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SPEAK - Share your experiences

This SPEAK page was last updated by the site editor on 24 October, 2003

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Welcome to the share section of our website.  Please use our submission button to share your experience with others -  we need your help.  Please share your advice, stories, poems, experiences and articles using our simple to use submission form or by sending them in an e-mail to speakorg@hotmail.com.  Share your knowledge with others.  Even if it's just a couple of sentences, we would really appreciate your input!  Please put 'share' in the subject line of your e-mail.  Scroll down the page to see submissions we have received.

SUBMISSIONS Don't Believe Him - Submitted by Kayla, a survivor from the USA 05/01/00 I was abused by my boyfriend for over two years and he kept on saying he was sorry and that thing would get better if we got an apartment together.  I moved in but it got worse and he kept saying it wouldn't happen again, but it did.  I left in the end and moved out of the State to get away from him.  I wasted two years of my life on this guy and I had to move away from my area!  If your boyfriend says it will get better - don't believe him - believe me, it will just get worse!

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Fight against Domestic Abuse - Submitted by Katlyn Stewart - 18/10/2003    My childhood had not been a stable one. I had been abused as a child sexually. Was quiet and withdrawn as a young teen. Prior to my 25th birthday I had been married and divorced twice. I seem to seek out men that I knew really didn't care about me, and pushed the men that did care to the way side. I had no self-esteem. Each time I was hurt in a relationship I would promise myself, "this is the last time"; only to end up finding a different man with the same type attitude.    A new guy comes into my life. He is hired as the new head Manager at the Seafood Store. Tall, Italian, and handsome, he was older than me by 11 years. He asked me out, and I excepted. His name was Mark Coccia, with dark hair, dark skin and deep dark eyes. He had come from the Detroit area when the plant he was working at closed down. His Mother lived in Florida, so he had packed up and came here till the plant reopened. He was seasoned, acted so mature and wise. We start to date. He tells me over and over how special I am. He would tell me I had witches eyes, said I could capture a man's heart when I looked at them. I can not tell you honestly when or what happened, but, I think it was love. Whatever it was, I fell into it. If we were not working, we were together constantly, taking the children somewhere. I stopped going out with friends and started focusing on Mark. He wanted me to be with him all the timeand I thought how special I was that a man wanted me that bad. If Sara did ask me to go somewhere and I excepted, he would get so gloomy and sadthat I would tell Sara I would have to cancel. He loved me so much, I couldn't say no to him. We were dating for about six months when the call came in from Detroit that the plant was going back into production. The pay there was three times the amount he made here. He would be a fool not to go. He asked me to go, and to marry him. I thought about it for a little while, and said yes. My girlfriends, one of which was Sara James did not like the fact that I was going in the least....she didn't want me to move so far away from her. Sara also had doubts about Mark, she liked him well enough and they got along great, but she just didn't think he was the right man for me. In the end, they both accepted whatever choices I decided to make. Mark left ahead of us, he went back to work just two days after getting up there. He found a beautiful townhouse to live in, and sent me pictures of "our" new home. I couldn't believe how lucky I was. To have a man love me, truly love me. He called me every other night, he told me how much he missed me and couldn't wait for me to get up there. The children and I set out on our own in my little car, bound for Detroit. Everything we could get of ours in the trunk of the car and above us on the roof in a carry-all. A whole new world was out there waiting for me. One week after we arrived, Mark and I got married. I was so happy, a nice place to live, two beautiful children and a new and exciting life to start. The first time it happened I was absolutely stunned that I didn't even move. I was numb. A hit, hard to the face. We had been married almost two weeks. I had no idea what had provoked him, I still don't know what first started it. I did learn in the coming months that it could be something as simple as not fixing his dinner the right way. At first I fought back, but as the time went on, the fighting back got less and less. He didn't want me to work, didn't want me associating with the neighbors - nothing. I was so bored at home during the day with the children both in school. I begged him to let me work, and finally one afternoon he said I could work if I found a part-time job. I did find a job, a little Deli down the road from usbut I didn't get to keep it long. Mark would come up to my work and stand there watching me for the short hours I was there. It unnerved the Owner, Angelo. One afternoon, after repeatedly asking Mark to stop coming up there and getting shoved against the wallI went in and told Angelo I had to quit. I didn't have to say much else to himhe already knew the answer.   There are nights Mark doesn't come home and I am glad when he doesn'tit means that my night will be free from the hitting. I finally get up the courage to ask him why he even married me if he was going to be so cruelhis answer hurt me much more than anything he had yet to say to me, and to this dayI still remember it: "I married you to take care of my house, why else would a man marry a woman with kids?" Sara comes up for two weeks to see me, and as usual Mark's performance is excellent., he is on his best behavior. Sara and I have a wonderful time, Mark takes us out to dinner several timesWe are acting like the married couple. I don't tell Sara anything and have hidden my bruises well underneath my make-up.. I am used to hiding them. I hated to see her leave, I knew what would happen after she was gone. But, still I could not bring myself to tell her anything, even though I could have when he was at work. I knew if I told her, she would lash out at him and then when she left to go back to Florida, I would get it from him three times as hard. One might say " Why didn't you leave him,"and my answer would have been."why?" From the first hit, from the first time he forgot to come homeI believed somehow I deserved itone major hit, it's all it takes and everything you have tried to learn and tried to repair about your damaged life, goes right down the trash. I was just the same scared little girl I was under my Father's watchful eyestill being controlled and disciplined. This was a huge pattern in my lifechild abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuseit is all the same. The same kind of fears and feelings of worthlessness. My Father calls from Florida with a huge job proposal for Mark. One that he accepts before ever getting off the phone or even telling me about it. He tells me he is taking a leave of absence from his job and we are moving back to Florida. He is going to head my Father's trucking company. I have no idea what on earth he is talking about, last I had heard my Father had one truck. I don't argue about it, I knew better than to speak my opinion. I was just happy to be going back to FloridaWhere my friends were, where I would be safer. We move in with my Father, I absolutely hate the idea...but I know that I will not get hit there and it is just long enough to find a place to live. Mark finds out as soon as we arrive that the Trucking company was all a hoax to get us to move back. Mark is extremely angry and I think there will be a fight. I think I am going to be in a lot of trouble when Mark gets me alone. Instead he slams out of the door and leaves the yard. My Father tells me why he pulled off the bogus job offer, he says he found out I was being beat. So, he found a way to get me back home. I know of only one person that could have told him anything, Sarabut she hadn't seen anything. I do finally find out that Sara was the one that called my Father when she had got back home. Though she didn't have the proof, she could feel something wasn't right. It was the first time I would credit my father for getting involved in my life. Mark and I then move into a house across from another friend of mine, Jennifer. Mark try's to make it appear that we are a normal married couple. There is nothing normal about it though, and Jennifer knows it immediately. Mark goes back to his old ways, hitting meJennifer comes by more often unannounced. She keeps check on meunnerving Mark. One afternoon, while I am at work at the nearby 7-11, Jennifer calls. Mark is packing up everything he owns in his car. I can not leave the store, there is no one to cover for me as I am the only one there. By the time I can get off work and rush home, his car is gone, all of his stuff and some of my stuff are missing from the house. There is no note. I go to the bank to check on the money in our checking account. He has taken it allthe rent, the electric, even the grocery moneyall gone. Another marriage down the tubes, this time in less than a year. I am in financial trouble, but I make a solemn promise to myselfI will never get hurt like this again. I have said it before to myself, promised myself this time. This time I promise to find out why I do the things I do where men are concerned.   I leave my job at the 7-11 for a better paying job as a receptionist. It is more money than I have ever been used to making. That at least starts to make me feel good again I am absolutely bewildered about my life. My world had fallen apart so many times, and I have tried to pick the pieces up and to drown the pain deep down within me. I have tried to be strong where there is no strength, and yet here I am again trying to pick the pieces up yet again and try to repair the damage.   I get a big promotion at work and move up from Receptionist to Accounts Receivable. I am living on my own in the duplex with my daughters and paying all the bills on my own. Slowly over the next several months I start to get some of self-reliance. I start to feel self-worth though it is slow in coming. I take the children out every Friday night, and do the things I want to do without being told what is right or wrong, or what I can or can not do. I get very good at managing my money. I take another part-time job cleaning houses. I feel as though I have become independent. It is a long time coming for me.   Many women of abuse are not nearly as lucky as I am. I can tell you, usually a woman that is in an abusive relationshipwas probably abused as a child. It is all they really know in the form of love.   I was so fortunate. The circumstances were there for me to change. Luck was on my side. Some women never find that out.   Know one knows till they live in the situation, just how difficult it is to walk away from. All Domestic abuse victims believe they deserve what they get.   No one deserves to be physically or emotionally abused.   Hardest lesson to learn. But one that women must learn. Everyone has a right to be happy without fear of what might happen to them.    October is National Domestic Abuse awareness month. If you are a victim of abuse, reach out, if you know of someone that is living with abuse, let them know you will help themthere are telephone numbers available to you. Every State has a hotline. Call them. Don't wait for the next time. Don't think for a moment that you deserve it, You don't. Don't wait                                        Katlyn Stewart is the author of Nightmares Echo, The story of child abuse/sexual abuse and the courage and perseverance to become a survivor. (Publish America)

"RED", a female in her mid thirties wanted to share  - 22/10/03 I have lived with a man for 15 years who has been emotionally and verbally abusive to me.  I did not recognise it for what it was in the earlier days. I am a strong person for surviving this abuse and I am not a victim - I would not give him the satisfaction.  I have decided to leave him very soon as there is no going back anymore.  I fear that I may now have become an abuser just like him and I too now cross those sensitive boundaries eachtime we row.  The shock factor no longer exists, anything goes.