Tri­cia St John

Tri­cia St John is a moth­er, au­thor, event co­or­di­na­tor, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sur­vivor. St John lost her left fore­arm and two fin­gers on her right hand to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at­tack in 2004. In 2009, St John’s ex-hus­band was found guilty by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry of at­tempt­ing to mur­der her. He was sen­tenced to 25 years and ten strokes.

St John is mak­ing im­pres­sive strides as she moves on with her life. She was recog­nised by the Tra­di­tion­al Afrikan Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion with the Har­ri­et Tub­man/Clau­dia Jones Award on March 27, 2021. Here she con­tin­ues her sto­ry of abuse from last week.

Jeal­ousy

When Cur­tis be­gan glar­ing at men who looked at me, or nod­ded or ex­changed a few words, I be­gan to re­alise that I had more of a prob­lem than I’d orig­i­nal­ly thought.  It be­came an is­sue if I smiled back, chat­ted or waved at any male fig­ure that wasn’t his or my rel­a­tives. He saw se­cre­cy in every­thing. A wave was a pre­arranged sig­nal to meet. A smile could mean the same, or in the case of a stranger, it meant I want­ed to see them again. My friends start­ed to avoid me, but in all hon­esty, I had start­ed to avoid them first. And if I did go out with a friend, my cell phone was like a liv­ing, breath­ing mon­ster, in­tent on en­sur­ing that I did not en­joy my out­ing. It made me anx­ious to get back to him so it would stop its in­ces­sant ring­ing. He in­sist­ed that his be­ing jeal­ous was not a bad thing be­cause all men were jeal­ous. And as for his ten­den­cy to smash things, well, that was just his way of vent­ing.

Con­trol

When­ev­er I tried to ex­plain to him how dis­tract­ing and em­bar­rass­ing his con­stant call­ing was, I felt like a dog on a leash, he would im­me­di­ate­ly go from be­ing un­der­stand­ing to be­ing riled up. The one time I felt brave enough to tell him that I could not con­tin­ue deal­ing with it, I got slapped so hard my face hurt for days. Of course, af­ter that, I was re­mind­ed of how much he didn’t want to lose me. I was al­lowed to go to the gro­cery and mar­ket alone but he would check the mon­ey be­fore I left and af­ter my re­turn to en­sure that I’d on­ly spent the stip­u­lat­ed amount and that his change was cor­rect to the last cent.

I was told how to dress and had to func­tion with­in what­ev­er time frame he in­sist­ed on. He claimed con­cern for my well-be­ing and re­mind­ed me that no one loved me like he did. At the age of 23, I de­cid­ed that if his love was the best the world had to of­fer, then I didn’t want any­one to ever love me again. If I got home late, I had to stay up to play 20 ques­tions. It mat­tered not if I was com­ing from work or the clin­ic with the boys, I was re­mind­ed al­most dai­ly that on­ly he knew what was best for me. He made me doubt my­self, as I sought his ap­proval for every de­ci­sion. My con­trol over my life slipped away and his con­trol grew.

Al­ways my fault     

There had been noth­ing un­usu­al at first to point to­ward him be­ing an abu­sive man. It be­came ob­vi­ous though, as time passed, that he be­lieved that it was his right to con­trol me. He need­ed that con­trol so bad­ly that all the pa­tience, kind ges­tures and con­sid­er­a­tion fell by the way­side. I was left to deal with the cold, stark truth of who he was. Af­ter an episode, he would de­flect from his vi­cious be­hav­iour and ac­cuse me of over­re­act­ing. And of course, there was the “ ‘well if you hadn’t …’”  A clear in­di­ca­tion of him de­clar­ing his in­no­cence.

“‘You’re so ma­nip­u­la­tive!’” he’d say “‘You just want to be in con­trol!’”

In con­trol of what? was al­ways the ques­tion I want­ed to ask him, every sin­gle time be­cause I had no con­trol over any­thing that con­cerned me.

Cur­tis blamed every­one but him­self. My re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was to make him hap­py, and when­ev­er he wasn’t, it au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be­came my fault. Even when he apol­o­gised for yelling or putting me down, it re­mained my fault. How of­ten had I heard, “‘I wish you didn’t make me so crazy.’”

The re­al and present dan­ger   

Cur­tis would of­ten threat­en to kill me, the chil­dren and him­self. He would force me to sit whilst he ex­plained slow­ly, as if to a child, that af­ter he killed me, he would kill him­self but would have to kill the chil­dren too. His rea­son­ing? There would be no one to care for them if we were both dead. I of­ten won­dered why I didn’t just stick him with some­thing, thus putting an end to his con­stant prat­tling and this fear that fell over me like a blan­ket that had been left out in the rain.

Some of you ladies in­sist the man is not se­ri­ous, he is just say­ing those things. Wake up and smell the cof­fee, eh! That fool is as se­ri­ous as a heart at­tack! Un­der­stand and ac­cept the fact that if he gets des­per­ate enough, that may very well be the end of you and yours. In the end, he may just feel ob­lig­at­ed to car­ry out threats is­sued over time. Kind of like, ‘I’ve been say­ing this re­peat­ed­ly for so long, I have to do it. If I don’t, she will nev­er take me se­ri­ous­ly.’

Any weapon he has, like Cur­tis and his cut­lass, can be­come the weapon that mur­ders you! Tem­per and cru­el­ty are not to be tak­en light­ly ei­ther. You are no one’s prop­er­ty! And trust me when ah say that some­body con­stant­ly threat­en­ing your life is in no way amus­ing.

 Of­ten times Cur­tis would flare up for some­thing triv­ial and I found my­self won­der­ing, how far could he go? I would watch him kick stray dogs in the road or pelt them. There seemed to be no rea­son for this oth­er than to get a laugh as they scam­pered away, howl­ing in pain.

To pro­tect and serve?

Go­ing to the po­lice was not as good an idea as one would im­me­di­ate­ly as­sume. I ran in­to the Princes Town po­lice sta­tion one night, sweaty, breath­less, bare­foot and scared. I knew Cur­tis had fol­lowed me, but I didn’t care. I was ex­haust­ed now, lost some­where be­tween who I used to be and who I’d be­come. Fed up with the con­tin­u­ous lash­ing, the bruis­es, the pain, the self-hate and self-blame. I want­ed to get lost in a qui­et, peace­ful place where I didn’t have to do or say any­thing to de­fend my­self.

The po­lice of­fi­cer on du­ty, a mean-look­ing, big, mus­cu­lar, bald head man, took one look at me and said, “‘Ma’am yuh need to go back home.’”

I stopped short, just in­side the door and stared in dis­be­lief. Go back home? He didn’t even know why I’d come.

“Buh … buh … but,” I stam­mered, fight­ing to hold my sobs in, “He fol­lowed me. He’s out­side. He’s beat­ing me!”

“‘Ma’am, you have to go back home,’” he in­sist­ed “‘Dat is a fam­i­ly af­fair. I can’t do any­thing. Go and talk to de man, rea­son with him. Alyuh women does know how to do dat.’”

I turned, not both­er­ing to ar­gue. What was there to say if the peo­ple charged with pro­tect­ing and serv­ing had men­tal­ly ab­scond­ed from their du­ty?

I didn’t get very far be­fore I got the first thump. I didn’t even flinch. Just kept putting one foot in front of the oth­er as I plod­ded back to my tor­ture cham­ber.

“‘How yuh cud re­port me, eh?’” he de­mand­ed “‘Yuh mad or some­thing?’”

I must be, I thought walk­ing in si­lence, I must be. He hit me again. On my back. Thump. Thump. Thump. With­out mer­cy. I stum­bled, and al­most fell, and he kicked me. I got it on my side and used my hand to avoid hit­ting my face against the pave­ment.

I felt alone on more than one lev­el. If on­ly one in every four women re­port­ed do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, it was no won­der abuse was con­tin­u­ous. If all of­fi­cers re­act­ed the same way as the of­fi­cer I’d just met, there would be no en­cour­age­ment for us, no hope. It’s no won­der women didn’t re­port do­mes­tic vi­o­lence if the re­sponse was in­dif­fer­ence. Leav­ing one to feel de­sert­ed by what had prob­a­bly been their last re­sort and adrift in a sea of unim­por­tance, fear, un­wor­thi­ness, de­spair, and mis­trust.  

If, as the sta­tis­tics say, be­tween 2009-2010 in T&T 13,000 new do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es were filed and 11,984 in 2010-2011. Be­tween March 2018 to March 2020 there were 2,710 do­mes­tic vi­o­lence cas­es re­port­ed how­ev­er, for the pe­ri­od March 2020 to March 2022, the fig­ure rose sig­nif­i­cant­ly to 4, 857 re­ports for that time pe­ri­od. Then what is the pur­pose of the po­lice? Pro­tect who? Serve who?

 If they had a list of prospec­tive clients, my name wasn’t on it.

I, hav­ing re­alised, in that mo­ment, that the po­lice were no longer in the pro­tect­ing and serv­ing busi­ness, here­by de­cree that I will pro­tect and serve my damn self!

Fi­nal part next week