Did I Deserve to be Hit?

Content warning: contains graphic descriptions of physical assault and trauma. Readers may find this material disturbing. Please read with care.

Editor's note: The audio reading of this blog was done by me, Jen from Media, as Alice was unable to do so. Trauma is a bitch, and we have to take care of each other when we can.

Did I deserve to be hit?

I have learned over the years it is ALWAYS a matter of perspective.

Who you’re talking to. What their background is. What their beliefs are.

When the question is turned on myself it’s always a matter of perspective as well. What kind of day I've had. How I'm thinking of myself that day. How I didn’t think of myself. What I have allowed others to say to me that affected my emotional state and my core beliefs at the time.

In all honesty I can argue every answer, every point, depending on the day and the state of mind I am in. However the important thing is, that over time, I don’t have many of those days anymore. They have slowly dissipated and no longer take up head space. Simple fleeting thoughts and brief moments of gratitudal reflections.

What I have learned about myself in my personal healing is this.

I would never allow a complete stranger to treat me the way I allowed the people I loved in my life to treat me. I have found that this was directly associated to loving another human being more than I loved myself.

This was conditioned by the lifestyle I lived as a child. Setting me up with the core beliefs of what was acceptable and not acceptable from the ones that you love.

By the time I started picking lovers, I chose personalities and characteristics similar to how I grew up. This is not unheard of in the least, and frankly put me in just about EVERY statistic there is on domestic violence victims. And yes, we are all studied and yes they know all about us.

Living with Complex PTSD is not an easy road. I can’t get into all of it here today but I will do my best to sum it up for you. When coming out of severe traumas you don’t always have complete recollection of the memories. Like your body’s only defense to protect you is to disassociate the whole experience or major parts of it. Living in constant fight or flight, having triggers that are entirely associated with the trauma but at that moment in time you have no idea where it’s coming from.

When you get to places in your life when everything settles down because you stepped out of that life. Something starts happing over the span of YEARS, and DECADES, your memories start coming back.

From all the books I have read over time and now realizing that the body literally keeps the score, knowing that you need to get to a point where you can actually start processing the trauma, and get out of that meth driven hamster wheel negative loop playing and re-living the same trauma over and over on replay.

I feel a lot of people get stuck here not understanding what is happening and have a difficult time processing what comes up and this is where the numbing agents such as addictions start being more relied on as a defense mechanism to not relive the pain again. Yes, it is literally reliving the pain, all of it. Scientifically proven, I am just speaking laymen’s.

In my experience of being a “victim” and now a thriving survivor. There is a particular moment in my life that has been standing out, that took me til recently to actually process it fully. The last few years sitting with my teammates discussing our traumas or what they are going through, giving advice and helping them walk through some things in their life. Memories/Flashbacks started slipping in, between the cracks in the conversations. There is no other way I can think to describe this than to dive into how and what I experienced. I want to start with the incredible woman I will be riding across the country with. A woman I have to bow my head to in the upmost honor and respect for the moments she shared that sparked a lot of healing in one of the areas I kept hidden from most and myself. My first Husband Jack.

She gave me a safe place to process some of the moments in my life that broke my heart more than any other love could because of how much I owed him. She some how had key phrases in conversations sharing her own stories that hit me like the worst gut punch that I had to compose myself with deep breaths while the flashbacks rolled in. Then she listened. Months passing and her listening to more and more about the traumas. Then I was talking about a fond memory of Jack, and after she got done listening she looks at me and said “I would love to hear more about the love you two shared.”

This hit me differently, most people judge the sinners, the perpetrators, abusers, and yes they are guilty and the behaviors should not be excused. I have personally dealt with a-lot of backlash for continuing to die on the hill of loving all of mine, with the heart capacity to forgive them. People not believing my history because “if all that really happened how could she forgive them for the things they supposedly did.” As if my sacred right to forgive was any of their business. Like they had a right to have an opinion on what and who I forgive. This is my soul journey after all. This is between me and the creator. This got me thinking, I couldn’t answer right away because I had to process what just happened. The impact of her wanting to know about the love too. Not because she was tired of the dark but because she knew there was light there too, and we love our demons. This provided more of a safe place for me to process.

I feel the only way for people to understand my thought process on this is to understand the love I had and still have for my first husband.

As cheesy as it sounds, hands down, it was love at first sight. I knew the moment I saw him I was going to marry him, and even stated it to the girl sitting next to me. “I am going to marry that man.” And that’s exactly what happened.

To this day my current spouse of 15 years would tell you that if things didn’t go the way they did she believes we would still be together. Part of me believes this. I loved everything about him. He was very outdoorsy like myself and loved my company in the outdoors, never treated me like an inconvenience outdoors, but I could keep up. He loved motorcycles, specifically Honda, this is where my love for Honda came from, and a hill I die on, even though I went to tech school to be a Harley Tech. I still prefer Honda over Harley. His love for motorcycles (Motocross) was entirely part of who he is and was. I loved every bit of it. I had many bruises from Jack shifting gears in his sleep. It was a constant thing, I never complained only woke him when he was riding extra hard in his sleep, because I absolutely adored it about him. The way he was bull legged. The house always smelling like grease, oil, gas carb cleaner from his dirt bikes being rebuilt in the living room. I fucking loved every bit of it. Pistons for ashtrays, intake valves and springs here and there. A mess I was honored and proud to call my home. Biker family of cruisers and motocross. In-laws that adored me, and loved me for who I was and who I was for their son. Begged me not to leave him because I was the best thing that happened to him. Not something you find every day. Still something I dearly miss to this day. Sometimes I feel it was harder to leave the family than my husband. Divorce isn’t just divorcing your spouse it’s the whole family, that you loved and adored and still would do anything for.

Jack was absolutely my ride or die, and truly to this day in some aspects he still is. As you learn more about who I am and if you have been keeping up with my blogging, I am a weaver, alchemist amongst other things. 50 state ride, Honda, I am so simple yet so complicated in the so many facets I possess. I’ll leave that here for now, need to get to the point.

I have taken beatings up till age 24. Jack delivered the number one worst beating I had ever taken from any of my perps. Did I deserve to be beat? In the moment he would have told you yes. See what I mean, it’s a matter of perspective. Where one is in their mental state. In the past I have talked about this beating but never had full memory of it til of recent. Everything you read about trauma and C-PTSD is true, and if you have had experienced trauma I hope you do read and study it, so you know what to expect. Like reading What to Expect When You're Expecting when you find out you're pregnant. Research and studying is what I believe to be key in being able to maneuver through these traumas.

In most of the conversations about this particular beating a few years ago, I noticed, Chick, Kevin and Myself have discussed that no one asks the victims what was the fight about. This can be for so many reasons, some as simple as letting the victim process in a safe place and not pushing.

I am not going to lie this is officially the hardest thing I have written about, and the emotional kick back (C-PTSD) has been vicious, and this has taken way too long to write, let alone I am avoiding right now, but then again I am not. Because through my words, I am indirectly showing the map to my brain and the process in which one has to go through in order to heal, and process. Why Clearview Works is so adamant about accountability and authenticity. So I am going to dive in to this now, without defending or expanding on the how's and why's. Fair warning, it’s graphic.

Jack and I moved up to a small town in the mountains of Colorado close to a ski resort I got a job as a line cook at. Jack got a job as machinist at the time. We were offered the opportunity by one of Jacks family members who needed help due to health issues. So I became his caregiver as well. I was 17 at the time. Jack and I also saw it as an opportunity to get off of Meth and away from the people in our Iives still on it or still dealing it.

My detoxing was more under the radar for example like Bella in Twilight when she was turned. Jack struggled outwardly like a newborn vampire.

A few nights before the last night I spent with him he sat up on the edge of the bed, unable to sleep because of the cravings. Balling in both his hands, and begged me not to let him leave if he was fiending. I remember the light of the moon coming through the window that night lighting his skin as he cried and rocked with the jones fits.

The day before I left. It had to have been a weekend neither one of us was working. The family member I was taking care of, that we were living with was staying with other family members out of town. Jack was going into withdrawal mode. Pacing back and forth, rubbing his head violently, sometimes pulling on his hair then throwing his arms up, flipping out over being stir crazy. How he can’t even play with my worthless dog because she doesn’t like to fight how he wants to see his dog. Still pacing sill swinging his arms around. Yelling about anything and everything that was just irritating him. Then the magic words came out “I am calling Yada yada” then grabbed the phone and bolted out the back door. I was in the kitchen cleaning up, and trying to dry my hands to follow him out to the back yard. But before I knew it keys were in his hand and he was walking into the kitchen. I turned and stepped in front of the front door. Tears already pouring down my face. Pleading with him, that we were getting clean, he made me promise him. I didn’t get many words out of my mouth before I was punched countless times in the face and mouth, backed into the front door by his fist. I was pushed into the fridge beside me, grabbed and slammed into it and was thrown to the floor where I was trying to block my head. Screaming for him to stop. He didn’t, he kept going. Curled up on the kitchen floor on my right side I took hit after hit to the left side of my head with his balled fist through me trying to block where ever I could. The back and top of my head anywhere he could land his fist he did. I realized through the screaming, gasping, my screams that I was spitting blood and swallowing from my nose bleeding. He started repeatedly kicking me in the stomach. Never hit ribs but all my stomach, I was no longer screaming, just watching the blood start to pull up, holding head, trying to breathe and became limp with the kicks, he landed more punches to my head then started in on more kicking. I stopped moving, stopped flinching and the only response my body made was me being moved by each kick. I became completely unresponsive. This is when he stopped and walked away. It probably happened as fast as you read this, but I couldn’t tell you for sure.

I couldn’t tell you where he went if he left. All I know is when I started coming to I couldn’t get up yet, any movement, no matter what part of my body, radiated to my head. Moving made my blood flow and my head throbbed the worst pain with every heart beat. I could hear and feel every heartbeat thump in my head. I was sure I was going to die there. All I could think in a continuous loop was he left me here, he left me here. The pool of blood I was laying in was as wide as my arms widened out in a large circle. I knew I had to get up. I couldn’t hear him, I tried calling for him but no sounds came from my throat and only caused me to choke and spit up more blood. No idea how long it took me to get myself to move but it felt like a life time, inching my right arm under my body, the only part I could seem to move, lifting my head wasn’t an option yet, too heavy and the throbbing pain was way too fierce to withstand. Took me awhile for the rest of my body to come online, to start recognizing the rest of the pain. I finally inched my right arm underneath my body, using my forearm to push myself up, slowly lifting my head while using my left arm to brace my stomach from the pain of moving. My hair was dried and crusted to the side of my face where I was laying, some being pulled from the edges of the pool that was beginning to dry and crust on the floor around me. I was able to half sit on the side of my leg and bottom, slowly rolling my body to being on all fours trying to avoid the pool, but it was damn near impossible. I slowly turned myself around to the kitchen sink cabinet to pull out the bucket, holding my stomach with my left arm leaned on my knees, then pulled myself up with my right hand to the sink, bucket hooked to my arm. Because it was not my house. I saw a glimpse of myself in the kitchen window above the sink and realized it was dark, and tears poured because he just left me there. I washed my hands and face trying to pull my hair of my face. Trying to not sob because that hurt incredibly so. Then I cleaned up my mess. This is where I can remember the anger kicking in, mop bucket after mop bucket, squeezing out rag after rag of my own DNA into a bucket. Leaning into the anger because it was subsiding the pain, and all I could think about was he fucking just left me here in a pool of my own blood on the floor. When I was finally done he was still nowhere to be found. I took a long hot shower after a handful of ibuprofen and watched red swirl around the drain, and run down my body. Deciding I was going to kill this man.

Now the rest for some other day. This was hard enough, and took long enough for me to sit with, and to process, to live again. I am not even able to read it for the audio blog. But back to business, back to the question DID I DESERVE TO BE HIT?

Again all perspective. Why? I blocked his exit. He told me before my biggest issue was that I never stayed down. That it would never be bad if I just stayed down the first time. Some believe, well you were meth addicts so you get what you get. Again depending on my day. Victim self blame is a real thing, and I have done my fair share. But this is what I do know.

I loved that man with everything I was, and until I loved myself more than him did the abuse stop. I was collateral damage to the war he was having with himself. The price I paid for not loving myself more than another. Multiple diagnoses, years and years of dedication to healing which is absolutely the hardest work anyone will ever do. Sitting, reliving, processing, forgiving, understanding, while battling every single day to get back up.

The sacrifice I made in the name of love for him to be sober today. To me is worth it because I loved him. But if I would have stayed I fear the worst would have happened. I had to choose myself, and learn the hard way that I AM MY OWN RIDE OR DIE!

He's my love, weaved into what I am setting out to do today, hands down fuck yeah he is, but so is everyone else, good and bad. My love was never in vain, and weaved into everything I do and am. Am I saying what he did was right? No, but did I learn from it, and did he? Yes, and that's what life is about. I won’t change the fact that I will undoubtedly 100 percent still get back up, always.