The night shift

I had only worked a few hours that night when he called. The shift started at 7pm and ended at 7am. I was new to the department, just barely off orientation.  But lets back up..

I had 5 kids,  (the older 3 were at their dads, so only the 2 younger boys were home that night) , the youngest was just over a year old. My husband at the time ( I will call him KR) said he had a headache before I left for work and wanted me to call in sick, but he was playing video games and wasn't really sick.  He just wanted to keep playing World of Warcraft without interruption. I couldn't call in sick to my new job, and told him to take a motrin and he would feel better.  That did not make him happy.  I got my stuff, said goodbye to the kids and went to work.

Around 9:30 I got the phone call.  It was KR.  He was slurring his speech and was angry.  He told me that I had to come home right now. He said he couldn't handle the kids anymore, and that I had to do it.  I asked why he was slurring.  He told me he had taken some of my phenergan.  He had stolen pills from me before, so this didn't surprise me, but it worried me.  He could get out of control angry on phenergan.  I told him to just put the kids in bed and to go to bed himself.  (I was the only one making any real money at this point, and I couldn't afford for us to lose my job and then lose our home).

And then it happened.  He told me if I didn't come home right now, I would come home to dead children. So I went home.

The next day he told me he didn't mean it and he was sorry, he was just mad and wanted me to come home because he didn't feel good and I wasn't listening to him.

That is just one of many days of my life at the hands of an abuser.  This was several years into the manipulation, the loss of self worth and when I actually believed him when he apologized or was able to talk his way out of things.

This is the face of domestic violence.  And I want to bring that face out of the shadows, and into the light.