Domestic Violence: Behind Closed Doors
Copyright ©2006 Sure Woman.com/Dawn G. Prince

Carolyn Chappelle’s Strength and Vulnerability, Part II

In part two of this revealing interview, Carolyn Chappelle talks about breaking free of her abusive relationship, but she soon realizes that it takes more than the idea of strength to be truly free of her past.

After reading Part I of the interview, she says via email, “Cathartic indeed. I cannot read that piece without tearing up or crying. I really want women to understand that they need to seek psychological help as well. Getting away just isn't enough. Even though we can push things to the back of our minds, that doesn't mean we're ok. You truly have to purge this from your system, it's like a disease that remains dormant.”

Accustomed to projecting herself as strong and “stoic,” with a ‘nobody can hurt me’ attitude, by the end of the interview, she discovers her vulnerability. Now if she can only reconcile the two.

Dawn Prince: So even after the balcony incident, the watch incident, you stayed. Why didn’t you leave?

Carolyn Chappelle: It was a lot harder to leave because sexually, the sex kept us together. It was a drug for me, going from it being disgusting and because of my religion and now needing it almost religiously—going from zero to sixty.

Did you tell anybody?

No, but, I was getting more and more late for work, at times he would hit me and one of the guys said, ‘Carolyn, are you okay, you’re not the same jovial all over the place, Carolyn. Is he hitting you?’ I said nope. He asked a couple more times and I said, ‘well, yea, don’t worry, it’s not like he’s beating me, I can defend myself. I am strong too. He’s like, ‘Carolyn, he’s 6’ 2”.’

What happened if you tried to leave?

One morning, I didn’t say good morning and went to work and he came after me. He came to my work and said, where did you think you were going? I know where you work. When you get off work, come right home and I went home.

How was the relationship at this point?

I had a miscarriage. I was under a lot of stress, with college, and his arrest for breaking into people’s houses. One day, I came home and there was a swarm of people, and police cars flashing, and as I got closer he was kneeling with his hands on top of his head and blood running down his face. Later, I found out that he was arrested after people found him in their apartment. They beat him, and if the police hadn’t come they would have thrown him off the roof. He was breaking into people’s houses, he had a drug problem and the times he would disappear sometimes for days, he was in jail.

Was he at least at the hospital?

He was there and watched me give birth to the baby because you have to anyway. I passed out and when I woke up, he was gone. His sister said he said he’d gone home to get me my nightgown. I kept calling all night…he wasn’t there. And he blamed me for the miscarriage.

Blaming you, it ‘s your fault. Is that another control tactic?

I don’t know. He thought that I didn’t want the baby and I did something. He accused me of having sex with my ex-husband and that was the reason I had the miscarriage. He used to get jealous and ask if I was downstairs having sex with my husband. My ex-husband lived downstairs after he’d gotten help for his problems.

There must have come a point where you said enough?

We were having a birthday party for my son. He got tired of the party and left. He was calling me. I didn’t go. He kept calling and I went into the lobby. He says, didn’t you hear me calling you? When I call, you are supposed to come upstairs. He’s choking me, and I’m kicking on the floor. My ex-husband pulls him off me saying. ‘Don’t you ever lay a hand on my child’s mother.’

How ironic is that he used to abuse you and now he’s defending you.

(Voice cracking) He said, ‘Carolyn, you have to get out. You left me and you were married to me and I never did anything that bad…(breaking down) you wouldn’t allow me to do that to you and I don’t understand why you can’t leave this guy.’

(Carolyn leaves the telephone to compose herself)

Are you all right?

It’s just hard remembering that—what he said.

What made you say this is it?

My landlady wanted the apartment. If that hadn’t happened, I don’t know when I would have left him. I ended up moving with my grandmother. Having space away from him, my ex-husband telling me, and my grandmother told he that no one had the right to hit me. My brother had told my family.

What gave you the strength not to fall back into the same patterns with him?

I was tired of it. I had my son to look after because my ex-husband was moving to North Carolina. I needed to find a place. My grandmother left my grandfather after the war. He’d become an alcoholic. She’s independent and said, ‘I raised your father on my own and you don’t have to stay with any man to raise your son.’ She’s very strong. She’s’ 91.

She gave you the strength? Hearing someone say it after two and a half years, was that what you needed to hear?

It brought me back to reality. It was delusional. I was not living in the real world and my thought process was unrealistic.

What do you think when you came back to reality?

I shut it out. Once again—it’s my ego. I still think it was a weak period for me, but through all of it I had self-esteem or I would have gone back.

What do you think made you stay so long?

I didn’t want to be alone. I went from someone who didn’t think about sex to the extreme— that messed me up a little bit. My mother dying; I used to cry for my mother all the time.

Was your spirit broken?

Definitely. I was celibate for 3 years after that. I didn’t want anybody looking at me in a sexual way. I didn’t want to be involved. I was trying to find out who I was. I used to quiet, almost square and I’d become louder, very demanding. I wanted to show that I was a strong person and not because I am female I am weak.

Besides your spirit what else did you lose?

I lost my faith in God. I wasn’t going to church anymore. I hadn’t done anything since being with him. I was having doubts. Maybe, I wasn’t supposed to be with men. Maybe, I was to be with women instead. I didn’t change over (enter a lesbian relationship).

Was it the last you say of him?

When I moved in with my grandmother, eventually, I told him I didn’t want to see him anymore. When he almost threw me off the roof, I realized that I had to leave quietly.

Was he stalking you?

Yeah. I couldn’t tell any of his family where I worked. I had to break away from the whole family. He would come around; he wants my forgiveness; he loves me and we’re supposed to be together. I said, “If you really love me you will leave me alone.” That was one of the last times I ever spoke to him.

Was this the last abusive relationship that you were in?

Years later, I wounded up dating a guy from Austria. He used to yell. He yelled at his mother. His sister said his past relationships had broken up because he was very difficult. He became critical of what I was wearing. He shoved a chair with me in it across the room. I said, “This is it. Goodbye.”

You had found your voice?

I’d learned all the signs. I could have gone on getting into relationships like this.

Do you thing that you have healed?

(Talking quietly now.) That’s a good question. I don’t know what healing would be from this. As I am talking to you, I realize I’ve dismissed all of this. I just chalked it up to life experience. I don’t think I am completely healed because I didn’t go for therapy. People should go to therapy. It’s made my life difficult because I become celibate for long bouts. I block out when a guy is interested in me. I missed out on a lot of relationships.

Since this have you had any serious, healthy relationships?

I let him go three times. It was healthy but his work schedule. To this day, if I ever saw him again I would marry him. I was getting better at ending relationships. I was getting out. It’s funny that you ask. I keep asking myself why I keep breaking up with these guys.

There was a time when guys wouldn’t come up to me. I had built myself into this glamorous, independent, strong, self-sufficient, don’t-need-a-man-around-me kind of woman. I built this wall around me. It changes you. I went from shutting down, not wanting to be looked at as a sexual being to intimidating men—

Intimidating in what way?

I got separated from my friends and a guy in a bar said to me, you’re very intimidating. Someone would look at you and you are very beautiful, but you have something that’s perfect about you that is almost castrating. That energy. That wall because I didn’t want anybody to see me as someone to take advantage of.

Has that wall begun to crumble?

(Voice is now softer, sounding vulnerable) Not so much. It has and it hasn’t. I have softened up some, but I will always be on the defensive because they all start out perfect, beautiful fairy tale. This is why I feel they should get therapy. This tattoo I was going to get. It was going to be down the center of my back—a long stemmed rose—that hadn’t budded yet, slightly budding, it had thorns on it and everything. I drew it. It had a snake wrapped around it with the head of the snake sticking his tongue out touching the rose and there’s a petal falling off.

What was it symbolic off?

(Silence. Faint sound of tears in the background.) It tells me you haven’t dealt with this. You need to deal with it and talking helps.

(Sounds of soft crying throughout.) I felt like—because I used to think that—I was so pure and so sweet and so nice and it represented relationships between men and women, and I was the rose and I was so young, and I hadn’t yet blossomed and just before blossoming as soon as I entered these relationships, these bad experiences kinda destroyed who I was…the rose represented the women and that men were evil, they were the snakes. They just destroy women.

Obviously it is still raw and this is an ongoing healing process for you

It’s an ongoing process. It’s necessary for women to seek therapy afterwards. No matter how strong you think you are, just putting it behind you and blocking it out doesn’t mean that you are better. It just means that it is dormant.

Do you think that you will seek some counseling?

(Slowly thinking about the question.) I think. I hope I will. Yes, I will. I know now that I have—my mother always said that I had too much pride. I think that was my downfall in those relationships. You can have too much self-esteem; too much pride where you are overly confident, and you’re full of yourself and that can lead you to your death if you are not being realistic. You wind up in this perfect world and that you can fix everything. I now know that I should see someone because it has been difficult for me in my relationships with men. I have a track record of breaking off relationships. I just end them before they can hurt me. I don’t think that I realized that until today. I really need to deal with this.

I think your vulnerability will help a lot of women who are also struggling with this. Women will find a common vein in your story and maybe recognize their own relationships.

Yeah. I just realized…lately, I have been finding guys that weren’t available. I wind up being friends with them, but one I did wind up with and after that, I said I deserve better than that. The energy you put out is the energy you get back. I used to think: Carolyn, all these men you are into are not available. You just made me realize it’s because there is no commitment there. It’s safe and I could leave them at anytime.

Maybe all this is cathartic for you—the pain, the tears, and the realizations after all this time.

Yeah—it’s another part of my ego. This business is important to me. I started my business because of my struggle with relationships. I am trying to help women. What would it look like if I need help if I am trying to help these women?

I think it’s a good thing. Sometimes, here we are thinking that we are strong and invincible and it shows your vulnerability and what domestic abuse does to a woman’s spirit.

Right.

I think that it is brave of you to bare your soul and let people know your fears. You don’t always have to help people from a position of a pedestal.

But here I am trying t help other women.

It’s all right to be vulnerable. I think some women will take comfort in that.

Hopefully, this gets across to our younger people too. How as teenagers they are getting beaten up by boyfriends. I don’t like the idea of the “H” word and the videos. The t-shirts I design, and the expressions I have tell them that it’s okay to be beautiful but also understand its okay to be intelligent at the same time. We need to be ambitious as women. It’s okay to be ambitious, but you don’t have to dumb down.

And it’s also okay to be vulnerable, Carolyn.

Yeah. Yeah. Now I am talking to you, my expressions are all about empowering. Empowering. Empowering. Now I am seeing. Wow!

Maybe the business is your way of letting it out a little at a time. It is your way of building up strength, some sort of energy for you to go on. That is your way of dealing with it without having to talk about it. You put it on your shirts.

Is this part of my wall that I have built to tell men that I don’t necessarily need them, that I am a strong woman? I don’t know. I’m confused. No. No. My business is to help these women. No. My poetry shows my vulnerability.

Go ahead. Read some.

(Breaking into quiet sobs.) I’m tired. I’m hungry. I’m confused. I’m depressed. They are the growing pains of life, which makes me strong It is the metaphorphsis, which makes me into what I am today;

Pretty Telling.

I feel it represents different parts of my life. You ask yourself about all these things.

You ask yourself the right questions, which is the first step in healing. Are you all right?

You know when it gets to be a little too real for me, I go the other way—I am feeling it now—that way. It’s gone too deep beyond the surface. It’s digging too much. I think I have a fear of not being perfect—whether it’s in God’s eyes or anybody else’s eyes. And when that starts to show and things start to come up. I start to shut down. I started to say, I have to go—

You’ve never talked about it for almost four hours. You’re only human.

(Laughing now). Arrrrggghhh. I am human with emotions. I hate to cry. Something, I don’t like to do. I am human with emotions…

What is the other poem?

Could it be perception? Why do they look at me that way? Why is it that they stare at me in awe? Could it be they perceive me to be something I’m not? Could it be I’ve proved to be something they thought I was not? Perception is everything and yet nothing at all.

Next: TKJordan

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National Domestic Violence Hotline:
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