{"id":4026,"date":"2013-01-19T23:32:27","date_gmt":"2013-01-19T23:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/?p=4026"},"modified":"2013-01-19T23:32:27","modified_gmt":"2013-01-19T23:32:27","slug":"escape-from-my-abuser-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelamplighters.org\/llblog01\/escape-from-my-abuser-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Escape from My Abuser (part two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Day Five <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m back at Tammie’s.\u00a0 Being with my grandchildren is temporarily therapeutic.\u00a0 Teri talked to Dennis, who is still at the house, refusing to leave.\u00a0 He is angry that I had told him I would see him at the end of the week but had not even contacted him.\u00a0 He refuses to leave till I do.<\/p>\n

I spend the night at Cathy’s, drinking too much wine and talking till I feel crazy from wild circles in my brain.\u00a0 The liquor gives me courage as I adamantly insist I am never going back to Dennis.\u00a0 At this moment, it seems an easy promise to carry out.<\/p>\n

Day Six <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m at Lynette’s.\u00a0 She tries to counsel me as to what the next step should be, saying that I need to stay away from Dennis as long as possible.<\/p>\n

I drive by my house on the way to Teri’s.\u00a0 There’s no car in the driveway.\u00a0 I go in the house and find Dennis’ belongings gone and a key on the counter.\u00a0 I assume it means he has moved out.\u00a0 I lunch with a friend and drive by the house again, thinking a few days there will give me strength to go to Arizona.\u00a0 I go back to the house. His car is back in the driveway.\u00a0 I return to Teri’s.\u00a0 More grandchildren, more chaos, and more confusion.\u00a0 I need to run.<\/p>\n

Day Seven –<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back at Tammie’s.\u00a0 Mass in the morning, wandering around in confusion and tension all day.\u00a0 I feel like a lost child, needing guidance, needing mothering.\u00a0 I’m ashamed of my lack of strength and my need to have my children mother me when I should be so to them.<\/p>\n

Day Eight <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Still at Tammie’s, still confused….what to do…what to do…<\/p>\n

Day Nine <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Back at Teri’s…weather report is bad for Arizona. \u00a0They’re having rainstorms and snow blizzards, especially in the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff area.\u00a0 I don’t care.\u00a0 I’m feeling rudderless, a burden to my family, tired of sleeping on couches and bundling up with the babies in their beds.\u00a0 Dennis is still at the house.\u00a0 I need to leave.<\/p>\n

Day Ten <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The drive to Flagstaff is fraught with a strange combination of terror and strength.\u00a0 LA.\u00a0 is beset with thunderstorms and flooding conditions when I leave.\u00a0 Is my house all right?\u00a0 I worry endlessly as I drive, holding my stomach against the loneliness and bewilderment raging inside of me.\u00a0 Am I doing the right thing?\u00a0 I both loathe and look forward to my arrival in Flagstaff.<\/p>\n

Day Eleven <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Flagstaff is covered with snow.\u00a0 I love it, but I’m lonely and concerned about the house and whether Dennis is still there.\u00a0 I don’t miss him but worry incessantly about what to do next and whether any of what I’m doing is the right thing.\u00a0 I talk to my sister-in-law, Kathleen, in Tucson.\u00a0 She cautions me not to go to the Grand Canyon under any condition.\u00a0 It’s besieged by blizzards with many of the roads closed.<\/p>\n

I leave for the Canyon in the morning anyway, no chains and no experience driving in the snow.\u00a0 The people at the hotel warn me not to go.\u00a0 I don’t much care.\u00a0 I feel if danger is near, it is inevitable that I meet up with it.\u00a0 I need terror in my heart to overwhelm the anxiety that hovers in my mind on a continual basis.\u00a0 I am reminded of the old joke about someone who stubs their toe and then smashes their hand into a wall to forget about the pain in their foot.\u00a0 As I draw closer to the canyon, my car skids on the ice and whirls around, turning circles, like a crazy ride at Disneyland, heading for a ravine.\u00a0 My terror accelerates.\u00a0 The car stops with a thud.\u00a0 I sit in the midst of the falling snow, my heart thumping wildly.\u00a0 I try, childlike, to decide whether to park where I am and go hiking in the snow.\u00a0 I toy with the idea, hoping perhaps I’ll get lost and be able to lie down and sleep forever.\u00a0 Common sense prevails as I turn the car around and get back on the road.\u00a0 A while later it happens again.\u00a0 I am only 27 miles from the Canyon.\u00a0 More common sense as I decide to turn back.\u00a0 I change my mind when a snowplow appears and I follow it into the village.<\/p>\n

There is zero visibility at the Canyon.\u00a0 I lunch quickly and set about returning to Flagstaff after severe warnings not to take the Highway 180 cutoff.\u00a0 When I arrive at 180, I veer off the main road to the left, deciding they must have exaggerated the danger.\u00a0 Twenty miles in, the road disappears as the snow rages.\u00a0 I am terrified, blood pulsating in my ears.\u00a0 I feel like a blind person as I inch along what I think is the road.\u00a0 If it weren’t for the ghostly trees I can barely see, I’m not sure if I’m even on it.\u00a0 I feel isolated, as if I’ve landed on another planet.\u00a0 I’m badly frightened.\u00a0 Oh God, I pray, just let me get into Flagstaff alive and I’ll never be foolish again.\u00a0 It’s no doubt an empty offering.\u00a0 My heart sits in my throat and I’m almost afraid to swallow as if the very act will somehow cause something bad to happen.\u00a0 If I hold my breath, perhaps Flagstaff will appear in front of me safely.\u00a0 It does, after several hours.\u00a0 I wonder how I managed to make it back in that driving snow.\u00a0 Exhausted from the strain, I celebrate my reluctant and somewhat stupid courage by going out to dinner at a restaurant called Black Bart’s.\u00a0 I’ve been there before, once with Chuck, and once with Dennis.\u00a0 It’s a lovely place with great food and college students who wait on tables as they sing Broadway tunes.\u00a0 I’m lonely and hate being here.\u00a0 What am I doing, I wonder?\u00a0 I call Kathleen.\u00a0 She says she’s grateful I didn’t go up to the Grand Canyon.\u00a0 Two women had gone and hiked in the woods.\u00a0 They became lost in the storm.\u00a0 One body was located.\u00a0 The other woman had to have her legs amputated from frostbite.\u00a0 Kathleen asks what I did instead.<\/p>\n