Guest Post

The following piece was contributed by a member of the public.


"What Goes Around Comes Around"
by Anonymous

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” his brother said, “Jon died six years ago, you didn’t know?” How would I, I haven’t spoken to him in over 15 years. “What goes around comes around” were the last words that Jon ever said to me, as if my husband’s cancer was the result of some karmic energy paying me back for leaving him. The only thing that I can remember from that phone conversation with Jon’s brother is me singing the song from the Wizard of OZ in my head “Ding dong, the witch is dead.”

It is hard to describe exactly what I was feeling when I first heard the news. It hit me a few days later. I cried, but it wasn’t because I was grieving his death. I cried because I thought I was a terrible person. I was glad that he was dead, and relieved to know that I would never see him again.

There were times with Jon that I lay in bed, wondering how I could kill him and make it look like an accident. Others may have become suicidal, but that thought never crossed my mind. He hadn’t beaten me down that far. He wasn’t going to win. It had to look like an accident because I didn’t want to pay for his life with the rest of mine. He had already taken enough of my life.

Jon was very clear that I wasn’t going to leave him. He would never let me go. If he couldn’t have me then no one could. The .357 Magnum kept next to our bed enforced that point clearly and he didn’t hesitate to pull it out of the nightstand on a regular basis to remind me.

An opportunity presented itself when he moved out of state for his work and had been gone for about a month. I was absolutely insistent that I would not get married until I finished my college degree so I didn’t go with him. It was probably the one thing that saved my life, the one thing that he knew that he could not get me to change my mind on. It scared him to think that I wasn’t going with him and he called me every day and night to check in on me. Even from a distance he frightened me, he knew where I was and he knew how to find me. At one point I believed that he was having me watched. I could only hope that I would have some warning before he actually arrived back in the state.

I remember watching a movie one night, “Sleeping with the Enemy”. The title resonated with me and it was chilling. Too close to home but not quite the same story. I had never spoken with anyone about what was happening. Not even my best girl friend. How could I have gotten myself into this mess? It was at that moment that I realized even strong, confident women get drawn into abusive relationships. I never thought I was one of “those women”. You know, the weak woman with the bad family history, the one who was raised in violence and expected nothing less from her relationships. It was her own fault, right? She didn’t have to take it. She could leave any time. How naïve. I wasn’t any better than anyone else, I had been drawn into the same pattern of abuse, and I just didn’t realize it.

He had been dead six years and I didn’t realize how much he affected my daily habits, how frightened I had been, and watchful. I am still living with the effects of that relationship and the experience still haunts me in ways that I don’t expect. My husband occasionally experiences the aftermath of the lingering emotional damage. Every once in awhile he will do something that sets me off and I will scream at him at the top of my lungs as he stares blankly at me, having no idea what he has just done. He knew that I had issues as a result of my ex but I never really discussed them in detail. There are just some things he doesn’t need to know.

I was sitting in the airport the other day when I realized that for the first time in years I was relaxed. I wasn’t looking over my shoulder wondering if he was going to sneak up behind me. He is gone and I never have to worry about him again.

He died of a gunshot wound to the groin. He was out at his cabin and bled to death before they got him to a hospital. As terrible as it sounds, I couldn’t think of a better way for him to die. A gunshot wound to the groin, how fitting. The abuse that I suffered over the years came back to haunt him. I wonder if he shot himself with his .357 Magnum.

When his brother told me how he died, all I could think of were the words he said to me the last time we spoke. “What goes around comes around.”

Trauma Recovery and PTSD: Scuba Therapy

I've not until recently felt kinship with soldiers.

My parents were raised in Berkeley during the 60s, and although they had zero good things to say about "those hippies", I did the Birkenstock/calico skirts/Mexican ruffle top/hairy armpit Seattle thing, perhaps to spite them. This rebellion included campus organizing for abortion rights, protesting Iran-Contra, and holding signs down by the Pike Place Market against the war in El Salvador.

Two things bridged the gap I felt between myself and those who are trained to kill.

Being raped at knifepoint by an intruder to my home was the first. Now, my sentiments after the attack could well have swung me in the other direction. After all, rape is often a weapon of war, and Nicolas Kristoff of the NYT is a hero for exposing so publicly this blight on our humanity. We know that even our soldiers have raped, and often the victims are fellow United States soldiers. I hold this wariness of soldiers' training, of anything-can-happen-in-the-jungle mentality, very close. It is always on the tip of my tongue, ready to release invective. But I feel it in my bones, how close I came to dying. I was on that precipice, for about 3 hours. Soldiers on assignment, they feel it every minute of every day, for months, or years at a time.

I don't have to view soldiers as victims in the way I do the survivors of rape. After all, those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan signed up for it all. But when it comes to recovery, does it matter whether or not we chose our circumstances? In some respects, yes, perhaps. But which story am I to be less troubled by? That of a veteran who can neither sleep nor get out of bed for the flashbacks and the terror of stepping out into the raw outside world? Or that of a raped mother who can't listen to her child or pay the bills or shop for food because she's paralyzed with grief and depression? Suffering is the great equalizer. All who have seen death around the corner -- whether it's the left corner or the right, it doesn't matter -- share a kinship that makes for an odd family. But then what family isn't.

The second thing that bridged the gap was dating a soldier. I come from a line of Marines -- my father, two uncles, a cousin. But knowing a Marine, and kissing (et cetera) one, are two completely different scenarios. I was appalled at first to hear of his going upstate to play war games in the woods with his ex-Marine buddies. I blushed at the military humor bumper stickers plastered all over his car. I thought to myself, how in God's name did I end up here with him? But there was something tantalizing about exploring someone so, well, weird when considered in the context of my lefty world. I listened to him talk about discipline, loyalty, and self-control. I considered the parallels between Eastern martial arts and our military. And I frankly swooned at his confident bearing and "no, sir" and "yes, ma'am" replies to my colleagues at work. We didn't last, of course. Our worlds were just too far apart.

But I have that bridge now. I can step over and hold the hand of a soldier, and feel the common turf beneath us. I feel it in my bones, as keenly as I feel the terror, even now almost four years later. And so when I watch wounded soldiers getting scuba therapy, I think of the scuba certification I got in Mexico last year. I had gone to Mexico for a reason: the man who raped me was Mexican. I wanted to face my fear, look in the eyes of Mexican men, and not just see rapists. I wanted to purge the prejudice that poisoned me after the attack. It was the sea turtles off Playa del Carmen who helped me do that. I mean, how you can you look a sea turtle in the eye and not be grateful to be alive? After seeing those turtles, I was able to see men with a little more joy as well.

We need more of these programs like scuba therapy for returning soldiers. They are our brothers and sisters, and when they suffer . . . we need to feel it as our own, and act accordingly.