It was about age 10 that I made the cognitive transition to understanding that there is a possibility for multiple perspectives on any situation, and that people have a choice about how they behave. I came to understand that people are accountable for their own behavioral choices, regardless of any possible mitigating circumstances. I came to understand that my father was not possessed by some kind of uncontrollable monster that caused him to lash out at us, but that he carefully and deliberately chose abuse as a way to deal with normal, everyday frustrations that everyone experiences. I came to see him not as some all-powerful, omniscient monster that raged due to forces beyond his control, but the pathetic excuse for a human being that he was. I saw him as weak and evil for choosing to beat and emotionally abuse his children, and to emotionally abuse his wife.
My Mother as Victim
When I got older and I began to make some important realizations about the causes of behavior, and the choice to abuse, I started to understand that the children were not my father's only victims. My mother was a victim as well. Although when I was younger, and I still defined "abuse" as physical abuse, I did not see my mother as the victim that she always was, this nevertheless did not change the fact that she was also his victim. Although she colluded with him in the emotional abuse, especially as I got older, she was not physically abusive very often. I recall a few times being scratched by her fingernails or dragged around by my arm, but besides that her abuse of us was limited to verbal abuse, and it wasn't the type of abuse that attacked our personhood and degraded our souls the way that our father's did. My mother did call us names sometimes, and also threatened violence, but her threats were empty in the way that we knew she would never carry them out. Besides this, I had a positive relationship with my mother most of the time in my early years, even though it would deteriorate as I got older and I became trapped in my own mental health issues.
Looking back, I can see that my mother deteriorated emotinally quite a bit as well over the years. While in my preschool years she had always seemed happy and played with us a lot, as I got older and she was overloaded with the responsiblity of an abusive spouse that left all of the household responsibilities and childcare of 7 children on her shoulders, she didn't even seem like the same person. Although she was unable to shield us from most of the abuse (besides saving us from death when he became ultra-violent), she did provide us with a secure and stable source of emotional support during our early years. We loved our mother, and we trusted that she had our best interests at heart, even if she couldn't control our father's violence towards us. One detrimental thing she did do though was to blame us for our own abuse. When my father became violent, our mother's response was often that we should behave better and we could avoid the abuse. This caused me (and probably the other abused children in our family) to internalize the cause for abuse as within myself, and blame myself for it. It was only as I got older that I came to understand that I couldn't control my father's rages, no matter how well I behaved. I eventually realized that my behavior had not caused the abuse.
I wonder sometimes how long it took my mother to realize that what my father was doing was abusive, but I think that she must have realized it pretty early on. My mother was not raised in a violent home according to her, but she also said that she failed to realize what my father was doing was abusive at first. However I tend to question this, just because witnessing an adult throwing an 11-month-old baby around by its hair would have to trigger some kind of moral response in any normal individiual. But however my mother came to realize that my father was abusive, she was also a victim.
From my earliest memories, I recall derogatory comments that my father made to my mother about her cleaning, her cooking, and her talents. He would sometimes talk to her slowly and deliberately, as if trying to communicate with a not so bright child. Not only did he berate her, he would ignore her completely most of the time. If he wasn't at home ignoring her, he simply wasn't home. When I was very young he worked and attended school, while my mother stayed home with us. Some nights he wouldn't return home until very late, leaving my mother to deal with five small children by herself day in and day out, with never a break. She did not have the option of leaving us with him if she wanted us to survive, so she never got any time for herself. She was, in essence, trapped there in our house.
My mother loved music, and she played the piano and the flute. This used to enrage our father, however, because he wanted her to spend all her time taking care of him. Whenever our mother would be playing the piano and playing her flute, our father would tell us, "There she goes, pounding and howling again." My mother told me that my father was not only jealous of the time she spent with her music or other hobbies, but also the time she spent taking care of us. My mother told me that she thought the reason my father had treated me so badly was because I had taken her away from him when I was born! Nevertheless, I never heard my mother complain, at least not in those early years. Eventually she did confide in me about how unhappy she was, but she never really let it show. The only real manifestation of her unhappiness was her very obvious descent into major depression. It happened gradually over the years, and our mother became less and less the person we had known, and more and more a sullen and withdrawn version of her former self. She became less and less interested in her older kids, and more and more focused on taking care of the little kids and just getting through her days. Whatever the reasons for my mother's tragic descent into misery and depression, I know that these reasons had everything to do with my father's abusive treatment of my mother. Not only did he dominate her everyday life, he literally kept her prisoner in her own home. To this day she remains his prisoner.
The Darkness of Depression
As I got older, and harder to toss around, my father's abuse became mostly psychological and emotional. I can remember having symptoms of major depression (anhedonia (not enjoying things), frequent crying, hopelessness, and sadness) as early as age 7 or 8. By the time I was 10 and in 5th grade, the depression was crushing, almost taking on a life of its own. I cried all the time, not sure why I was crying. The only thing I was sure of is that I was miserable. I had always had friends, even if I didn't have the best social skills due to my extreme fear, but by the time I reached age 10, I had withdrawn from all of them. I was so depressed that I quit doing regular childhood things like playing with friends and riding my bike. Gone was the carefree enjoyment of early childhood, and I was walking around in a fog of depression.
Back then, I didn't know what was wrong with me, I didn't even know what depression was. All I knew is that I was miserable, and that I longed to escape my misery. I would fantasize about running away, and never seeing my father again, but I knew that pragmatically, that wasn't a solution. At first, I still had school.
By the 4th grade the school had realized through testing that I was scoring higher than 98% of other children not just in my school, but in the country, and I had been put into special "Gifted and Talented" classes. By 5th grade we were learning to type, and by 6th grade we were doing advanced math and science. It was through school that I got some kind of recognition and acknowledgement. In school I wasn't the hated child, but instead I was praised. Teachers liked me, probably because I increased their testing averages, and I excelled. Early on, I knew I wanted to have a career, and I had decided that I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to help others with injustices in their lives.
Unfortunately, by the time I was in 6th or 7th grade, Depression was stealing all of my dreams from me. Although I was still in the "Gifted and Talented" program, it actually became a form of isolation. In Junior High School, the "Gifted and Talented" kids were separated into a different curriculum, and all we really had was each other. I continued to excel in school, but gradually I became more and more disconnected from the dream of academic success and having a career. Depression was stealing the initiative to do that from me. As I hit adolescence, I also had some very difficult challenges, not the least of which was severe acne. I hated having acne, and I hated even more that there was nothing that I could do about it.
With my self-esteem already in ruins, and now the blight of acne, I spiraled downward fairly quickly. By the 8th grade I was barely functional in a mental health sense. My life became less about avoiding my father, and more about avoiding myself. My parents neglected to take me to a dermatologist, and worse, they failed to see my need for a psychologist as well. On top of all of this, in the 8th grade my parents decided we needed to move away from the house we had been in for 7 years. That was the longest we had lived anywere, and now I had to leave not only the friends I had in school, but the home I had known for years. Not that most of the memories in that home were happy, in fact they mostly weren't, but that house had become a familiar place for me.
Falling into Darkness
In the middle of 8th grade, in 1983, I was ripped from everything I knew and loved, including my friends and my school, and we were moved into our house at 557 E Connie Dr. in Midvale, Utah. This house and neighborhood was far different from the one I knew. This house was (just barely) on the East Side of Salt Lake, and the people here were different. I was taken from Westlake Junior High School to Union Middle School. In Westlake Junior High School, there were lots of kids like me that came from families with not all that much money and blue collar jobs. At Union Middle School, things were not like that . There was a nearby Junior High School that was being renovated, and many kids from weathier families went to that school. Kids who shopped at malls and didn't worry about money went to that school. I didn't relate to those kids at all. I was the oldest of 5 (soon to be 7) children who came from a family with very little money. I didn't have any money to shop at the mall, and I didn't wear the kind of clothes that they did. On top of that, I still had severe acne and my parents would not take me to the doctor for it.
By the time I was forced to go to Union Middle School, the Depression had not only become a major part of my life, it was my life. Although I finally had my own room, at least for a while, one of the privileges of being the oldest child, I was too depressed to enjoy it. I hated school so much that a few times I hid in my closet to avoid having to go. I hated having to go to that Middle School, and skipping lunch because I had no one to sit with. I had nowhere near the self-confidence I needed to make new friends, and the depression spiraled painfully out of control. My years in 8th and 9th grade were miserable. In addition to all the problems I had at schoool, my father had randomly started accusing me of doing drugs and having sex. The truth was that I was not even thinking about doing those things, let alone doing them, and now I was having to deal with being unfairly accused of being a druggie slut. The truth was that I had never even tried alcohol or tobacco and not only was I a virgin, I had never even kissed a boy.
I still don't understand why I was accused of those things. I was not rebelling against my parents. The only thing that was maybe a little different was that I had gotten a stereo for Christmas, and I spent a lot of time in my room alone, listening to music. I stayed in my room almost all the time. I came out to go to the bathroom and to eat meals, but otherwise I was in my room. If my parents wondered what I did in there, they didn't ask. What I did in there was listen to music and cry. I hated my life, I hated my parents, and I wanted to die. I began having suicidal thoughts. My religious beliefs were reallly all that held me back from attempting suicide.
Briefly, in 1984, when I was in 9th grade, we moved from our house in Midvale, Utah to live with my paternal grandfather in Ventura, California. My paternal grandmother had died suddenly of a heart attack in 1983, and now my grandfather was alone. We had kept our house in Midvale, Utah and we were back in Midvale, Utah before the school year was halfway over. We had come back to Utah because my mother was about to give birth to my little brother. On November 30, 1984 another child was born. I remember my dad taking us out to eat at Arctic Circle wearing an "It's a Boy" hat. I remember thinking that the hat was ridiculous, and feeling sad and afraid for the new baby. I wondered if it too would suffer the fate of the "big kids" or if it would be a protected "little kid." It ended up that the new baby was a favorite child and never did suffer the physical abuse. Thank God for that.
When we were back in Utah, and I was finishing the 9th grade, I began to feel somewhat hopeful again. I was going to finally be escaping Union Middle School, and I was determined that I was not going to suffer in the new school the isolation and pain that I had suffered in the past year. I was beginning to mature into something beyond the awkward little thing I had been in Middle School, and finally boys were starting to notice me. By the time I started 10th grade, I had had my first real boyfriend, and kissed a boy for the first time. However when I tried to bring my boyfriend to my house, it triggered my father to accuse me of all sorts of horrible things again, and he forbade me to have him over at our house. I was becoming less and less afraid of him however, knowing that if he ever hit me again, my first call would be to the police. I was enraged at him for accusing me of things I had never done, and even more enraged that he had treated me the way he had all of my life. My fear was transformed slowly into rage. Instead of just being afraid of my father, I began to hate him passionately. It was around this time that I told my mother that I thought that what he had done to us was abuse.
For my mother, this seemed to open a floodgate. She was now confiding in me that she not only thought that what he did to us was abuse, she also told me that she thought my father had been severely abused by his father, even though my father denied it. My mother did not blame my father for being abusive, it was all explained away by his traumatic childhood, according to my mother. My mother once again absolved him of all responsibility for his choice to be abusive, and she still blamed us for it. If only we would behave, there would be no abuse.
At this point, I think I disconnected from my mother emotionally. I was tired of trying to convince her that my father was the monster that he actually was, and I was tired of being blamed for being abused. I had realized that I had never deserved any of the abuse, and I was sick and tired of drawing criticism from her. It seemed now that nothing I ever did was good enough for my mother. Slowly, I withdrew into myself, not caring what happened to me. I stopped trying to excel in school, and just did whatever I had to to get through. By the time I entered Hillcrest High School in 1985 I had a serious case of clinical depression and a rebellious heart. I began rejecting all of my parent's values, including religious values. I began doing what I wanted to do,when I wanted to do it.
High School
High School was not to be the adventure I had hoped it would be, and even though some of my earlier problems, like the acne, were resolving, they were still there. I found that I was developing into my own fragile ego, hating my family and my parents, but loving the attention that becoming a reasonably attractive young woman was getting me. Where in Middle School my inability to relate to any of my peers was absolute, in High School, I was getting a lot of attention from boys. No matter how often I had to move in High School, I always had a date for Homecoming and a new set of boys who were interested in the "new girl." But the truth was, I was never really interested in any of those boys until I met a boy in my history class in 10th grade, Trent. He was the first boy I had a real crush on. Had I known then what type of boy he really was, I would have run far and fast from any kind of involvement with him, but I was not wise in the ways of the world.
Trent was a boy that a lot of girls liked, and I think it was because he was a "bad boy," the kind that good mothers warn their daughters to stay away from. Trent had a lot of obvious problems, not the least of which were that he was an alcoholic and a chain smoker at 16. Now most nice girls would have rejected him just on that basis, but not me. I found it exciting and interesting. I was truly unaware of the dangers that alcoholism can pose because of my distinct lack of experience in the area, and the smoking really didn't bother me. I had been taught in Church to look for a boy who was also L.D.S., but my father had been L.D.S. and look what my mother had gotten stuck with. I didn't see the importance of finding an L.D.S. boy, and so it didn't really make my list of what I would like in a potential date.
I ended up seeing Trent at some Stake Dances (Church dances) and got far more involved with him that I should have. Of course he was drinking (and so probably should have been kept out of the dance just on that basis alone) and after some drunken encounters with him over a few months' time, I found myself in the situation of being a sexual assault victim.
Although my father had been highly abusive in a physical and emotional way, I had not encountered sexual abuse before. I didn't really understand what had happened to me was rape. I thought that somehow I had caused it, and therefore I was responsible for it. I felt since I had agreed to get in his car with him, it was my fault. I told my parents what had happened, but not that I had been forced to do it. I think this was a turning point in my life where not only my father, but now my mother considered me to be a "bad" kid. I sure felt bad enough about myself, but tragically I did not understand that what had happened to me was a crime. I hadn't "asked" to be raped, and I was now finding my life turned upside down because of it. It was many years before I was able to identify this incident as the rape that it was, and absolve myself of the guilt for it.
My parents did not want me to go to Hillcrest High School after this New Year's Eve incident, and so I was unceremoniously forced to transfer from Hillcrest High School in Midvale, Utah to Murray High School in Murray, Utah. By this time, already on my third high school in 2 years (I had also briefly attended Ventura High School in 9th grade), I withdrew into a deep and unrelenting depression. I was traumatized by my father's violence towards me, and again further traumatized by the recent sexual assault. I found that I was unable to function in any kind of a normal manner and even though I did find a few friends at this school after a little while, I found that the only people that seemed really interested in me were those who wanted something from me. At this point in my life, it was boys who wanted/hoped for (most likely) a sexual encounter. They didn't want to know me as a person, they wanted to get lucky. Well except for one boy. Even though this kind of thing was probably his eventual goal, he showed genuine interest in getting to know me. His name was Matt, and he was Student Body President at the High School. When I met him, he was getting ready to go to Tunisia for one reason or another (I forget why he was going) and then to Drake University in the Fall.
When I met Matt, I was totally and completely infatuated with him. I was only 15 years old, and it would be a stretch to call my attraction to him any more than a crush, but I was smitten. He was smart and cute and funny, and he wanted to hear what I had to say, not just to look at my body. I didn't really spend much time with him because he was very busy with all that he had to do, but it did make my day brighter to see him at school and to spend time with him. Matt was different from other boys I had been with. He was not mean or pushy, and he saw me as a person, not a conquest. As the school year ended at Murray High School, Matt and I dated a few times, and then I was off again to live in Ventura, California. I never did see Matt again, but I have heard that he is now happily married and has made a succesful life for himself.
Back to California
In the summer of 1986 I once again found myself living with my paternal grandfather and my family in Ventura, California. We were, all 10 of us, living in a 3-bedroom house that was probably only 1200 square feet, if that. My father was working as a defense contractor, and was making pretty good money, but it was still hard sharing that small space for all of us. My mother had another baby that summer on June 18, 1986, and unfortunately for this baby, he was to become another one of dad's victims.
At first, I liked living in California. I found that I loved the beach, and I loved suntanning. I think it helped with my depression, being in the sun so much. I still found that there were a lot of boys interested in me, and I never had a lack of date invitations. However, most of the time I couldn't accept. My father wouldn't allow me any freedom whatsoever. He wouldn't even allow me to go to the movies with friends, or really do any of the things normal teens do. I see now that it was a power and control issue for him, but I felt very caged, like an animal that needs to exercise and that will escape on its first chance at freedom. And escape on my first chance at freedom I did.
Early in the first part of my Junior year at Ventura High School in 1986, I met Brenden. Brenden was mostly a screw-up that tried hard to measure up to his more motivated and successful twin brother. Although his brother Brittain would have been a much better match for me, I was very attracted to Brenden the screw up. It was the begining of a series of romantic interests that were screw-ups. Brenden was the typical player. He had a history of being notoriously fickle, and he had a new girlfriend about as often as most people have a new toothbrush. I knew that at the beginning. But it was going to be different this time because I was going to reform him, and we would have an exclusive relationship. Yeah right. That didn't happen. Not only was I completely incapable of having a relationship with anyone, let alone a romantic partner, so was he. He was nothing but heartbreak waiting to happen, and it did. Honestly I was hung up on Brenden for at least a year after that. But that didn't stop me from dating other guys. I dated Matt, who was a sincere dork, Tim, who was a hippie born about 20 years too late, Dave, who was a much older guy that probably had impure intentions, and Donny, who was a budding drug addict/loser. Then there was Eric, a future stalker, John, my homecoming date, and a dork who I didn't know how to say no to (don't remember his name). I think there may be a few others I am forgetting, but through all of this my heart still belonged to Brenden (the bad twin), at least for a few months longer. Despite all this though, I was still seriously depressed. I don't remember a darker time in my life. This was also a time when my father was begging me not to "screw up my life." Not like he hadn't already done that quite proficiently.
After my father's contract in California ended in the summer of 1987, we went to stay with my grandmother in Mountain View, Wyoming for the summer. I was still hung up on Brenden, but there was no chance of that working out with me over 1000 miles away from him, and so I tried to move on. It didn't take long. On July 17, 1987 I went to a Stake Dance (church dance) in Lyman, Wyoming. It was there that I met my future husband. Not that I knew that at the time, in fact I definitely would have denied it then. I was again the "new girl" in town, and had my fair share of date invitations from that dance. But the one that I decided to go out with was a guy named Cy. He was tall, and he had blonde hair and blue eyes, really my ideal as far as appearance goes. But I needed to look beyond the exterior and see what was inside. Had I really taken a good look at that, I would have run far and fast.
From practically the first minute I met Cy, he seemed like he wanted to own me. He tried to dissuade me from dating anyone else, and wanted to be exclusive almost immediately. We had only been going out for about 4 days when he said he loved me. About 2 weeks after that he wanted to elope. I hadn't lost my mind completely, and I refused to marry him when we were both only 17 years old. It is from this relationship that I have been trying to escape for years. When I first ended things with Cy, I was a mess. I was heartbroken, and more than that, it felt like a piece of my soul had been taken from me. After him, I was not ready for another relationship for almost 2 years.
West Jordan, Utah
As is the case with most summer romances, I ended things with Cy in August of 1987. He still talked about getting married after we graduated, but I knew that I wanted to go to college and have a future. I knew that I was not ready for marriage. And so I moved on. Not without what felt like a thousand emotional scars, but nevertheless I moved on.
In the fall of 1987 I started my Senior year at Bingham High School in South Jordan, Utah. It would be my final high school, the one that I would graduate from. By this time in my life, my father was basically absent from it. He never talked to me, and there was just one last incident of physical abuse that happened that year. I had made a new friend at school, Tawnia, and she had invited me to go to a party with her. I tried to call my parents to ask if I could go, but there was no answer so I left them a message telling them where I was. When I got home, my dad started up the old accusations again about how I had probably been out drinking and doing drugs (I actually had done some drinking in California and when I was with Cy, but still had never done drugs) but that night I wasn't doing anything. I got so sick and tired of him doing things like that, and I told him that he looked like a psycho, and to let go of me. That was the last time he put his hands on me.
My Senior year of high school was pretty lonely, and I was beyond the point of being motivated to try and make new friends when there was less than a year to go before I would finally be done with school. I mostly withdrew into my own little world of depression and pain, content to anticipate that soon, I would finally be 18 and able to escape the hell on earth that I knew as home.
Inevitably, the day came in June 1988 that I graduated from High School. I remember not believing that it was finally over, and feeling a profound sense of gratitude that I had made it through, as well as a sense of loss for all I had missed (consistent friends, prom, normal high school memories). I still don't know how I made it to adulthood alive, but there I was. I had a few jobs at a fast food place and a convenience store after high school, and I briefly returned to Ventura, California in the fall of 1988, anticipating perhaps going to college there. I quickly changed my mind though when I found out that my Aunt and her children were going to be moving in, and my grandfather was trying to tell me that my Aunt was going to be "in charge of me." I had seen in the past what she was capable of, and I wanted no part of that. And so I returned home.
Ditching Shawn
In November of 1988, I got seriously involved with my brother's best friend, a guy named Shawn. Shawn and I dated until April 1989, when he went on his Mormon mission to San Antonio, Texas. Shawn had our wedding planned by the time he left, and he wrote me almost daily letters. By that time I had accepted a position as nanny in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I didn't even miss Shawn. I knew that not only would I not marry Shawn, I didn't even want to talk to him anymore. And so I wrote him a "Dear John" letter, and that was the end of that. I realize now that it is a good thing I had dodged involvement with Shawn, because he was physically violent with me at one point, and constantly accused me of wanting to be with his friends. He had many of the classic signs of being an abuser. I am quite sure that he is abusive to his current wife, with whom he currently resides along with their four kids in Texas. Shawn was severely abused as a child, and unfortunately I am quite sure he is repeating the cycle with his family.
After breaking up with Shawn and leaving the family I was being a nanny for in Pittsburgh, I decided that even though I had vehemently denied I wanted to go to college after graduating from high school, I was going to go.
Snow College, Ephraim, Utah
In the fall of 1989, I began college at Snow college in Ephrain, Utah. I almost didn't get to go because my father had said that he "couldn't afford to send me on a vacation." I thought this was ironic given the fact that he had gone away to college as well. But I insisted on going anyway, and I paid for my education with student loans. This was also a turning point in my life. I had come to college with (what I thought was) my best friend Keri to room with. Now this "best friend" had always been kind of condescending towards me because her family had a lot more extra money than mine did, and she was constantly trying to get other people to pay her way in life. Her goal in life was to find a rich man to marry that would take care of her. Keri was shallow, conceited, and totally incapable of empathy or real human emotions. Keri took what she wanted, when she wanted it.
Over this year in college, I also met another friend, Melanie. Melanie is not what I would call my best friend, but she was a really good friend, certainly in the top five. Melanie was a really good person, the kind that are sadly rare. Melanie always had my best interests at heart, and she really cared about me and how I felt. We both were stuck dealing with Keri the narcissist, and we were able to commisserate and find ways to laugh about the situation.
It was several months before I was able to allow myself to date anyone else, with the sting of my recent previous relationships too new. I also had self-esteem that was at an all-time low, making me easy prey for any unscrupulous man who came along. And come along he did. Although at the time I was with him, I thought he was the love of my life, Steve was actually the worst emotional abuser I ever encountered (as far as boyfriends go). He was the kind of insidious abuser that can consume your soul without laying a hand on you.
On April 17, 1990, I met Steve. I mean really met him. He had been in a class of mine at school, and he had noticed me before that, but this was the first day I really noticed him back. I had a computer at school, and in 1990 that was a rare thing indeed. I had a computer and a printer, and the computer lab was closed. Several of the guys in our building at school were in a class with me, and many of them still had to type up papers for an assignment that was due the next day. Steve was one of them. For some reason we ended up in one of the guy's roooms, and we were all talking. Slowly everyone left, and I found myself alone with him. He kissed me, and for some reason, I knew right then and there that I would fall in love with him. When I left that night, I was on the kind of euphoric high that you get when you really, really like someone. I hadn't noticed Steve before that day, mostly because he wasn't my "type." He was tall, 6'2", with brown hair and blue eyes. He wasn't all that attractive, not in the pretty boy way of many of my previous boyfriends, but I did fall head over heels for him pretty quickly.
In the past I had boyfriends that were interested in sex, and would try to get there if they could. None had made it so far except Cy, and that had been a result of my belief that he was my first love. With Steve, he wanted sex, just not the kind that could result in pregnancy. He was all for oral sex, and any other kind of sexual stimulation that would not result in any chance of sperm meeing egg. Although some people would interpret this to mean that Steve cared about me, and didn't want us to end up pregnant in order to protect me, that was not the reality of things. The truth was that Steve expected me to try to manipulate him into marrying me by getting pregnant. Steve didn't care about me, Steve cared about Steve. That was always the way it was with him.
Had I known back then what I know now, I would have ditched Steve the second he tried to manipulate me into providing him sexual gratification without commitment. But I didn't understand what he was doing to me. In Steve's mind, Steve was the greatest thing that ever happened to women. Even though he had only dated a couple girls in the past, and he was in no way extraordinary in looks or brains or anything like that, he was Cassanova in his own mind. He acted like I should be grateful that he even looked in my direction, and that his attentions were much sought after by hundreds of other women (despite convincing evidence to the contrary). He painted himself as a superb basketball player (despite not making his high school team) loved and adored by everyone who went to school there (despite everyone I talked to from that school having no idea who he was).
He saw himself as a really great catch, being a returned missionary and all, and he was going to find the perfect wife. He always said that could be me, but there were way too many things wrong with me that he would have to "fix" first. The first thing is that I wasn't outgoing enough, like he was. Well of course I was not outgoing, I had a history of severe traumatic abuse at the hands of my father. I distrusted everyone, especially if I didn't know them. What I didn't know is that the one I should have distrusted was Steve.
My relationship with Steve lasted a long and torturous 9 months spent with Steve telling me all about himself, and then asking me what I thought about him. He didn't care about really getting to know me, in fact I doubt if he even knew what my favorite color is or what kinds of things I liked to do. But I loved him. I loved him completely, despite the way he was systematically dismantling my self-esteem and turning me into an emotional mess. But no matter how he destroyed me by being emotionally and probably physically unfaithful to me, I did not give up on him.
The Suicide Attempt
On November 17, 1990, it was a dark, grey and unseasonably warm day. My relationship with Steve had been falling apart for a while now, and I knew that I had to end it. On that day I guess I really did end it. I was with Steve, and he had a class to go to at Salt Lake Community College. I was going to wait for him to go to class, and he had given me one of his books to "hold for him." In that book was a flirty letter from some girl he had met at Utah State University when he had visited there, who obviously had no idea that he had a girlfriend. When I saw that, the obvious evidence of his disloyalty to me despite our intimate involvement, something in me snapped. I felt not only his betrayal, but the betrayal of every man that had come before him, including my father. I felt like I was already becoming nothing, like the person that I was just disappeared. I could feel this relationship with him like a huge weight on my shoulders that threatened to crush me at any minute. I loved him so much, with complete devotion, and here was the evidence that he didn't love me at all. I had devoted so much time and energy to trying to make this relationship work, yet here was the evidence that all of my efforts had been in vain.
For a while, I wandered around with the letter and book in my hand, feeling the most exquisite kind of pain I had ever felt, before or since. Here was evidence that the man I loved was a fraud, and that I was a fool. I felt very much like I wouldn't or couldn't ever again be able to go on. My whole life had been like this, one betrayal of trust after another, and now I faced the very real possibility that I was going to lose this relationship too. Decades of pain and betrayal of trust had built up to this unbearable pain. Life certainly would have been better had I remained alone. What I felt very strongly was that I just couldn't go on. Life was too horrible and unbearable with people claiming to love me that inevitably betrayed my trust. It wasn't just Steve or this relationship, it was my whole life. I very much just wanted the pain to end.
As I wandered through the bookstore at Salt Lake Community College, I saw some Anacin 3 sitting there on the shelf. I took it from the shelf along with another bottle. Then, I went to the vending machine and bought a Diet Coke. I was already hovering near 100 pounds with the stress of my relationship with Steve, and the severe depression it had brought on. I knew that it wouldn't take very much to do the job, but still I bought both bottles. It was an impulsive decision, and it wasn't something I had planned. But I took them into the bathroom and took all the pills in one bottle. I had decided that was probably enough, and I went out into the lobby where the television was to wait for it to happen. I wasn't sure what was going to happen, but I hoped that is would be over quickly. I sat there watching Jeopardy, knowing that it might be the last thing I ever did. I started to panic a little, but still I didn't ask anyone for help. I didn't want to be saved, I just wanted it to be over.
I don't know how long it took but I felt the warmth of the drugs in my veins, and I started to become nauseated. I threw up all over the floor in the pit in the middle of the building, my "suicide note" now covered in vomit. Someone came by, asking if I needed help, but I just continued crying and ignored them. I got up and started down the stairs outside, with the drugs having a visible effect on my motor coordination. I was harassed briefly by a security officer, and then he let me leave. I was really not sure where I was going, I think I was trying to get to the building where Steve was. As I walked in that direction, I collapsed on the grass, sure that now I was going to die. I am quite sure I would have if a woman had not come and helped me into the nearby classroom building. She asked me if I had tried to hurt myself, even though there is no way that she could have known that, and she helped me get to where Steve was. She asked me who I was there with, and I did manage to tell her that. Then she disappeared, and the Security Officer from earlier must have called the police because they were there to arrest me. They could have taken me to jail, and there I may have just died eventually, but suddenly Steve was there.
I hadn't told anyone what I did, but Steve convinced me to tell them what I had taken. Steve told the police that he would drive me to the Emergency Room. Someone must have called my father and my brother, because suddenly they were there too. Steve took me to his truck and he and my brother drove me to the Emergency Room. From there things are kind of unclear, but I know that I was given charcoal, my stomach was pumped, and I was given some kind of drug to counteract the effects of the tylenol. I was taken to Pioneer Valley Hospital at first, and after coming to the Emergency Room I was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit. I was really cold in the ICU room, and people wouldn't leave me alone and let me sleep. I know that my mother was in that room with me, but I don't remember much else about it.
By the middle of the night I was taken from the ICU room to another hospital, Holy Cross Hospital. I remember it also being very cold in the ambulance, and feeling like I might not make it. Death hovered closely at least a few times on that ride. I was aware that I was still alive, and kind of disappointed that it had not worked. Steve was gone, and I remember he lied to his parents when he called them to tell them where he was. Steve was a liar, a pathological liar. He manipulated those around him to get what he wanted, including me. He lied to me about many other things, most of the time so he could avoid having to spend time with me towards the end of the relationship. I tolerated all of these things about him because I thought I loved him. Looking back I can see that there was no love in that relationship.
I recovered from the suicide attempt, but I found myself back in the same nightmare of a family situation, and facing the fact that now my family simply would not talk about what happened. The suicide attempt was ignored for all practical purposes, and no one really talked much about it again. The psychiatrist at the hospital had suggested that I get intensive counseling, but my parents didn't follow up with that either. They took me to an appointment or two, and then that was the end of the help I got. I was twenty years old, but I had already had a lifetime's worth of pain and stress.
