Thursday, April 4, 2013

Chapter 8

Just before Christmas of 1985 I found out that I was pregnant.  I was so excited!  I loved babies and had always dreamed of being a mother.  Gary was also happy but in the process became even more controlling, after all I was carrying his child, so he had the say about everything.  How he ever gave me permission to take knitting classes in the evenings with my friend Jessie I'll never figure out.

Peter and Pam had moved back to New Brunswick not long after the wedding fiasco.  I missed Pam terribly.  Eventually however another special person came into my life.  Jessie and her husband David and their two children were friends from church.  After getting settled in Gary's apartment I realized that they only lived a little ways away.  We soon became close friends.  Taking this knitting class together was so much fun!  I made a little sweater and a bunting bag.

After the classes were finished Gary expected me to stop seeing and talking to Jessie, well she was having none of that.  Jessie saw things for what they were right from the start and never let him get away with anything where I was concerned.  Gary hated her for it, and they would butt heads many times over the years because of me.  Jessie proved to be a true and loyal friend and has always been there for me.

She and David were unsure at times how much to intervene, but I always knew that when I showed up on their doorstep I had found a safe haven.

When I was 34 weeks pregnant I developed toxemia and gestational diabetes and was put in the hospital on complete bed rest.  I underwent a test in which they can determine if the baby's lungs are developed enough to breathe on their own if they are born early.  My little one's lungs were mature enough and on Sunday July 6th 1986, five weeks early, I gave birth to a healthy red-headed little boy whom we named Josiah Kyle.  I was scared at first as to what Gary would do with a son with red hair.  He had said many times during my pregnancy that he hated red hair.  With both of us having dark hair I didn't think the risk was high even though my dad had been a red head and both my sister and Aunt Janet have red hair.  But, here he was.  A 6 lb 11 oz baby boy with bright red hair.  Gary never said a word again about red hair after that day.

It had been a very hard labor and delivery.  Gary had spent the entire time sitting in a chair on the other side of the room not helping me at all.  Josiah was born with the aid of forceps which tore me severely and left me with a long and difficult recovery.

After a week in the hospital I was discharged and told to take it easy.  I had a visiting nurse (VON) for the first couple of weeks after I got home.  Even though I was still very weak and not able to move very good I had no choice but to get right back at taking care of Gary and the house.  One day the VON showed up and got very put out with Gary when she found me up and making dinner.  She preceded to show him my medical record and the orders that I stay off my feet and take it easy until I had healed.  It made no difference to Gary.  Some of the ladies from the church had at first been coming over every day to help, but he resented them being there and had put a stop to it.

One day a week or so after I got home a couple of good friends from the Valley showed up to see me.  They had only been in the apartment 10 minutes when Gary made them leave.  They never came back to visit me again.

Living in the apartment was getting harder and harder because of Gary's mother.  Every time Josiah would cry she would call or come down insisting that he be brought upstairs...I must be doing something wrong.  She made it very clear to me that I didn't know what I was doing at all.  She was especially vocal on this point if I refused to let her take him upstairs.  Josiah got alot of extra rocking and snuggle time in my efforts to keep him from crying!

The constant interference finally drove us out of the apartment into a rented duplex in Eastern Passage.  We moved December 30 1986, Josiah was nearly 6 months old.

It was during this time that Gary announced one night that unless I lost weight he wouldn't sleep with me or even touch me again!  Something clicked in my mind that night and I thought, "Good!  I know how to keep you away from me!"  At this point I had become accustomed to being rolled over in the middle of the night and then two minutes later listening to him snore again.  Sex hurt.  All I will say is that a lot of foreign objects found their way inside me.  He also watched pornography and liked to try the perverted things that he saw.  I was terrified to move at night in case he woke up enough to want sex.  I felt used, dirty and like a prostitute except that I never got paid.  I developed a severe case of hemorrhoids.  My doctor was suspicious and started asking some questions, but I never volunteered any information on what was really happening.

This midnight declaration from Gary didn't upset me and spur me into losing weight like he had hoped.  For one day I thought that things might change but it was not to be.  The next night he was back.  But in my mind a seed had been planted that if I looked fat enough and disgusting enough I would be safe from him...and anyone else that might hurt me!  As I started to gain weight my hopes of being left alone died.  His sick perverted mind needed sex and I was there.

Over the next few years the verbal and sexual abuse, suspicion and control became even worse.  I couldn't even go to church on my own.  I had to fight to go visit my mom.  He needed to know where I was, who I was with, what I was doing and when I would be home.  I was given no money of my own.  I couldn't have anyone over even when he was at work.  I couldn't talk on the phone when he was home.  I had to keep music I liked hidden and only listen to it when he was at work. There were different times Jessie showed up at the house to check on me because Gary wouldn't let her talk to me when she had called.  This obsessive behavior even went as far as not allowing my name to be on the vehicle permits.  He told me that if I ever tried to leave him and took the car he would have me arrested as a car thief.  He had me scared and trapped...but my smile was still in place.

2 comments:

  1. This was a difficult read. Waiting for some sunshine...

    ReplyDelete
  2. ...you got the gift of a child. That's beautiful...

    ReplyDelete