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Michelle Johnson Major Chooses to Be a Voice for Victims |
Over two years ago, I met and fell head over heels for a charming man that joined the choir at my church. This man seemed to love me passionately and romantically. He was everything I thought I had been searching for my whole life. Finally I found someone who loved me as much as I loved them. Hating to spend even a day apart, we quickly married six months later. I was so blinded by love for him and, probably more importantly, the desire to be loved by someone else, that I did not acknowledge the ugly truth that was starting to emerge in our relationship. I was becoming trapped in an abusive relationship.
The verbal and emotional abuse began slowly and I didn't really realize it was happening until physical abuse became the accompaniment. Now, having since educated myself on abusive and controlling men, the symptoms and patterns emerging in my relationship seem so obvious, yet when that cycle is your actual life, things can really sneak up on you. I became 'weak, whiney, worthless, lazy and disgusting. ' I was 'a fat bitch, a whore’ and other derogatory words. What a contrast to the beautiful, cherished princess I was just months before. As my body grew heavier with this man's child, I became the object of his rage and I quickly became trapped in a bleak and dismal set of circumstances. In the back of my mind, the 'I'm sorry's’ and ‘I love you's' did not seem as sincere as they once had. I had a small voice telling me I was being abused, yet denial can sometimes speak louder when it means the loss of hopes and dreams and the fear of loneliness. I walked on eggshells and tried to never show my real feelings. I unsuccessfully tried to anticipate his fits of anger and tried to avoid conflict and confrontation by not speaking up or speaking my mind. I only heard the cruel and hurtful words and felt the intimidation and fear of living with this man who had once swept me off my feet. I realized the truth behind the lies I had been so eager to believe. Getting married did not make him change. Having a baby did not make him stop. He was who he was. He was an abuser. I had become his victim.
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A Voice Almost Silenced
The last memory I have of my husband is of his hands around my throat, choking me and screaming at me that he was going to kill me this time. "I am really going to kill you this time". I was begging and pleading with no real voice for him not to kill me… “Please don't kill me.” I saw only the monster's face framed in blackness. I saw an object moving in front of my face and I realized that was my hand. I could not feel it and the twitching it was involuntarily doing was something I may have seen in a horror movie when someone is dying. In fact, that is when I knew in my heart "This is it. You are going to die now." And then there was nothing. The next memory I have is running towards my steps to escape him, yet he was already half way down the stairs. He had left me for dead right outside our bedroom door. When he realized I was alive and running, he came up the steps blocking my way down and calmly said, "You're not going to leave me. You will not leave me." He then pinned me against the wall and beat my face over and over, pausing only to carefully wipe the blood from my nose and mouth onto my shirt before proceeding to continue to punch my face. Once he thought I could take no more, he calmly turned to walk down the stairs to leave again. I spotted my cell phone on the bathroom floor where he had thrown it as he was strangling me. His careless move saved my life. I ran to the bathroom, locked the door and dialed 911. He heard my voice screaming into the phone, "My husband is trying to kill me, my husband is going to kill me!!!" and he began walking back up the stairs eerily saying "What are you doing, honey? What are you doing? You better think about this, honey". I will never forget the eerie calmness of his voice. Then he fled. Even more of the psychotic nature of this crime became clearer once the police began photographing my home, now a crime scene. Hours before this nightmare happened, while he was home alone and waiting for me to return, he took a butcher knife and butchered thirty seven of my paintings hanging in our home and over fifty more stored in a hall closet. He told me he had decided to destroy what meant the most to me, knowing that as an artist, I had poured my heart and soul into these paintings. He then took four photos of me off the wall, took them out of their frames, slashed the photos of my face with a butcher knife, and then had the presence of mind to put the photos back in the frames and hang them back up. A Voice of Hope When my husband destroyed my artwork, he told me he was going to take what I loved the most from me. Days later, as I looked around the home that the police referred to as a crime scene, I had no idea that the butchered paintings and bruises on my throat would save another woman’s life, yet that is exactly what I have done as an activist for domestic violence awareness. I have moved from the role of victim to survivor. I have decided to become an advocate for shining the light on an ugly societal taboo that lurks behind many doors and many homes in our nation: domestic violence. I realized that I myself could continue to physically hide behind heavy drapes and doors and peek through my blinds at night. I could sit back and blame the judicial system and remain angry and remain victimized by the whole lacking process the courts have for protecting victims. I could be consumed with hate, fear, bitterness and more negative emotions, but I chose another path. I chose a path that was lit by the truth that comes from sharing my story, my reactions to the abuse, and my healing process. This path is a road of healing and hope. I developed an organization called Be A Voice Arts. BAVA is me, Michelle Johnson Major. It is my story and it is my art. My show depicts various self portraits I painting during my abusive marriage and afterward. The paintings are tortured and emotional representations of fear and terror and the feeling of being trapped in a helpless, hopeless situation. Viewing these works of art is very powerful and I know lives are being touched by my story the more it is shared. It is my hope that by shining a light on this secret called domestic violence, that for someone, the cycle of abuse can be broken. If my story can save the life of one victim, losing my entire body of work will have been worth it all.
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Be A Voice of Hope!
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