Stories from Victims

Victim #4 - A Terrorized Woman 

We lived on a ranch where my husband was working as a “cowboy”.  We were up on a mountain with only a few other families around, and none close.  He was jealous and possessive and very suspicious of me.  One day he came home from fishing, and I was there alone with the baby.  He started teasing me, trying to get me to clean the fish, which I was deathly afraid of.  He had them all hooked on a line, about 15 or 20 trout.  Some were still alive and they were flipping around, desperately trying to get off the line.  With a smile on his face, he started swinging the line of fish toward me.  The water was splashing off them onto my arms and face.  It smelled like fish, and I was starting to get scared.  He kept smiling and kept swinging the fish at me, closer and closer. 
      I kept backing up, trying to get further and further away from the fish.  He kept following me.  I finally got backed into a corner, and started crying.  He swung the line of fish at me, closer and closer, until they were starting to touch me. I couldn’t control myself and my fear of the fish was taking over.  I completely lost it and started screaming.  He was laughing and swinging the fish closer until they were touching my arms and legs.  At that point, I completely broke down, huddling in the corner, screaming hysterically, and trying to cover myself up. 
      He was laughing so hard he almost fell down.  He was terrorizing me without actual violence, but I couldn’t have been more afraid.  There had been other times in the past when he had blackened my eyes, or cut my lip, so I knew he could be mean and dangerous.  My knowledge of his prior violence caused my fear of the swinging fish to escalate into a complete breakdown, even though he was smiling and laughing as he did it. 
      I was never quite the same after that.  I was nervous and jumpy and scared.  A few days later I was handing him his breakfast plate and a bird flew into the window right by where I was standing.  I was so scared I dropped the plate.  He got mad and I began to cry.  I knew then that I was psychologically damaged.  I just didn’t know if I’d ever recover. 

                        A Terrorized Woman 

Excerpt taken from Had Enough? by Debra A. Smith