Dream journal, September 2nd. 2am.

trigger warning: domestic abuse

He brings a gun to bed… but this time I have one too.

He’s being careless with how he’s holding his – finger near the trigger, touching the gun to me casually in conversation, talking about the day’s happenings. He’s drunk, like he was when this happened in real life, and he’s calm. Also typical.

I’m terrified, but prepared this time. He knows I am also holding a gun now, but I have it tucked away, my finger securely resting on the side. I don’t want to use it. I want him to put his down so I can get it.

He does.

I do.

He sets it down and allows me to pick up his gun. For a split second I allow myself to breathe… until I realize he’s putting on a bullet proof vest and pulling out a second gun. At this point I can feel the weight of both weapons in my hands – mine is heavy and solid, and his feels light in my non dominant hand. I no longer feel like I stand a chance at this game. Even with 2 guns, he still seems more prepared, more skilled, more protected in the event I feel I would need to take action.

And then he starts asking about our son. He goes to leave to get him, to bring him back to bed. This is also a triggered memories from many real life moments. I now feel even less confident in my ability to protect myself if my child is in the bed with us.

All my senses are engaged in this dream. I feel the guns in my hands. My chest is tight and I can feel my heart racing. I see him vividly sitting on the bed with me, I can see that IDGAF look in his eyes. I can hear the Velcro straps of his vest and I can feel the weight of him next to me in the bed.

I wake up.

Here in real life my daughter is in bed with me, her body heavy against mine, I know that’s where that feeling of HIM next to me came from.

I’ve been holding my breath.

The tears start to fall over a memory that hasn’t caused me anxiety in I can’t remember how long. He may have not pointed the gun at me when this happened in real life, but I so vividly remember how my body felt. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.

Having to stay calm, to make sure he didn’t do anything we both would regret, trying to calmly talk to a drunk man the same way you try to calmly rationalize with a child that’s feeling a little out of control and you have to keep the situation de-escalated. There’s a disconnect between what your brain and body are thinking and feeling and what you’re having to act out. Everything in you wants to scream, or run, or do SOMETHING other than be calm. But you recognize you aren’t dealing with someone who will respond to anything but calm, and anything else might cause him to… well…

Heck, you aren’t dealing with someone who will even remember this happened in the morning.

But I remember.

My body remembers.

Even my subconscious dreams remember, apparently.

So I write it down. I am triggered. The tears havent stopped since I woke up from this dream. But this is fuel now. This is my Why. This is why we are building our Dream, so that we can offer hope to women living this nightmare. So when someone calls us to tell us that their husband brought a loaded gun to their marriage bed, we have a place to offer her so she can be safe. So when women share other stories like this, we have resources for her that go beyond “you need to love him more and respect him more, and here’s a book on how to have a healthy marriage.”

This was my story… but I’ll be damned if my story was in vain. I may still cry hot tears over my own memories, but watch me use them to put out the flames of someone else’s fire.

Watch me.

Watch God.

He’s in the business of Big Dreams and Big Rescues.

DomesticAbuseAwareness

PTSD

PTSDdoesntcareifyouaresleeping

ThreeFeathersAndCo

MyWhy

I didn’t leave after this incident. It had been 2 years since the last time we separated and he had moved me further away from my support system and had been isolating me from my family and friends in the name of “protecting our marriage from people that didn’t support us”. My own parents didn’t learn about this incident until months later because I knew how it would make them feel about my husband. I desperately needed my family to like him or I didn’t know how our marriage could survive. I needed my people if I was going to stay in my marriage. So I needed my people to not know how bad it had gotten. His parents knew, and his dad was just wanting to get us through school before we divorced (his recommendation to divorce).

I remember laying there, still, praying he would go to sleep (or pass out) so I could call someone – someone “safe”, someone who wouldn’t tell me to leave him. I tried calling two of his buddies, but no answer at that time of night. So I just laid there. Prayed I would make it through the night. Prayed my boys wouldn’t come into our room in the night and find the gun in the nightstand.

I didn’t call the police. Not the first time I made that decision… certainly not the last.

Instead, we went to counseling. We would spend months going round in circles with him fighting our counselor’s assessment of him being abusive, manipulative, controlling, and narcissistic. After all, it wasn’t abuse because he never pointed the gun at me.

She later told my mom that she has never feared for a client’s life the way she feared for mine – that she lay awake at night, worried. Because I stayed.

Eventually we stopped going to her. Add her to the list of people unqualified in his eyes to help us with our marriage because they dared suggest he was abusive.

Abuse doesn’t always look like hitting or fearing for your life. But the things surrounding the abuse tend to be the same – isolating you from your support system, convincing you “they” are harmful to your relationship, unable to take criticism or advice and work on making necessary changes for healing, unable to admit they did anything wrong, convincing you it was your fault, making you question your reality (gaslighting)… the list goes on and on.

My friend, you don’t have to go through it alone. I believe you. You are not crazy or imagining things. You are worthy of being loved.

At the same time, marriages CAN be healed. People CAN change. I believe it with all my heart. I just now believe there need to be certain safety measures in place before getting to the place of determining whether a relationship *should* be reconciled or saved. And the most important part in all of it is that you don’t do it alone. Find people who are trained and experienced in domestic abuse. Have your spiritual mentors/church leaders/etc in place but PLEASE do not rely on them to be responsible for what needs to happen in your relationship. Chances are, they aren’t equipped to handle domestic abuse, and it’s not fair to put such a heavy responsibility on them. You will need professional help. Please get it. Find your local women’s shelter. Find a counselor – ideally one with domestic abuse experience.

Don’t suffer alone.

Marriages ARE worth fighting for.

But they aren’t worth dying over. We were not called to be martyrs for our marriage. Please get help before it’s too late. Your life AND your soul are too precious to lose at the hands (words) of someone that doesn’t value your very being.

#talkaboutit #enddomesticabuse