On DV: The Day I said "Enough."

⚠️ Trigger Warning: Contains graphic depictions of domestic violence, emotional abuse, and physical assault. Proceed with caution.

I guess the story really goes back to 1990 because that's when I met the guy we're going to talk about here. By the end of this post, you'll hate one of us, and I hope it isn't me, but anyhow...

In 1990, my sister was in the city to have her first baby. It was an exciting time for the whole family, but obviously, since I was such a teenage badass, I had to act nonchalant and carefree. "Big deal, everyone has babies!" Oh, but I couldn't wait to get up to that hospital and see my brand new baby niece, as well as my older sister who had been like my best friend while we were growing up.

 Some names may have been changed to shield the innocent, protect the traumatized, and spare me the drama of the criminally unhinged. Then again, maybe they weren’t. If you see yourself in these pages and feel called out… that’s between you and your god. 🤷‍♀️

I was fourteen turning fifteen, and I was pretty much the average offspring of a Jerry Springer poster family, I won't deny it. I was dressed in my favorite beat-to-crap spandex rocker jeans, a pair of Peter Pan Getaway boots, and some kind of ratty '80s leftover jean jacket. My hair was a bleached blonde halo of frizz, sort of hovering over my scalp. My makeup would have made Debbie Harry proud, and my accessories were cheap-ass dime store pimp. Average SJ teen, all the way.

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EDIT: There are folks who are cruel enough to try and twist this story and use it against me. They're extremely damaged individuals, and they have no idea what it's like to be abused. To those people who may be reading this: Go fuck yourselves, you hateful assholes. If pasting pieces of my experience and using it to mock me and other survivors is what makes you feel good, then I'm truly sorry; there is no help for you. You're twisted, and you need to seek professional help immediately. In cases like this, I am an avid supporter of the Darwin Awards and Darwin's Law, and I hope you have a serious mishap sometime really soon.

So my mom and I were having an odd week in that we weren't at each other's throats, and we had actually shopped together to fill a new diaper bag with gifts and oddities for our special new mommy. My mom wasn't her mom; she was from my dad's first marriage, and my sister and I only really got to see each other on holidays and the super special weekend. So this was huge for me. I was even one of the first people she told when she discovered she was pregnant! (We were at our brother's wedding, actually).

Yes, I digress, but I must set the mood to explain fully how I was able to fall victim to my circumstances, even though I was one of the most street-smart people in my crew. Forgive me, but this also helps me to be more comfortable as I tell you my tale.

My mother and I went to a few last shops to top off our gift bag, and we headed for the bus stop so we could make our way, finally, out to the hospital to visit my big sis. That is pretty much where the entire thing started, long years before anything happened directly.

So we get on the bus, and two stops further down the line, these two super dorky, hyped-up teenage guys get on. One was about my height, kind of scruffy, and the other was a lot taller, skinny as hell, and had wild, long, bright red hair.

Both of these boys were jostling one another, swearing, and laughing. After a bit of appraisal, they even seemed to be intentionally putting on a show; whenever my mom or I looked toward them, one or the other would ham it up a bit, grin, make some kind of gesture, and shove the other.

The long-haired one was the worst, and they were so loud! Totally not my scene; these clowns were really annoying.

We had to suffer these fools for most of the trip, but a few stops before the hospital, they both got off the bus with just as much idiocy as they'd gotten on. There was an audible sigh from the driver, as well as the other passengers, when they disembarked. Lord, I hoped I wouldn't ever see those two again, so bloody obnoxious!

So we get into the hospital, and I asked Mom if I could grab some coffee to take up to the room with us. She said fine. She went to the main desk to get the details, room number, etc., while I went on ahead to the canteen upstairs. Guess who was already there? Yeah, those damn boys, only this time, one was shoving the other around in a freakin' wheelchair!

They saw me and started laughing like idiots, and I just shook it off with a loud sigh, eye rolls, and I flipped my hair and turned away. I got my coffee and met my mom back at the elevator downstairs where I quickly told her those two fools from the bus were in the damn hospital, and she actually cracked up. She laughed and said to me, "Oh well then, maybe it's your destiny!" but she abruptly stopped snickering when the elevator stopped on the next floor, and there was the wheelchair and the giggling idiots...

Ugh. We all ended up getting off on the same floor, but they went the opposite direction from us, and again, I heaved a sigh of relief. Ugh, that was nasty. Mom and I headed to my sister's room, and when we got there, she was somewhere else. A nurse came in and said she'd gone for some test or examination, so she'd be a little while, but we were welcome to wait in her room since we were family. It wasn't long, though, and my sister strolled through the door with that awkward walk that most brand new moms have.

Hugs all around, chattering all at once, rapid-fire updates as is the norm in a family as loud as ours. And then it happened.

The noisy, obnoxious sound I'd come to dread: that damn long-haired boy's heinous laugh. Oh, dear god, NO!!! Here, the wheelchair squeak and... yeah. They're in my sister's room. I'm shocked into complete silence, my mom too, and both boys lose it laughing and fall over one another, gasping for breath and overall being ass clowns. My poor sister looks so confused. She says, "OH hey, I'd like you both to meet my boyfriend Gerald and his cousin Bobby!" Gerald gaped foolishly at his name and gave an exaggerated "How DO you DO?" Bobby kind of sobered a bit and nodded, "Ma'am," which was basically a notice of what both were to become in later years.

The scruffy one is still just a laid-back country boy, although maybe one of the worst chronics I've ever known. The loud one is still just as loud. I'm going to cut out a lot here; you don't need to read it, and it holds no real relevance to my story anyhow. I'll just say that my sister and Gerald eventually split up, but somewhere in there, when he would come up to SJ, he'd stumble into my hangouts, and we had somehow begun a grudging communication that eventually became a deep and seemingly unbreakable friendship. We ended up closer than siblings and just as defensive of one another. Yes, Gerald was a troublemaker, a thief, a drug user, and an overall criminal, but he'd always respected me, and he always stood up for me. He was my greatest champion and my biggest defender at a time when I was a full-blown alley-cat in a city where the gossip could turn on you in a heartbeat. We were street, bonded by adversity, thicker than blood.

Fast forward through a helluva pile of life, good, bad, and ugly. I'd taken a two-year hiatus from men, women, intimate relationships of any type. I wasn't sexually active; I didn't date, make out, or otherwise commit. Drunkenly, I may have necked with a few drag queens or tiny lesbians while out in the club scene, but my sex life was absolutely PG, and I was proud of the fact.

Two years was a long time, though, and I was pretty young still.

By now, I was twenty-five, and my celibacy had started to wear thin. I had thoughts of looking for roots, a place to settle my ass and just exist, ya know? One night, I went out with my girl Tina, and we went to this shitty little pub on Union Street.

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The Real Story Begins

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Karaoke queued, beer taps running full. Begin play:

At some random, unexpected moment, I turned around and saw him coming through the door. That shock of red hair (now cropped short and tidy), the bowlegged, popping strut—I would know it anywhere. He didn't see me yet, so I casually walked over and placed myself beside him.

"Hello there, stranger, what brings you 'round these parts?"

He turned, blinked, recognized me, and he lit up like a kid at Christmas. Beaming, he threw his arms around me and started yelling to anyone who'd listen, "Hey there! My baby sister, what's shakin' little girl? Man, you're a sight for sore eyes!"

And so it began...

We danced, we sang, we drank, and reminisced.

We started hanging out whenever we could over the next few weeks, which amounted to at least four or five hours every day for a bit over a month. He told me about how he'd been hooked on crack for a while and that's why I didn't ever see him; he was in recovery, and he'd been clean pretty much a year at that point.

He preached about how he was a changed man, etc., and whatever. I swallowed it whole. I was so proud of him for manning up, oh but little did I know...

One night, I don't know how or why, we were dancing, and it just happened. Our eyes met, and then for some godawful reason that I'll never understand—we kissed. The whole night was dreamlike through the haze of alcohol and adrenaline. I won't get into the gory details, so I'll just say that the next day he informed me that we were an item, fully and completely.

I wasn't sure about it; I had a strange apprehension, but I trusted him, more than anyone knew, far more than I ever should have. It all came out in a few weeks that he was awaiting a court date for some pretty serious charges: credit card fraud, theft—it all just really sucked. He told me that he had to go to Fredericton for the sentencing because he couldn't get the venue changed, and he already knew it would mean jail time, and he wouldn't be coming home for at least a few months when he left me that upcoming morning.

We discussed how we'd stay in touch. We swore to stay together, together we could move mountains, blah blah, ad nauseam.

Turns out that I was just really fucking dumb. He went away to jail; he was sentenced to four months, but he didn't even do two.

I guess I saw it all begin shortly after his release, while he was still in the halfway house, just little odd expressions when we'd talk, and he worried what I was doing at home, all alone, without him. He was fully released on Christmas Eve, and he came home to me; he had nowhere else. His attitude was just unbelievable. You'd think that after some time in jail and being away from his 'great love' and finally being in a soft bed with a warm body, he'd be in a great mood.

Not so; he was cranky and picky and just impossible to please. The next morning, he was himself again. Maybe it really was just adjustment? I'll never fully know.

New Year's Eve, we had plans. We were going to our usual tavern run—two pubs across the street from each other and one that I hated up on the corner—toss-up of which was his favorite watering hole. He got falling-down hammered and got thrown out of all three taverns on the block.

At one point, he screamed at me that it was all my fault; I'd stolen all his friends while he was away, and what the fuck did I say to them to make them hate him that way?

Chasing after him in the pouring rain, I was near tears. I was trying to explain that maybe he'd just had a few too many, and we should just go home and sleep it off.

He flipped. "I don't know what the fuck you did, but they all hate me! Go back the fuck inside with all YOUR friends, CUNT!"

He shoved me into a plate glass storefront with enough force to rattle the windows on the upper floors. I'm really surprised that the window didn't break when I made full body contact. I literally just crumpled to the ground—in shock, disbelief, beyond even tears.

He ran. He fucking ran.

I picked myself up and ran up to the alley he'd disappeared into, and he was sitting in a puddle, crying. I reached for him, and he slapped out at me. Then I actually started to cry, to howl even, "Why, Gerald? What did I do? Why did you shove me into that window, and why did you just try to HIT me?" And he just stared at me, and then realization seemed to flood him, and he cried some more.

"Oh my god, baby, I'm sorry, oh my god, I'm so sorry, I was so stressed, I didn't even realize what I was doing, you've got to believe me, oh my god, baby, please forgive me..." And I did. Right there, I fell to my knees and held him, and we sat in that muddy puddle and cried together.

Eventually, I got him up off the ground, and we went looking for the girl who was crashing at our house that night—some friend he'd made at the halfway house. I can't even remember her name, but she was a sweet girl, just a little knocked off kilter by life. Anyway—after we found her, we made our way home, but he started grumbling, complaining, excusing what he'd done as though I had somehow caused it after all. I didn't; I knew that right then, and I should have left him that night, but I didn't. Of course, the next day he had absolutely NO memory of any of it, and I don't think he would have even believed me if others hadn't witnessed the whole bloody thing. They told him in the following days, and he acted ultra sweet for a few months afterwards. The girl who'd been there just looked at me with fear, like she'd seen this shit and just shhh, and she held a sort of sad, silent commiseration with me. She really didn't stay in touch with him after that. We saw her only once or twice after...

Over the next two and a half years, things became worse, much worse.

It got to a point where he'd complain about my clothes, hair, makeup. I couldn't go out without him, and he didn't like guests coming over unless he'd approved them first and he was home to supervise. Phone calls, coffee dates with old friends, shopping without permission, all deal breakers.

He was steadily getting deeper and deeper into the pot culture and steadily making more and more excuses. I hated the weed most; it was while he was high that he was at his most paranoid and irrational. Weed was his trigger, just like my mom. Weed meant someone was getting beat, often and most always—me. I'm not saying it does that to everyone, but I am saying that for some people, it's literally like handing them a loaded gun.

Some people are just too broken right out of the gate.

There was a short breakup during that time because I'd thought I'd finally had enough. I'd been engaged to him, and then he went to his brother's house and cheated on me with some druggie chick that he didn't even know. Not just a standard druggie either; this girl was hardcore, mainlining even. Scary, scary shit.

That wasn't the catalyst, but it was real damn close.

We'd had a squabble, and he openly smoked weed directly in my face. I had a killer allergy; I couldn't smoke the stuff if I wanted to—I break out in dead. He'd also admitted to doing coke again, in a bar bathroom with his older sister. That was enough for me? Or so I thought.

With the way he was yelling in my face and shoving in close and calling me names while admitting to all of these things he'd promised were things of the past—I was thinking about everything I'd given up on and let go of for him, all the nights I'd cried myself to sleep while he was being, well, him—and I snapped.

I jumped on him and screamed at him; I lost my ever-loving mind. I remember swinging my whole 110lb body on him and wanting to claw his fucking eyes out. My dear friend Sean stepped in that time and saved either Gerald or me, or both. I don't know, nor do I really want to.

This short split was even scarier, though.

I got death threats when I ventured outside; his friends, our local thugs, would scream at me when they saw me. I got phone calls in the night. I got shit thrown at my windows; I found garbage in my outer hall...

One night while I was out, he confronted me, and a bartender locked down the tavern because he was acting so scary and cracked out. A friend offered to sneak me out the back while the bartender and two other huge guys I knew stood guard at the front to distract him so I could escape. More calls, more threats. Gerald's psycho ex-girlfriend (and one of my closest protectors) moved in to help me. She was one of the few people in the world he wouldn't ever sass back; she'd have killed him, seriously.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. The split didn't last.

Partly because I was conditioned by then, and partly because I really thought someone was going to kill me if I didn't take him back. It started out almost nice but was back to the bad old days within a few weeks. The old rules crept back in, the old accusations. He went through my wallet and purse regularly looking for shit to ding me with. Another New Year's celebration, we go out together. I didn't even want to, really, but there was no option.

Gerald was brazen and disrespectful; he even rolled joints openly on the dinner table in a weed-free home after he'd been explicitly asked not to. Earlier in the night, he'd ditched me at my friend's house for hours while he went off to 'say goodbye' one last time to his dealer and his precious, precious weed.

At this point, he was up to about an ounce a day on slow days, not counting all of the other shit piled on top that I only found out about later. I was going to suffer through the night and wait until he was less jacked up to tell him that it really was finally and truly over. I was actually entirely at the end of my rope.

We went to the tavern after all of that, and some guy dumped a drink in my lap for no reason. Gerald got up in his face about it, and the whole place broke into a brawl. Five big guys jumped on him; it was a mess. The bar staff broke it up, threw out the other guys, and tried to get Gerald to sit the hell down.

He wouldn't, though. He went out after them, and the place got locked down.

You could have heard a pin drop inside, so we all heard every bit of what was happening outside. The five guys got him, hard. We heard thumps and blood-curdling screams. We heard lots of back and forth hollering, and then complete silence.

It was like apocalypse outside for blocks, the most silence I have ever heard on any night in this city.

After the bartender deemed it safe, I got out and went looking for Gerald. All I found was a pool of blood and broken glass and the obvious remains of one helluva fight. I was near hysteria and couldn't find him anywhere. I honestly believed they'd killed him; later, I'd learn that the only reason he wasn't actually dead is that they thought they actually had killed him, and they all ran off.

A friend convinced me to go home and wait; if he was going anywhere, that was where he'd head. I found him already there, in the bathroom with his jaw sitting on his chest, literally.

I woke my neighbor and begged a drive to the hospital, where we discovered that he had a torn esophagus, blood in the lungs, severely bruised ribs, massive fluid on the skull, multiple concussions, a few small skull fractures, jaw broken in three places, a busted nose, and his front teeth were totally gone.

I couldn't leave him now, not like this. I had really and truly planned to finally end things the next day; I really meant it, too...

So I spent the next six weeks waking him for meds, spoon-feeding him, cleaning the wires in his mouth that held his face together. I bathed him, shampooed his hair, made him liquefied pureed meals, and slept on average, maybe three and a half hours a night.

I bought him a Nintendo console and some games. I ground his pills between spoons so he could take them without choking to death. I was a full-time nurse and still raising my young daughter throughout. Yes, she was there the whole time, and thankfully she never, ever saw a single sign. He was pretty careful purposely, I think, because he knew she'd tell her father, and Sean would have killed him on the spot.

But then the day the wires came out of his face, it all started again.

All of it. Sometimes worse.

He'd get drunk and high. He'd hold a knife to his own throat and pin me in my chair, and he'd make like he was going to slash his throat over me, and he said it was all my fault, that I'd ruined him, made him hate life, made him crazy. He said that my abuse made him feel worthless. "Why couldn't I just fucking learn?" Yeah, really though, why couldn't I? I ask myself that every fucking day.

There was a night in there where I was mourning the anniversary of my father's death. I decided to hell with Gerald, and I went out for drinks and a chat with a dear old friend I'd recently reconnected with. We'd also only very recently gone back to our old jobs in the same road crew, so we really did have a lot to talk about, and it wasn't entirely a recreational 'buddy' date.

The job revolved around the club scene; that's what we did, what can ya do? It was reasonable to go chat over drinks, considering we may have had a contract coming up at the very place we'd chosen to visit. We went to a clean and somewhat classy club, classier than Gerald's favorite haunts anyhow. So that night, Gerald starts in on Tommy (my old friend), saying I was only using the excuse of my father's death to get out on the town and whore around.

Yeah, that didn't end well. He took a sucker swing at Tommy, and Tommy could have killed him. He caught Gerald's arm, spun him around, had him in a choke hold, and told him to settle the fuck down. When Gerald did, Tommy let him go. Diffused, for the time being.

Seven months after the big beat-down that nearly killed him, it all finally did come to a head for me.

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End Game

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We are now entering End Game:

We were out yet again. Some girl I knew started a bitch fight with me in the bathroom for a stupid reason. Her boyfriend used to work in the same roadshow I did and was currently working in. He told her that I'd tried to put the make on him, and I hadn't; he had actually hit on me, and I shot him down in front of everyone, and I had about fifteen witnesses who could have sworn by it.

She wouldn't take that, though, and she sucker punched me. My nose pretty much shattered, and I became a Greek fountain of damn red. I was so stunned that all I could do was look down at the blood in my lap and say, "Well, fuck." I guess that shocked her enough that she just kind of froze in place, and another chick grabbed her and hauled her out.

I was still in shock when they pulled me out of the bathroom and then up front and behind the bar where four people started doing some kind of crazed, drunken first aid shit on me while I was still utterly dazed.

I heard the chick's guy, my former crew-mate, start yelling at Gerald and stuff. I couldn't do shit with a pile of bar staff and concerned regulars buzzing around me, plus topped off with a giant ice pack on my face, so I shoved them all away, and I went to at least see what was going on.

Another scuffle in the lot. Gerald took a swing at Al, and Al swung back. Al knocked Gerald on his ass in front of the whole crew, which sent up a wave of raucous cheers and jeers through the yard and nearby alleys. Gerald got back up, and Al took one last swing, and his ring cut Gerald's cheek.

Al and his idiot posse took off shortly thereafter because there were rumblings that someone had called the cops. We head for home, but not before the mama bartender took a swipe at Gerald's face with a whiskey paper towel, trying to sanitize the little cut, I guess.

We jumped in a cab finally, and I thought the whole mess was over.

On the ride home, we were overcome with nervous laughter and 'Why I oughta' kind of bravado, but it was really just nothing. We were laughing even! As soon as I got in, I undressed down to my black hot pants and a camisole, barefoot, and I took off my jewelry.

I saw the phone blinking and reached for it to check the messages.

I listened to some drunk guy saying, "Oh, baby, you looked real hot tonight, glad I got to see ya, wish we'd had more time, damn baby you looked fine," and it wasn't a voice I knew (in that moment anyhow, in hindsight, I actually think it was Al from the bar—he did have my number because of work, etc), so I really just laughed, and when Gerald asked, I passed him the phone. I told him some drunk had dialed wrong, but his face went stony gray. He listened, then he flung the phone and turned to me.

[it took me years to admit to myself that it was most likely Al's voice I heard on that voicemail that night but I am so certain now that I'd lay money on it, nobody will ever know now though—Al was murdered last year, likely because of something real similar to this because that's just who he was]

He said I was fucking around and asked if that was my boyfriend. I was stunned, what the holy fuck? And I said no, I told him I had NO idea who that was, but that wasn't good enough. He shoved me backward into the fridge. I made almost the biggest mistake of my life; it very nearly cost me my life.

I slapped him.

He roared and cleared the entire table with one swipe of his arm, then started screaming accusations. I was crying, trying to catch my breath, and he was blindly swinging, knocking things off the counters, the walls, everywhere. He was shoving me around, one way then another, and telling me he was through with me.

He said I was going to die.

One final shove had me on my back on the floor in front of the kitchen cupboard by the sink. Next thing I know, he was straddling my chest with my arms pinned at my sides, and his hands were around my throat. He was screaming at me, "You're gonna die, bitch, I'm gonna fucking kill you, tonight you fucking die." And I felt myself shutting down.

Things were going dark; it was all in slow motion. He was smashing my head off the floor and cupboard while he was choking me and screaming. Somehow, I don't know why, I remembered to play dead. I'd read stories of people going limp to frighten their attackers into letting go or something, and I did it. I just went totally limp and held my eyes closed.

It worked. He let go.

I lay there for a few more minutes, and then, through a fringe of bloody eyelashes, I saw him grab a large, solid office chair. In a split second that felt like a whole lifetime, I took a chance. I rolled out of the way. Somehow, I was on my feet. I just started to run. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him realize that I'd moved. He roared again and aimed the chair for the window, and I fucking ran.

Out the door, down the stairs, up the street.

I was covered in blood, broken glass, snot, and tears.

I made it to the boys' house just up the block. Sean and Tommy were both home, but it was the middle of the night. I beat on that back door until my hands were almost bloody(ier?), and Tommy jumped out of bed and opened the door. I collapsed into his arms, screaming and crying. Later, he would tell me that I was so busted up he didn't even realize it was me at first.

I didn't leave my daughter in the line of fire, by the way. She was already at Sean and Tommy's house because it was a weekend, and as I said before—he never, ever did anything in front of her...

Apparently, seven neighbors and the landlord of my building had called the police. They thought there was some kind of gang fight happening, and they all heard him screaming, "tonight you fucking die," so within minutes, there were three cop cars and a paddy wagon at my house.

I was not. I refused to go anywhere near there, and it was fucking near another month before I was able to eventually make my way down to try and clean up.

The police made Gerald leave that night, and finally, he didn't come back.

It took three weeks to get my voice back fully; I had a severely bruised larynx. It was about a week and a half before I could get out of bed without help; I was that badly bruised all over. My nose, which had already been broken earlier that night, was now a ball of inflamed, swollen mush. Somehow it mostly healed, though I'll see him every time I look in the mirror. My front teeth were all cracked, and a few back teeth chipped. I had cuts that took nearly two months to fully heal, and today I still wear the scars from that night on other places of my body.

I did not press charges. I should have, for myself, for other victims.

The lady cop who came to take my statement begged me to file, and yet I refused (she had a male officer with her but he took a quiet role once he saw my state). She teared up when she saw the welts on my throat from nearly twelve feet away. The officers asked me why I wouldn't file, and I actually laughed through my bitter, hot tears. Did they want to see me again, but the next time in the goddamn morgue? No, I know what he is now, and I know who he hangs with. No thank you. I'm fortunate to have gotten out with my life, and that is enough—that and my word. These words.

I did get some serious shit from Victim Services. They threatened to take my daughter if I even spoke to him again. The representative acted like I was at fault and said as much. They told me they'd pretty much take away everything if they even got wind that I'd been civil to him on the street.

No worries there, I assured them. I didn't want to even look at him again, let alone chill for a beer, right? Briefly, I accepted a modicum of civility, fifteen years after the fact—I thought I was past it enough to just let go. I wasn't; I'm not. Apologies are bullshit when they're offered with blame and the only motivation is some sick desire for absolution so that they can free themselves to carry it over to another and another and keep telling themselves and everyone else that they totally said sorry, what's the big deal?

It's a very big deal. It is, indeed, a very fucking big deal. But such as it is, all of it, and the impact it has had on me: I promised to tell the world what really happened, and I promised to never, ever hide from it myself. I promised that my story would be told, that I would always be there for anyone—man, woman, or child—who faced needless tragedy like this. I promised that, and I promised that it would never fucking happen to me again. You and only you are the sum of your parts, and no partner or friend or lover or spouse has the right to take that away from you.

Not now, and not ever.

That's my story. Believe it or don't, but I know the truth, and in the end, that is all that fucking matters.

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