The Crossroad Inn

Understanding Domestic Violence Part 1 – Failsafe Brain Mechanisms

My then 15 year old daughter was talking my second husband about her experiences with my first husband when she turned to me and said

 
"Do you remember the time that he was hitting you over the head with the shovel and then drove over you in the car?"

 
I sat there. Blank.
No I didn't

 
That shocked me, I could feel the wisps of memory but it was like a faded snapshot, with the figures in it barely legible or visible in my mind.

 
It was as if it had happened to someone else. As I sat there thinking, the memory did come back. Slowly and insidiously, with much pain, anguish and torment.

 
So why did I forget? Why didn't I remember something so traumatic in my life that you would think one would never forget.

 
That event had faded into insignificance. It paled in comparison as such to other events that happened afterward.

Does that violence sound extreme?

 
To you yes but for someone living it no. It fades out as more and more abuse is inflicted.

 
I answered my daughter that night, "No all I can remember is the day he fractured my skull."

Yes being hit over the head with a shovel did pale in comparison to being kicked repeatedly in the head against a brick wall after being thrown on the concrete.

Maybe I only remember that event because of what happened two days after.

He was released from jail on bond after a few days in lockup. I was lying at home in bed recovering. The doctors had taken photos and they had a chart, where they marked on a drawn human figure the areas of damage. From my waist up, you couldn't see the outline of the figure for the mass of crosses in areas of visible damage.

I had a swollen brain, fractured skull, severe damage to the rear of my eye (where the retina nearly tore off from the kicks to the head). There was six broken ribs, fractured fingers, a broken nose (nothing new there), black eyes, mangled lips, contusions and bruises everywhere and yeah, you get the picture, I was a mess.

I remember being asleep and hearing the back window of the kitchen opening. I knew it was Keith because he was the only one other than me, who knew the window trick. I tried to get up out of bed but my legs were still not working. He came storming into the bedroom, grabbed the side of the mattress and heaved it up, tossing me onto the floor in the corner and then he beat me up again. I came to as I was being raped. I love my son dearly but his conception will always haunt me.

You may be reading this and be shocked. As I was shocked the night I remembered about the shovel. I wasn't shocked about the shovel incident itself, I was shocked that I hadn't remembered any of it. I was shocked at how dim and faded the memory was of the event when as my readers know, my memory is full of clarity for events 30 years ago and more.

 Later after undergoing DV counselling and doing a few courses on DV I finally discovered the medical reason for this to occur.

 
The brain is a clever little thing. It knows just how much pain and torment it can take. If the pain and torment is too great, it shuts down the memory parts. This is common in people who have witnessed horrific accidents. The incident gets hazy and fuzzy as your mind protects itself and you from further pain.

 
This is often seen in adults who suddenly remember episodes of physical or sexual abuse as a child which they have blocked and just do not remember.

 
It is a fail safe mechanism by the brain to "save your sanity" as such. This little mechanism also shuts down your short term memory in abuse situations. It is a survival mechanism. If each abuse incident was still clear in your brain, the mind would snap as it played over and over in graphic glory. Hence many abuse victims have short term memory issues, including myself.

 
I am always losing my keys, wallet, sunglasses and items like that because I can't remember where I put them. I often can't remember if someone has called or talked to me that day. Or what we talked about. In other words, my short term memory is atrocious.

 
So if you message me or tell me something and I forget, blame Keith. Everyone else does.

One downfall to this short term memory switch down is that the person being abused, does not realize how serious their situation is. It is hazy to them and the pain is often too great "to go there" and look at. So the mind pretends everything is rosy and dulls it all over.

 It is much harder for people around victims to penetrate that haziness and fogginess to get the victim the help they need. They do not realize how bad their situation is, often until it is too late and they are on a slab in the morgue.

 
Considering the abuse I suffered, I got off lightly.

 Glen, my second husband and I were friends for about a year while I was still with Keith. Everyone was scared of Keith. After he "went crazy" as such, he was a very scary person.

Glen was the only one of our group of friends who would ever stand up to him.

 
One night I commented to Glen and some other friends "Oh I know I live with domestic violence but mines a mild case".

 See above…Mild?

 
No mine was extreme. So extreme in fact that the agencies designed to help women in abusive situations would not come near us. They would not come to the house and they would not speak to me in fear that he would kill them.

 
Exaggeration?

 
Keith's records clearly show charges for kidnapping as well as multiple assaults on me.

One time when he was in severe mental distress, he grabbed a pedestrian and threw him in the car and drove around in the car for hours with him and every police car in the city on his tail. He just wanted to show the man how crazy the police were. Who's mad?

 
Another time he snapped my telescope in half with his bare hands, slicing himself open to the elbows. He didn't realize he was bleeding and he left the house to go and find more alcohol. Friends of ours picked him up a few kilometres up the road, we lived in the country, 20 miles in either direction to any town. He sat in their car, wild eyed and totally off the planet, mumbling about "the council" and revelations (yes he thought he was the anti Christ). Our friends were terrified, they thought from all the blood and madness, that he had killed me. They dropped him off in the next town and came straight back to see if I was ok. The police picked him up on the other side of town, walking along swearing at cars driving past. It was over 100 kilometres to the next town. He was locked up in Psychiatric ward for a month after that.

 

We went shopping in the largest shopping centre in Wollongong one time with Krystal. As we walked in the auto doors, the little infra red beam caught Keith in the eyes. He lost it and took his flip flops off his feet and put them onto his hands. He ripped his shirt off and started chasing imaginary laser beams around the shopping centre, screaming. Krystal, who was about 7 and I were trying to drag him out and get him home but he kept getting wilder and wilder. He kept snapping the flip flops together in a clapping movement, to squash the beams and when anyone who was walking passed looked at him (they all did), he would stride up to them, with a total crazy look in his eyes, cigarette hanging out of the corner of his mouth and start snapping the flip flops in their faces. He hid behind displays and jumped out at people, snapping and swearing away about the council (he loved his council, I'll explain that sometime too).

Krystal starts saying "mum mum, the police are over there." So we both make a concentrated effort and finally get him out to the carpark and into the car, just as a squad of officers come streaming out those blasted auto doors.

Living with Keith was never boring.

 
As my earlier (I won't say older) readers know, Keith was very sick. It doesn't excuse his actions in any way. The damage he has done to me and my family is insurmountable in so many ways. Dealing with acquired mental illness as well as abuse is one of the most emotionally extreme situations a person can be in.

 

 

Keith died last year, sadly leaving behind two beautiful children. For me personally his death has freed many fears. I now feel free enough of that fear to begin writing about it. Many will say do not speak ill of the dead.  I only speak the truth. If it tarnishes and blackens his reputation as much as he blackened my eyes. So be it.

This is the first in a series of blogs along the same subject. Lots of people will be reading and thinking.

Why did she get involved in the first place?

Why didn't she leave?

That is all to come. My earlier readers will know some of the reasons already. For my newer readers, you are most welcome to delve into my archives which are listed at the top of the blog under the life category.

 
So yeah, there is a bit of an explanation of how the mind works from inside my own little mind. You may wonder why an abuse victim goes back near their abuser or goes back to him. This is part and I say only part of the reason. They do not realize how badly they were abused. Their mind has hidden it from them to protect them, in that action, the reaction is "oblivion" to the event.

This became obvious to me when I was staying in a women's shelter and listening to the other women's stories around me.

I can go out for a drive in the car and come home and relive it in my mind, telling you exactly what went on at what stage of the drive. Even bringing back the images of cars passing me and people to crystal clarity but when Keith had beaten me sometimes after a week I could barely remember anything happening at all.

Antegrade amnesia: Amnesia in which the loss of memory relates to events that occur after a traumatic event. There is inability to recall new information. Old information can be recalled. Antegrade amnesia may follow brain trauma. Also called anterograde amnesia. This type of amnesia is in contrast to retrograde amnesia in which the lack of memory relates to events that occurred before a traumatic event.

I will mark these blogs with DV on the title so that readers who don't wish to read them can skip these blogs and read my lighter side.

These blogs are not pity blogs so please do not feel sorry for me, rather the people who are living with violence in a day to day manner aorund the world today.