Like the rest of the world, I have been processing the news
of Robin Williams’ death, the cause of which was torment. It doesn’t matter the manner in which his
life on this earth ceased to be, only the underlying cause of that end. Pain.
Excruciating, unrelenting, all-consuming pain. As I watched tributes and read Tweets, my sadness
grew a little stronger. When I reached
the Tweet by Evan Rachel Wood, I began to sob.
In her short 3 words, she reminded me of exactly how I almost became a
casualty like Robin. With a picture from
Aladdin, she said simply,
“Genie. You’re free.”
The heaving sobs I had been holding back since last night
finally came. I’m pretty sure I scared
my pets.
It isn’t that I knew Robin Williams personally, other than
following his career and philanthropy since his Happy Days/Mork and Mindy
debut. It is that I saw him as a bright
light in a weary and conflict-filled world.
He gave of himself and by all accounts enriched the lives of so many
more people than he would have given himself credit for. There was so much Robin magic left, but this
world failed him. So he freed himself to
go to the next in the hope of escape…of peace and an end to pain.
I know that feeling.
Exactly. Precisely. I felt it overwhelmingly on July 9, 2009,
which I now think of as my “Alive Day”.
Those who are my friends would have a very hard time understanding
how I could not feel loved or valued, but 5 years ago, I was a very different
person. I had just failed, for the third
time, to escape my abusive marriage and liberate myself and my young daughters
from a life of fear and torment. I was
brutally ashamed and considered myself an abject failure. I was also faced with going to “marriage
counseling” the next day, which I knew would be an utter farce and yet again
designed to blame me for his permanent state of anger and unhappiness. That entire day, I cried. I have never cried so much in my life as I
did that day. I made excuses to my girls
that my friend was dying and I was sad, which was true. My friend Keith was frighteningly close to
the end of his journey with AIDS. The
truth, however, was that I saw no other way out of the hell we were living
in. I had been taught to live every
moment in fear of his wrath, which vacillated between very predictable and
thoroughly arbitrary. True to form, the
next day, he launched into a diatribe about how I had “forced” him, 23 years
prior, to end his “brilliant” Navy career as an enlisted man who once burned
the letters “FTN” (fuck the Navy) into his arm.
I just wanted to be free.
What an amazing feeling it would be, I mused, to wake up in
the morning and not feel trepidation. To
not fear the normal events of the day or the backlash for my lack of
cooperation, whether real or perceived.
I wondered what it would be like to not feel sick all the time,
exhausted, nauseous, or both. I imagined
that people in the world did live like that, but I couldn’t imagine it was
possible for me and my daughters.
Eventually, I took a shower.
Then I sat for hours on my bed, still crying, wrapped in my bathrobe,
with a huge box of Ambien samples in my lap.
Somewhere during this process of disengaging with the physical world, I
wrote notes of farewell to people I was close to. The note I wrote to him, though, was an
instruction on why I had done what I did and how he was responsible for being a
good father to the girls, a task at which he had failed astronomically. I still believed it was all my fault, though. The words he had spoken before rang in my
head: “If you killed yourself, everyone
would know just how crazy you really are.”
Somehow, in the midst of this deepening abyss that tried
hard to swallow me, I saw a picture of my girls on my nightstand and it altered
my thoughts long enough to leave room for clarity. Who would I be leaving them with? What kind of life would that create for
them? Imagine being a survivor of a
mother who committed suicide and then being stuck with a remaining parent who
is violent, abusive, angry all the time, yet presents a completely opposite
face to the world. They would grow up
with no one believing them or advocating for them. “But he’s such a nice guy.” No, he is the real face of terrorism.
I look back and wonder what, exactly, saved me that
day. I had always had the love of friends
and family. I had, and still have, a
strong faith. I had an inner fire, a
determination to do good in the world and help others. But that day, I felt as though I would never
be able to help myself or, more gut-wrenchingly, my children. Many times, a survivor of abuse sees no other
way out but this one.
I realize the things I would have missed. Not just the obvious joy of seeing my girls
evolve into the amazing young ladies that they are, but seeing who I was able to
evolve into. My life has become nothing
short of magical and I have experiences every day that I could never have
fathomed. Had I known the type of terror
I would face post-escape, I may have made a different decision. But I also know that surviving the multiple
court actions, the harassment, the stalking, the threats, the financial
destruction, and the obliteration of a once-healthy body has shown me that
there is no amount of anything that can crush a spirit determined to live. As Garth Brooks says, I’m glad I didn’t know
the way it all would end…the way it all would go. Had I known, the challenges that lay before
me likely would have seemed insurmountable, and I wanted to escape the pain of
over 25 years of this torture.
All I wanted was to be free.
It is what I am still left fighting for, both for myself and my girls. So I understand Robin Williams’ decision
better than many. But I am still so sad.
It has been a very hard road and there
are days I am absolutely weary, which is clearly the point at which Robin had
arrived. His spirit was no longer
determined to live, but wished for release.
I thank God for whatever happened July 9, 2009 to keep me
here. Many abuse survivors have not been
so lucky and I grieve for them, even as I know they are free. Just as I grieve along with the world that we
have lost such a great and powerful energy for good.
Peace and love to all who knew him,
AC
