Numbed

Can a woman who is repeatedly beaten and ferociously pummeled remain completely clear-headed? Not for long. According to Bessel van der Kolk, an expert on how trauma changes brain processes, the woman’s brain will secrete endogenous opioids to numb the pain and ease the terror of these beatings. If she has enough of them, she may become almost completely numb.

I am such a woman, and after being bashed over and over again, as described above, for about nine years—of course, with “honeymoon” periods in between when the battering stopped and kept me with my abuser—I became zombie-like, a numbed creature, unable to react to what was happening around me.

***

On a day that began like any other Sunday, I got up to make a pot of coffee for my partner, who was still sleeping. I changed my toddler’s diaper, fed him, and gave him a fresh bottle of milk. I also awakened my 6-year-old daughter—I’ll call her Erin—and helped her dress. My dear, beautiful Erin wouldn’t see another day.

Her daddy was going out to dinner early that evening, and as he often had, he asked Erin if she’d like to go with him. Of course she would! But later, he reneged on that promise because she hadn’t drunk enough water that day. Monitoring our water consumption was one of the many ways he controlled us.

Water, water. It was supposed to keep Erin and me hydrated and healthy. How did he equate water with health but not think about how unhealthy and destructive battering is?

“Did you both drink enough water today?”

“No,” came the truthful answer from the two of us.

“This should help you drink,” he said with a smile, handing each of us a piece of hot red pepper. “And if you want to go with me tonight, Erin, you’d better drink a lot of water.”

Dutifully, we both chewed and swallowed the portion of the pepper he’d given us. Then we filled glass after glass with water from the kitchen sink and drank it to cool our burning mouths. Meanwhile, our abuser went back to watching on TV the final minutes of his favorite—a football game.

“My tummy hurts,” complained Erin after a while, so she stopped drinking water. I soon stopped drinking too.

“Do you think Daddy will take me with him tonight?” my little girl asked.

He’d never left her home when she wanted to go somewhere with him, so why would this day be different? And since he didn’t seem particularly angry, I said, “Go ahead and ask him.”

While her daddy was getting dressed to go out, Erin went into the bedroom to ask him her question.

I went into the bathroom to use the john—all that water was having its effect.

Then, at the bathroom door came what would have been a shock to anyone else—but I no longer reacted to what others might consider a shock. Erin’s daddy was carrying her across his outstretched arms.

She seemed to be sleeping. But I soon realized that she wasn’t. Erin was unconscious.

Since the endogenous opioids didn’t allow me to feel many emotions, I didn’t feel distraught. I accepted what I saw as fact, but something in me was startled, and I asked, “What happened?”

“I knocked her down after she kept bothering me about going along tonight,” was his reply.

He handed her to me, and I stood up and took her in my arms.

“Flush the toilet!” he demanded.

He helped me lay Erin on the bathroom floor, and I flushed the toilet.

Then, with no apparent worries, he returned to the bedroom and finished dressing for his dinner meeting.

Before leaving the apartment, he walked past the bathroom and said, “I’ll get her up when I get home.”

Hesitant to move Erin, I put a towel under her and began the many hours of attempting to awaken her. I’d had a CPR class a few years earlier, and over and over, I tried what I knew—to no avail. She remained motionless.

Since Erin’s daddy had fooled me into believing he had special powers that would allow him to do what I couldn’t, I comforted myself with the thought that he’d get her up just as he said. After all, he had magically made a black eye disappear from my face one day. And he’d known what he’d find two blocks before we got there: a dead cat.

In reality, repeatedly rubbing what might potentially turn black and blue is enough to get the circulation going and prevent a bruise from forming. And he had likely walked down the street mentioned above recently enough to know what lay on the ground. But after so many years with him, I’d been brainwashed into believing whatever he told me.

Hours later, he walked into the house, and I immediately pleaded, “You promised to get her up when you came home, so please do it.” By now, I was actually feeling some panic.

“No, we have to be relating [to each other] when she gets up, so let’s smoke first.”

“Smoke” meant using a waterpipe to draw what is known as freebase cocaine into our lungs, something we’d been doing for some time.

And so he smoked for hours, giving me a hit or two until all the freebase was gone. He didn’t “get Erin up” as promised. He only carried her from the bathroom to our bed, where she lay all night. Eventually, I begged him to call 911, and he finally did.

***

Picture this: It’s early the next morning. I stand peeking out from the kitchen to hide my two black eyes and a split lip, which I’d worn for the past few days. I watch as a pair of EMTs carry my little girl on a stretcher through the living room and out the apartment door.

That was the last time I would ever see her. Four days later, she was dead.

I couldn’t visit her during those four days because I was handcuffed to a bed in a hospital for women prisoners. Both Erin’s dad and I had been taken for questioning by the police. Brainwashed, I’d refused to cooperate with them, so I’d been arrested along with him.

About two months after Erin’s death, I read a magazine article about her, which ended with, “Goodnight, Erin.” That’s when my loss finally hit me. Those words were what I sang to my child every night. I began to sob and wail. It took time and a lot of therapy to get me to be a sentient woman again.

Many people blamed me for Erin’s death because I didn’t get out of the relationship soon enough. The charges against me, however, were eventually dropped, and I spent time in a psychiatric hospital where I worked hard in individual and group therapies. After each session, I did a lot of thinking until my head was clear again. I then testified against Erin’s dad in a televised trial.

My toddler—I’ll call him Mark—had come to us via a private adoption, which was never completed. He was removed from our home and eventually returned to his birth mother. I didn’t fight to get him back, even though I wanted to more than anything. I knew that he would have gotten attached to his birth mother during my many months of hospitalization. I didn’t want him to have a second traumatic split from the person he called “Mama.” I also knew that courts always rule in favor of the birth mother, and in this case, one with a good home, while at that point, I was basically homeless. Therefore, I decided not to fight for custody, though declining broke my heart.

Erin’s dad went to prison, where he was, according to one newspaper, “an ideal prisoner.” He was released after 17 and a half years with time off for good behavior. Fortunately, he’s never tried to contact me, but as a precaution, I’ve moved to a different state and changed my name.

Time heals, and yet, so many years later, I still feel my daughter’s loss quite strongly. The few photos I have of her, the drawings she made in first grade, and a lock of her hair—these are my treasures. I also treasure the idea of seeing Mark, my “little boy,” again—now a grown man with his own family. Erin is gone forever, but he is still out there, alive. However, his birth family, who blamed me for the tragedy that befell Erin, never let me see him. How could I approach him now? Would I distress him? Would he refuse to see me since his family likely indoctrinated him against me? Wouldn’t that be traumatic for us both?

Yet, I’ve told my current spouse, a wonderful man who treats me with love and respect, “If you are still alive when I’m dying, my last wish will be to see my little boy again. Please do what you can to find him and let him know how I ache to see him before I die. It’s all I want.”