from a.t. in salt lake county

Dear Utah, 

My name is Aynaelyssya and I am a child that grew up in domestic violence. My family wasn’t a family people would assume were experiencing domestic violence in their home, which only made it harder to talk about and get out of. My parents owned a business together, had a beautiful home, and a life that seemed perfect on paper. Most people don’t think domestic violence can happen in those situations. Growing up I was “daddy’s little girl”, and I thought what was happening around me was normal. I was taught to tone down the severity of my situation. A particular time of note was in elementary school. My dad had been turned in by a family member for abusing my mom and younger brother. That afternoon my dad came to school to pick us up before child services could come and pull us out of class. Other times he wasn’t so lucky and child services would make a surprise appearance at our school. Every time I would tell the caseworker that yeah my dad got angry, but he just had a temper, nothing was wrong. We were taught to protect him. We were told if we talked about it we would get taken away, and then what? I saw the physical and mental abuse my mom endured everyday from my dad. If she was left alone with him, without us kids, there was no telling what would happen to her. We protected each other. 

Growing up having the police at our house was a regular occurrence. Our neighbors knew what my dad was like to a certain extent, but there’s only so much you can do when there’s a massive man that isn’t afraid of you. The police department to this day knows who and how my dad is, but getting arrested and staying in jail for domestic violence wasn’t exactly the easiest task. My mom didn’t want us kids to see the abuse that had happened to her. She would leave when able so we wouldn’t have to see what had occurred. For a time my parents still owned their old house, it was vacant for a period, so my mom went there to get away from my dad. To keep himself from getting the police called on him he brought me with him to get my mom to come home. He wanted me to ask her to come back. When we got to the house my mom was lying on the floor bruised, she had a massive black eye and just wanted my dad to get away from her. To this day that memory sits in my head. Abusers typically want to be in control of the situation, and the person. What better way to control the situation than to bring their daughter who was still in elementary school. There are too many times to count where I saw things like that. It was hard to understand at that age though what was really happening. Things would be good in our house for periods of time, we were in the calm period of the abuse cycle. It would be like our family was okay and none of it had happened, like we all really loved each other. When this happened it was easy to make yourself forget the horror that happened prior. My mom got really good at learning the cycle and how to keep my dad in the calm stage. When he wasn’t in that calm phase there were times of lamps, knives, even furniture being thrown. My room sat right above my parents room and I could hear everything. When I was young, I would go running up the stairs covering my ears, screaming for them to please stop. My mom had put a lock on my door, so I was thankfully able to close and lock it. My dad would come up the stairs and bang on it telling me I needed to open up, sometimes I got scared and did, otherwise I would wait for my mom or brother to tell me everything was okay again. My older brother would make sure my siblings were in their rooms with the doors closed so we were all out of the situation. As he got older he would try to break up the fights. We all got more comfortable stepping in, but then it put us in the line of fire. My dad not only severely abused my mom but also my adoptive brother. He didn’t see my adopted siblings as his blood and he vocalized that. Nothing was off limits, my sister and I had to step in when he went to hit our brother with a metal pipe. It was safer if I stepped in, he wouldn’t hit me. I had to start putting myself between people a lot when I learned he wouldn’t touch me. This is just scratching the surface of the abuse that happened.

Getting older gave me the privilege of being able to analyze what was really happening. Even though I was never physically abused by my dad, that didn’t mean I wasn’t severely mentally abused or threatened with physical abuse. I was raised to give 110% of myself to everything and I was expected to be perfect. If my grades were below where he wanted them he would tell me how much of a disappointment I was and that it was unacceptable. I may have been his little girl, but I was never good enough for him. None of us were. To this day he still tries to make it out to me that my mom was the psychotic, abusive one, and that I am screwed up in the head because I chose to stay with her after their divorce. With his expectations came an image we had to stick to, if I wore ripped jeans he’d ask if I needed money to go buy new pants so I wouldn’t wear those anymore. If I dyed my hair in a way he disapproved of he would make endless jokes about it till I felt so horrible that I would dye it back. These things cling to you as you grow up and as a child you can only get so far away from the abuse. He ingrained in me his expectations and what would happen to me if I didn’t live up to them. He knew if he scared me with what he could do to me then he would always have some control. 

In sixth grade my dad was having his third affair. I had followed him to my neighbors house and knew at that moment. Finally things broke and my mom got him out of our house while he was with his girlfriend. I was so angry, I thought divorce would ruin our family. Later I became thankful for their divorce and for my mom having the courage to get us out of the situation we were in. Due to having a business together my dad dragged it out as long as possible, it took years for the divorce to be finalized and he still won’t do anything unless it goes through a lawyer. We had court ordered visitation that my mom fought to get rid of to protect us. I had to sit in front of the judge at 13 years old and tell him that if he continued to require us to go to my dads there was a high chance that without my mom there my dad would end up killing my younger brother. It became my job to protect my siblings when we were with my dad. For this I paid the consequence of being viewed as the villain. He was great at wearing a mask and making it seem like I was the problem child trying to make him out to be an abusive father. Every family counselor believed him, not me. He would tell me my mom was controlling me and turning me against him. Child services got involved again and I was still afraid to tell them how much of a danger he was. I didn’t believe they could protect us from him. While we were at school he tried to break into our house and cut our security line so it wouldn’t call 911 if the house alarm went off. The security guard at our high school had to be notified that if he was on the premises he would need to be removed. I still have to have a privacy order on any personal information so when he threatens me I know he can’t actually hurt me. My dad stopped financially helping us unless it was court ordered and even then if he doesn’t deem it “necessary” he refuses to help. I would end up in the hospital with injuries as I did competitive gymnastics and my mom was legally obligated to notify him. He would scream at her on the phone rather than being concerned about me. His hatred for her blocked out any sort of love he had for us and in his own words, he went and made himself a better life when he left us. The abuse didn’t end when he was out of our house. What did end though was us protecting him. I learned the signs of abuse and how to respond to it. It didn’t always solve the problem, but it gave me a voice. A voice that had been taken by our abuser for years. They don’t like you when you stand up to them, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the right thing to do. 

What I want people to know is that abuse can happen to anyone at any point. A lot of the time abusive people are charming and the abusive behavior can be unexpected. In my experience what helps the most when someone is experiencing any sort of abuse is for someone else to believe them. Help starts with believing them. One too many people didn’t believe us and it made it harder to get out. They convince you that you’re the problem and no one will believe you. After so long of being told that, you start to believe it. The way to learn how to get out of an abusive situation or to not end up in one comes from those who believe domestic violence is a real problem and are willing to help. Normal families can go through it too, outstanding students and athletes can go home to it every night, it affects every demographic. My safe space was school, and my way of coping was gymnastics. It didn’t always leave me alone in either of those places, and still doesn’t, but it was a way out. Victims and survivors need a safe community around them. It may be a hard topic to talk about, but it’s important. Never doubt someone could be experiencing domestic violence because of what they or their life looks like on paper. 

Sincerely,
Aynaelyssya
FADV Intern