My Fifty-Two Years of Domestic Abuse
A Survivor’s Story
by
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I lost the joy of having my first child.
I told Lou that I was pregnant, and I expected him to be happy that we were having a baby. Instead, he gave me a kick in the stomach that sent me from the middle of the room into an entrance door of the apartment. I hit the door and slid to the floor. No one had ever hit me before. I was shocked that he would do this to me. The next day, I had a miscarriage.
Finally, she (my mother) was at the end of her life. Every time I asked if I could go visit her, he’d say, “Is she going to die today?” “You can go see her once before she dies.” She died in a hospice and I never got to see her. He magnanimously gave me permission to go to her wake and funeral. As usual, our son accompanied me. Of all the things he took away from me in my life, this is the one thing I can never forgive.
Lou never smiled. He trusted no one. He disliked everyone. No one was ever going to put something over on him.
He seemed to get a high from abusing me. “Hitting you gives me adrenaline. It makes me feel good!” he would say with a look of happy satisfaction on his face.
A few days later, he put his hands around my neck and tried to strangle me. I retaliated by doing the same to him. He dropped his hands. The next morning, I looked in the mirror and saw the black and blue marks on my neck from where he tried to choke me. I related this incident to my counselor during therapy. She told me that when the abuse escalates to this point that he was close to killing me.
One of the scariest things he did was scream at me for an entire day--from morning to evening. For seventeen straight hours, he screamed so long and loud that he became hoarse. When it was over, he glared at me and said, “If I damaged my voice from this screaming, I am going to cut your vocal chords!"
Every day he would command me to either lay on the bed or sit on the couch. I knew it was time for my daily beating.
I was in the condo when I got a frantic call from my sister. “Lou just shot at Johnnie.”
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About the Book
For fifty-two years, Dana Wilson endured emotional and physical abuse from her husband. The abuse escalated until she finally escaped with the help of her son. Not willing to lose control, the abuser tried to kill their only child by terrorizing and shooting at him.
The counselors that helped Dana heal and restart her life have said that her abuse was the worst they had ever encountered.
About the Author
Dana Wilson was born in Massachusetts. She attended college for three semesters and worked many years as a middle manager in the transportation industry. She has one son, Johnnie, and a daughter-in-law, Kendall. Dana always had a love of writing and had many articles, editorials and op-ed pieces published. She is a member of Mensa, the high IQ society. She lived most of her life under the yoke of a very abusive husband. Now that she is a survivor, free of him, she spends her time giving speeches and interviews for abuse groups in an attempt to help other women who are being abused. In her spare time, she travels.