Sharing Our Stories of Survival: Native Women Surviving Violence (22 page)

His family gave him a green light, too, except for one brother. His mother refused to believe that her favorite son could be violent. He was the one that was always there for her offering help and support. He painted her house, took her shopping, and called her every day. He was a good friend, a thoughtful brother, and he showed love and affection to his children. Who could ask for more? He was the dependable family man. No one as good as him could perpetrate the violence I described.

My family gave him a green light through their value system. They didn’t believe in divorce. No one on either side of the family had divorced. They believed in raising children with their father. They believed in a family staying together. They believed in forgiveness. They believed that prayer would bring about a change in his violent behavior! He knew my love for my family and the values that bound us would tie me to him. All their beliefs and kindness inadvertently provided him permission to continue his violence. He knew that everyone was on his side because of their beliefs about marriage, children, and women. Ultimately, it was his violence that was treated as sacred. None of the authority that surrounded, guided, and counseled me would place limits on his violence.

Sometimes the emotional pain was so intense that it was difficult to relate to others or even acknowledge their presence. I was trapped in the relationship because of practical things like income, childcare, and housing. The dilemmas that bound me were values like “no one in my family had divorced”; “if I gave up this marriage, I also would have to give up my religion”; and “children need their father.” All were powerful restraints on my seesaw of hope and hopelessness.

In order to cope, I needed to separate his two personalities. He seemed to be two different people, the one I married and the one I hated. The violent person could appear at any moment. There was no pattern to it. I would sometimes awaken in the middle of the night to an assault. No warning! No pattern! No reason! I thought he was crazy and needed psychiatric care. There was no way that I was able to make that happen. I had tried.

My mother told me, “You made your bed, now lie in it!” My father was different, and he was there to help and support me whenever I asked. However, I could not bring myself to tell him of the despicable attacks against my body and soul. I wanted to remain valued in his eyes.

The Tube

I could hear the voices far away. Their tempo was reassuring. I drifted back to sleep. Again, I heard the reassuring voices and opened my eyes. The room was unfamiliar. I fell back asleep. Later, I awakened and tried to call for someone. I didn’t know where I was. I felt calm, rested, and at peace. Where was I and where were my children? Again I fell asleep. Drowsily awakening yet again, I heard voices near me. This time I opened my eyes to see my mother and my sister Julie standing over me talking. I couldn’t stay awake. I awoke and they were gone. Again, I fell asleep. I heard their voices and wondered if I was dreaming. I opened my eyes and this time they were looking at me. My mom began to cry. My sister held her hands over her mouth. I tried to talk to them but couldn’t. I didn’t know what was wrong. I fell asleep. Finally, when I heard them talking, I concentrated on staying awake. I saw them again and tried to talk to them. I noticed my throat was dry. As I raised my hand to my mouth, I realized there were tubes down my nose and throat. I tried to pull them out so I could talk to my mother and sister. I wanted to know if my children were okay and if my husband was in jail. I was overjoyed to think he might finally be in jail. I must have drifted back to sleep because there was a lot of excitement around me and I was being given a shot. This continued until one day I woke up and didn’t go back to sleep. I was told that I was in intensive care and that I had suffered a fractured skull and had been in a coma. I asked if my husband was in jail. No one would answer me.

My mom and sister returned. I discovered that nothing had happened to my husband because we were married. I still couldn’t testify against him. He was my guardian because we were married. Only he could sign me out of the hospital. I was told that he hadn’t decided if he was going to sign me out since he wasn’t sure that he wanted me back! I wasn’t healthy enough to sign myself out! He talked to the nurses regularly and they liked him.

Surprisingly, my mind was clear at that time. I knew that I was trapped by circumstances. I also knew that I would leave him when my babies became school age, when I could work and be independent. I knew that once I had a job, I could save money for a divorce. The police and courts had never proved helpful to me. I knew that my safety depended on having a plan that required me to help myself.

I left when my children were in school. I experienced more assaults, including rape. Although I had obtained protection orders, he never abided by them. The police and the courts always seemed to reinforce his point of view, as if he had done nothing wrong!

No More

The night I ended up in the hospital again with a second skull fracture and a broken nose, I decided that I would work in a shelter for battered women. I had been repeatedly humiliated by having to tell my story over and over while talking to crisis line advocates as I lay on a gurney with an audience of over twenty people in the emergency room. I had been denied shelter at each one I called because I had too many children. I was also denied assistance for the next day’s court appearance. I vowed that I would work in one of those places and learn everything that I could to help other women experiencing violence.

In this assault he had a knife and was pressing it into my throat when the police walked in, but they never found it! My long hair cut with his knife was scattered in thick bunches about the bedroom as well as my nightgown that he cut off me. Blood splattered the kitchen walls, the stairwell, and my bedroom. It is amazing to me that a knife was never found!

I left the hospital and went to work to ask my co-worker in Indian Education to accompany me to court. She was a social worker and I thought she might be able to help me. She was the first person outside family and the legal system who knew about the violence. The other office workers were horrified when they saw me. Blood was still caked to my face and hair as we went to court. He pled “not guilty”!

I sold my car and bought a one-way family train ticket to another state. My plan was to stay away until his trial. Several months went by. He was granted several continuances. I was notified by the prosecutor that a trial date was finally set. As I arrived at court with my social worker friend, Ellen, and the arresting officer, I looked across the room at my husband. He looked quite confident. He had an attorney friend representing him, about four friends, and two of his brothers sitting in the courtroom with him. They were all relaxed and confident. When it came time to testify, my husband looked at me and the arresting police officer and pled guilty. He was sentenced to ninety days in jail. He was sent to jail directly from the courtroom. After all the assaults, all of the rapes, he would spend only one summer in jail! He was only sentenced to ninety days! Although his time in jail was short, it was the only consequence he ever received to stop his violence. He called me from jail saying that now that we had this behind us could we get back together!

Over the next several years I experienced threats and a kidnapping at gunpoint. When I reported the kidnapping to the police, they laughed at me. Even though I was divorced from him when this occurred, they told me a husband can’t kidnap his wife. One officer said, “Stop being vindictive. He was just picking up the kids.”

Nearly two years later, I was working in a shelter for battered women. A few months after I started work as an advocate, I joined in with three other women to co-found the first Native women’s shelter in Minnesota. My commitment to this work is a commitment to my children, who didn’t have a choice. I have been an advocate for other battered women and their children since 1982. I believe in making a difference for women experiencing violence.

Today I live free of immediate violence. Momentous occasions like weddings, funerals, or the birth of a new baby in the family bring reminders of the past. When two people become parents they are tied throughout their lifetimes to the children that connect them. The children carry the burden of deciding how to include both parents in these milestones. As I approach my sixties, the assaults I experienced in my twenties and thirties are becoming medical problems today.

My ex-husband continued to be violent in his later relationships, which ended due to his behavior. Eventually, he became violent toward his brothers, and once toward his mother. Today, he is pitiful, sick, and helpless. Our children have learned compassion and treat him kindly. They each have drawn a line with his abusiveness, and he has come to respect that with them. The children had to do this in their own way and in their own time.

My life has been enriched by the advocates I have met and worked with, both women and men, Native and non-Native. The family life I experienced as a child is what I see when I walk into a shelter for battered women. The same potential for helping and sharing is evident at the kitchen table where women are talking to one another. The men who support this work in numerous ways are like my uncles, my grandpa, and my father who supported the women in my childhood home.

My children are still the stars that guide me. I have never forgotten that they are my teachers. I would live my life over in just the same way to have the children I am blessed with! They bring joy and laughter to the world.

It is the beauty of my childhood that has sustained me and nurtured me through the harshest moments. Shortly before my mother died a few years ago, she told me the story of being raped and getting pregnant with me at age seventeen. The conclusion to her story was, “I found you a good family, didn’t I, my girl?”

Note

1
  “Running a train” is a euphemism for gang rape or rape by several individuals in a group.

Questions

1. What aspects of the author’s experiences with her husband are indicative of what we learned about the cycle of domestic violence and control in chapter 3? What barriers prevented her from leaving him sooner?
   
2. Why did the protection orders and laws against domestic abuse not serve their purpose in shielding the author from sexual assault and violence? Why did police ignore the victim’s accusations against her husband?
   
3. Why do you think the husband resorted to sexual assault to gain power and control over the author?
   
4. Why is it important for the author to make the connection between her early family experiences and her current work as an advocate?
   

In Your Community

1. How can families of victims and perpetrators work to support the victim instead of acting as barriers to her receipt of assistance and access to healing? How do you visualize this in your community?
   
2. The author feels let down and ignored by the police, the legal system, and women’s shelters in her community due in a large part to the fact that she is Indian. What can be done at a local level so that victims do not have to relive her experiences?
   
3. What types of partnerships would benefit Indian women victims in your community? Resources?
   
4. The author is a survivor. Do you know strong women like her in your community who work at the grassroots level to keep Indian women and children safe?
   

Suggested Further Reading

Bergen, Raquel Kennedy,
Wife Rape: Understanding the Response of Survivors and Service Providers.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1996.

Mahoney, Patricia. “High Rape Chronicity and Low Rates of Help-Seeking Among Wife Rape Survivors in a Nonclinical Sample: Implications for Research and Practice.”
Violence Against Women
5, no. 9 (1999): 993.

Bouncy, Lively

Bouncy, lively
bouncy, lively
up to the ceiling and
down to the floor
bouncy against the window
and bouncy against the door
bouncy, lively...
bouncing endlessly
dreamlike and surreal
in an inanimate
faraway absence from pain

The voice of a child
interrupted the rhythm,
the bouncing ball rolled
to an abrupt stop.

I was no longer a red rubber ball
I was a woman—a battered woman
grabbed, punched, thrown in a car,
kicked, thumped, clutched, beaten
lengths of my hair
lay on the floor.

Years have passed,
yet I remember so vividly
the shock, the unreality and
the violence of that day.
But mostly, I remember
that even a strong, educated
competent, Comanche woman;
I—an advisor to other women
in similar situations,
could be so classic
in my reactions.

Juanita Pahdopony (Comanche)

Chapter 7

Walking in the Darkness, Then Finding the Light

LISA FRANK