Is Anyone Listening?

We keep dying, same red flags. Different day, new woman dead.

My humor has gotten progressively dark over the years. Being in EMS never helped that. Joking over vomit and blood was normal lunch conversation. And this? This is a little different. I joke about it, I get snarky, I get protective because it could be me. That next “oh my gosh, how did we not see this coming” could be me.

And no one is listening.

When separation from an abuser happens, there’s this weird normalized belief that all is fine now. There’s no threat because we don’t interact all that often or at all.

Yet every time we go to court, his focus is bringing in reminders of his knowledge of weapons and murder, disparaging me, and belittling me.

My focus? My son. My sweet, perfect, beautiful son that I haven’t seen in two years. You can’t imagine pain until you’re separated from your child because a man’s rights to his property and his reputation matter more than your or anyone else’s rights to safety.

That’s pain.

That’s pain that you live with, you learn to disassociate from, lean into when you just can’t ignore it anymore. It’s on that shelf in the back of the closet until the closet just can’t stay shut. And then it’s all you feel. It’s all consuming. It tears your sense of reality apart, and destroys you.

It leaves you on the floor, wondering what time is and what is it that you’re actually doing day in day out. Does it even matter? Is there a point? Can you feel something other than pain? Can you ever love again? Can you ever be “good” again? Are you a mom? Do you even have a child? Did you ever give birth?

You retrace your body. The arms that held that child. The breasts that nourished him. The stomach that carried him. The body that birthed him. The body that loved him. That fought for him till it just couldn’t.

All because hate was stronger.

Hate mattered more than your love. It mattered more than those that loved you. That one person’s hate mattered more than anything else. It was consuming, it is consuming. It’s strong, manipulative, sneaky, insidious, never to be trusted.

And that, that is what the sweet, innocent, precious child you grew, labored, and birthed, only to love on more than you could ever imagine was real experiences now. All the signs were there. All the signs are there.

But no one is listening.

So you push, you feel, just for a moment. All the pain, all the grief, all the fear, all the guilt, all the shame, all the hurt. You feel it, and you feel it deep. And you let it pass over you.

Just for a moment though.

If you let it linger longer, it’ll consume you. It’ll consume all that you have, all that you are. So you put it back, packing it up neatly in the closet you keep, making sure there’s enough room for more.

And you hope that you won’t feel it again. At least for a while.