These were the only people Darcy could really talk to. She knew that when she told them how she moved back in with Tomas after he’d been released from prison for the assault on her, that they’d ‘get it.’ They would know how she felt. The other members of Carson’s domestic violence support group understood how she was feeling.
The court had put Tomas on a ‘bracelet’ that tracked his movements. If he hurt Darcy, he would definitely go back to prison, where he did not want to go. It was the first time Darcy had felt this kind of protection.
When Darcy had called the police on him two years ago, she was the one that ended up in trouble. Tomas had convinced the cops that she’d pushed him and they arrested her, instead. She did not call for a long time after that. The second time she’d called, Tomas did get arrested, but the Assistant District Attorney told her that they wouldn’t go forward without her testimony. It was all up to her alone. Tomas’ mother and brother and friends came over every day to plead with her not to ruin his life. She could not ruin his life. She did not want to hurt him. She just wanted him to stop hurting her, so told the ADA she did not want to go forward. Tomas was furious with her for ‘getting him in trouble’ anyway.
The next time the police came, it was because the neighbors had seen him attacking her. There was the hospital record of her broken ribs and the marks from the strangulation. The evidence was stronger, but still, the ADA told her it was all up to her. Darcy did not visit him in jail, but he called her. It sounded terrible in there.
Darcy thought about this: if she had told any of her friends that, for example, her brother had hit her, but that she still loved her brother, her friends would understand this. But when she told her friends that her boyfriend had hit her, but she still loved her boyfriend, her friends thought she was “sick.”
It was when he was in jail that Darcy started going to Carson’s domestic violence support group. The group was the only really emotionally safe place for her. The group members understood. They wanted her to be safe. They wanted her to understand that she could not change him, and that it was not her fault that he hurt her, but they also understood that of course, she loved him, too.
The group members also knew what it felt like for Darcy to move back in with Tomas when he came out on his tracking bracelet. The first time he started talking at her with that menacing tone, Darcy did not cower. She did not shrink into the corner. She stood up and told him she wasn’t afraid anymore. She had to stand on the tongue in the mouth of the lion and tell him that he couldn’t hit her anymore. Maybe no one outside the group would understand what it felt like to take your power back in that way, but she felt she had to do it. The group members told her that she didn’t need to stand up to him in person. She could have stood up to him inside her head. She didn’t need to live with him. But they didn’t judge her when she did choose to live with him.
Darcy called the police when he shoved her around two weeks later and he went right back to jail, just as they’d promised. She was glad she’d tried this one last time. She was glad she’d stood up. And she was glad her Carson group had stood by her.
By JAC Patrissi
