There Goes My Social Life (12 page)

As long as my personal drama didn't interfere with my occupational life, I'd have a better chance of getting away from Axel for good. The more jobs I got, the more financially secure I'd be and the less I'd need him. After a few hours of working, I'd sunk myself into my character so much that I'd almost forgotten about my turmoil. The horrendous experiences I had felt, the abuse, the damn socks. It just felt like it was a totally different world—a nightmare, almost, from which I'd awakened.

Garner let me stay at his home for a while, as I looked for my own apartment. If I could just get my own place to stay, I could have my life back. The next day, when I was back at work, I thought I had pulled off an escape. That's when I looked up and saw him. Axel was coming at me, his eyes bloodshot and his teeth clenched.

I had no idea how he got on the lot.

“Don't cause a scene,” I said as calmly as I could. I didn't want him to embarrass me, or to earn me a reputation as an actress with too much personal drama. I smiled at my fellow cast mates who were standing around pretending not to watch, but they could tell something was up. When Axel stormed up and grabbed me by my arm, I said. “Let's talk in your Jeep.”

I know I shouldn't have gotten in, but I couldn't let him ruin my career by making a huge scene on the set. My work would be what saved me. If I let him ruin that for me, I'd be stuck with him forever. As soon as I got in, he punched me, locked the doors, and drove off . . . leaving about a dozen of my cast mates standing there, stunned.

“You said you'd stay!” he growled.

“I just needed some time to think,” I said, already trying to appease him. At one point in my life, I was a person. A woman. An actress. Someone who happened to fall in love with a man who was charming and romantic, who told me he loved me and couldn't live without me. When he hit me, he changed me. Through no actions of my own, I had become a “battered woman.” That's what they called it back then. It sounded so fucking pathetic. I didn't want his actions to define me. And yet, there I was.

It was so hard for me to stop giving him the benefit of the doubt. Surely he wasn't a monster. There was one way out: things had to get better. If things improved, we'd look back on this stage of our lives and say, “We were under a lot of pressure back then,” and it would seem like a blur, something vague which we overcame. He made it really easy to fall into this trance. He'd put his arm around me and take me places, proud to have me on his arm. At night, he'd talk gently and tell me I was beautiful. My mother had never—not even once—told me that.

But there was a line, and he had crossed it.

We drove up the Pacific Coast Highway, and I could tell he had no idea where he was going.

“Take me back to work, you can't do this,” I said. “People saw you take me. If I don't come back, they're going to call the police.”

To my surprise, he listened and took me back to work. Not without a warning. “I'll deal with you later.”

When I came back to the set, one of the writers for the show pulled me aside and said, “I don't know what's going on with you, but you have to get away from that guy,” he said. “Or he's going to wind up killing you.”

The words stung. Not only was I embarrassed, I knew he was right. I'd learned my lesson and knew how to cover my tracks. When I got my own apartment this time, I told no one. It was a studio apartment on the fifth floor of an old 1920s building located on Rossmore in Los Angeles. All I had in it was a large white brass bed. I'd always wanted floral linens, but my mom never let me have them. So I went out, bought the prettiest Laura Ashley linen, and created a lovely place to rest. That's all I needed in my apartment, since life was basically night after night of partying. I had a new set of friends . . . people from the show . . . people who didn't know Axel. I even branched out and started dating one of my co-stars. On my twenty-first birthday, I got a butterfly tattoo on my shoulder symbolizing that I—finally and mercifully—was free.

I'd found a place where he couldn't find me.

TV 101
was a big part of my plan. It was a good show while it lasted, but it was on opposite
Matlock
,
Roseanne
, and
Who
'
s the Boss
? It only lasted thirteen episodes
.
When the show didn't get picked up, I had no money and no other jobs. But I did have a pretty vibrant social life. It had been almost a year since I'd left Axel, and I had been dating other people—it was intoxicating to be with men who were really happy to be with me. I felt happy that I'd established myself in Los Angeles without any help from him. Well, I didn't have any money, but I had managed so far.

One day, I ran into a mutual friend.

“So how is he?” I asked. I still loved Axel, if I have to admit it. Sick, I know. I missed that feeling of being taken care of. I never wanted for anything when he was around.

“Do you want to talk to him?” she asked.

Had I been thinking clearly, I would've responded with an emphatic, “Hell no!” But when she offered to connect us, part of me leapt. I had spent so much of my life with him. He knew me. He knew my family. He'd gone with me to help my mom, he'd been there with me when I was in my darkest moments. Sure, he'd
caused
some of my darkest moments, but that was beside the point. What harm could a conversation do?

We chatted on the phone, and I told him the truth about my situation—that I was struggling to make ends meet.

“Listen,” he said. “I don't want it to be that way. I've made some money, and I don't want to know you're struggling. Meet me and I'll take care of it.”

I didn't even have enough money to pay my rent the next month. I bit my lip and weighed the consequences. Should I accept anything from that guy? Within the day, I was standing with him at his apartment. He handed me a wad of cash and talked gently to me. I'm not sure what words he said, but being with him reminded me of the good times in New York.

“I've changed,” he purred into my ear after we—yes—made love. And I believed him. It was like he cast a spell over me, one of security and, believe it or not, even affection. Suddenly, Axel and I were a couple again. He took me out on dates and wooed me. I felt like he was trying to show me that he was a changed man, that things would be different. After all, it had been a year. Surely he had grown up a bit. Eventually we rented a cute house in Los Angeles. As soon as I unpacked my bags, I took a step back and looked at that adorable house. Finally, I thought. I've got it. A man, a home, and enough money to stop worrying about the landlord. That feeling of domestic tranquility lasted two weeks.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked one morning after he hadn't come home the night before.

Immediately, he started hitting me, and the cycle began, once again.

After he beat me, I realized I'd made a grave mistake. I went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet, holding my ribs. I felt like he'd broken one, but maybe it was just bruised. Worse than the physical pain was the growing sense of dread. What had I done?

Correction: I didn't feel like I'd made a mistake; I felt like I was a mistake . . . that something fundamental about me as a person had shifted. I'd gone back to my abuser. I had no job. I had no options.

I sunk myself deeper into drugs. Pot, pills, coke.

I no longer recognized myself in the mirror. I had fleeting thoughts about throwing myself in front of a train, and wondered what would happen if I went off a bridge. Would I die on impact with the water, or drown?

Finally, one day, I left. I just walked out of the house, got in a cab, and said, “I've got twenty dollars. Take me as far as you can go away from here.”

I knew I needed to go, but I wasn't sure where I'd end up. I certainly didn't think I'd end up where I am now—with television appearances, a blog, and over half a million followers on Twitter, where I'm able to share my thoughts on the news of the day. Thankfully, as hard as my personal life has been in the past, it has given me a unique perspective on current events and political issues.

For example, the Ray Rice scandal broke right before the 2014 midterms. As you remember, a video published on TMZ showed the former Ravens running back dragging his fiancée out of an elevator at an Atlantic City casino. People originally speculated that she'd perhaps had too much to drink, but later TMZ published another video showing that Rice's fiancée—now his wife—was not drunk. He had punched her so hard in the elevator that it knocked her out.

Because this was the campaign season, the scandal got political really quick. Democrats doubled down on their “war on women” shtick, insinuating that Republicans condone sexual assault, glass ceilings, and the unfair treatment of women at work. National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Brook Hougesen responded by saying, “Democrats across the country—mostly men, by the way—have sunk to new lows, exploiting deeply personal issues and crimes, ranging from birth control to sexual assault, domestic violence to discrimination in the workforce for their own political gain.”

As a survivor of intimate partner abuse, this infuriates me. You know what else makes me mad? Many of the statistics frequently trotted out by liberals about domestic partner abuse are simply wrong. Have you ever heard that one in five college women will be sexually assaulted? The new mantra of the Left is that “the most dangerous place to be in America for women is a college campus.” Newspaper reporters, elected politicians, and even President Obama frequently cite this “fact.” Thankfully, it's a hoax.

Two prominent criminologists (Northeastern University's James Alan Fox and Mount Holyoke College's Richard Moran) set the numbers straight: “The estimated 19% sexual assault rate among college women is based on a survey at two large four-year universities, which might not accurately reflect our nation's colleges overall. In addition, the survey had a large non-response rate, with the clear possibility that those who had been victimized were more apt to have completed the questionnaire, resulting in an inflated prevalence figure.”
²

Plus, liberals have changed the definition of “sexual assault.” The “1 in 5” hoax is based on such a loose definition that it sometimes even encompasses simply sexual experiences that are later regretted. (Who hasn't regretted a sexual experience?) Fox and Moran say respondents were classified as sexual assault victims if they'd experienced “forced kissing” or had intimate encounters while drunk.

Have you heard that 22 to 35 percent of women who visit emergency rooms are being treated for domestic violence? That's also a hoax. This statistic is one that appears everywhere, including leading textbooks on family violence and law. One book uses this bogus figure to say that on domestic violence the United States is comparable to places like Uganda and Haiti.
³
So where did this number originate? Apparently the Justice Department and the Centers for Disease Control have done studies, but they weren't of all women who visit emergency rooms. (By the way, that number is about 40 million annually.) They were referring only to the women who come to the ER “for violence-related injuries.” According to Christina Hoff Sommers, this number is around 550,000. Of this much smaller number, about 37 percent were attacked by intimate partners.
⁴

That 203,500 women is 203,500 too many, because no woman deserves to be hit or abused. But can we just be honest about the facts? Approximately one half of 1 percent of all women who go to the ER are being treated for domestic abuse.

One more myth liberals are fond of citing relates to domestic abuse and football. Activists trotted out this claim two decades ago based on research from Old Dominion University: more women get abused on Super Bowl Sunday than any other day.

This was repeated on college campuses, printed in newspapers and academic journals, and discussed around the water coolers of America for years. A couple of autumns ago,
Morning Joe
host Mika Brzezinski said, “You look at Super Bowl Sunday. Super Bowl Sunday has the highest rate of domestic violence. There's something about the game! This is a violent game. And domestic violence on Super Bowl Sunday. We've seen the numbers. Why is that?”

What Brzezinski failed to note was that a
Washington Post
reporter had already dug more deeply into the actual claim and realized—oops!—this too is a lie. Even the Old Dominion researchers cited as evidence of the claim agreed their research was misquoted and misused.
⁵

So let's get this straight. Intimate partner abuse is evil and its victims should be treated with respect and care. But it does no one any good to lie about it, to make it seem more prevalent than it is, or to try to lay blame at the feet of one political party.

The problem is too serious to play statistical games with. As a woman who has been through the hell of abuse, I implore America to stop making this a partisan issue.