Trauma and the Perfect Storm: my DV survivor story - part two -

By Alisa Yardley

WARNING: This blog series contains graphic accounts of things that some readers may find upsetting. It is intended for mature audiences, and contains depictions of domestic abuse, sexual violence, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Reader discretion is advised.

My first day of university was a gruelling twelve hour day while I was actively going through the pain and emotional upheaval of a pregnancy loss.

I was there because of the ultimatum, but I chose to adapt, and make the best of it. I enrolled in open studies to upgrade my English, then transitioned into an English major. I've always loved to learn new things, so I embraced the journey as a way to increase my knowledge and use my degree to give weight to what I was already doing: writing.

During those first two semesters, life at home was growing increasingly strained. We started fighting about money. His friends and family were going through a wedding boom, so we attended five weddings in two or three years. Only one of them was local, and he expected me to pay my way to all four destination weddings to celebrate people I barely knew, to the tune of around two thousand dollars per trip when averaged over time. My kids were not included once. On top of that, he expected me to go to school on condition of him leaving. I had to foot the bill for that too, and as any student, or parent of students knows, university is not cheap.

I was a single mom with a generous financial allowance in the form of child and spousal support. We were living comfortably, because of my children's father, but all the unwanted trips and education costs were more than I could afford. For around eight months my new partner freeloaded off my kids and me, living with us for free, eating our food, and using our utilities, without offering to help out at all. He used the excuse of having his own place to pay for, where he had only slept for exactly two nights in all those months-- even when my kids and I took a previously planned trip overseas for three weeks.

Because he was living with me as a romantic partner, the government revoked my child tax benefit, which set me back even further. He was only paying eight hundred dollars a month when he finally moved his things in, and started to help out financially. The amount was set so low, because I didn't want him to have to pay for lessons for my kids and that sort of thing. That was wrong of me. It should've been an equal partnership from the start.

When I lost my tax benefit I asked him to help out more because the loss had been a direct result of him living with us, so he agreed to take on the grocery bill from then on instead, which was closer to a thousand dollars per month. However, he simply stopped going shopping until I was forced to go on my own so I could feed our family, then I would get stuck with the bill. Again. During all this, his father was openly calling me a gold digger. A friend told me he'd said that about me at our engagement party.

Their son had gone from living in a tiny one bedroom apartment, barely big enough to fit his one couch and bed, to living in a 2100 square foot house, with a fully developed walk-out basement that backed onto a green space, five minutes walking distance from the river. It had four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a balcony off of the master bedroom, among other features. I was not the one benefitting financially. I was the one being sunk, while he rented out his other place, and paid down his debt, constantly promising once his was paid down, he would help me more.

Money and time got so tight for me trying to keep up with all his demands, I was forced to let go of my eighty dollar a month MuayThai gym membership. That membership had been one of the most important parts of my life. I loved it there. It kept me physically and mentally healthy. My friends were there. I didn't have the time or cash to attend the jams and music events I normally attended, so I rarely saw those friends anymore either. Meanwhile, he was going golfing-- usually two times per week, going out for steak lunches, drinking beer at the sports bars, playing hockey, and living his life essentially on his own terms.

He kept accusing me of preventing him from seeing his friends when I was not. He accused me over and over of telling him he wasn't allowed to go out with them. What I was really saying was that I wanted him to stop acting irresponsibly when he was with them. I wanted him to stop doing things that left me wondering if he would come back home alive.

He took so many foolish risks-- like wandering alone into a rough part of New Orleans at two in the morning, so drunk he could hardly walk. He kicked me out of the hotel room for being worried sick and upset with him when he didn't stumble back until 4:00am, throwing up again, after he promised to keep his drinking under control because we had to leave at seven for our cruise. He did things like that on a regular basis. He would complain that he hadn't seen this friend or that friend in two weeks, meanwhile, I hadn't seen my friends in months.

All appearances were that I was the dominating, controlling one. In reality I was being controlled in three primary ways: his lies were preventing me from having a clear perspective on what was going on; his tying up my funds so I could no longer afford my usual lifestyle choices, and his swallowing of my time with the education ultimatum and other time consuming demands.

I didn't take the abuse lying down, but I was being manipulated constantly, and my outward affect was so unhappy that I came off as nothing more than a jealous, controlling, drama queen. I can understand why people perceived me that way. I was perpetually on guard. I was so preoccupied by our problems that I was scowling a lot. I was in the wrong crowd too. I didn't belong there. It was a poor fit for all of us.

Because I'd had issues related to injuries after two previous car accidents, and because I stopped being able to train at the gym to keep my muscles strong, coupled with being constantly hunched over my desk, and exposed to chronic stress at home, I started having more and more trouble with my back, neck and shoulders. I went to the chiropractor and a massage therapist on a regular basis, but it kept getting worse.

One day my trapezius seized so badly I went to the ER for help. They recommended that I lower my shoulder and take Advil. I was not able to lower it, which was why I had gone in the first place, but I went home and took more Advil. It didn't help. The following afternoon I was back in the ER via ambulance when my trapezius essentially bunched up. The muscle had become so tight it created a golf ball sized protrusion between my neck and shoulder, and my nerve was pinched. It felt like having a pulsing electrical cord, about half an inch in diameter, running through my body from my neck down to my thumb.

I literally screamed out loud while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. They gave me laughing gas. It didn't work. Morphine didn't work. In the end, I was prescribed Oxycodone, Naproxen, Cyclobenzaprine, Gravol, and I used cannabis as well. This cocktail of drugs is important to remember, because minus the Oxy and gravol, I had all the others, plus Advil in my system when an event took place that took me until this past year to fully understand.

I had an injury, no one at that stage understood. It turned out to be Degenerative Disc Disease, but I didn't find that out until later. I had to take that cocktail of drugs everyday, all day, plus go to the chiropractor five times per week. It was living hell. I could not withstand the pain of sitting or standing for any longer than absolutely necessary, for at least the first two weeks. Going to the washroom and back was the extent of what I could handle. I was confined to my bed, in one position the entire time. My kids were at school, and my partner was at work, so I laid there alone, day after day, with nothing but TV and pain.

As soon as I could stand it, I stopped taking the Oxy because I hated it. It made me sick, and messed me up mentally. One day, after weeks of being stuck in bed with nothing to do and no one to talk to-- I couldn't even hold a book or my phone-- I was staring at the ceiling, and I just started screaming. I felt like I was being tortured. Getting off the Oxy was the beginning of my recovery, but I have never fully healed, and I will have to be careful with my neck for the rest of my life.

These things may seem unrelated to domestic abuse, and in some ways they are, but they are the things I was going through at the time of the other stressors. They were all a part of what created a perfect storm in my life. I've since learned that when you're living in a chronic state of fight and flight, as I was, cortisol levels increase significantly, and over time chronically elevated cortisol, leads to excess inflammation which can cause spinal degeneration. I do not claim this is a medical certainty. It's a theory based on extensive research, and lived experience. Chronic inflammation causes all sorts of stress related conditions. I personally, have several that began, or worsened during that relationship.

I told my ex-fiancé things I've never told anyone before or since. Because we were in the personal growth program together, he was in the room when we were each asked to read a list of the twenty-five worst things we've ever experienced.

I don't know if he heard mine or not, but I told him about those things, and the detailed stories behind them. One of those things pertained to strip clubs. I am not bringing this up to get a debate going over the ethics of sex work. I'm bringing it up because it became the direct catalyst for what led to me experiencing a neurotoxic response to a medication I wound up taking.

After he left an event with my friends and family one night, just in time to meet his friends at a strip club, I had a visceral response to him getting into bed with me when he came home. Because at that stage I was not as volatile as I later became, I pulled away from him, and left the house to go for a drive. I felt grossed out. While I was driving, I realized I couldn't be in another relationship with someone who needed strip clubs to be a part of his life. It opened my childhood-- and other wounds, and conflicted with spiritual beliefs I held, and still hold to this day.

I told him openly and honestly how I felt. I said if he needed to go when someone got married or for some boys time after work, I was not the right partner for him. I told him about my childhood trauma because I wanted him to understand how deep the issue ran for me, and I was prepared to let him go rather than us fighting over it, and having hurt feelings between us later. He said he could live with not going. He said he loved me enough to do something else when the others went. I asked him if he was sure. I laid out several scenarios he might not have considered just in case. He said he was sure.

That night I wrote about in part one... the night he got into bed with dried blood crusted all over his arms and legs-- that happened two weeks after my neck injury, while I was still laid up in bed. I jumped up when I realized it was blood. I'd had my hands on it! I asked if the bachelor party had included a strip club, and he promised me it hadn't. I was freaked out about the blood, but I was also relieved that he had kept his word, and had respected my boundary. I was so surprised, because I didn't think he would, and I'd had a hunch that's where the fall had taken place. As it turned out, I was right. About all of it. Sometimes it's better to be wrong.

Not long after that we had to attend his family reunion. I did not want to go. I had been avoiding his family with the excuse of homework, which was true enough, but I could've made it work if I had wanted to be there. I stressed about that reunion a lot. I caused a lot of tension in our relationship over trips with his friends and family after the first couple of times. I made it worse by worrying and complaining. The reunion turned out to be awful. We got rained in. We were all trapped together in a big open field for four days.

Here's the thing... there were many things I liked about his family. I loved the way they love each other and look out for each other. Lots of them were highly intelligent, and most of them were successful in their chosen careers, but there were other things that led to me withholding my kids from attending their gatherings.

When we arrived late at the reunion, the people outside were drunk, and partying loudly, when one woman shouted out something to the effect of not wanting to see her father-in-law's "balls and asshole" again. I was shocked at the behaviour that was excused under the guise of drinking. I heard her tell the group that he had mooned her and spread his butt cheeks as a joke because he'd been so wasted. That was my partner's father. The following day, they wanted to play a college party version of Jenga. I refused to participate when I learned one of the instructions on the Jenga block was to "motorboat the person beside you." This was a family gathering!

My partner and I were staying in a tent. We didn't have our tarp, and it was raining. By that stage in our relationship I was handling his excessive drinking and the ensuing behaviours that followed, by stepping out early, and excusing myself to bed. I took my cocktail of meds, and went to sleep in the tent while he stayed outside drinking and partying with his family. I was passed out cold when he came into the tent. I woke up, because I was having a hard time breathing. My head was sandwiched between two pillows and our sleeping bag was bunched up all around my face.

There he was, right on top of me, having sex. I tried to push all the pillows and blankets away as much as I could, but I was trapped, so I was only able to make it slightly less oppressive. I told myself it would be over soon enough, and I could go back to sleep. That's all I remember. I woke up angry with him the following morning. I told him his actions were not even sort of sexy, and he said he thought it had been extremely sexy because we'd each told each other one thing we each wanted to try sexually, and sex in a tent was his. He was thrilled that he'd be able to check it off his bucket list.

We went on with our lives, like nothing happened.

I didn't find out definitively what that really meant until years later. I asked a therapist and she responded by asking me how I felt about what had happened. I told her I was confused, because I would've said yes if he'd asked... The answer I was seeking was right there in how I had answered her question... "If he had asked." But he didn't ask. He took. Likewise, I was legally incapable of consent due to the medications I was on that night, and the fact that I was passed out cold through most of it.

I could not wait to get out of that field.

Thank God that was the last major event I ever went to with his family.

That summer he attended another bachelor party, and again, promised that he'd kept his word, however, I didn't believe him. This was a man who always wanted to be front and centre at any party. He wanted to be the last one to leave. He would not have wanted to miss out on the fun of being with the group the entire night. That's why I offered him the out. I knew it would be hard for him. I wanted him to be honest. Even if it hurt.

One day we were driving past the club, and I had a feeling in my gut that he was lying, so I asked him again if he'd been there. I didn't trust him. I had already caught him in probably over fifty lies by that point, so my lack of trust was not unwarranted. He got very angry and yelled at me for about five minutes. He said I was ruining our relationship with my jealousy, and lack of trust. He said because I had been abused as a child that I was messed up, paranoid, and needed help, or I was going to drive him away for good. I wanted our relationship to work. In spite of all the dysfunction, I loved him, so I went to the doctor.

I took responsibility for the problems in the relationship, and my doctor prescribed me an SNRI. It was a medication designed to target both anxiety and depression at the same time. The anxiety I was experiencing was real. But it wasn't an imbalance in me, it was a normal reaction to abnormal behaviour. The side effects to the medication started almost right away, but another upheaval happened around the same time, so I missed those early warning signs, and chalked them up to my having publicly broken up with my fiancé.

It was the day of his friend's wedding. I wish I could apologize for the disruption I caused at their reception. I should not have been there in the first place, but since I was, and given how things went, I should have slipped out the side door silently, and not allowed any of my personal drama to interfere with their day. I'm sorry for that.

I was not invited to the ceremony itself. His friends and I didn't have anything in common, and they likely didn't think any more highly of me, than I did of them. When I arrived at the reception, I was seated at the farthest corner of the room with a group of singles. I listened to them laughing about how the guys had all been kicked out of the strip club at the bachelor party because they'd been so drunk, they had begun taking their clothes off too. I was sitting at the table, connecting the dots, while they talked. I was taking mental health medication at that exact juncture, because my partner had told me in so many words, that I was crazy for believing he would go after he promised me he wouldn't.

Yes, I would've been angry, had he told me the truth. Yes, we almost certainly would've had a fight about it. Likely, that fight would've involved some yelling and discomfort. It may even have led to us deciding to part ways... But NO, it was not okay to distort my reality so viciously that I agreed to be prescribed a mind altering medication that I didn't need. NO, it was not okay to lie to my face, or use my childhood trauma against me just to hide his secret. None of that was okay. That one lie, cost me my brain health for life.

When I found out the truth, I crossed the room purposefully until I got to where his mom was sitting. I leaned down and said, "If you wonder why I look so unhappy all the time, you should ask your son." Then I turned and walked out. My ex-fiancé came after me. He excused his actions by saying his morals were not the same as mine. I said I was done and I wanted to leave.

One of his friends came out and tried to get me to reconsider. I said no, but I asked him to watch out for my partner because he made so many poor choices. My ex-fiancé's mom came out to ask me what I had meant. I was standing in the open door of my van, trying to leave when she said her son was still young, and I needed to understand that. I replied, "My son is more mature at fourteen than yours is at thirty." Then his dad came out and wisely said, "This is neither the time, nor the place." I said, "I agree," got in my van, and left.

On the one hand, I felt like a total asshole for how I had behaved, and in retrospect, I'm truly sorry for not handling that better. It wasn't fair on anyone else. It was selfish of me. On the other hand, I knew after having tried to break up with him several times unsuccessfully in the past, I needed to make sure he would be too embarrassed to come back. Nothing, and I mean, nothing I said or did in private ever got through to him. I felt relieved that I would never have to see any of those people again. And that's where this story should have ended.

But I was on those meds.