What is your story, how did you get to live in a center for domestic violence survivors?
I have been married for 18 years, it was a marriage out of love, we had a child and it was ok until the greater responsibilities came, with the child, the kindergarten, the school, all of these. Then the real problems started, without notice, so I believe it is a thing that takes you by surprise, or if you do realize it is happening, you say to yourself: ”maybe we’ll manage, after all”, but in the end you see that you don’t. I got married in 1997 and the child was born in 1999. The problems begun during the last years of the kindergarten period, and the first years of school, around 2007. When I realized it was really bad, it was already 2008-2009, when the crisis begun, and with the crisis our financial problems got worse. On top of these, there were his drinking issues, that at first came on a cyclic basis, I found out afterwards, I did some research, they come and go, and at a certain point they get more intense and then it is too late.
But being always so taken with my job, with the domestic work, with the child, with the homework of the child, with everything it entails, I realized at a certain point that I was getting overwhelmed and I wondered why. Because I was doing everything, little by little I had started to do all the work, we were living in the same house but everything, up to the last bill, was my responsibility. My husband had a job as well, but he had started to come late at home, and when I began to question him, he was avoiding the discussion. I tried to talk to my relatives, to my parents, to give them proof, but they didn’t support me. The initial problem was his drinking problem, but eventually he became constantly grumpy, there were fights and name callings, yet everything happened gradually, and when everything happens gradually, you either get used to it, or put it aside. I was focused on the child, and now, after all these years, I think I have been too tolerant and I have put up with it only because we had a child. I know this is the main excuse of every woman, but this is the truth, you have nowhere to go with a small child in Bucharest. (…)
We had bought the house together, after getting married. It wasn’t easy to live there anymore, he wasn’t fixing anything anymore, and it was not just the fact that he wasn’t interested in fixing things, but he was also destroying them. I came to realize that he was destroying us, too. The child was in the eighth grade when I decided to end it for good. It was around 2011 – 2012, believe me I don’t remember the exact sequence of the events. I didn’t manage to leave until a few years later, because I tried to fix everything, I fought as much as I could for this family. We had married because we were in love, we owned almost nothing at first, we worked together and I thought I couldn’t just let everything go, maybe he had a problem, maybe he was seek, we went to see a doctor, he was telling me give me another three months, and so the years went by. These problems can’t be solved in a matter of days. So for four or five years we have tried, we went to couple therapy, we got him into a rehab program, I talked to his parents, so I have tried everything. Perhaps his will wasn’t strong enough, or maybe we share the fault, but now I try not to think in these terms, I am over it, because in the end, when I took my decision, I thought about the child’s and my own good.
(…) I had filed in for divorce in September, when school had started, and we had separated, I begun to sleep in the child’s room and then it got worse. He was getting aggressive, verbally and in front of the child, he didn’t beat her or anything, but he didn’t let her study, if he had to go somewhere, he was basically locking her in. He was getting increasingly aggressive to me. It didn’t happen very often because I am not a compliant woman and I used to stand up to him, I mean through my attitude, but at a certain point you can’t defend yourself anymore, when he’s out of his mind. And it is not a solution, it is ok for a while, but then it’s not anymore.
How did you find out about the Sensi Blu Foundation Support Center?
One time, when I was really desperate, I have started to browse the Internet. What can I say, I had no one to call for help, I couldn’t go to my friends, my relatives, there was really no one. By chance, I found some phone numbers online, but here, at the foundation, they were the most responsive, they received me swiftly, they evaluated my case quite rapidly and they really supported me a lot. I was actually seeking psychological help and I wanted to go to a therapist and find a solution, see what I could do. I had no money for therapy, nor lawyers, not anything, so it was a very bad situation, he was not bringing his salary home, it was how it is in all dysfunctional families. (…) I didn’t appeal to public services, because I didn’t know they existed. (…)
From the moment you go to the police and the police starts making fun of you, you loose every confidence in the public institutions. I first went to the police when he got violent. And the police came to our home and they were laughing together with my husband: “what on earth does she want”. I called the police for two or three times. I even filed in a complaint. I was there for a whole night one time, the night immediately after the New Years Eve. I had run away and I simply had nowhere to go, and the police station was really close. The child wasn’t at home that night. Lately he had begun to threaten to kill me, but mostly when the child wasn’t at home, he was probably being careful not to have any witnesses. Once he had started to wake me up in the middle of the night and threaten me, I was really afraid to be by myself with him in the house.
When the child wasn’t at home, I found reasons to leave, too, to go to my mother’s or somewhere else, so I wouldn’t be alone with him. Immediately after New Year’s Eve – he hadn’t spent it at home – he came back in the same manner he had left, making a lot of noise and saying he wasn’t ok with anything. Once he was all over me, twisting my wrists and neck, how could I had rang the police, I ran once I was able to. The police were not responsive at all, they have no business with domestic violence, they look so relaxed, maybe only when you die, they come with the ambulance to take you to the morgue.
I was there and it seemed to me they don’t provide any support at all. The policeman in charge, just after New Year’s, you get it, what was he supposed to do, he was in charge for the night, he got me writing and I wrote until 3 or 4 in the morning when I went home, my husband didn’t let me in, so I went back to the police station and I asked them what to do and they said: “ Well, sit down on this chair, what else can you do?”. (…) I had run away with just some clothes on, but I was wearing slippers and I had no keys. I wasn’t afraid to go back, sometimes I was crazy bold, because I was in such a mess… who was to help me, who was to retrive my keys and my papers? There were times when he didn’t care and other when he was really violent and I had to wait for the right moment to sneak in. The police came, but he didn’t open the door, but in the end he let me in. In the meantime I had been to the ER, get myself checked and they recommended I should get a forensic certificate. Anyway, I had nowhere to sleep and I had to solve everything that very night. I had spent a whole night at the police station and at the hospital. In the morning he let me in as if none of it had happened.
(Please find the second part of this interview here: https://artapolitica.ro/gazetapolitica/en/2016/09/22/i-was-living-in-a-sealed-concrete-cube-there-was-no-way-out-interview-with-a-domestic-violence-survivor-part-ii/
And the Romanian version here: https://artapolitica.ro/gazetapolitica/2016/01/26/am-locuit-intr-un-cub-de-beton-inchis-perfect-fara-iesire/)