my story
As I said, my name is Deedra and I’m 23 years old. I was born blind, and it never really occurred to me later exactly how much of an effect this would have on my life and the lives of other people till later down the road. I grew up playing with other kids, and trying to do what they could do.
I think I eventually came to realize that I was different at some point when I was really young. I got picked on a lot in school, I needed help where others didn’t. I went to public schools, did the work that everyone else did. I led, and still le ad a normal life.
When I was 12 my parents moved to Florida for several reasons. My grandfather had had a heart attack, and my grandmother became extremely sick. Well, both got better, and we stayed there. Florida was OK I guess, but I missed a lot of things. I missed the school I was going to, missed the teachers I had, and missed a lot of the people around me.
I learned very quickly in my classes that I had been very far ahead of the kids in my school. For example in my history class they were still learning about the American colonies while I had been on something like the civil war or something like that. I think all of my classes were like that. I got bored with the classes after a while, and my grades started to slip a little. I think it went like that threw most of school up till My mother got really sick.
I can’t remember exactly when mom got sick. It was either in 1993 or 1994. She had gone to the store for some reason or another, and was pulling out of the parking lot when a woman hit her car head on. If I remember right, mom spent almost a month in the hospital. She had broken some bones, had some cracked ribs and a collapsed lung. When she finally came home we all were supposed to help take care of her. I didn’t mind taking care of her, but there were days when I’m ashamed to admit, I hated it. I don’t really blame any one person for my not liking taking care of her, I think part of it was 1, that I was too young to really understand, and 2, that we all in general just weren’t keeping up with things like we should and that made it harder on me. I was trying to balance school, and taking care of mom, and it was hard.
That summer I was sorta forced into going to the Florida school for the deaf and blind. I hated that even mor than public schools for several reasons, but I did it. I was homesick that year, and when mom got into another car accident (none of the three that she had that year were her fault) I was even mor homesick. I didn’t like the school, I didn’t like the staff, and I didn’t like the kids. Most of the kids there were so dependent on staff members for everything and it drove me crazy.
grades started to drop even mor. I could do the school work, but it was so different and I just wasn’t happy. I think in some ways I felt even mor isolated than ever.
I’ve always been bad at making friends, and I never made any true friends till much later.
I met my former husband at the end of my junior year in high-school. He and I both went to the Florida school for the deaf and blind. I don’t remember much about the rest of that year, or much of the year after except that Adam (my former husband) and I became a lot closer. Something happened my senior year which lead to his asking me to marry him, and I accepted. It was one of those situations that you immediately realize you shouldn’t be getting into, but I was determined to prove everyone wrong. I learned in May of that year that he had a bad temper. I thought “well, this is OK, I can deal with this.” About 6 weeks after we got married, I learned how wrong I was.
As I look back at my marriage I feel stupid, but I was both young and stupid, and willing to prove everyone wrong. I didn’t realize I was in an abusive marriage at first. I was willing to do anything for him. It first started with his constantly yelling at me for things he said I was doing wrong. Then it lead to my not being able to talk to people on the Internet, then it went on to I always had to go everywhere he was, and if I didn’t I got criticized. He would say things like"You never want to do anything,“ or "If you loved me, you’d do this or that.”
I’d heard about things like this on tv, but it never occurred to me that I was really in an abusive marriage. All my doubts were wiped away though in the Christmas of 1997. We had just moved out of the little apartment behind his parents house and into a completely different city. We’d just put up our christmas tree for that year, and I remember being happy for the first time in a while. That changed suddenly later that night when Adam had come home from work. I don’t remember the details of that argument, but it was like he snapped. He had started throwing objects. He didn’t hit me then, but he might as well have. he sort of had me cornered to the point where I felt trapped and couldn’t escape.
Things went downhill after that. He became much mor possessive, and the cornering me slowly turned into mor. I was scared, felt trapped, and didn’t know what to do. I got to the point where I was afraid of him. I did things not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I had sex because I had to, not because I wanted to. Eventually he began hitting me, though I don’t know when that started.
I don’t remember what started him on insisting that I get a job, but he did. I did what he wanted, and I got a job. I instantly took a liking to it, but there were instant problems. I lived too far away for one, I couldn’t drive, so that made it worse. Another was that he constantly called me at my job. it got to the point where I started getting several warnings for it and people were getting angry. I was scared, confused and didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t think things could possibly get worse by then, but they did. About two months after I started my job I came home, my husband wanted sex, I said no. Well, to make a long story short, he raped me. After that things kept going downhill. I couldn’t take the stress, I couldn’t take the pressure, I hated my existence. I finally lost my job because I mor or less passed out. I’d been doing too much and my system shut down.
After that, things sorta went. I existed, I did what I was supposed to, and I hated my life. I hated myself, I hated everything around me, I hated my husband. The only things I had to comfort me were my animals. I eventually got my first guide dog Clementine. I think that that is when things started to turn around for me. They also got worse by the same degree.
Clemmy was my angel. She gave me freedom, and my husband hated that. He became mor possessive and mor controlling but I didn’t care by then. I had clemmy. She loved me, she gave me freedom, and she let me be myself. She also protected me. I learned this one day when my husband went threw one of his cornering me and hitting me routines. Clemmy got pretty upset and growled at him. I don’t think she ever bit him, but I’m almost sure he started taking his anger out on her after that.
I finally got the guts to leave. Before I had left though I had hit the bottom. I hated myself, and all I wanted to do was die by then. I remember standing at the sink doing dishes with a knife in my hand thinking if I died now know one would care. I almost did it too. The thing that stopped me was Clemmy. I think she knew something was wrong. she had to.
My mother came and got me while my husband was at work. The recovery process was slow, but I began to heal. the first six months were the worst, but I made it. Eventually I left my parents and moved in with someone who very quickly became my best friend. I think in some ways I was still healing, but I was stable.
I’m still living with my friend, and things are becoming normal again. I’ve been sick a lot for the last two years, and jobless for a lot of that also.