He had proclaimed that he loved me (and maybe he did, to the degree he was capable of it) and wanted us to be married.  By that point, I felt so unworthy of anyone or anything better, that I just went along in this role he had created for me.  In my own estimation I was “ruined merchandise” and couldn’t very well offer myself up to anyone else after what had happened.   The “ceremony” was performed by the pastor of his mom’s church.  He married us right there in his living room in our ratty shorts and tee shirts, the preachers wife the only witness.   I know that sounds insane in this day we live in now, and maybe even back then in the 80’s but I was definitely functioning from a wounded psyche at that point. Satan had swooped right in and pounced on what he knew was a weakened creature with no “covering” over me, out of my parent’s house, and not connected to a church either.  With my mouth I said “I do”, but in my heart I said “what choice do I have?”

I went to Cosmetology School first, but he wanted me to do something more lucrative. His choice for me was nursing.  I managed somehow to do very well in my pre-nursing studies, Dean’s list, Phi Theta Cappa Honor Fraternity, Suma Cum Laude, and won a full scholarship for nursing school.  By day I gave the appearance of this successful young adult making my way in life, and yet behind that, were the shameful secrets.

I was elected as the VP of the incoming class.  My grades were good, and as VP I was in charge of planning and organizing the next year’s Nursing School Open House for incoming RN students.  It was a large teaching Hospital, with schools for several other disciplines, in a large downtown area, lots of traffic, difficulty parking, a stressful sort of environment, in a demanding program, and I was barely holding myself together.  One day I suddenly felt like I could not breathe.  I was sitting in Pharmacology, listening to lecture and taking notes.   I wasn’t thinking about my circumstances or my depression, I was just doing something I enjoyed, learning, studying, listening to the professor.  But pretty soon I started feeling my vision go dark, and I reached over to my friend Robin, to get her attention.  She could tell right away something was wrong, and 30 student nurses jumped into action.  I was placed in a chair with wheels and someone wheeled me through the underground catacombs to the student clinic.  The fog of my mind was finally pierced when the doctor asked me if there was any way I might be pregnant.  It was a painfully lucid moment when I registered the fact that if I were to become pregnant, my nightmare might never end, and no way could I  take the chance of subjecting a child of mine to the reality I was living.  I don’t know why that had not already been a primary concern, other than the fact that my mind was struggling just to get through one moment at a time. Hour by hour, day by day.  I lost all sense of “future” back when the rape occurred.

After those protective shields unraveled, I just started to crumble,  my fears and anxieties lit into me like a swarm of wasps.  I realized that I just couldn’t live the way I was living, much longer without my mind and spirit being broken beyond any hope of recovery.  If something did not change, I was probably going to  die.  I was so depressed and felt so hopeless by then, that I already had ideas of how to end my life.  When I came out of the clinic, my friend was still there.  She stayed late with me, there on campus after class was over.  We found a nook somewhere by one of the many side doors and sat on the steps.  When I could finally stop sobbing, she said “talk to me”.

My whole story came tumbling out.  There was so much that was so wrong and dysfunctional about all of it.  Even our living arrangements.   My friend just sat there with her mouth open, unable to take in all I had been carrying, astounded that I was hurting so badly yet still functioning, smiling and thinking about others.    She told me I had a right to feel what I was feeling.  I told her I had to get out.  She hugged me,  looked me in the eye and she said, “yes you do”.  I told her it would likely mean withdrawing from school because I was sure that my psyche couldn’t handle both.  She said “you can always finish later”.

I went home that night, knowing I was leaving, just not knowing when. I told him I wanted to spend a weekend by myself at the beach to get my head together for school and de-stress before exams.  Instead I spent that time going over things in my mind and trying to figure out how I ended up where I was, and how I was going to get out, and what the cost would be.  I took my Bible with me, and did my best to pray, and re-connect with God.  I knew I was going to need Him.  (It was on that weekend that I wrote the poem “Retreat” and snapped the accompanying photo).  To me, divorce was unacceptable, and even though the marriage was a sham to begin with, taking the step of being divorced in my early twenties, was not easy, or taken lightly. It was almost the end of the semester before I was prepared to make the actual move. I had a friend who had a small “in-law” apartment in her garage.  I could live there for a while practically free.  I submitted my withdrawal from school (losing my scholarship of course), and I drove him to work one morning (while his car was being worked on). I went back to the house, pulled the car right up to the back door, loaded up just the things that were my own personal belongings, and my nursing school stuff, and took it all to my friend’s garage.  Then I went to the bank and withdrew half of the savings.

When I picked him up from work, I didn’t say anything but hello, I just listened to him talk about his day, and it wasn’t until we pulled up in front of the house and I put the car in park but didn’t turn it off, that he noticed something was wrong.  He had already pulled the door handle on the passenger side and was getting out, when it dawned on him how quiet I’d been, and that I hadn’t turned off the car or made any move to get out.  He jokingly said, “aren’t you coming in?”.  I said, dryly and pretty much devoid of emotion, “no”.  I didn’t smile or laugh, or cry or frown, or even turn my head.  I was looking straight ahead.  He said, “Huh? Why not?”  I turned my head slowly toward him and I said, “because I left you today”.  His smile faded, and a puzzled look came on his face.  He gave a sort of half-chuckle, half gulp, and asked; “What do you mean?”.  I said, “I. Moved.Out. Today.  I’m leaving you. I don’t love you, I never did love you, and I’m not coming back”.  He sat there like he was still waiting for me to crack up or give him a punchline, until I finally asked him to please get out of my car.  He said “you’re scaring me, what in the world are you saying?”  I asked him “how much plainer can I make it?  If you don’t believe me, go look in the house, you’ll see that my stuff is gone.  I am not coming back”.  He finally actually stepped out of the car, and I left.  Without a backward glance.

At first he came looking for me, pleading with me, saying he couldn’t live without me and was going to kill himself.  When that didn’t work he threatened to kill me, instead.  The old “if I can’t have you, nobody will”.

He even managed to win my parents sympathies for a little while and they tried to get me to give him another chance.  They had no idea, of course, so I can’t really blame them, but that just shows how persuasive he could be.
What can I say?  When that is one’s introduction to the notion of intimacy, to that which God created to be good and sacred, but which is instead turned reprobate (much to Satan’s delight), it can be extremely damaging.  It has been a life-long source of grief and loss.

Why would I write about it?  Well, if there is a young woman or even a young man, who reads this and is dealing with similar pressures and temptations, and they can conceive of the potential damage and pain, maybe God can use it to help someone be stronger than I was back then.  Maybe I can be a voice of guidance , which wasn’t there for me back then.  There were two people I went to, before I married him, looking for insight, some way to get off the hook I was impaled on, but neither of them really had any wisdom to offer, and I came away feeling even more stuck and hopeless.

In all, my association with this person spanned 7  very painful and messed-up years, and extended on into a second horrible relationship of 3 years .  Yet the ramifications, the ripples, have stretched over 3 decades (and counting).

Satan is indeed, a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour!

Unfortunately, escaping hell didn’t exactly land my feet onto solid ground.  That would be quite a ways down the road yet.