> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.vesperapress.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Behind Closed Doors - URL: https://www.vesperapress.com/behind-closed-doors/ - Published: 2020-10-03T20:07:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-12T20:46:31.000Z - Description: Speaking out for survivors of domestic violence - Author: Meredith "Meri" McGuire McConn - Tags: UNmistIFIED, #Personal Essay, #Domestic Violence, #When It Lands ****A note before you read.** This essay describes physical violence, including an assault during pregnancy and being strangled until I lost consciousness. It also describes the fifteen years of silence that followed. If today is not the day you can read that, please don’t. It will still be here. If you are living with abuse, or you think someone you love may be, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is available 24/7 at 800.799.SAFE (800.799.7233), or by texting START to 88788. There is help, and you are allowed to ask for it. *Originally published on* [*Medium.com*](https://vesperapress.medium.com/behind-closed-doors-d689669ab848?ref=vesperapress.com) I awoke and made coffee today, chatted for an hour or so with long-distance friends, as I do nearly every morning. I opened my Facebook app and found a girlfriend’s profile picture changed, encircled by a purple filter stating: “Domestic Violence Awareness Month.” Thank goodness, I thought. It’s about time they dedicated a month to this. Little did I know that October was determined, in 1987, to bring awareness to a problem affecting 1/4 of all females and 1/9 of all males in the United States, a shockingly high number I learned only months ago. Nor did I know that spousal abuse has been outlawed in most States since 1850. I had never looked into domestic violence before. No one ever talked about it. I never wanted to be a victim — who would? I never wanted to be abused. And yet… Until only a few years ago, I was deeply ashamed of myself. I was sure my experiences were rare, isolated incidents of literally unspeakable violence. I was certain no one else had ever been treated by their partner as I had been treated by mine. This was different — or so I believed. I hid my secret, a secret I had been told no one would ever believe, if I was to tell anybody. And so, I suffered with my secret alone. Sure, I was taught as a child that it wasn’t okay to hit people. But, though it’s probably implied, expected by most parents and teachers that children understand, I was never taught *specifically* that it is not okay to be hit — nor that it was not okay to be told by the man I would marry that I was worthless, useless, no better than a prostitute and a housekeeper, incapable of paying bills, incapable of sweeping floors, incapable of lining up shoes. Blame me if you want for having not known; but in each moment any abuse arose—though I knew I didn’t like what was happening—my shock, my devotion to my husband, the cultivation of forgiveness, and of ‘turning the other cheek’ for those who hurt me — which was so deeply ingrained in me — arose, too. I looked for reasons for what I was told was punishment. I believed him when he said I deserved to be punished. I believed him when he said it was my fault. I strove to do as I was told, to make him happy, to keep him from becoming upset — even though I never really knew what would next upset him. *It was me*, I reasoned — as he said to me, too. Hungry and distractible while my husband waxed philosophical with his camera slung over his shoulder, I walked for hours through the city, as he loved to do. (It only now occurs to me that, being the supportive wife of her beloved, artistic husband, that I had willingly consented to his buying and paying to develop rolls and rolls of film while we literally starved, too poor to also buy groceries.) I was told that I had to stop being hungry, as he frustratedly admonished me; I had to stop letting the hunger pangs pull my mind away from what he was saying, lest I prove I wasn’t interested, that I didn’t care for him and for his mind — as I earnestly promised him I did. An upsetting program played on the television at the sandwich shop; a child crying on the bus were both more proof there was something wrong with *me*: I was anxious, and (though I was silent) my anxieties generated these problems, he repeatedly castigated. My unsettled energy, my thoughts drew ugly people towards us on the street, made the neighbors shout, made him unable to sleep. One night, while laying in bed with him — his hands still aching from long hours of working as a butcher’s assistant—he asked what I was thinking. Terrified to reveal even the meandering wishes for a pleasantry, I rolled away, tucked my thoughts into back of my mind. Angry, he demanded to know what I was thinking, reminding me that he had to work early the next morning. Anxiety gripped me; I couldn’t think; not a single word would come to mind. “Nothing!” I promised through my fright. “I don’t remember!” My sense of justice and empathy craves, even still, to explain his side: That he is extremely sensitive to others’ emotional states; that my anxiety had risen to the point where I was riveted inside; that his mother’s abuse of him, as a child, and her high anxiety had terrorized him to the point where he didn’t know how to handle himself in such states; that he was imitating her behavior. But justice is not complete without revealing his response to me: I don’t remember when or specifically why he first hit me; but I ran from the bed. He chased me into the hall, hitting my head with his fist, punching my pregnant stomach. I doubled-over, yelped in defense of the child within me; he wrapped his hands around my throat, murmuring for me to be quiet, that the neighbors could hear me — as he strangled me into silence. I was lost, confused. He had hit me before, in his anger. He had strangled me before, in a similarly blind rage; but I was pregnant, this time, with his child. Before him, I had never in my life been treated in such ways; and all I wanted was for him to stop, for him to know I loved him. In those few moments that seemed to last much longer than seconds, I groped for a solution. If I fought back, he’d beat me harder. He might accidentally hurt or kill the child. The only solution seemed obvious: Give in. *He’ll probably let go once I pass out, as he did before. He wouldn’t let our child and me die,* I remember thinking, rationalizing. *They’ll be able to get the baby out of me.* I felt his strong hands tighten on my throat as I stopped struggling. I stopped hearing his voice. I stopped feeling everything. The world went black. I was at peace. To see me that night, even the day after, you’d never know I had been beaten, strangled until I passed out. He had apologized, crying as he cradled me in his arms when I roused, bleary, muted, dazed. “It’s okay,” I forgave him earnestly. “You didn’t mean to.” He checked my face, my neck to see that there were no visible bruises. “You see? The fact that you’re not bruised means I didn’t really hurt you,” he explained to me. The next day, as I got ready to go off to clean houses, he told me I’d never be believed if I told anyone what had happened. I believed him. I made a great effort at ‘being normal.’ I said nothing. ![The author outdoors on a bright day in sunglasses, smiling slightly, holding a pink ice cream bar toward the camera with a brewery cup in her other hand.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/61/03/6103f47f-b805-44ce-92bf-5b56682406e2/content/images/2026/10/Meri---Hiding-with-Lipstick-1-1.jpg) ***Hiding Behind Lipstick** *\- Sweetwater Brewery, Atlanta, Georgia.* ©2015 Meredith L. McGuire Fifteen years passed before I told a single person what had happened to me that night; and it was over two more years before I was no longer in contact with the man I married. It was only then that I first started to realize the gravity of experiencing twenty years of being terrorized by abuse. I’ve traveled to Europe and bounced across the U.S. in an attempt to cope with my trauma. In the years prior, I worked in restaurants and bars, the fast pace keeping my mind too busy to remember anything but diners’ orders. I splurged on fine foods and craft beers, danced away long nights and sipped elegant cocktails. I smiled often and learned to sail, volunteered for food-related charities and delved into many things I love. To the best of my knowledge, no one whom I didn’t specifically tell suspected *anything*. They all thought I was adventuring, happy-go-lucky. But, deception did nothing to heal me. Tested for four different types of cancer after I developed a large bulge above my right collarbone, it was determined that I had inexplicably developed an extremely-rare pseudoaneurysm — something that could literally take my life or limb. In the subsequent two-year aftermath of yet-again facing my mortality, fearful, stripped of the ability to make money, and isolated again — this time, due to circumstances related to COVID, I finally acknowledged that I needed [help](https://www.thehotline.org/?ref=vesperapress.com). Finally, I decided to start speaking. --- I won’t ask that you believe my story, herein barely told. For years, I pretended it didn’t happen to me; for years, I didn’t want it to be real. I won’t ask that you not judge me, for I’ve judged myself more harshly over what’s happened to me than anyone likely ever could. I’d ask that, if you don’t believe me, if you’re judging me, you ask yourself: > *WHY don’t I believe?* > *WHY am I judging someone who’s writing of being vulnerable, who’s saying they were terribly hurt by someone they loved immensely?* > *Am I hurting someone — physically, mentally, emotionally?* > *Am I being hurt and I don’t want to admit the truth?* --- ***The time to be silent is over.** ***The time to speak out is now.** ***I promise:** ***You’re not alone. You don’t have to be alone.** *October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.* *If you are being abused or suspect someone you know is being abused,* [*please seek help*](https://www.thehotline.org/?ref=vesperapress.com)*.* ![A hand-drawn illustration in dark blue ink on white paper: a large stylized flower surrounded by leaves, smaller blossoms, dots and curling swirls.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/61/03/6103f47f-b805-44ce-92bf-5b56682406e2/content/images/2026/10/Blue-Flower-Drawing-1.jpg) ***Blue Flower Doodle.** ©2016 Meredith L. McGuire