Woman, Disappearing

(Please note: This post contains descriptions of the aftermath of emotional abuse. Everyone mentioned in this story is currently safe and in no imminent danger.)

The man that now dominates and controls my mother’s life seemed, at first, no different than any of the men who expressed interest in her in the years since my father had died, most of whom she refused. I remember encouraging her to have fun. I remember that we stood, giggling, in front of the big mirror outside her closet door, and picked out what she would wear for her first date.

For me, domestic abuse entered my life indirectly. My mom met a man; he saw that she was vulnerable; she married him; and he is awful. Now we all live with it. I don’t necessarily want to tell the story of the abuse itself; there are enough of those accounts. I don’t want to share any salacious details. What I really want to say is that I miss my mom. 


Within a year or so of my mother’s marriage, her behavior seemed a little odd. But since I lived so far away, I couldn’t do much, and I wasn’t sure what questions to ask. Instead, she seemed strangely distant. I am an only child, and we were always extremely close. But now we could only talk on the phone when she was at work. Her conversations seemed dominated by the strange friends she was making in her new church. When I needed major surgery, I asked her to come visit and sent her the money for a plane ticket, but she refused. “We have a church dinner that week,” she said. 

I spent years trying to figure out why she was mad at me. After a while, my mother’s husband could no longer hide who he was during my visits, and she admitted what was really happening. I now know why she deflected all my questions.

When I ask her about it now, she just says, “I couldn’t tell you.” But I think she made a calculation: she knew her relationship with me would endure even if she pushed me away. She preserved the more volatile relationship in order to keep the peace, and to keep herself safe. 


My experience of my mom’s situation is of losing her, a little at a time. When I was growing up, she was a vibrant woman; brilliant, stylish and colorful. She collected Black American art. She was an unbelievably avid reader. She was curious and smart, taught social sciences and pursued a paralegal degree. She taught me all my Black history. She was religious, but raised me to think critically and make my own choices. She loved to dance, and she loved cooking (she still cooks, but she hates it now, and rarely eats). She loved making things and was a brilliant sewist. “What should I wear tomorrow?” she once asked me, before choosing a beautiful turquoise fabric and whipping up a dress to wear the next day. 

She’s still my mom, but I’m not sure who she is now, 15 years into this awful marriage. When I visit, she’s thrilled to see me, but also exhausted and short tempered. She has virtually no friends, and the few she has, she cannot spend extended time with. She cannot travel. She’s abandoned virtually all her hobbies and interests. Her husband volunteers her free time to their “church,” a place where the pastor relentlessly degrades and berates women.

It feels like my mother is slowly vanishing, and living with that knowledge is to live with pervasive worry and a constant absence. Unlike the loss of my father, which was very specific and final, the grief for my mom is not particularly acute but is always in the background. 


This is an ongoing situation. We live with it, and we adapt, and we try to stay safe. We exploit the loopholes — he is  afraid of computers, so we’re still able to stay in touch. He likes inviting people over, so I’m still able to visit. 

Her situation doesn’t affect my daily life much, but visits are extremely stressful. I won’t detail what those are like, except to say that they have gotten progressively worse over the years, and I have a bunch of therapy-approved coping strategies to help me get through them. My husband has told me that I’m noticeably traumatized for about a month each time I return. During each visit, my mom and I usually get a few hours of time together, stolen here and there, so it’s worth it. 

My mother’s husband is cruel and controlling, but he is an emotional abuser, so her situation is completely outside of what “the system” can do for her. She is safe most of the time, but I am constantly worried. In the back of my mind, I know how easy it would be for my stepfather to obtain a weapon, should he choose to escalate things. I think many of those incidents where a woman is “suddenly” killed by her husband and the news report says “no prior incidents of violence,” are from homes like my mother’s. 

One of the reasons I don’t talk much about this is because of the most infuriating question: “Why doesn’t she just leave?” Well, why doesn’t she?

“A woman escaping a household like this is statistically safer if she can get a few states away, which means my mom’s biggest obstacle is economic”

Abusive men (and they’re almost always men) build entire worlds around themselves. You see this very clearly in cases of high-profile abuse. Harvey Weinstein and Michael Jackson both spent years cultivating networks of enablers, deniers, and a select group of well-compensated people that would become their defenders. 

For celebrity abusers, most of this network consists of employees. But I think this is something all abusers are capable of doing, even subconsciously. My stepfather has a network of his own: first is the church; second is the pastor, who is basically a reinforcing mouthpiece; third is a large group of extremely nosy and spiteful friends. All of these are gatekeepers who have slowly replaced my mother’s social circle and made it nearly impossible, both physically and psychologically, for her to leave. 

A woman escaping a household like this is statistically safer if she can get a few states away, which means my mom’s biggest obstacle is economic. After years of talking about it, I finally persuaded my mom to come to my state and live with me. We were working on this plan when my mother’s health insurance company decided that they would not work in the state I live in, and that was the end of that. 

This is something I deal with silently most of the time, and something my mom dealt with silently for years before she could talk to me about it. But domestic abuse shouldn’t be considered a “private family matter” anymore. It is a public health crisis. There is so much collateral damage every time someone is disappeared into an abusive household. People like me lose vital connections and relationships. People like my mom are forcibly disconnected from their support systems; denied autonomy; their quality of life is diminished; and in the worst scenarios, lives are lost. 

The way we help people in this situation is the way we help everyone: by providing subsidized child care, a functioning health care infrastructure, a safety net, an economy where people can get jobs, an environment free of stigmas and judgements for abuse victims. But those things seem like pipe dreams as I sit here, on the eve of an election where our country will try to escape from its own massively violent, abusive relationship. 


My mom has missed most of my adult life. As my friends and I have gotten older, gotten married and had children, her absence has become conspicuous. My grief for her is always close to the surface, and when my girlfriends describe visits from their moms and the things they do together, I have to look away to hide my tears. When they ask, I usually say “She doesn’t travel,” and let them make their own assumptions. Only my closest friends know why my mom is always absent. 

In the meantime, I settle for the things I can do for her: visiting her a few times a year (well, not this year), providing whatever emotional support I can offer, sending her things that bring her some happiness or comfort. Our roles have reversed somewhat; I constantly worry about her and am always anticipating the ways I might have to protect her. She is my mom and I would walk through fire for her, and I will continue to do so, for as long as it takes. 

Welcome

Welcome to the Secret Sociologist blog — a space I created to write about the world and “think out loud.” Blog posts and views I express are not definitive; I’m a work in progress. I don’t have a formal degree in sociology but I have a longtime interest in the topic; in my real life I’m a former educator turned photographer. Civilized discourse is heartily welcomed.