She looks so satisfied. Screaming was my only defense.
I was warned from our trauma speciliast that as long as she is alive my life will be in danger. There is distinct psychological difference in the mind of a person that can use their hands to kill you and lie about it when the evidence is clear it happened.
She is 70% larger than me and utterly enraged. Think Game of Thrones rage. Rage as if there are no consequences rage. She stands 71″ or 5’11,” but she has told the world she is 6FT great her whole life. To the police, she was 6FT and a strong woman that could have hurt me if she really wanted to or at least that is what she told them for the police report. I am 5’4″ 111lbs. Size nothing. My mother is 4’11”, I am giant in my family but would never stand a chance against someone more than double my size, essentially trying to kill me.
My husband was shocked by my reaction which was virtually nothing but freezing and screaming in between the brief loss of consciousness. I learned something new through this, well I have learned lots of new things, but one of them was an expanded understanding of the “fight or flight” mechanism in our bodies.
Dr. Shannon educated us. She expanded our view with the addition of freeze. So you fight, take flight or freeze. The chiropractor I saw at the beginning of this said it best. He said I was like a bunny, I just played dead. We are programmed in our brain stem to react fight, flight or freeze in a life-threatening situation. I have had no significant personal experience of violence in my life up until this point. So I honestly had no idea what my reaction would be nor have I had any self-defense education, sad, but true. My daughter will, and we will do it together.
I was so disappointed in myself that I did nothing to defend myself. I would say what was wrong with me; I did nothing. I did nothing to protect myself; I let myself be strangled and thrashed around like a rag doll. I’ve been told you should stick your thumbs in someone’s eyes if they do that to you. But the idea of having that image of her gouged eyes and the sensation of that for the rest of my life is an awful reality. Gross. It was so fast and so violent even my 6’3″ 225lb. husband had a hard time getting her off me. She never stopped squeezing my neck.
I didn’t see it coming. I was purposely trying not to be involved. I am very conscious of my body language knowing it makes up 95% of all that you say albeit non-verbal. My eyes were closed through it all, or at least I assume they were because I do not know what she looked like when trying to kill me. I wonder if I’d remember it, to be honest, it’s like that segment of my life has been removed, I cannot access this memory. But if you are unconscious, that makes sense. Now that I think of it, I assume my eyes were closed through it because I do not have any memory of her face while strangling me but maybe they were open, and this is our bodies way of dealing with this level of trauma. Pretty amazing if it is.
That is such a distracting thing to think about. I’ve assumed this whole time my eyes were closed. What if they were not? Makes me want to ask her. Hey Aurelia, were my eyes closed or open while you were trying to kill me? It would help advance science, and the world would better understand what happens to your brain during trauma. If you could kindly leave a message in the comments below that would be great. Thank you.
Strangled In La Jolla 