I turned on the Cuisinart kettle to make my one of two daily pots of herbal tea and my one cup of green tea. I also put some leftover Thai food in the microwave to warm-up.
The kettle boiled.
Before I could make my tea…
“You broke the last kettle and you are breaking this one too. You are a monster. You are lucky I let you live with me, her mother screamed.”
Her mother picked up the kettle and shoved in her daughter’s face so that it was just luck that the millimetre distance that remained from her face was even that large. “This is where you fill it to, she screamed.”
Her daughter instinctively stepped backward away from the just boiled kettle to protect herself from getting burned.
Her mother screamed, “Don’t you walk away from me!”
Her daughter was not walking away from her mother . She had just instinctively stepped away from a just boiled kettle.
Her mother cornered her daughter in the North West corner of the kitchen and continued screaming and blocked the path her daughter was already walking.
Her daughter moved to her left to try and get past her mother.
Her mother her blocked her daughter’s path a second time.
Then her daughter’s mind went elsewhere.
How to describe that to people, I do not know. Her daughter’s mind has gone elsewhere when her mother or father abuse her for as long as she can recall. It seems to go elsewhere longer when she is being physically abused. It is a more dramatic leaving.
This time her daughter’s mind went elsewhere for only short while.
Then it was back.
Her mother was still blocking her into the North West corner of the kitchen and screaming at her.
Her daughter stepped to her left again and tried to get past her mother.
Her mother blocked her path again.
Her daughter could not run away from her mother as she had in earlier years, because she now had a muscle disorder and used a walking stick.
This last attempt to get past her mother seemed to enrage her mother as she got right in her face and continued screaming.
Her mother did this when enraged, got right into her daughter’s face and pressed her forehead and nose against her daughter’s , shoving her face if you will, screaming ear splittingly loud and spitting into her daughter’s eyes. The spitting into her eyes was always so humiliating.
The daughter did not know what had changed in that moment, though truth be told the next moment was more of the reflex than a decision…
The daughter’s number one goal in life, for as long she could remember was “to be nothing like her mother ”. Part of this goal meant not treating anyone like her mother did and certainly not being abusive in any way. Her daughter thought she had mastered staying unmoved by her mother’s rages long before this day.
Years earlier she had given up trying everything, including admitting guilt or attempting to have a conversation with her mother when she was enraged over this hour’s transgression, but it had not mattered what option her daughter chose. It did not bring peace. It did not stop the abuse. So, for many years now, she had just remained silent and endured until it was over. It was probably pretty silly ever thinking she could have a reasonable conversation with someone who was raging and abusive anyway, given that it was all about her mother using her daughter as a dumping ground for the emotions she refused to take responsibility for. But it took her daughter decades to figure that one out.
…but in that next moment, while her mother was shoving her with her face and spitting in her eyeballs, while enraged and ear splittingly screaming, her daughter apparently could not be her mother’s victim any longer and so her daughter put her left hand on her mother’s shoulder area (her right hand remained on her walking stick) and pushed as hard as she could trying to move her mother off her. Her daughter cannot tell you where exactly her hand was, as her mother was right in their face, but it felt like her shoulder area.
Her daughter’s efforts were futile. She did not manage to move her mother an inch. While she was trying to move her mother off her, the phone rang. Where her daughter’s efforts had failed, the phone ringing had succeeded.
Her mother said, “why did you do that” and then turned and walked toward the phone.
Her mother answered the phone. Her daughter does not know to whom her mother was speaking only that her mother was immediately laughing and smiling as though she did not have a care in the world.
Her daughter made herself tea, hands shaking, and proceeded to carry her tea pot upstairs.
When her parents physically or emotionally abused her, her muscles would shake uncontrollably for a time afterward.
Her daughter came back downstairs and retrieved her warmed-up Thai leftovers. Her mother was still on the phone. Her daughter took her food upstairs to her room.
Her daughter returned downstairs once more to retrieve her mug filled with green tea.
Her mother was no longer on the phone.
Her daughter picked up the mug balanced on a side plate, her muscles shaking uncontrollably.
Her mother was at the kitchen sink, facing the window, not facing her daughter.
Her daughter turned, from the same west direction that her mother was facing, east, to walk toward the staircase leading to her bedroom.
Her mother screamed, “you are an animal”.
There was nothing shocking to the daughter about being called an animal. She had been called names by her mother relentlessly throughout her life: “stupid, worthless, useless, irrational, defective, disgusting, selfish, beyond help, animal” and “monster” were among her mother’s favourites. The one name her father called her that her mother had not was “stupid bitch”.
In spite of how not shocking being called an animal was in that moment, every so often the absurdity of her mother’s behaviour left her in disbelief for a moment. So, in that moment, the daughter turned toward her mother and shaking her head in disbelief and as she turned, the mug precariously balanced on a side plate went flying off the plate and crashing to the floor.
The daughter knew this would only further enrage her mother so she did something she was not proud of and left the mess in the kitchen and went upstairs. She intended to come back down and clean it up once her mother had left the kitchen.
The daughter went to her room and tried to wash off the ugliness of her mother’s words and deeds. She repeated a mantra, “you have handled this before; you can handle it again”. She tried to think of pleasant things, positive things. Her tomato seedlings that she intended to pass on to her nieces and nephews came to mind. She decided to email her brother-in-law regarding passing them on.
While emailing her brother-in-law, her father started pounding on the door in a manner that suggested that he was trying to knock it down. Her father must have just arrived home from London, ON where he had been overnight. Since 100% of the time that her father had previously pounded on the door in that manner, his daughter was then hit by him, his daughter knew at that moment that she was going to be hit again.Yes, her daughter was a grown woman and her father was about to hit her…again.
For the last three years her father seemed to have given up abusing his daughter, for whatever reason. He no longer hit her. He no longer called her names and he seemed to be choosing to not get pulled into his wife’s lifelong abuse of their daughter. While he had not taken any responsibility for any of his abuse or apologized for any of it, he had stopped. Until the day of this incident, his daughter had given him credit for that. It may seem pathetic to you for a daughter to give her father credit for not abusing her, but her father was getting older and was seemingly incapable of much change. He even once spoke out against her wife’s abuse of his daughter, for the first time in 40 years, on one occasion during the last couple of years. His daughter does not have the date of that incident at the moment, but a doctor does. During that particular incident her mother seemed to be attempting to get her daughter to simply evaporate from her mental, emotional and verbal abuse. It was that horrendous. Her father started shaking, like her daughter had shaken for decades. Her father yelled, “Wife! Enough! I can’t take it anymore. I think I am having a nervous breakdown”. Yes he did not speak out in support of his daughter, only himself, but his daughter was still shocked that he spoke against it. His daughter was very deeply concerned about her father’s physical and mental health at that moment and the weeks that followed. In that moment, he physically looked like a layperson might think someone would look if they were having a heart attack. His daughter was watching to make sure he did not grab his chest. He looked that in physical distress. Her mother’s head flipped back and forth between her daughter and her father at a rapid speed, like she was trying to decide whether to stop. She continued to verbally abuse her daughter but not long after slowed down and then stopped. As her daughter watched her mother seemingly trying to decide whether to stop, even though her husband looked so dire, her daughter literally felt like she would throw up. Her father looked very unwell for weeks that followed and his daughter paid close attention to him.
The daughter had decided at some point after her Dad had stopped hitting her, that she was no longer going to be hit. No matter the consequences, she was no longer going to be hit. As a result of this decision, she responded to his pounding on her door not by opening the door, but by putting on two sets of earplugs, foam ones and then ones that go over your head. She did not hear anything he was screaming. She then, with great effort, using her back as a lever, pushed, inch by inch, both her dresser and then when that did not seem enough of a safety against his attempts to get into her room, her drawers against the door, in order to keep her father from breaking down the door. At one point the pounding stopped. The daughter took off her two sets of ear protection in order to hear if he was gone. Her father then screamed, “you better open this door or you are not gonna like it!”. She knew if she opened the door that she would be hit. The daughter didn’t know what was to be worse than that, but she had already decided that she was not being hit anymore no matter what, so she put both sets of sound protection back on. The daughter does not know how long he pounded, but eventually he broke through her two door locks and got his head in the door. The daughter saw this hideous from rage contorted face looking at her. The look on her father's face made the daughter fear that if her father managed to successfully break down the door that he might kill her. The daughter was hiding in the corner farthest from the door. She happened to be sitting next to a basket that had exercise equipment in it. She picked up a hand weight. She was terrified. She had ran away from her father and then gotten hit for a lifetime, but she had never tried this hard to prevent him from being able to hit her. When her father continued to try and get into the room and when he saw his daughter pick up the weight,(the first time she had ever tried to defend myself against him in her life. Normally she would just cover her head and try to protect her eyes) her father screamed, “you think that will protect you?” When he could not break through the two pieces of furniture he eventually left.
For many years, the daughter had an emergency bag packed that hung behind her bedroom door, always at the ready. When she knew, or thought, that her father had stopped hitting her was when she finally found a pair of Pyjamas that her sister-in-law had given her that she could not figure out where they had disappeared to. The daughter found them inside the emergency knapsack. She had not needed the bag for a while, so she had not seen the clothing in the bag for as long.
The daughter’s plan was to wait out all her father’s attempts to break her door down and leave once her parents were asleep, as she had done many times in the past. As she said to her brother-in-law by email that day, she could pee in the garbage can if she had to, as she had to do in the past. Yes, it is humiliating to be the victim of abuse. Her brother-in-law indicated by email that he had called her dad. Soon after her wireless internet connection went dead.
After a time, the house grew quiet. The daughter could then smell that her parents were cooking dinner. Later on, the daughter then realized her parents were eating dinner on the balcony. The daughter decided to try and open the door as quietly as possible and see if she could find her emergency knapsack in the hall closet. When she got open the door she found that her dad had broken the trim off the door in his attempts to get to her.
The daughter reconsidered her decision and locked herself back into her room again.
The daughter then sat back down in the corner farthest from the door on a stool and prayed. For comfort, the daughter held on to two pictures of loved ones who had passed, a stuffed animal and a framed saying entitled “Integrity”.
The only person the daughter expected to come through her bedroom door that night was her father and then someone was breaking threw the two locks and two pieces of furniture. All she could see was a flashlight aimed at her. Three police officers came threw her door. The daughter did not know what was going on. She was on shock.
The three officers approached the daughter and then Officer #2 said, ““She is non-verbal. She can talk but she refuses to”. The daughter did not know what was happening or why he was labelling her that. She had never used that term or heard anyone use that term. She was not non verbal. She spoke every day, but she was very quiet. The daughter spoke to Officer #2 later at the hospital, so he later discovered that label to be untrue, but not before he had used it several times at her home and then at the hospital. She would love to know why he was calling her that.
The same officer then told the daughter to stand up. I did and then he proceeded to take away her walking stick. She instinctively sat back down. Officer #1 then instructed one or both of the other officers (She am not sure) to find something to cover her up with. The daughter was given a fleece top to put on. She was told to stand up again. She leaned on something as she stood up in order to aid herself (the window she thinks), in absence of her walking stick. She was then handcuffed, behind her back. She did not know what was happening or why anyone would be handcuffing her. She was then expected to walk, when she had been walking with a walking stick, without one, while handcuffed behind her back. She struggled to balance and to walk. The officers led her out of her bedroom and down the staircase to the ground floor. She eventually sat down on the bottom step. When she was sitting on the bottom step, Officer #1 informed Officer #3 that the manner the daughter was walking in “Could be interpreted as resisting” and that he and his partner, Officer #2 would have to decide that for themselves. Officer #2 was in the kitchen at that point in time. That was a very disturbing moment for the daughter, hearing Officer #1 say that. Three police officers had broken into her bedroom, while she was trying to stay safe from her father, had taken her walking stick away and handcuffed her like a criminal, without telling her why and were now using the phrase “Could be interpreted as resisting” because she struggled to walk in a normal fashion, while attempting to walk without her stick while handcuffed behind her back. As she descended the stairs she kept trying and failing to hold onto something with her left hand as she had been accustomed to holding onto her stick. She was in shock.
She fully cooperated with the officers from the moment the police officers came through the door until the last time she saw Officer #2 at the hospital many hours later, without incident. The daughter likes to believe that when Officer #2 later removed the handcuffs at the hospital, his judgment told him she was a threat to no one. The daughter does not understand that comment “Could be interpreted as resisting” in any way. She would be grateful to understand why Officer #1 said those words. She prefers to give the officers the benefit of the doubt and has considered that maybe Officer #1 was training Officers #2 and #3? The daughter is not familiar with police practices or training. Until that evening, her experience with the police consisted of calling them if she thought someone needed their help.
The daughter realizes that police officers enter situations every day in which they do not know what to expect in terms of safety and that they important and dangerous work, but the daughter feels that no reasonable person would have considered her in any way threatening, let alone against three armed police officers. She hopes that each situation that officers find themselves in is judged on its merits. The officers found her sitting on a stool in the corner of her bedroom farthest from the door
Officer #1 later indicated that the daughter was reading, when they found her in her bedroom. She was not. She was trying to comfort herself, by holding two pictures of loved ones, a stuffed animal and a framed verse that is deeply important to her: ”The soul is dyed the color of its thoughts. Think only on those things that are in line with your principles and can bear the full light of day. The content of your character is your choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think, and what you do is who you become. Your integrity is your destiny…it is the light that guides your way.” – Heraclitus, Greek poet, philosopher
and she did everything they asked of her. If they had allowed her to walk with her walking stick, she would have walked to their car just as peacefully, if instructed to. They did not, nor even bring it with them to the hospital, so she walked like someone would who had been walking with a walking stick, would, without one, while handcuffed behind her back.
While she was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, Officer #2 went into the kitchen and called someone on the telephone telling them, among other things, that “She is a huge burden to them and they just want her gone’. No one has told her until that moment that she was not welcome to live there. Until 3 1/2 months ago her brother had been living there as well. Officer #2 repeated that phrase several times that night. While sitting on the step, he also admonished her out of an apparent belief that she attacked her mother, without asking her a single question, and referred to it as “not okay”.
With all due respect to Officer #2 (and to each of the three officers who did not ask her what happened that night), there would never be a need to lecture the daughter on “not ok” physical contact, she assures you. The daughter could go into schools and teach a course on it. She could assist the ten year old in understanding that if daddy is dragging you upstairs by your ear or the hair and then throwing you against your bedroom wall as a warm-up to hitting you, when you are ten, then it is not ok. The daughter has been determined her entire life (seriously, since she was a child) to never treat anyone in the abusive way she has been treated by her parents.
After being taken to the hospital and while sitting in a chair next to the triage nurse, Officer #2 said, among other things:
“I bet if we looked, we would find skin under those fingernails”. The daughter offered up her fingernails twice for whatever test he wanted to run. He declined.
and
“she threw her to the ground” (meaning that the daughter threw her mother to the ground). The daughter let out a gasp when she heard that. She knew her mother had a serious truth telling issue, but until that moment it had never occurred to her that her mother would also lie to the police.
The daughter repeats that she did not throw her mother to the ground. She put her left hand on her mother’s right shoulder area (she cannot tell you exactly where as her mother was too close to her for her to be more accurate than that) and she tried to get her mother off her. She failed in her attempt and could not move her at all. She had no intention that day of being within 10 feet of my mother, if at all possible. As she said, she broken her roughly six year old personal rule of being outside a locked area (her bedroom) with her mother, while her father was out of town.
Her mother obviously decided to take advantage of this situation to accomplish two things: first to get rid of her daughter and second to brand her as something she is not, all the more repugnant given who is the true perpetrator and the true victim. The daughter is not someone who goes around putting their hands on people in any, to reference Officer #2, “not ok” fashion. In fact, she is very conscious of the manner in which she puts her hands on everyone, especially anyone physically weaker than her. Physical abuse of power and physical abuse to her are crimes, because she was hit by my father until a few years ago, each time effectively ordered up by her mother.
Her parents believe that they have a right to physical confine their adult child, for the purpose of either physically or verbally abusing her. The daughter believes she should have the human right to walk away from that abuse. She does not believe she should have to stay there and be abused; they think otherwise. She does not know what the law says about that, but if what she did is not considered self-defence, then it should be.
A personal thought from the daughter to the three officers involved. Maybe next time, you shouldn’t make assumptions without questioning both parties. The person barricaded behind a door with two locks and an alarm might just be the victim, not the perpetrator. That being said, the daughter thanks you sincerely, because even though you treated her like a perpetrator, you were actually rescuing a victim.
“Thank you”.
From the daughter to her parents:
I am not stupid, worthless, useless, irrational, defective, disgusting, selfish nor beyond help. Nor am I a stupid bitch, an animal or a monster. And I am not “she”.
I am your child. You created me and then you abused me.
Goodbye.
Elina Grace Edwin
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