Do you feel like a man when you push her around? Do you feel better now as she falls to the ground? Well, I’ll tell you my friend, one day this world’s going to end. As your lies crumble down, a new life she has found. –The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

 

Part 2

October is a really important month for me. Domestic Violence Awareness Month. I cannot begin to express the sort of feelings I experience when I hear the phrase “domestic violence”. Inside me stirs a mix of emotions, a bundle of mixed up ideas swirling around in my head: How embarrassing to say that I was in an abusive relationship with a person who spends his life protecting and saving people, a man who is a foot taller than me and more than twice my weight? It’s difficult for me to even say that sentence out loud. But no, I should not be the one embarrassed. I realize that now. Maybe I’m being a bit too dramatic about all this. But I know deep down that I am most certainly not. I feel a little guilty for habitually putting him on blast for all those dreadful things he did. After all, aren’t we all only human? But then again, I don’t because it’s not as if I ever asked for or deserved all those things. I feel sorry for the troubled individual that he was (and perhaps still is). But then I remember this man was an adult. He knew right from wrong and I don’t care what it is that possesses you; it is never acceptable to put your hands on another person. That should never be a way to solve a problem. I want to spread awareness and give others a voice. My parents instilled a good in me and I want to shout from the rooftops to all those battered women (and men) out there: YOU ARE NOT ALONE! I have been there, I will not accept it, and I am here for you. And there are so many others out there like me. 

I must confess that I have spent actual years trying to figure out how I went wrong. The amount of time and the enormity of feelings that consumes me seem particularly irrational in the grand scheme of things. The painful and perhaps bittersweet reality of all this is that no matter how much time passes, no matter how many blogs I write or whiskeys I drink, I will never, ever understand him.

 

No matter how many times I process my memories, going through every detail, piece by piece. No matter how many times I replay the events in my head, wondering where it is that I went wrong, wondering what it was that I said to set him off. No matter how many books I read about abusive, volatile men, I will never make sense of what he did.

And no matter how many drinks I drain or conversation subjects I change, no matter how much I claim to strongly dislike firemen or how much I attempt to go through life as if he never existed, those feelings will still be there. And so will he, living his life so innocently, forever playing the victim and incessantly fooling people with his tortured charm. That is just the way it will always be: him on one end, me on the other. As in every other case before us, there are two sides to this story. His will always be believed. Mine will always be stifled. 

I guess that realization is painfully characteristic of what our relationship always was.  

Cozying up to those with the power to destroy you is a natural response to being at their mercy. –Dr. Keith Ablow

I spent some time reflecting on this recently and something troublesome popped into my mind. It is a realization that I’ve had before and even though it isn’t new, it bothered me. I felt myself getting unseasonably sour about it all, despite the amount of years that have passed. As I’m sure is true for most men who work together, firefighters share an incredible bond. They aren’t coworkers, they’re brothers. They aren’t a department; they’re a family, a brotherhood. They are a group of men who genuinely love each other, who put their lives on the line every day to keep us, and each other, safe. 

I made a unique observation during my stint with my ex. The first loyalty, above all other things, is always to each other. These men, no matter what they saw or what was said, protected each other before anyone else. And what really kind of hurts my feelings when I really sit back and think on it is they all knew what was going on. They may not have known the severity of it but they knew how he spoke to me, how he incessantly ridiculed me, and how he reprimanded me. They saw it, they witnessed it. Maybe it wasn’t the full extent of our enormity of problems, but they could see how I was treated. They daily observed the regard in which I was held. They watched him scream at me and call me names. Our old roommate (also a fireman) would see me, a disheveled crying mess on the couch and while he comforted me (as much as he could without getting confronted) he never got involved or put my ex in his place. 

But it wasn’t just him. His captain, his other elevated associates, the many men who volunteered at his station, some of the local cops who hung around the station to kill time. They all witnessed it. All of the time. They saw how he treated me. They saw what he put me through. They all saw it, these civil servants, and these men in charge to protect society.    

 

And they never said a thing.

There was one instance where a female firefighter who worked with him came to me because she was moderately concerned about me. I had lost weight, she said. She had heard us fighting, she said. She had heard him call me names that she wouldn’t dare repeat, she said. She knew he had a girl on the side, she whispered to me outside the ambulance bay. She didn’t know me that well yet, it was still in the beginning, and she had learned of some of the extracurricular activities he was partaking in. Of course, he had a girlfriend on the side, because why wouldn’t he, right? Whenever I describe the way he treated me to my friends, I say, “Think of every bad thing you could possibly do to a girlfriend and there’s my ex. 6’2”, bright blue eyes, and completely, irrationally explosive.”

Anyway, she said to me that she had somehow learned of this other woman (My guess is that he was trying to groom her too as a perfect firefighter girlfriend. She was probably there on nights I had to work with her own batch of cookies...) and she wanted to make me privy of the situation. I remember it like it was yesterday. She said to me, “You can do whatever you want with this information, Kate. They’re just tools in your pocket.” 

Tools in my pocket? As if I would ever see the light of day if I confronted him. As if he would ever own up to anything, even to this day. As if he would ever admit to being anything less than a hardworking firefighter, set out on a journey to help people. 

Needless to say, when all this ended, despite how all these friends of his might have actually felt about me, guess who’s side they chose? They didn’t want to be involved. And even though it hurts my feelings, I guess I can understand. People don’t want to get involved in other individual’s problems. It’s a big reason why crimes like these go unprosecuted. But listen, I get it. It isn’t what I would do, but I’m a disgustingly open minded individual. And I was there; I know what he was like. 

All I know is if I was cognizant of such information, I would have done something. Because like my dad always says, that next call could be the coroner…

 

I know I’d never let you walk away, so why do I push you until you break? And why are you always on the verge of goodbye before I’ll show you how I really feel inside? –Jason Aldean

The thing is he was a stereotypical civil servant. People were only able to see the good in him; they were completely unable to see the bad. They saw the guy who loved kids and helping people, the guy who was nice to his parents and had breakfast with them on off Sundays. They saw the guy who dragged his girlfriend to every possible firefighter function imaginable because he wanted to promote the organization and volunteer time in his community. They saw the guy who had been dumped by the love of his life and still somehow survived, moved on, and found “love”. They saw the guy in black and yellow reflective gear, who took care of Port Richey prostitutes and cut drunk drivers out of their cars. They saw the guy who waded through waist deep water to put out the SunCruz Casino fire, the guy on the front of all the local papers, his face covered with residual smoke.

And yet, after our breakup (instigated by yours truly), when things began to fizzle, he just gained more fame (and sympathy) because I had broken his heart. It didn’t matter that he literally threatened my life at my workplace, chucking the necklace he had stolen from me across the top of his car like it was my fault. It didn’t matter that he was waiting for me one night after class, which got out at 9:40 in the evening. It didn’t matter that he followed me that night down Ridge Road, driving erratically, threatening to run me off the road, honking and acting like a crazed lunatic until I pulled into the police station. It didn’t matter that on a separate occasion in which he was pulling his jet ski on a trailer, he weaved in and out of traffic trying to catch up with me, because he just happened to see me on the road. It didn’t matter that he took it upon himself to park his car outside my neighborhood, walk down my block, and then let himself in with my hide-a-key (multiple times) because I refused to let him in. 

It didn’t matter when I left him he camped outside my apartment for three days, because he knew I would have to return at some point. I still remember it like it was yesterday: I had left my mom’s house really early in the morning because I had to work at 8 (she lived three hours away). I pulled into my appointed spot to run upstairs and grab a change of clothes. I barely make it out of my car when he grabbed my arm and pulled me back, a terrifyingly distraught look on his face. He looked awful. His cheeks were sunken in; deep, dark circles clouded his normally bright eyes. “Kate, I can’t eat without you. I can’t sleep without you,” he said, “I’m sorry, let’s fix this,” he said, his tight grip on my tiny forearm. I shrugged him off and ran down my sidewalk, knowing that he would catch up to me. There was no point in running. His legs would always be longer than mine. He would always be faster. He would always be stronger. 

He had the audacity to wait at my apartment until I showed up; assuming his pathetic tears would sway my decision. As if that had ever worked for me in our years together. As if my tears had ever had ANY effect on that selfish, abusive son of a bitch. As if I was supposed to give two shits that he was hurting, that he allegedly couldn’t live without me, that I was breaking his heart. 

He had to be joking.

I never really wanted you to go. So many things I should have known. I guess for me there’s just no hope. I never meant to be so cold. –Crossfade

In those days, there was a lot I didn’t know. My mind was warped and to be honest, I believed a lot of those things he said. And maybe to some degree, I still do. There are some things that unfortunately can’t be fixed. Some things that he said to me will always be irrevocable. I’m working on it but there are still remnants of him. He is a big reason that I feel so insecure all the time. But he’s also a big reason that I don’t take shit from people. He taught me how to stand up for myself because I had no other choice. With him, I had to eat or be eaten. And finally, I had had enough.

Moral of the Crazy: The older I get, I feel like I brought out the worst in him. It isn’t that I’m giving him an excuse necessarily. There was just something about the way I was that set him off. I could bring out his crazy almost instantaneously without even trying and to be honest, I can’t even remark on how it happened. He would be fine one minute and then I would say something or move my eyes in a certain way, and he would snap. I would miss his call or hang up before he was done talking and he would go from the sweet, selfless firefighter to Ike Turner. 

I want to place all the blame on him but to be honest, that’s difficult. I set the precedent for how I allowed him to treat me and although it’s not right, I always accepted his behavior. I allowed him to treat me like that for something like three years. And then I woke up one day and I didn’t. I would never let anyone talk to me or treat me like that ever again. 

I have such mixed feelings about this. I’m a hippie at heart and I don’t find that anything is really solved with fighting or arguing. Sometimes I feel that if I clubbed him once, just really knocked him out, he would learn something. He would learn what it feels like to be at someone else’s mercy. He would know what it is to be afraid of someone. He would know what it feels like to walk on eggshells. He would know what it’s like to get creamed by someone who is supposed to love and cherish you.

Sometimes when I’m really, really angry (which isn’t often) and I think about all the absolute shit that I went through with him and for him, I think: He doesn’t deserve to be rehabilitated. He doesn’t deserve a second chance. He doesn’t deserve anything good to come to him after what he has done to me. He deserves an awful, dreadful future after how he has made me feel, after the way he ruined me. After the way he neglected me, abused me, and talked to me like I was some piece of garbage.

But then I think: An eye for an eye only makes the whole world blind.

 

 You can’t forgive without loving and I don’t mean sentimentality. I don’t mean mush. I mean having the courage to stand up and say, ‘I forgive. I’m finished with it.’” –Maya Angelou