff on the sidewalk, change the locks and lock him out?”
Todd kept a sledgehammer around. When his 240lbs couldn’t just kick-in a door, he used the sledgehammer. In the beginning he would immediately fix what he had destroyed. He was afraid the damage would be used as evidence against him. But as the years dragged on he just left the items broken. I didn’t have a bedroom door for 16 months. My cleaning lady saw the damage. She said nothing. She knew. And Todd knew that I was so submissive, so broken, that I would do nothing.
lesson alert - Locked/barricaded doors do not keep monsters out.
OPTION 2 - FLEE!
“Why didn’t you just flee?
Now the answer to this one is so complex that I cannot answer it other than through my own lens. I am fully aware that hundreds of amazing people in Domestic Violence Shelters across the country save thousands of Victims of IPA every year. Katie Ray-Jones, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) told me that in 2018 the Hotline received almost 600,000 contacts from people affected by Domestic Violence! Over the 22 years The Hotline has been in operation it has answered more than 4.8million contacts. This is an epidemic.
THE NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE (go to - thehotline.org):
“The Hotline is the only national 24-hour domestic violence hotline providing compassionate support, life-saving resources, and safety planning services via phone, online chat, and text. In 2018, advocates provided 156,157 referrals to shelters and domestic violence service providers, and 213,926 referrals to resources such as legal.”
Here are my reasons for not fleeing and living instead with the constant threat of being killed.
I do NOT claim for 1 minute that this was a sensible choice or one you should emulate!
1. There was always the challenge of my 3 rescue mutts who have a combined weight of 230lbs. That’s a lot of dog. (Read my Blog – “Tipping Points – For the Love of At-Risk Pets.”) If you are not a dog lover you won’t ‘get it.’ But frame it like this. If you have ever loved another living thing (child, parent, animal) imagine leaving it/them in the hands of the person who whipped you with a rope and tire dog toy, or who strangled you until you passed out, or who repeatedly threatened to kill you and your children. During all the years of abuse I never knew about options like Noah’s Animal House. I admitted to my overall staggering ignorance. I now know that only about 10% of DV Shelters allow pets! To-date women have traveled from 29 different States to reach Noah’s to find shelter for themselves and their at-risk pets. Noah’s mission is to have all “No Pets Allowed” signs removed from every DV Shelter. Gotta love that mission. Visit - Noahsanimalhouse.org – to support this heartwarming and critical goal.
2. I worked for 35 years to be able to own my own home. It is my sanctuary, my shelter and the place where I will grow old and die. I could not imagine how to leave everything I had worked for in the hands of a chronically unemployed bastard. I am aware that as a woman with financial autonomy I am incorrectly viewed as an IPA anomaly. (But there are battalions of educated, financially independent IPA victims out there, but who do not speak up or speak out for a variety of very valid reasons.)
Theoretically I should have had endless options. But I wonder how many men are ever expected to leave everything they’ve worked for, everything they own, everything that represents a fond memory, and move into a shelter? I didn’t know how to plunge myself into a homeless and impoverished state. And as added motivation not to flee, Todd constantly reminded me that if I fled he would destroy my home and my possessions and then he would disappear. He would ensure that my property would be unsellable. Remember, he owned absolutely nothing and had never had to deal with the consequences of his unlawful behaviors.
3. On various occasions I listed my home with a realtor. Suffice to say he ominously stalked her online, promised he would get rid of anyone who arrived to ‘view’ the property, promised he would pour cement into the plumbing and then “smack the shit” out of me. Selling the house out from under him became another dead end.
4. I have to acknowledge there were times I was so afraid that financial ruin ceased to be a deterrent. Two friends offered to take me and my dogs in, but then it dawned on me how much of a risk I would be to them. It would be like chumming the water as sharks circled.
So I guess that’s the full circle of my brain wrestling with the option of fleeing. I know that I will be judged badly for choosing my home and my dogs over safety in a shelter. But I also appreciate that every Victim’s situation is uniquely different and deeply personal. So I urge YOU to do what is right for you! There is no ‘one-size fits all’ solution.
I suspect that if I had had children in the home, my decision-making process would have been different. That if at the age of 64 I wasn’t trying to protect my financial future, my decision-making process would have been different. That if I could imagine finding employment again after retiring, my decision-making process would have been different. That if my faith in Law Enforcement and ‘the system’ hadn’t been destroyed, my decision-making process would have been different. And that if I could imagine living in a shelter that has been described as a ‘prison for victims’ my decision-making process would have been different.
And in truth, I just could not allow the monster in my life to triumph to that extent. And often I thought, ‘maybe death is my only option’…..