The following is a true story of how a resident in
Moab became a survivor of domestic violence. She shares her story
because she wants to communicate hope to those who are victims.
Domestic Violence is about power and control over
another person. Physical abuse is only one form of abuse. In fact,
there are eight categories of power and control that are considered
abusive. These include: (1) coercion and threats, (2) emotional abuse,
(3) isolation, (4) using male privilege, (5) using children, (6)
economic abuse, (7) intimidation and (8) minimizing., denying and
blaming. Notice how the different forms of abuse are used by the abuser.
I met Eddie in 1996. In the beginning, Eddie gave me
cards and flowers every day for three months. The abuse began when I
went to the grocery store, and I had been gone for about an hour. When
I got home, Eddie was so infuriated he slammed me down on the couch,
and he hit my head on the piano. Eddie told me that in the future when
I go to the store, I am to be gone for only ten minutes.
Eddie accused me of cheating on him, and when I
denied it he would slap me around. When I would go to work, Eddie would
call several times during the day to check up on me. He told me I
wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone at work. One day he came to get me
from work when I was talking to my manager. Eddie was so furious that
when we got home, he started to beat me up. After Eddie would beat me
up, he would apologize and tell me he would never do it again and beg
me to give him another chance.
I started to believe that it was my fault he beat me
up. Eddie wouldn’t let me talk to my friends and family. I didn’t know
why at first, but then I figured it out. Eddie was afraid that I was
going to tell someone what was happening. Eddie always told me if I
ever hurt him, he was going to take my truck and drive off of Dead
Horse Point, and I would then have his mom to answer to as to why he
committed suicide.
In February 1997, Eddie had called my place of work
about ten times. My boss told me that I was going to lose my job if I
didn’t do something about Eddie calling all the time. I couldn’t afford
to lose my job, so I went home to tell Eddie that I was breaking off
the relationship. Eddie went into the kitchen, and when he came back in
the bedroom, he had a knife. He looked at me right in the eye and said,
“I told you to never hurt me.” Then he stabbed me in the back with a
ten-inch boning knife. He broke my seventh rib and punctured my lung, I
was air-lifted to St. Mary’s Hospital.
Eddie was sentenced to no less than one year and no
more than fifteen years in prison. After he served nine months, he came
up for parole. I went to the hearing and wrote letters to the board. He
received two more years in prison. Eddie was released from prison on
February. 13, 2001. Eddie has been banned from Grand County, and he has
to wear electronic monitoring. I still keep track of his case through
Adult Probation and Parole.
Advice from the survivor of this story: Get help
before it’s too late. Call Seekhaven’s 24-hour crisis line 259-2229;
attend a support group: develop a safety plan, and seek help from those
you know really care about you. It can be scary to get out of a
domestic violence situation. You may feel that giving up your identity
as a victim makes the abuse itself unimportant. Not true. But you do
need to heal yourself to become a survivor.
– Anonymous