Jennifer’s Story
PART I
Our Out-Patient Services Program at Work
Every victim of domestic abuse has a profound story to tell. The following story was written by Jennifer, a Chrysalis Out-Patient client. Thank you Jennifer for sharing your experience with us.
In 2000 I was at the top of my game. I was a proud mother of two, post-divorce, and doing well at my career. I had been quickly promoted to National Sales Manager of a nursing publication. The day after Thanksgiving I went shopping to kick off the holiday season and then stopped at a trendy local bakery to buy brioche for the next morning’s French toast. At the counter I met the Operations Manager and we chatted over ciabatta instead of brioche. He was handsome, funny and at-ease with himself. He made me giggle, blush and feel tingly inside. I was instantly attracted to his charm and when he offered to give me his number instead of asking for mine, I was very impressed. I was mad about him after just one meeting over loaves of bread. We started dating and he did amazing things that swept me off my feet. Like clockwork, he brought me two-dozen flowers every Monday when he appeared at my high-rise office in downtown Phoenix to take me to lunch. He was sweet, attentive, loving and supportive. He wowed me with stories of his troubled childhood and impressed me with how far he’d come. I was in love and emotionally invested. He convinced me that we were special, that we were lucky to have found each other in such a difficult world. We had lived in some of the same cities and were born only miles from each other. We talked at length of how we were destined for one another and the relationship seemed very magical.
On Valentine’s Day 2001 he proposed to me with a 6 carat Sapphire ring. When we had discussed getting engaged he mentioned to me that he wanted a ring so large that people could see it from across the street. He said he wanted the world to know that I was taken. I was naïve. I thought it was sweet and I was flattered. I now know that it was classic control rooting from a very unhealthy place.
In April, while working a new magazine through the pipeline as Publisher, we discovered that I was pregnant. He had been unhappy in the weeks preceding the news due to his employment problems. He varied in his emotions and reactions toward the pregnancy. By early June he was feeling mostly unhappy about it and we talked of breaking up. By mid-June I mis-carried the twins. The first loss was at home, the second in the basement bathroom of the hospital. Things got horrendous after my return home from the hospital and my surgical procedure. He strangled me several times during sex. He tried to smother me with a pillow. He wanted to control my clothing choices. He was even more demanding for details of who I spoke to at work, ate lunch with, etc. It seemed like the more I tried to get away from him, the angrier and more controlling he became. On several occasions I went to a hotel room and each time he found me by coercing and threatening me so that I would reveal my location. One time he had me sequestered in the “bedroom” portion of the suite and he raped me while my two young children (4 & 6) were on the other side of the door watching television. He knew I would never make a sound or protest with them there. He was right. Afterwards, I quickly hid the bloody sheets and did my best to cover my pain so that they would never know. At the end of July we had the worst physical encounter to date. The situation ended with me protecting my son by placing myself in the doorway between my child and my abuser. He slammed the door on me repeatedly crushing my hands, arms and legs. Later when I got him outside and had 911 on the telephone, he attempted to crush me with his car. I called the police, went to the emergency room and got an order of protection like a dutiful victim.
Two weeks later, with the protection order in place, my abuser called to tell me that he was going to my house to kill himself. I gathered my children, notified the police and ran to a hotel to hide. Within a few hours he arrived at the house. He poured bleach on my clothes, smashed items in the house, stole some electronics and then started a fire……
