Beauty and the Beast: The Version You've Never Heard.

I was 8 years old when Disney came out with their best animated film to date. The story of an awkward brunette book lover who finds herself with an anger-management candidate Beast who she tries to change into a better person. As a kid I saw no holes in the story and only saw a fairy tale where the nerdy brunette was gifted a castle's library. My expectations for relationships were probably shaped, unhealthily to say the least, by that exchange and their "happily ever after" that followed. But as a bucked tooth brunette with her nose in a book how could I not see a fairy tale amidst the dancing plates and singing teapots?

There's a piece of my past that rarely gets touched. But every October, like clockwork, I'm reminded of it as the purple ribbons are put on and the social media posts flood my news feed. October is cluttered with really important "National Month" titles. We celebrate National Country Music Month, National Potato Month, both National Dessert AND National Cookie Month, and the all-so-important Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Fire Prevention Month. In between the sweets, the good music, the potatoes and checking smoke alarms there is a cause spotlighted in October though that stands out to me every year: National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Hallmark doesn't make cards that you send out to celebrate that event. But the spotlight is put on those who have a story. And I always chose not to share my story because there are hundreds of thousands of women who have the same tale to tell. Perhaps you could say it's a tale as old as time. 

But recently I have noticed women close to me being put in situations where their loved one- the man they trust, the man I watched them marry, the man I looked in the eye and said, "Never hurt her"- is engaging in behavior that worries me. One friend said, "Well he hit me but I think it was jokingly." Another one said, "I'm fine because he can yell and scream all he wants but he hasn't hit me-yet." There is even one that confessed, "Sometimes it's easier to not say anything and just bear it because if I upset him then I pay for it." And they look at me and they use words like, "strong" and "independent" because I'm single and self-sufficient. But it's not as easy as it looks because that strength and that independence did not exist at one point. And to this day, if I hear the sound of a slamming door or an angry tone, that strength and independence I have been credited with having find a place to hide.

My high school sweetheart basically walked out of a John Hughes film. If we had a disagreement he was under my window with a boombox... in the rain... holding a 10-page poem on the beauty of our relationship before the sun even went down on the feud. Voices were never raised and grudges were rarely held. But we were too young to know that the fairy tale we were living wouldn't last. And when it came to an end after a few years I was devastated. I stayed single for a long time. Until I met a man my senior year of college who taught me that not all relationships are filled with love songs, poetry and forehead kisses. Not all relationships are with a Prince Charming. Sometimes the girl falls for the protagonist... and the story is anything but a fairy tale.

He was older than me by a few years. I had just turned 21 and was finishing my Bachelor's Degree and working on political campaigns. He was my personal trainer as I tried to find a way to drop that inevitable freshman 40 I had gained at school. He was well liked by his peers. He was funny. He had a wall full of medals from body building competitions. And he told me I was beautiful with my brown hair and my nose always in a book on the elliptical machine. For someone who's self esteem had taken a severe blow and was looking for compliments and reaffirmation I was absolutely twitterpaited with this dream come true. For someone looking for a gullible and easily manipulated girl, I was his dream target.

It wasn't immediate. There were "be our guest" moments of romantic dinners and long talks by a fireplace. But those moments lasted just long enough for me to "fall in love" and to begin to think I couldn't be without him. The first time I sensed something was off was when he said he would be coming over one night after I finished work. I didn't see him and I never heard from him. That was so out of character for him that I was beyond worried. When I finally got a hold of him I was taken back by how angry he sounded as I questioned where he had been and why he didn't call. I learned that morning that the art of walking on egg shells had just begun. And it would only get worse.

I either worked too late or was home too much. I spoke to too many men (despite the fact that I was a female working in conservative politics in the South). I was too close to my family (even though they were 1200 miles away). I didn't know how to cook and if I even attempted to it was never good enough. I weighed too much and my clothes didn't look right or I was spending too much time at the gym and dressing provocatively. There was no happy medium. No in between or Green Zone. I remember thinking, "You're an Irish girl from New York, Kristen. You don't have to take this kind of behavior. Stand up for yourself."

And I did. 

I quickly learned that standing up for myself meant I was going to have to explain things by lying to my friends the next day. The long sleeves in the dead heat of summer or the anxious way I jumped every time my phone went off and I was not home. Coffee dates with friends were ended abruptly with a simple, "I have to go" after receiving a text. And trips up North to see my family were put on hold "because I was so busy in Nashville." He told me who I could see... what I could do... and what I should feel. And when I didn't follow those directions I was reminded what the hallway wall felt like against my back or just how hard a body builder could hold onto your wrist and make you walk where he wanted you to walk.

I remember when the day came for my College Graduation. My entire family flew down to attend (the first and only time we were all in Nashville at the same time) and my dear friend from Baton Rouge came up to surprise me. It was a huge weekend filled with congratulation dinners and countless pictures with friends in our caps and gowns. But there was one person who didn't make the photo album. He never came home the night before my graduation. And I thought, "He'll come to the campus for sure." And when I looked up from the main floor of the Curb Event Center and saw my family lined up in a row of seats, Leigh after them and then an empty chair... my heart sank and I realized he wasn't coming. I checked my phone and I didn't have any missed calls. He had known how important the day was and there was no way he would miss it. But he did. And unfortunately later that night, despite my family's wishes to ban him from the restaurant when he walked in, I let him join us for my graduation dinner. His family was already seated next to mine. I couldn't make a scene. And I assumed he obviously had a good explanation for why he missed one of the biggest days of my life.

He didn't. (And I was just glad that the girl he had spent the evening with so he missed the ceremony didn't come to my dinner with him.)

Everything in my body told me to run. And run fast in a completely different direction from him. My family told me to leave him and free myself from such an unhealthy relationship. My friends- what was left of them- told me to choose between him or them. And one by one I watched them walk away. Everything in my body also told me: "This isn't you." And those three words had a different meaning every time I heard them.

You're the daughter of a police officer... This isn't how you were raised.
You went to school to be a District Attorney and help battered women and children... what are you doing?
You wrote your High School Thesis on the "legal inadequacies of prosecuting domestic violence cases"... you know the steps to take to legally get away safely so why are you still here?
You used to be so outspoken and feisty... Where did that girl go?

But every time I would run away, like Belle did from the Beast when he roared angrily at her in the West Wing, I would come face to face with those wolves. And those wolves were my personal demons: The low self esteem. The belief I could never do better than him. The betrayal I felt at leaving him because of everything he had filled my mind with over the years. But unlike Belle the Beast didn't sacrifice his own safety to save me. Rather, he fed off my fear and made me believe I really could not live without him. So I always returned. I was presented with so many ways out but I just didn't have the strength to act upon any of them. So I was a prisoner in my own apartment living in fear of what he would do next. Every single inch of my world became "the West Wing"- a place he banned me from going without his permission, his direction or his supervision. The irony though was my career goal was to work inside the real West Wing and with every day that passed with him that dream faded away.

Growing up my Dad was adamant that I knew how to defend myself. Maybe that made our father/daughter dynamic a little weird but we bonded over self-defense and learning how to protect myself from danger. He would come up from behind, lock my arms and tell me, "Get out of it." And I would be so frustrated thinking, "Dad! I'm busy. Stop.You're crazy." What I didn't realize was that he wasn't crazy. He knew how scary the world was out there. I believe he was more concerned with my walks to class at night or living in my own apartment one day in a big city. I don't think he could have guessed it would be the man I was "in love with" that he would be saving me from.

But he did. 

To this day I can't recall what exactly I yelled from the living room into the kitchen. I know it was sarcastic and I know it was said with every intention to anger him. And I don't know where I got the nerve to even "talk back" to a man I was accustomed to fearing. But my words were heard and then I heard his foot steps. He wasn't walking into the living room... he was running. I found myself with nowhere to go because I was backed into a corner with a couch to my left and an end table in front of me. I couldn't run away and I couldn't hide. He was coming straight towards me and I could hear the expletives getting louder and louder. And then I felt him grab me and I knew of all the times he had grabbed me that this was going to be the time that hurt the most. That he had never been this angry before and I was the source of it. But something in my mind snapped and I said to myself, "I'm done." And as I saw his clenched fist begin to rise I had one arm free and heard my Dad's voice, "Get out of it." I turned, took the base of my hand and threw it directly into his nose. He fell back, letting go of the grip he had on me, and I watched the blood stream down his face. In the time it took him to scream more expletives and grab his nose in pain, I had grabbed Jack Daniels hiding in the other corner, my bag and my keys and ran to my car. I could hear him following behind me but I knew he couldn't catch me this time. Still shaking I got the keys in the ignition and heard him yelling my name from the front steps. "You won't get away with this" was all I could make out as I drove out of the parking lot and got onto the interstate heading East.

It wasn't until I had driven almost 10 hours that I called my parents. I told them that I was coming to visit them and they sounded so excited to make plans to see me. When they asked "when?" I told them in about 12 hours. I was halfway there and I was coming with no suitcase and just my cat (asleep on the floor board of the passenger side). I didn't dare tell them everything that had gone on inside that apartment earlier that day. I just drove the 22 hours to the farmhouse in Vermont and finally felt safe, for the first time in a long time, when I walked through that front door. 

The emotional damage he caused was followed quickly with the financial damage he caused too. Credit cards opened in my name that I had never authorized but were maxed out. He had control over so many things at that point in my life but he no longer had control over me. I moved into a new apartment and he was the first to never know where I called home. I blocked his number and I made sure my new neighbors knew what kind of car he drove, what he looked like and who to call if they ever saw him around our apartment. I tried not to live in fear of him finding me because I knew eventually he would get bored and find something- someone- else to hunt.

As the physical proof of my life with the Beast faded away I reminded myself- like a daily mantra- that I did not make it up and healed bruises did not mean everything was ok again. But in a parallel to when Belle is finally free and believed the Beast had changed, she wanted "to see him." So she looked into the magical mirror and saw that he was in pain and hurting. She missed him. But any and every mirror I looked into I didn't hope to see my Beast. I saw the reflection of the person who he had made to feel like nothing. I didn't want to look in a mirror and see him... I wanted to see me. But not the Kristen I had become at the hands of a monster. I wanted to see the person I could be who found her self-worth again, found her voice, found her confidence and knew how to be independent. I wanted to see the Kristen that didn't sheepishly wait for a man to give her a library but made one for herself.

It took a really long time to meet that reflection one day. And it took having to start from scratch and build myself up piece by piece. But putting on a purple ribbon and telling my story was something I could not see myself doing. I wanted to put that chapter behind me. I wanted a fresh start. And every curve ball that has been thrown at me since I walked away from everything that year: the Beast, my political career and the future I thought I had all planned out... may have resulted in strike outs but not one was down looking. I always swung even though I often missed. Whether it's a Thousand Year Flood, a failed job, a new tumor or a lost relationship... I go through those experiences knowing that I am strong enough to face any of them head on. But it's not the kind of strength you find in a superhero cape or even a weight room floor. It's the kind of strength that you need to find deep within you and bring out on your own when it feels like you're no longer in control. The kind of strength you develop when you've lost everything.

In the years since freeing myself from the grasp of a failed Prince I have seen firsthand women who needed someone to tell them, "Run." And for some reason I was able to show them the way out. Maybe they looked in my eyes and saw themselves. Maybe I was just convincing. Or maybe they had finally hit their "snapped" moment too. But I have never, and will never, use the word "victim" when telling their story or the very few times I have or will share mine. No one who makes it to the other side of abuse, of disaster, of illness or even of war is a "victim." They're a survivor. And somehow that word gets lost in the translation of the story.

It's been years since I've seen his face or heard his voice. He found me a couple of times on social media or on a Channel 5 News clip once when I was doing tornado debris clean up. (Ironically, doing manual labor he always said I was too weak to do). But he has never come close to me again. And I find my strength in knowing that even if he did I would be ok. Because I'm not the person who he made back then. And frankly he can keep that person that he created because the person I turned into on the other side is pretty special. At the end of the Disney movie you see the Beast transform into the Prince and the Castle return to bright colors with all of the animated objects coming back to life. That wasn't so much the case in my version of the tale. I was the one who went through the transformation. I became a new person and with every test of my strength I transformed a little bit more.

So today I stand here unwilling and unable to settle for anything less than someone who doesn't compromise the person that I have become. Someone who doesn't make me question my worth or my value. Someone who treats me kindly and with respect. I know that that's what I deserve now. Because once upon a time I didn't believe I was worth anything. And it's truly bittersweet sweet and strange, finding you can change, and learning you were wrong.