“Invisible Prisons”
Thirteen monologues about domestic abuse
Collected and written
by
Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking
the copyright for this play belongs to
Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking
Joy thanks everyone who shared their story.
Although, it was not possible to have all of the stories in the play,
every story was very valuable and much appreciated.
Anyone who wants to perform all or part of the play will be granted the use of the material for free.
Prior to the use of “Invisible Prisons”,
we would appreciate an email of the form “Request to use Invisible Prisons”
and we would appreciate an email afterwards of the form
“Follow-up to the use of Invisible Prisons”
[email protected]
“Our Hope for “Invisible Prisons”
Abuse is varied. It is made up of links of alienation, domination, isolation, and violation. Living with abuse gradually builds an invisible prison around a person and makes it very difficult for them to escape. By making abuse visible and recognized and unaccepted by society, we are providing one of the keys to escape.
All of our stories have been shared with the hope of helping others; helping others recognize abuse, helping others escape abuse, helping others get help to stop abusing and helping to make a society in which abuse is unacceptable.
We hope that high schools, universities and community groups and maybe even police departments might use the entire play, the abridged versions, or even individual monologues in their theatre programs, assemblies, workshops or meetings. Although domestic abuse is most often practiced by men against women, this is not always the case. Any time there is on-going power imbalance in a relationship, the potential for abuse exists. It is our hope that everyone will feel an ownership for the issue of domestic abuse in society and that we will work towards communication, negotiation, appreciation, and co-operation in all of our relationships.
CAST
Anne 30 year old professional woman
(Annihilate)
Barbara 75 year old woman
(Perpetuate)
Cathy 50 year old woman a teacher
(Isolate)
Donna 45 year old professional woman
(Dominate)
Evelyn 66 woman
(Violate)
Fred a 65 year old (or older) man
(Instigate)
Gloria a 40 year old musician woman
(Insinuate)
Helen age 23 student
(Retaliate)
Isabel age 18 (could be played by an older woman as well)
(Intoxicate)
Judy age 40 woman
(Denigrate)
Ken age 26 male
(Initiate)
Louisa Spanish woman
(Invalidate)
Mary woman 60 ish
(Debilitate)
Thirteen characters on stage, eleven are women, two are men; in it. (See appendix A for presentation ideas and two additional monologues if desired)
The cast is quiet, the stage is dark.
The lights come on.
Sweetly and quietly, everyone chants
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
Slightly louder
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
Louder still and bending forward
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
ANNE
I had a great childhood. I was an only child, totally loved and doted on by my parents and grandparents. Everyone thought I was perfect. I had heaps of friends and I did really well in school. I thought about becoming a doctor like my Dad but I decided to become a pharmacist so that I would have regular working hours and could be home with my children. Long before I met Tod and married him, I dreamed of having a perfect little house and a perfect little family.
I met Tod right after I got my first job as a pharmacist. He was a drug sales man and he had the most beautiful smile and he wore really crisp white shirts. When he came into the drug store, I asked him what the most beautiful man in the world was doing in our store. That really made him laugh. And before he left, we’d made a date for the next night. We got engaged two months after we met. A year later, we had a beautiful wedding. I was so happy. I could hardly wait to start a family. Tod always drank too much, and I teased him about it. He’d just laugh and was still caring and kind and I thought that his drinking would end once he was a father. When our first daughter, Tracy, was born, Tod changed. He started complaining about everything. He said that I was fat because I wasn’t back to my pre-pregnancy weight. He degraded me and criticized my house keeping. My worry and depression only made me eat more. When he was drinking, he’d really be nasty. Finally I left him and my daughter and I came to the transition house. He stopped drinking and seemed like the wonderful man I had married and so I went back to him. Then I got pregnant and he started drinking again. He’d start on Wednesday and drink right through the weekend. When he was drinking, he’d throw me around and threaten me. I knew that I couldn’t stay with him and I left him again for five months.
With one three year old and another child on the way and no husband to take care of us, I couldn’t imagine how we would manage. I still dreamt about having a perfect little family. Tod promised me that we would have that perfect family, if only I would give him one more chance. As soon as we moved back home, he started drinking again. He’d be out in the garage every night until 2 am drinking beer after beer. Then he’d expect me to be happy to see him in bed. He wouldn’t listen when I asked him to brush his teeth because the smell of alcohol made me feel sick. Then on “that” night, my little girl was sleeping with me and he was hollering. She saw way too much. I tried to lift her up to get her out of the bedroom and he lost it. All reason left him. I tried to grab the phone to call 911 and he stuffed the phone down his pants. “Don’t worry, I’m not going there,” I quipped. He pushed me into a rocking chair and started to choke me. He weighed twice as much as me. There was nothing I could do. He squeezed harder and harder. I was terrified. Suddenly I felt a huge peace surround me, and I was out of my body looking down on the room. All the terror was gone. Looking down, I could see Tracy screaming. I could see myself in the chair . I could see Tod towering over me squeezing harder and harder and harder and harder….
BARBARA
My story isn’t usually told. Even to myself. If I were to acknowledge it often then I would be forced to leave him. I am seventy-five years old and this year is also the occasion of our fifty-fifth wedding anniversary. You would think that this would be a time for celebration but all of our celebrations start out great and end up horrible. I get excited about a
holiday and I look forward to it. I plan for a party and then my husband blows up and ruins it. My brothers and sisters won’t come to our house because he has alienated all of them. Even our grandchildren don’t like coming to our house. I love my husband but he is a very unhappy man. Sometime he doesn’t say a word to me for months. Often he lashes out for no real reason. Sometimes he hits me but usually he’s just silent and angry. Anything can cause it. Maybe I didn’t fill up the car with gas soon enough. Maybe the breakfast I cooked him was too salty or not salty enough. It’s impossible to find the reason for his anger but I keep trying. We have enough money. We own our own home. We’re both healthy. We have four grown children who all live in the area. We don’t drink. We don’t smoke. We have a big vegetable garden and we go to church every Sunday. I volunteer at the church and with the Women’s Institute. My husband is a pillar of the fire department.
For years, I kept hoping that things would get better. Sometimes they do, but it never lasts. I did leave him a few times. Once after he almost beat me to death. Another time when the kids were little and he threw our beautiful. Christmas tree through the back window. It was surrounded by presents and he just stomped through them. We were all standing there crying. I try to be strong and brave and to carry on peacefully and happily. I pray a lot. I love my husband but I still find it really hard to live with a man who can suddenly hate you.
I guess I should have left him for good many many years ago. But now I’ve stayed this long, I might as well stick it out.
CATHY
I’m fifty years old and I work at the local school. I’m the vice principal and I have a lot of responsibility. For the past ten years, I’ve been in a relationship with a woman who is also fifty and teaches at the community college. I really love Sally but sometimes I think that I just can’t stand to stay with her any longer. Sally always has to be right. She decides when we will eat and what we will eat. Sometimes she even tries to tell me what to think. If I put on a pink uniform and she’s having a green day, she’ll suggest that I change my clothes. It’s ridiculous.
The first year we were together was wonderful. We shared everything and our new love was great. Then just with little tiny things, she started to take all of the control. I didn’t even realize that it was happening. The little things were easy to accommodate. She didn’t like peas, and so I never cook peas. But the little things lead to bigger things. I would talk to her about this but she always made it sound like I was the unreasonable one. None of my friends could drop in at our home without my running it by Sally first. “This is just respectful.” she said. But her friends could come over anytime. “That’s okay because it doesn’t bother you.” she’d counter. I like to watch television and Sally likes to read. She said that the television bothers her reading. Fair enough I thought and I stopped watching TV.
Last fall, we took a trip to England. I wanted to go to England for many years because my grandparents had emigrated from there. Every morning, while we were away, Sally would decide what we were going to do that day. One day, I said that I was just going to do my own thing for the day. Sally was so hurt and furious that I apologized and we went together that day too. I don’t know if our relationship is abusive, I certainly never thought it was, but now I just crave the chance to do stuff my way and when I try to talk to Sally about this, she still gets angry and says that I don’t love her. I feel like I have been swallowed up.
DONNA
I grew up in a small family just my Mom, Dad, my brother and me. My parents loved me and I thought that all kids were loved by their parents. My brother was five years older than me. When I was about nine, he started to be interested in sex and he started experimenting on me. My brother told me that if I ever told, no one would ever believe me. Every time my parents weren’t home, he’d touch me and want me to touch him. Gradually over half a year, his sexual experimentation progressed.
I was so scared. I didn’t know what was happening but I knew it wasn’t right. One night after it happened, I ran to the bathroom and cried, My mother came home and found me sobbing. She wanted to know what was going on. I broke down and told her what was happening. My mother blamed me. She said that I was supposed to be the smart one. She said that this sort of thing didn’t happen in our family and that she could never love me again. My entire world collapsed and I was heart broken. I begged her to beat me so that it would be over and done with.
Our entire family changed. Although my brother never touched me again, neither did my mother or father. There were ho hugs and no love. I felt driven to excel at school and in sports. I was trying to earn back some love. As a result, I am well educated and financially successful but I still have problems with relationships. Although I crave a caring partner, my relationships haven’t worked out and now I am single.
I know now that my Mother needed complete control. Our family had to appear to be perfect. She passed away over twenty years ago and I still feel this huge shame in admitting what happened to me. Underneath, I still feel responsible. I was supposed to be the smart one. I still feel like I am waiting for my mother’s love. The sexual advances from my brother didn’t permanently scar me, but the withholding of my mother’s love haunts me every day.
EVELYN
I’m sixty-six years old and I have four kids. I was married for thirty-eight years and it’s been eight years since I left. I suppose we had a few good years. It’s hard to remember those. When we were married eight months and I was pregnant, he couldn’t find one of his cufflinks. He picked me up and threw me on the bed. I was so surprised at his anger. I was young and pregnant and I thought that he was kind, caring and loving. If he wanted something, things might be good for weeks. Then all hell would break loose. I’d be a fucking good for nothing bitch. He threw a cast iron frying pan at me. It missed me and smashed the stove. He beat the shit out of me. I was never hospitalized, because I couldn’t let anyone know. Nothing ever triggered it. He didn’t do drugs or alcohol. It was just who he was. Maybe the breakfast table would be set but I’d forgotten the salt and pepper. Maybe the toast was cold. By the time I was married five years, I was pregnant again. This time he beat me badly in the car on the way to a dance. Then he went into the dance and I sat in the car with a black eye. His sister said that I should go and stay with her until my eye healed up so no one would know. I was so brainwashed and ashamed that I agreed. I loved my husband. I didn’t care if I got beaten or not. I’m like an alcoholic. I just couldn’t leave him for good. I tried lots of times to leave but then he would be so nice that I’d go back. When my Dad died, all hell broke loose. My husband knew that I had no one who would help me.
I’d been to transition house many times but finally I did a ten week program there. If I hadn’t done it, I probably would have gone back again. Being the person, I am now, I just don’t know why I let it happen. I’m independent and I’m a good mother and grandmother. I still love my husband and I’ll love him until the day I die
FRED
The first thing, I remember is being terribly afraid. I was just a little boy living in the country. It was the middle of the night and it was my job to stand at the window behind the curtain. I would watch down the road for my Dad’s car. My mother would be drinking. If I could warn my Mom that my Dad was coming, my mother would try to pull herself together; spray her mouth and put on lip stick. My Dad would come in drunk and mad. He was so violent. My mother would get thrown into walls or down the stairs. Sometimes my sister and I would run to the neighbours’ for help and they’d call the police. After the police left, we would all get beaten because we had asked for help. I felt so guilty. I felt guilty because it seemed to be my fault that we were getting beaten. I felt guilty because I couldn’t protect my mother. I didn’t know that I was a victim. I thought that I was bad and stupid.
My Dad was a big strong man. He was six foot three and 260 pounds and he worked as a butcher. I used to imagine that I was 9 feet tall and 10,000 pounds and I’d punch him and punch him and punch him until he was dead. When my sister was about 10 and I was 7, my Dad started hitting us with sticks and brooms. He broke a broom over my sister’s back. He also started to molest her. Suddenly instead of me sleeping in the bottom bunk, I had to sleep in the top bunk.
A few years later my sister, ran away from home. My Dad got even more violent. My mother was always drunk and often she and I were both covered in bruises and cuts from the beatings. I was desperate. I talked to the priests in the confessional. I talked to counselors at school and I talked to two old neighbours. I didn’t tell anyone about how drunk my mother usually was or how my Dad had abused my sister. I was too ashamed. I just told them about the beatings. The old neighbours called Children’s Aid and the police. They both came and I told them that I was really afraid. Then, I had to go before a judge and tell him that I didn’t want to live with my mother or father any more. Right after the court case, they put me into a foster home. I lasted one week and then I was so worried about my family, I walked all across the city to see them. I couldn’t stop myself from going back. My mother answered the door. My father grabbed my ear and smashed my nose. He threw me down the stairs and told me to never come back again.
I spent two more years in the foster home and then I quit school and got a job. My life hasn’t been easy. I’ve had a few marriages. I’ve made lots of mistakes. I missed seeing my son’s grow up. I’m an alcoholic and I had a very bad temper. Now I attend AA and I’ve learned to control my anger. Recently I married a wonderful woman and I’m trying to build relationships with my sons and my grandchildren.
GLORIA
We met when he moved here to be the concert master for our orchestra. I had played with the orchestra for fifteen years and I gave music lessons at the conservatory. He was such an incredible violinist. I loved him from the first time I heard him play. He was always a bit domineering and possessive of me but at first I enjoyed it. It felt like I was being taken care
of. I was used to doing things on my own and reporting to no one and as a result, I found it hard to always think about his needs first. When I say that now, I realize that we had a bit of an unhealthy relationship right from the start. Everything was about him. After all, he was a soloist and I was only in the ensemble. However, I was so happy to be loved that I didn’t think that it was a problem
Six months after we met, we had a perfect little wedding and we moved into our first house. We still loved each other madly, but I didn’t think it was fair that I was the one that had to do everything at the house; repairs, meals, laundry, lawn mowing, bill paying. He was always practicing his violin. When I would ask him to help, he would say “You knew you married a soloist and that I would have to practice”. I solved some of the problems by hiring a boy to mow and a house cleaner. He didn’t like to be home when they were around and so he went to the café with his computer and his book. When he’d come home, he’d complain that it was unfair that he couldn’t have peace and quiet in his own home.
I decided that for fun, I’d take one course at the local art college. He thought that I should just stick with my music. “Maybe if you practiced more, your playing would improve,” he would say. I began to feel that my music wasn’t good enough. One night, I realized that when we had our friends in to jam and have fun, I was keeping myself busy refilling glasses and putting out food so that I wouldn’t have to play.
I loved him so much, that I just kept trying harder and harder to make him happy. The more I tried, it seemed the grumpier he became. He always found something wrong with every meal that I cooked him. When we’d go out, he’d always be horrible in the car before hand. By the time we got where we were going, I’d be trying to hide my tears.
Finally, I went to talk over my situation with a therapist. I realized, that I was not the problem. I tried to get my husband to agree to go to couples counseling with me. “No way” he said “There is nothing wrong with ME.” Eventually, when I left him, I still thought that I loved him but I didn’t want to ever be married to him again. I never thought of it as abuse because he never threatened me or hit me. However, now when I look back, I realize that he was abusive, mentally and emotionally. I feel really lucky that I escaped before I lost my passion for music.
HELEN
I was an overachiever and a journalism student. When I was 21, I met the love of my life. It seemed like he gave me the world. For six months, he spoiled me rotten. He paid for everything and treated me wonderfully. The only indication that something was wrong was his jealousy. Once, after I talked to his friend, he was so mad that he grabbed me by the shirt and ripped it. Right away he apologized and I forgave him. Then he started to say stuff like, “Why do you have to wear lip gloss? Lip gloss makes you look like a slut”. He hated it if I wore shapely clothing. I had to dress in lots of layers. I became his possession and it seemed like he controlled everything.
When I got a job, he made it impossible for me to keep it. When we moved out of our apartment and got our own house, he started really beating me. I have had lots of broken bones and bruises everywhere on my body. He was a big fellow and really strong. He’d punch me on the head and kick me and smash things. He grabbed me by the hair so hard that it fell out in clumps. He would pick me up and throw me. My friends couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t leave him. Eventually they all gave up on me.
My reliance on him was like a sickness. After you invest in a relationship, you try to do everything to keep it. Physically leaving isn’t that hard. It is the emotional detachment and then trying to find yourself again. You need balls of steel to leave because you can’t imagine your life without him.
He raped me constantly. Once he beat me for three hours until I was unconscious. He got charged with assault and I went to a transition house for ten days. I got some counseling but still I went back to him. His anger got worse and worse. He showed me a gun and threatened to kill everyone in my family. That was the turning point. I left for good.
The last year has been really hard. I feel a lot of anger and I can’t control my emotions. I still feel like an outcast because for so long, I was controlled by his stupid rules. I am seeing a psychiatrist who is helping me deal with my nightmares. I am hoping to go back to school.
ISABEL
When I was little, I thought our family was a good normal family. I thought all adults smoked and drank a lot. I felt safe and happy; protected. All that changed for me one night when I was eight. I was having a friend sleep over and my mother and father began arguing in the kitchen. I had heard them yell before but this time I heard a sound like a dull thud. It was my father’s fist hitting my mother’s body. When she screamed, I rushed to the hallway and saw my dad punching my mother. Then he held an empty rum bottle over her as if he were going to smash her head with it. I went hysterical. In a single moment, my safe happy world had become violent and unpredictable. When my father saw me standing there in the hallway watching, he stopped hitting her. For the years that followed, my father would always stop hitting my Mom if he saw me watching. That night, my friend and I both fell asleep crying.
After that, my father hit my mother every few months, usually when they were drunk. When they weren’t drunk, they didn’t talk. Everyone walked on eggshells careful not to stir up any trouble. My father was silent, withdrawn and depressed. My mother was a great actress. She hid her bruises and carried on being an overachiever. She had a successful career, and she helped at the church and volunteered in the community. She also tried to help my young brother who had trouble in school. Usually both my parents got drunk on the weekends. Gradually their drinking increased so that they would be drunk through the week too. As the drinking increased so did the violence. I was so scared and afraid; alone and powerless. I tried to protect my little brother from the violence. I looked for ways to decide if it was safe to go home after school. For example, if the Christmas lights were on in the daytime, I thought that it meant they were drunk, and that I had to be really careful.
By the time I was twelve, I was smoking and drinking too. I’d wear really short skirts and hang out with boys that were four or five years older. I measured my worth by my sexuality. My first sexual partner was when I was thirteen. He got really jealous if I even talked to another boy, but he would flirt with everyone. When I called him on it, he got very angry and grabbed me by the throat and threw me up against the wall. He beat me, lied to me and stole money from me, but I continued to go out with him.
When I was fourteen, I remember drinking with my mother. She said it was wrong for me to drink but we continued anyways. When I was fifteen, my mother went away to a 28 day treatment program for alcoholism. She tried to come back home afterwards but it didn’t work and my parents separated for good. About this time, I met a great guy; tall, strong, good-looking and safe. In the beginning of our relationship, I cheated on him and we broke up. I thought I had ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. I begged him to take me back. Luckily he forgave me. It’s so great to be back with him. I hope we’re together forever.
JUDY
My childhood family was good but I was raised to be submissive and not to express my own opinions. My Dad was in the military and we had to move a lot. It was hard to always be the new kid. In addition, my parents never knew that I was sexually abused by a babysitter when I was six.
When I became a teenager, I never knew that I could say “No” to sex and I got pregnant when I was 16. The baby’s father soon was in jail for other offences. Now, I was a single mom who was desperate to find someone to take care of me and my son. An older fellow with a young son, who rode motorcycles and knew how to party seemed to be just the right one. I married him when I was eighteen. For a couple of years, the partying seemed wonderful. Then I got pregnant and quit drinking. Once I was sober, things didn’t seem so wonderful. When I came home from the hospital with our new son, the house was full of garbage and our other two kids were really dirty and a mess. My husband just looked at me and said “Well I guess you’ve got your work cut out for you. “
No matter what I did, my husband was always putting me down and always controlling me. Once when I teased him, he picked me up and put me in the bathtub and held me there with his feet while he filled the tub with cold water. Sometimes he made me model sexy clothing and he’d photograph me. He’d pass the photos around to his motorcycling buddies, to show them “his woman”. He’d tell me that I looked like fucking shit, and I’d just smile and ignore it. Often I would go into the bathroom and cry and then come out and smile.
Our house was a real dive. The floors were rotten. My husband didn’t work very often and so we were on welfare. I felt totally useless and I had no self-esteem. I started drinking again and I got hooked on prescription drugs, and food. They at least made me feel better. But things just got worse and worse.
One of my friends, from high school, wanted us to do the aptitude test to see if we could get into the Adult Learning program at the community college, so that we could graduate from high school together. “No way” I said “ I couldn’t do that.” She said “We’re doing it.” I surprised myself and everyone else when I scored at the university level. I signed up to do my grade twelve. When I graduated, I enrolled for two more years to do the Human Services Course.
The other students in my class were glad when we had holidays, but not me. I wanted to do anything but go home. Finally, one of my teachers noticed. She offered me free room and board at the college. I moved in. Then my seventeen year old son moved in too. We had to share one little residence room. In the summer the residence closed and we had to move out. We had nowhere to go. The transition house wouldn’t take a mother with a seventeen year old son. In the end, we had to go back home. At first my husband tried to win me back by buying me things. That didn’t last for a week. One night, our youngest son was rude to his dad. My husband picked him up and threw him against the stove. My son got a cast iron frying pan from behind the stove and started hitting his dad over the head. There was blood flying everywhere. I remember hearing a woman scream and scream and I wished that she would shut up. Then I realized that the woman screaming was me. My son ran out of the house in his sock feet. I ran out behind him. We never went back.
I still blame myself that my boys have all been in jail and have had learning problems and addictions. I wish I could have been more present for them but it was all I could do to survive myself. Two of my boys have turned themselves around and I have hope for the youngest. Now, I am in a new relationship and we talk things through. We’re both broken, but with counseling, we’re trying not to go with our first instincts of shouting and putting each other down. Together, we’re both really trying to get health and we are trying to be good parents to his four year old daughte
KEN
I’m only twenty-six but I got myself in a big mess. When I was nineteen, I met Marsha at a party. She was twenty-five and she worked for the government. She had an adorable daughter Becky who was two. Marsha said that her husband had beaten her and that she had to leave him. I felt sorry for her and I was flattered that Marsha was interested in me. I was a virgin. I started hanging out at their apartment and I wasn’t a virgin for long. After a couple of months, Marsha said we had to get married because her X husband was trying to get custody of Becky because we were living in sin. I said “Okay, we can get married next summer.” “No” Marsha said. “We have to get married now so that I can protect Becky.” I had just finished high school and I was taking courses at the community college. My parents loved Becky and Marsha but they weren’t very happy that I was going to get married so quickly. Despite that, we went ahead and got married the next weekend. Things seemed pretty good for a while. I liked to cook and I would make suppers. Becky was sweet and loved to curl up on my lap when I read her bedtime stories. Marsha wasn’t always sweet, but I thought it was part of being married, and working and having a kid.
Then we got pregnant. Marsha was always tired and always cranky. I thought that that would end once the baby was born, but it got worse. Marsha was off on maternity leave and I had a summer job. Every night, when I came home, the house would be a complete disaster; dirty dishes, dirty clothes and the kids would both be dirty and crying. I complained to Marsha that the kids were a mess. And then she’d start hollering at me that I was lazy and stupid and I didn’t help her enough. I would give the kids a bath and supper and put them to bed. Then I’d clean up the house. One night, I was holding Jason and Marsha came at me with her fists. It was all I could do to protect him.
After that, it seemed like we were always fighting. We’d both yell. One time she grabbed a kitchen knife and swung it around at me and really cut my arm. Often she’d hit me. Then I got ill with colitis. I had horrible stomach cramps and I had to keep running to a bathroom. Marsha found it disgusting. She said that now she had to take care of three kids and that she couldn’t wait to get back to work. After she went back to work I stayed at home and took care of Becky and Jason. It was really hard to be ill, and to still take care of the kids and cook and clean but I did it. Every night, Marsha would come home in a bad mood and complain about the supper I’d made her. Then she’d just disappear to the health club or go out with her girl friends.
I lost a lot of weight before the doctors got the colitis under control. I was six feet tall and just a hundred and twenty pounds. Finally, I was well enough to go back to college. It seemed to me like I was still doing everything. I took care of the kids and the apartment, I made the meals and I was a student. Marsha said that I didn’t do anything because she was paying the bills. I just lost it and told her that she was a mental bitch. She screamed at me that I was going to hurt her. “I’ve never ever hit you,” I said. “It’s you that hits me and threatens me.” I was beginning to think that she really was insane. The kids would just cry when we’d yell and fight.
After three more years of fighting, I left Marsha and moved back home with my parents. Marsha refused to let me see Becky. The courts said that she had to let me have Jason every other weekend Whenever I have to take him back to his mother’s apartment , he cries and cries. One day when he was four, he arrived at nursery school with bruises all over his legs. When they asked him what had happened, he said that his mother hit him with the broom stick. I am just so worried because there doesn’t seem to be anything that I can do. I am trying to get custody of Jason but I can’t even get visitation with Becky. Marsha has such a terrible temper and I just don’t trust her at all. She’s living with another fellow and she’s expecting again.
LOUISA
I was born in Chile and raised by my mom. She worked two jobs and was always angry and yelling at me. She controlled my every action, even what I wore. When I was fourteen, she introduced me to one of her friends and I went from being her possession to his. I was so shy and controlled that I never thought that I could have said no. I just always tried to please everyone. Eventually, this man and I married and we had two children. We immigrated to Halifax . We loved Nova Scotia. There are so many trees and there are programs for children. My husband was a good provider and a good father, but he was emotionally abusive to me. I kept thinking, “Is this all there is?”
When my kids went to university, I went to school to become a dental assistant. My husband sensed that I was changing and he was losing his control over me. He started also being physically abusive. I had to keep lying to people that my bruises were from tripping or accidents
Finally my doctor told me to go to the Emergency Room. Once I was there, I would get the help I needed. I was in the hospital for two months. It was the best vacation I have ever had. My doctor told me I had the right not to see my husband and he wasn’t allowed in. I did therapy and stress management and crafts and the nurses were so good to me. Finally, I felt well enough to go home. My husband was just as controlling as he had been before and my pain and depression started to return. I knew that I had to leave for good. I was very ashamed, sad and embarrassed. I called the battered women’s shelter and they sent a cab for me. I was thirty-nine years old, I just had loose change in my pocket but I wasn’t turning back. It took my husband two years before he understood that I was never coming home to him.
My inspiration were the nurses that had helped me. I decided to go into nursing. First I had to get my high school credits at night school while I worked in the day time. Finally I got into nursing at university. Everything was very hard. I had student loans and I was still working part time. I just kept trying. After five years, I got the national examination letter in the mail. I was so scared to open it but when I did, I cried with tears of happiness. I was 47, I was on my own and I was a registered nurse.
MARY
Hard to believe that it is twelve years since I left him and what I remember of all the 28 years of abuse that I lived through is him sneering at me and saying “Your fat gut sticks out further than your tits." Sure he sometimes hit me or threw me across the room. Yes, he threatened to kill me. But what really damaged me was the non stop mental belittling. And it was from constant belittling that he got all of his control. If he’d have hit me, when we first married, I’d have known it was abuse and I might have escaped. Instead, he started with little insidious insults. I wasn’t thin enough. I wasn’t smart enough. No matter what I cooked for him; something was wrong with it. I wasn’t allowed to talk about one thing that went on in my work day. I wasn’t allowed to mention anything that I heard on the radio. But I WAS supposed to make intelligent conversation. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t good enough. I just kept trying to be better, smarter, thinner.
He started snipping off my relationships with my family and friends and then he started using really disgusting language. I hated the sound of the word fuck but gradually I got used to it. He began ridiculing my mother even though she was ill with cancer. He started using her name as a swear word. I never got used to this and it never stopped hurting. Every year, I made new year’s resolutions to grow thicker skin and to not let his words hurt me.
When my husband could see that his words weren’t hurting me, he started to also physically hurt me. When I was eight months pregnant, he threw me stomach first into the kitchen counter. My water broke and our baby was born prematurely. My kids witnessed him smashing things, chasing me and threatening to kill me. The violence didn’t stop but usually I’d collapse on the floor and plead; “Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything.” Then he would stomp angrily away. He never once apologized. He always said it was my fault and that if I ever left or told anyone, I’d never see my kids again. I believed him.
Years later, I broke down and told his sister what a hell I was living in. She said “He did the same things to me when I was a kid.” Suddenly, my eyes were opened. I finally understood that everything was not my fault but I still thought that I loved him. I confided in my family doctor and got her to check my hormone levels because I actually thought that everything that was happening might be because of my menopause. My doctor strongly suggested that I talk to a therapist. I did. I decided to leave my husband. I was afraid that he might kill me or kill himself but I thought that even if it cost me everything, even my life, it was worth it. I left him.
It still amazes me. I had a university degree. I was the breadwinner for the family and I was locked in an invisible prison of abuse for twenty-eight years. It can happen to anyone.
Appreciate
pause
Communicate
pause
Negotiate
pause
Interrelate
Pause
all of the cast look toward Anne, she flies behind the scrim with long net wings.
Everyone
Co-operate
pause
Educate
Pause
Celebrate
Then all bow
The end
Appendix:
Ideas for presentation of Invisible Prisons
All characters could be dressed in black clothing. Anne has a long white shroud under her clothing. The rest have colourful scarves hidden under their clothing, After each character drops their chain and pulls out their coloured scarf, they use their coloured scarf as a belt, a shawl, a baby, a veil, a turban, a skirt, over one shoulder, or as a child who’s hand they are holding.
The following is one idea for bridging the monologues
All characters pick up chains
Loudly with emphasis on the “ate” syllable. The tone is now negative
Alienate
All drop chains
Dominate
All drop chains
isolate
All drop chains
Perpetrate
All drop chains
Violate
All drop chains
The bottom of each tin could be attached with screws to the tin’s lid. This raises the surface up off the stage floor, protecting the floor as the chains are dropped and making the chain thump louder and more dramatic. The outside of the tins could be spray painted black. If most of the chains are eventually dropped into the central tin, then that tin needs to be big enough to accommodate ten chains. Chain can be purchased from any metal recycler. Each chain could be about four feet long and they could be heavy enough to make a good thump but not so heavy as to be hard on backs or shoulders. The characters could pretend that the chains are very heavy. The bridging chant of “Alienate….Violate” could be presented like a chain gang. Gradually there are less and less chains until at the end there is just Mary. Alternatively there could be one different negative word ending in “ate” that applies to each monologue.
We encourage having some men or even all men playing the characters in “Invisible Prisons”. If there are both men and women, the men could play women’s parts and women could play the men’s parts. To differentiate the sexes, the characters could wear a florescent coloured wire penis or breasts over their black outfit or each character could start their monologues with what ever is appropriate such as “My name is Wendy and I am a thirty five year old woman” or “My name is Ralph and I am a fifty year old man.”
If there is full stage lighting and everyone has a microphone, then each character could do their monologue in situ and drop their chain in the tin in front of them. Each character would be lit with a spot and the rest in shadow during their monologues. Lights could flash red and blue during the bridging. If there is only one microphone and one spot light (or no microphone and no spots) then each character who is about to deliver their monologue could move to centre stage before starting their monologue. If theatre lighting is possible, then during all of the following bridge sections with the chains, the lighting might flash blue and red.
This play can be used with various numbers of people. A 15 minute presentation for a schools or conferences can be done with just three monologues. It is possible that some groups or clubs or even police departments and boards of transition houses will use one story at each meeting as way to educate and start dialogue. It is hoped that high school and university drama classes will use the monologues in the classroom to not only teach acting and drama but also to educate.
To accompany the presentation of the play, the program could include the names and phone numbers of available resources and a fact sheet about Domestic Violence. Presenters of each monologue are encouraged to make each story ring true. To this end, the presenters or directors should feel free to personalize the stories, to add humour and/or to add or delete passages.
One idea for bookending the play is to have a young beautiful flowing colourfully dressed couple begin the play by running towards each other centre stage. They are very much in love and they come together as the cast chants “fate, date, mate”.
Possibly during the monologues, the two people (in tight black) could do dance movements that depict the abuse behind a scrim. At the end of the play, the colourfully dressed couple would be old (in movement and demeanor) and still very much in love (representing the possibilities of a good relationship), as the cast chants appreciate, communicate, etc. It could be these two that help Anne up from under the shroud, then every one chants “appreciate, communicate….educate, celebrate” and then everyone bows.
Thirteen monologues about domestic abuse
Collected and written
by
Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking
the copyright for this play belongs to
Joy Snihur Wyatt Laking
Joy thanks everyone who shared their story.
Although, it was not possible to have all of the stories in the play,
every story was very valuable and much appreciated.
Anyone who wants to perform all or part of the play will be granted the use of the material for free.
Prior to the use of “Invisible Prisons”,
we would appreciate an email of the form “Request to use Invisible Prisons”
and we would appreciate an email afterwards of the form
“Follow-up to the use of Invisible Prisons”
[email protected]
“Our Hope for “Invisible Prisons”
Abuse is varied. It is made up of links of alienation, domination, isolation, and violation. Living with abuse gradually builds an invisible prison around a person and makes it very difficult for them to escape. By making abuse visible and recognized and unaccepted by society, we are providing one of the keys to escape.
All of our stories have been shared with the hope of helping others; helping others recognize abuse, helping others escape abuse, helping others get help to stop abusing and helping to make a society in which abuse is unacceptable.
We hope that high schools, universities and community groups and maybe even police departments might use the entire play, the abridged versions, or even individual monologues in their theatre programs, assemblies, workshops or meetings. Although domestic abuse is most often practiced by men against women, this is not always the case. Any time there is on-going power imbalance in a relationship, the potential for abuse exists. It is our hope that everyone will feel an ownership for the issue of domestic abuse in society and that we will work towards communication, negotiation, appreciation, and co-operation in all of our relationships.
CAST
Anne 30 year old professional woman
(Annihilate)
Barbara 75 year old woman
(Perpetuate)
Cathy 50 year old woman a teacher
(Isolate)
Donna 45 year old professional woman
(Dominate)
Evelyn 66 woman
(Violate)
Fred a 65 year old (or older) man
(Instigate)
Gloria a 40 year old musician woman
(Insinuate)
Helen age 23 student
(Retaliate)
Isabel age 18 (could be played by an older woman as well)
(Intoxicate)
Judy age 40 woman
(Denigrate)
Ken age 26 male
(Initiate)
Louisa Spanish woman
(Invalidate)
Mary woman 60 ish
(Debilitate)
Thirteen characters on stage, eleven are women, two are men; in it. (See appendix A for presentation ideas and two additional monologues if desired)
The cast is quiet, the stage is dark.
The lights come on.
Sweetly and quietly, everyone chants
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
Slightly louder
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
Louder still and bending forward
Fate fate fate
Date date date
Mate mate mate
ANNE
I had a great childhood. I was an only child, totally loved and doted on by my parents and grandparents. Everyone thought I was perfect. I had heaps of friends and I did really well in school. I thought about becoming a doctor like my Dad but I decided to become a pharmacist so that I would have regular working hours and could be home with my children. Long before I met Tod and married him, I dreamed of having a perfect little house and a perfect little family.
I met Tod right after I got my first job as a pharmacist. He was a drug sales man and he had the most beautiful smile and he wore really crisp white shirts. When he came into the drug store, I asked him what the most beautiful man in the world was doing in our store. That really made him laugh. And before he left, we’d made a date for the next night. We got engaged two months after we met. A year later, we had a beautiful wedding. I was so happy. I could hardly wait to start a family. Tod always drank too much, and I teased him about it. He’d just laugh and was still caring and kind and I thought that his drinking would end once he was a father. When our first daughter, Tracy, was born, Tod changed. He started complaining about everything. He said that I was fat because I wasn’t back to my pre-pregnancy weight. He degraded me and criticized my house keeping. My worry and depression only made me eat more. When he was drinking, he’d really be nasty. Finally I left him and my daughter and I came to the transition house. He stopped drinking and seemed like the wonderful man I had married and so I went back to him. Then I got pregnant and he started drinking again. He’d start on Wednesday and drink right through the weekend. When he was drinking, he’d throw me around and threaten me. I knew that I couldn’t stay with him and I left him again for five months.
With one three year old and another child on the way and no husband to take care of us, I couldn’t imagine how we would manage. I still dreamt about having a perfect little family. Tod promised me that we would have that perfect family, if only I would give him one more chance. As soon as we moved back home, he started drinking again. He’d be out in the garage every night until 2 am drinking beer after beer. Then he’d expect me to be happy to see him in bed. He wouldn’t listen when I asked him to brush his teeth because the smell of alcohol made me feel sick. Then on “that” night, my little girl was sleeping with me and he was hollering. She saw way too much. I tried to lift her up to get her out of the bedroom and he lost it. All reason left him. I tried to grab the phone to call 911 and he stuffed the phone down his pants. “Don’t worry, I’m not going there,” I quipped. He pushed me into a rocking chair and started to choke me. He weighed twice as much as me. There was nothing I could do. He squeezed harder and harder. I was terrified. Suddenly I felt a huge peace surround me, and I was out of my body looking down on the room. All the terror was gone. Looking down, I could see Tracy screaming. I could see myself in the chair . I could see Tod towering over me squeezing harder and harder and harder and harder….
BARBARA
My story isn’t usually told. Even to myself. If I were to acknowledge it often then I would be forced to leave him. I am seventy-five years old and this year is also the occasion of our fifty-fifth wedding anniversary. You would think that this would be a time for celebration but all of our celebrations start out great and end up horrible. I get excited about a
holiday and I look forward to it. I plan for a party and then my husband blows up and ruins it. My brothers and sisters won’t come to our house because he has alienated all of them. Even our grandchildren don’t like coming to our house. I love my husband but he is a very unhappy man. Sometime he doesn’t say a word to me for months. Often he lashes out for no real reason. Sometimes he hits me but usually he’s just silent and angry. Anything can cause it. Maybe I didn’t fill up the car with gas soon enough. Maybe the breakfast I cooked him was too salty or not salty enough. It’s impossible to find the reason for his anger but I keep trying. We have enough money. We own our own home. We’re both healthy. We have four grown children who all live in the area. We don’t drink. We don’t smoke. We have a big vegetable garden and we go to church every Sunday. I volunteer at the church and with the Women’s Institute. My husband is a pillar of the fire department.
For years, I kept hoping that things would get better. Sometimes they do, but it never lasts. I did leave him a few times. Once after he almost beat me to death. Another time when the kids were little and he threw our beautiful. Christmas tree through the back window. It was surrounded by presents and he just stomped through them. We were all standing there crying. I try to be strong and brave and to carry on peacefully and happily. I pray a lot. I love my husband but I still find it really hard to live with a man who can suddenly hate you.
I guess I should have left him for good many many years ago. But now I’ve stayed this long, I might as well stick it out.
CATHY
I’m fifty years old and I work at the local school. I’m the vice principal and I have a lot of responsibility. For the past ten years, I’ve been in a relationship with a woman who is also fifty and teaches at the community college. I really love Sally but sometimes I think that I just can’t stand to stay with her any longer. Sally always has to be right. She decides when we will eat and what we will eat. Sometimes she even tries to tell me what to think. If I put on a pink uniform and she’s having a green day, she’ll suggest that I change my clothes. It’s ridiculous.
The first year we were together was wonderful. We shared everything and our new love was great. Then just with little tiny things, she started to take all of the control. I didn’t even realize that it was happening. The little things were easy to accommodate. She didn’t like peas, and so I never cook peas. But the little things lead to bigger things. I would talk to her about this but she always made it sound like I was the unreasonable one. None of my friends could drop in at our home without my running it by Sally first. “This is just respectful.” she said. But her friends could come over anytime. “That’s okay because it doesn’t bother you.” she’d counter. I like to watch television and Sally likes to read. She said that the television bothers her reading. Fair enough I thought and I stopped watching TV.
Last fall, we took a trip to England. I wanted to go to England for many years because my grandparents had emigrated from there. Every morning, while we were away, Sally would decide what we were going to do that day. One day, I said that I was just going to do my own thing for the day. Sally was so hurt and furious that I apologized and we went together that day too. I don’t know if our relationship is abusive, I certainly never thought it was, but now I just crave the chance to do stuff my way and when I try to talk to Sally about this, she still gets angry and says that I don’t love her. I feel like I have been swallowed up.
DONNA
I grew up in a small family just my Mom, Dad, my brother and me. My parents loved me and I thought that all kids were loved by their parents. My brother was five years older than me. When I was about nine, he started to be interested in sex and he started experimenting on me. My brother told me that if I ever told, no one would ever believe me. Every time my parents weren’t home, he’d touch me and want me to touch him. Gradually over half a year, his sexual experimentation progressed.
I was so scared. I didn’t know what was happening but I knew it wasn’t right. One night after it happened, I ran to the bathroom and cried, My mother came home and found me sobbing. She wanted to know what was going on. I broke down and told her what was happening. My mother blamed me. She said that I was supposed to be the smart one. She said that this sort of thing didn’t happen in our family and that she could never love me again. My entire world collapsed and I was heart broken. I begged her to beat me so that it would be over and done with.
Our entire family changed. Although my brother never touched me again, neither did my mother or father. There were ho hugs and no love. I felt driven to excel at school and in sports. I was trying to earn back some love. As a result, I am well educated and financially successful but I still have problems with relationships. Although I crave a caring partner, my relationships haven’t worked out and now I am single.
I know now that my Mother needed complete control. Our family had to appear to be perfect. She passed away over twenty years ago and I still feel this huge shame in admitting what happened to me. Underneath, I still feel responsible. I was supposed to be the smart one. I still feel like I am waiting for my mother’s love. The sexual advances from my brother didn’t permanently scar me, but the withholding of my mother’s love haunts me every day.
EVELYN
I’m sixty-six years old and I have four kids. I was married for thirty-eight years and it’s been eight years since I left. I suppose we had a few good years. It’s hard to remember those. When we were married eight months and I was pregnant, he couldn’t find one of his cufflinks. He picked me up and threw me on the bed. I was so surprised at his anger. I was young and pregnant and I thought that he was kind, caring and loving. If he wanted something, things might be good for weeks. Then all hell would break loose. I’d be a fucking good for nothing bitch. He threw a cast iron frying pan at me. It missed me and smashed the stove. He beat the shit out of me. I was never hospitalized, because I couldn’t let anyone know. Nothing ever triggered it. He didn’t do drugs or alcohol. It was just who he was. Maybe the breakfast table would be set but I’d forgotten the salt and pepper. Maybe the toast was cold. By the time I was married five years, I was pregnant again. This time he beat me badly in the car on the way to a dance. Then he went into the dance and I sat in the car with a black eye. His sister said that I should go and stay with her until my eye healed up so no one would know. I was so brainwashed and ashamed that I agreed. I loved my husband. I didn’t care if I got beaten or not. I’m like an alcoholic. I just couldn’t leave him for good. I tried lots of times to leave but then he would be so nice that I’d go back. When my Dad died, all hell broke loose. My husband knew that I had no one who would help me.
I’d been to transition house many times but finally I did a ten week program there. If I hadn’t done it, I probably would have gone back again. Being the person, I am now, I just don’t know why I let it happen. I’m independent and I’m a good mother and grandmother. I still love my husband and I’ll love him until the day I die
FRED
The first thing, I remember is being terribly afraid. I was just a little boy living in the country. It was the middle of the night and it was my job to stand at the window behind the curtain. I would watch down the road for my Dad’s car. My mother would be drinking. If I could warn my Mom that my Dad was coming, my mother would try to pull herself together; spray her mouth and put on lip stick. My Dad would come in drunk and mad. He was so violent. My mother would get thrown into walls or down the stairs. Sometimes my sister and I would run to the neighbours’ for help and they’d call the police. After the police left, we would all get beaten because we had asked for help. I felt so guilty. I felt guilty because it seemed to be my fault that we were getting beaten. I felt guilty because I couldn’t protect my mother. I didn’t know that I was a victim. I thought that I was bad and stupid.
My Dad was a big strong man. He was six foot three and 260 pounds and he worked as a butcher. I used to imagine that I was 9 feet tall and 10,000 pounds and I’d punch him and punch him and punch him until he was dead. When my sister was about 10 and I was 7, my Dad started hitting us with sticks and brooms. He broke a broom over my sister’s back. He also started to molest her. Suddenly instead of me sleeping in the bottom bunk, I had to sleep in the top bunk.
A few years later my sister, ran away from home. My Dad got even more violent. My mother was always drunk and often she and I were both covered in bruises and cuts from the beatings. I was desperate. I talked to the priests in the confessional. I talked to counselors at school and I talked to two old neighbours. I didn’t tell anyone about how drunk my mother usually was or how my Dad had abused my sister. I was too ashamed. I just told them about the beatings. The old neighbours called Children’s Aid and the police. They both came and I told them that I was really afraid. Then, I had to go before a judge and tell him that I didn’t want to live with my mother or father any more. Right after the court case, they put me into a foster home. I lasted one week and then I was so worried about my family, I walked all across the city to see them. I couldn’t stop myself from going back. My mother answered the door. My father grabbed my ear and smashed my nose. He threw me down the stairs and told me to never come back again.
I spent two more years in the foster home and then I quit school and got a job. My life hasn’t been easy. I’ve had a few marriages. I’ve made lots of mistakes. I missed seeing my son’s grow up. I’m an alcoholic and I had a very bad temper. Now I attend AA and I’ve learned to control my anger. Recently I married a wonderful woman and I’m trying to build relationships with my sons and my grandchildren.
GLORIA
We met when he moved here to be the concert master for our orchestra. I had played with the orchestra for fifteen years and I gave music lessons at the conservatory. He was such an incredible violinist. I loved him from the first time I heard him play. He was always a bit domineering and possessive of me but at first I enjoyed it. It felt like I was being taken care
of. I was used to doing things on my own and reporting to no one and as a result, I found it hard to always think about his needs first. When I say that now, I realize that we had a bit of an unhealthy relationship right from the start. Everything was about him. After all, he was a soloist and I was only in the ensemble. However, I was so happy to be loved that I didn’t think that it was a problem
Six months after we met, we had a perfect little wedding and we moved into our first house. We still loved each other madly, but I didn’t think it was fair that I was the one that had to do everything at the house; repairs, meals, laundry, lawn mowing, bill paying. He was always practicing his violin. When I would ask him to help, he would say “You knew you married a soloist and that I would have to practice”. I solved some of the problems by hiring a boy to mow and a house cleaner. He didn’t like to be home when they were around and so he went to the café with his computer and his book. When he’d come home, he’d complain that it was unfair that he couldn’t have peace and quiet in his own home.
I decided that for fun, I’d take one course at the local art college. He thought that I should just stick with my music. “Maybe if you practiced more, your playing would improve,” he would say. I began to feel that my music wasn’t good enough. One night, I realized that when we had our friends in to jam and have fun, I was keeping myself busy refilling glasses and putting out food so that I wouldn’t have to play.
I loved him so much, that I just kept trying harder and harder to make him happy. The more I tried, it seemed the grumpier he became. He always found something wrong with every meal that I cooked him. When we’d go out, he’d always be horrible in the car before hand. By the time we got where we were going, I’d be trying to hide my tears.
Finally, I went to talk over my situation with a therapist. I realized, that I was not the problem. I tried to get my husband to agree to go to couples counseling with me. “No way” he said “There is nothing wrong with ME.” Eventually, when I left him, I still thought that I loved him but I didn’t want to ever be married to him again. I never thought of it as abuse because he never threatened me or hit me. However, now when I look back, I realize that he was abusive, mentally and emotionally. I feel really lucky that I escaped before I lost my passion for music.
HELEN
I was an overachiever and a journalism student. When I was 21, I met the love of my life. It seemed like he gave me the world. For six months, he spoiled me rotten. He paid for everything and treated me wonderfully. The only indication that something was wrong was his jealousy. Once, after I talked to his friend, he was so mad that he grabbed me by the shirt and ripped it. Right away he apologized and I forgave him. Then he started to say stuff like, “Why do you have to wear lip gloss? Lip gloss makes you look like a slut”. He hated it if I wore shapely clothing. I had to dress in lots of layers. I became his possession and it seemed like he controlled everything.
When I got a job, he made it impossible for me to keep it. When we moved out of our apartment and got our own house, he started really beating me. I have had lots of broken bones and bruises everywhere on my body. He was a big fellow and really strong. He’d punch me on the head and kick me and smash things. He grabbed me by the hair so hard that it fell out in clumps. He would pick me up and throw me. My friends couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t leave him. Eventually they all gave up on me.
My reliance on him was like a sickness. After you invest in a relationship, you try to do everything to keep it. Physically leaving isn’t that hard. It is the emotional detachment and then trying to find yourself again. You need balls of steel to leave because you can’t imagine your life without him.
He raped me constantly. Once he beat me for three hours until I was unconscious. He got charged with assault and I went to a transition house for ten days. I got some counseling but still I went back to him. His anger got worse and worse. He showed me a gun and threatened to kill everyone in my family. That was the turning point. I left for good.
The last year has been really hard. I feel a lot of anger and I can’t control my emotions. I still feel like an outcast because for so long, I was controlled by his stupid rules. I am seeing a psychiatrist who is helping me deal with my nightmares. I am hoping to go back to school.
ISABEL
When I was little, I thought our family was a good normal family. I thought all adults smoked and drank a lot. I felt safe and happy; protected. All that changed for me one night when I was eight. I was having a friend sleep over and my mother and father began arguing in the kitchen. I had heard them yell before but this time I heard a sound like a dull thud. It was my father’s fist hitting my mother’s body. When she screamed, I rushed to the hallway and saw my dad punching my mother. Then he held an empty rum bottle over her as if he were going to smash her head with it. I went hysterical. In a single moment, my safe happy world had become violent and unpredictable. When my father saw me standing there in the hallway watching, he stopped hitting her. For the years that followed, my father would always stop hitting my Mom if he saw me watching. That night, my friend and I both fell asleep crying.
After that, my father hit my mother every few months, usually when they were drunk. When they weren’t drunk, they didn’t talk. Everyone walked on eggshells careful not to stir up any trouble. My father was silent, withdrawn and depressed. My mother was a great actress. She hid her bruises and carried on being an overachiever. She had a successful career, and she helped at the church and volunteered in the community. She also tried to help my young brother who had trouble in school. Usually both my parents got drunk on the weekends. Gradually their drinking increased so that they would be drunk through the week too. As the drinking increased so did the violence. I was so scared and afraid; alone and powerless. I tried to protect my little brother from the violence. I looked for ways to decide if it was safe to go home after school. For example, if the Christmas lights were on in the daytime, I thought that it meant they were drunk, and that I had to be really careful.
By the time I was twelve, I was smoking and drinking too. I’d wear really short skirts and hang out with boys that were four or five years older. I measured my worth by my sexuality. My first sexual partner was when I was thirteen. He got really jealous if I even talked to another boy, but he would flirt with everyone. When I called him on it, he got very angry and grabbed me by the throat and threw me up against the wall. He beat me, lied to me and stole money from me, but I continued to go out with him.
When I was fourteen, I remember drinking with my mother. She said it was wrong for me to drink but we continued anyways. When I was fifteen, my mother went away to a 28 day treatment program for alcoholism. She tried to come back home afterwards but it didn’t work and my parents separated for good. About this time, I met a great guy; tall, strong, good-looking and safe. In the beginning of our relationship, I cheated on him and we broke up. I thought I had ruined the best thing that ever happened to me. I begged him to take me back. Luckily he forgave me. It’s so great to be back with him. I hope we’re together forever.
JUDY
My childhood family was good but I was raised to be submissive and not to express my own opinions. My Dad was in the military and we had to move a lot. It was hard to always be the new kid. In addition, my parents never knew that I was sexually abused by a babysitter when I was six.
When I became a teenager, I never knew that I could say “No” to sex and I got pregnant when I was 16. The baby’s father soon was in jail for other offences. Now, I was a single mom who was desperate to find someone to take care of me and my son. An older fellow with a young son, who rode motorcycles and knew how to party seemed to be just the right one. I married him when I was eighteen. For a couple of years, the partying seemed wonderful. Then I got pregnant and quit drinking. Once I was sober, things didn’t seem so wonderful. When I came home from the hospital with our new son, the house was full of garbage and our other two kids were really dirty and a mess. My husband just looked at me and said “Well I guess you’ve got your work cut out for you. “
No matter what I did, my husband was always putting me down and always controlling me. Once when I teased him, he picked me up and put me in the bathtub and held me there with his feet while he filled the tub with cold water. Sometimes he made me model sexy clothing and he’d photograph me. He’d pass the photos around to his motorcycling buddies, to show them “his woman”. He’d tell me that I looked like fucking shit, and I’d just smile and ignore it. Often I would go into the bathroom and cry and then come out and smile.
Our house was a real dive. The floors were rotten. My husband didn’t work very often and so we were on welfare. I felt totally useless and I had no self-esteem. I started drinking again and I got hooked on prescription drugs, and food. They at least made me feel better. But things just got worse and worse.
One of my friends, from high school, wanted us to do the aptitude test to see if we could get into the Adult Learning program at the community college, so that we could graduate from high school together. “No way” I said “ I couldn’t do that.” She said “We’re doing it.” I surprised myself and everyone else when I scored at the university level. I signed up to do my grade twelve. When I graduated, I enrolled for two more years to do the Human Services Course.
The other students in my class were glad when we had holidays, but not me. I wanted to do anything but go home. Finally, one of my teachers noticed. She offered me free room and board at the college. I moved in. Then my seventeen year old son moved in too. We had to share one little residence room. In the summer the residence closed and we had to move out. We had nowhere to go. The transition house wouldn’t take a mother with a seventeen year old son. In the end, we had to go back home. At first my husband tried to win me back by buying me things. That didn’t last for a week. One night, our youngest son was rude to his dad. My husband picked him up and threw him against the stove. My son got a cast iron frying pan from behind the stove and started hitting his dad over the head. There was blood flying everywhere. I remember hearing a woman scream and scream and I wished that she would shut up. Then I realized that the woman screaming was me. My son ran out of the house in his sock feet. I ran out behind him. We never went back.
I still blame myself that my boys have all been in jail and have had learning problems and addictions. I wish I could have been more present for them but it was all I could do to survive myself. Two of my boys have turned themselves around and I have hope for the youngest. Now, I am in a new relationship and we talk things through. We’re both broken, but with counseling, we’re trying not to go with our first instincts of shouting and putting each other down. Together, we’re both really trying to get health and we are trying to be good parents to his four year old daughte
KEN
I’m only twenty-six but I got myself in a big mess. When I was nineteen, I met Marsha at a party. She was twenty-five and she worked for the government. She had an adorable daughter Becky who was two. Marsha said that her husband had beaten her and that she had to leave him. I felt sorry for her and I was flattered that Marsha was interested in me. I was a virgin. I started hanging out at their apartment and I wasn’t a virgin for long. After a couple of months, Marsha said we had to get married because her X husband was trying to get custody of Becky because we were living in sin. I said “Okay, we can get married next summer.” “No” Marsha said. “We have to get married now so that I can protect Becky.” I had just finished high school and I was taking courses at the community college. My parents loved Becky and Marsha but they weren’t very happy that I was going to get married so quickly. Despite that, we went ahead and got married the next weekend. Things seemed pretty good for a while. I liked to cook and I would make suppers. Becky was sweet and loved to curl up on my lap when I read her bedtime stories. Marsha wasn’t always sweet, but I thought it was part of being married, and working and having a kid.
Then we got pregnant. Marsha was always tired and always cranky. I thought that that would end once the baby was born, but it got worse. Marsha was off on maternity leave and I had a summer job. Every night, when I came home, the house would be a complete disaster; dirty dishes, dirty clothes and the kids would both be dirty and crying. I complained to Marsha that the kids were a mess. And then she’d start hollering at me that I was lazy and stupid and I didn’t help her enough. I would give the kids a bath and supper and put them to bed. Then I’d clean up the house. One night, I was holding Jason and Marsha came at me with her fists. It was all I could do to protect him.
After that, it seemed like we were always fighting. We’d both yell. One time she grabbed a kitchen knife and swung it around at me and really cut my arm. Often she’d hit me. Then I got ill with colitis. I had horrible stomach cramps and I had to keep running to a bathroom. Marsha found it disgusting. She said that now she had to take care of three kids and that she couldn’t wait to get back to work. After she went back to work I stayed at home and took care of Becky and Jason. It was really hard to be ill, and to still take care of the kids and cook and clean but I did it. Every night, Marsha would come home in a bad mood and complain about the supper I’d made her. Then she’d just disappear to the health club or go out with her girl friends.
I lost a lot of weight before the doctors got the colitis under control. I was six feet tall and just a hundred and twenty pounds. Finally, I was well enough to go back to college. It seemed to me like I was still doing everything. I took care of the kids and the apartment, I made the meals and I was a student. Marsha said that I didn’t do anything because she was paying the bills. I just lost it and told her that she was a mental bitch. She screamed at me that I was going to hurt her. “I’ve never ever hit you,” I said. “It’s you that hits me and threatens me.” I was beginning to think that she really was insane. The kids would just cry when we’d yell and fight.
After three more years of fighting, I left Marsha and moved back home with my parents. Marsha refused to let me see Becky. The courts said that she had to let me have Jason every other weekend Whenever I have to take him back to his mother’s apartment , he cries and cries. One day when he was four, he arrived at nursery school with bruises all over his legs. When they asked him what had happened, he said that his mother hit him with the broom stick. I am just so worried because there doesn’t seem to be anything that I can do. I am trying to get custody of Jason but I can’t even get visitation with Becky. Marsha has such a terrible temper and I just don’t trust her at all. She’s living with another fellow and she’s expecting again.
LOUISA
I was born in Chile and raised by my mom. She worked two jobs and was always angry and yelling at me. She controlled my every action, even what I wore. When I was fourteen, she introduced me to one of her friends and I went from being her possession to his. I was so shy and controlled that I never thought that I could have said no. I just always tried to please everyone. Eventually, this man and I married and we had two children. We immigrated to Halifax . We loved Nova Scotia. There are so many trees and there are programs for children. My husband was a good provider and a good father, but he was emotionally abusive to me. I kept thinking, “Is this all there is?”
When my kids went to university, I went to school to become a dental assistant. My husband sensed that I was changing and he was losing his control over me. He started also being physically abusive. I had to keep lying to people that my bruises were from tripping or accidents
Finally my doctor told me to go to the Emergency Room. Once I was there, I would get the help I needed. I was in the hospital for two months. It was the best vacation I have ever had. My doctor told me I had the right not to see my husband and he wasn’t allowed in. I did therapy and stress management and crafts and the nurses were so good to me. Finally, I felt well enough to go home. My husband was just as controlling as he had been before and my pain and depression started to return. I knew that I had to leave for good. I was very ashamed, sad and embarrassed. I called the battered women’s shelter and they sent a cab for me. I was thirty-nine years old, I just had loose change in my pocket but I wasn’t turning back. It took my husband two years before he understood that I was never coming home to him.
My inspiration were the nurses that had helped me. I decided to go into nursing. First I had to get my high school credits at night school while I worked in the day time. Finally I got into nursing at university. Everything was very hard. I had student loans and I was still working part time. I just kept trying. After five years, I got the national examination letter in the mail. I was so scared to open it but when I did, I cried with tears of happiness. I was 47, I was on my own and I was a registered nurse.
MARY
Hard to believe that it is twelve years since I left him and what I remember of all the 28 years of abuse that I lived through is him sneering at me and saying “Your fat gut sticks out further than your tits." Sure he sometimes hit me or threw me across the room. Yes, he threatened to kill me. But what really damaged me was the non stop mental belittling. And it was from constant belittling that he got all of his control. If he’d have hit me, when we first married, I’d have known it was abuse and I might have escaped. Instead, he started with little insidious insults. I wasn’t thin enough. I wasn’t smart enough. No matter what I cooked for him; something was wrong with it. I wasn’t allowed to talk about one thing that went on in my work day. I wasn’t allowed to mention anything that I heard on the radio. But I WAS supposed to make intelligent conversation. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t good enough. I just kept trying to be better, smarter, thinner.
He started snipping off my relationships with my family and friends and then he started using really disgusting language. I hated the sound of the word fuck but gradually I got used to it. He began ridiculing my mother even though she was ill with cancer. He started using her name as a swear word. I never got used to this and it never stopped hurting. Every year, I made new year’s resolutions to grow thicker skin and to not let his words hurt me.
When my husband could see that his words weren’t hurting me, he started to also physically hurt me. When I was eight months pregnant, he threw me stomach first into the kitchen counter. My water broke and our baby was born prematurely. My kids witnessed him smashing things, chasing me and threatening to kill me. The violence didn’t stop but usually I’d collapse on the floor and plead; “Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry. I’ll do anything.” Then he would stomp angrily away. He never once apologized. He always said it was my fault and that if I ever left or told anyone, I’d never see my kids again. I believed him.
Years later, I broke down and told his sister what a hell I was living in. She said “He did the same things to me when I was a kid.” Suddenly, my eyes were opened. I finally understood that everything was not my fault but I still thought that I loved him. I confided in my family doctor and got her to check my hormone levels because I actually thought that everything that was happening might be because of my menopause. My doctor strongly suggested that I talk to a therapist. I did. I decided to leave my husband. I was afraid that he might kill me or kill himself but I thought that even if it cost me everything, even my life, it was worth it. I left him.
It still amazes me. I had a university degree. I was the breadwinner for the family and I was locked in an invisible prison of abuse for twenty-eight years. It can happen to anyone.
Appreciate
pause
Communicate
pause
Negotiate
pause
Interrelate
Pause
all of the cast look toward Anne, she flies behind the scrim with long net wings.
Everyone
Co-operate
pause
Educate
Pause
Celebrate
Then all bow
The end
Appendix:
Ideas for presentation of Invisible Prisons
All characters could be dressed in black clothing. Anne has a long white shroud under her clothing. The rest have colourful scarves hidden under their clothing, After each character drops their chain and pulls out their coloured scarf, they use their coloured scarf as a belt, a shawl, a baby, a veil, a turban, a skirt, over one shoulder, or as a child who’s hand they are holding.
The following is one idea for bridging the monologues
All characters pick up chains
Loudly with emphasis on the “ate” syllable. The tone is now negative
Alienate
All drop chains
Dominate
All drop chains
isolate
All drop chains
Perpetrate
All drop chains
Violate
All drop chains
The bottom of each tin could be attached with screws to the tin’s lid. This raises the surface up off the stage floor, protecting the floor as the chains are dropped and making the chain thump louder and more dramatic. The outside of the tins could be spray painted black. If most of the chains are eventually dropped into the central tin, then that tin needs to be big enough to accommodate ten chains. Chain can be purchased from any metal recycler. Each chain could be about four feet long and they could be heavy enough to make a good thump but not so heavy as to be hard on backs or shoulders. The characters could pretend that the chains are very heavy. The bridging chant of “Alienate….Violate” could be presented like a chain gang. Gradually there are less and less chains until at the end there is just Mary. Alternatively there could be one different negative word ending in “ate” that applies to each monologue.
We encourage having some men or even all men playing the characters in “Invisible Prisons”. If there are both men and women, the men could play women’s parts and women could play the men’s parts. To differentiate the sexes, the characters could wear a florescent coloured wire penis or breasts over their black outfit or each character could start their monologues with what ever is appropriate such as “My name is Wendy and I am a thirty five year old woman” or “My name is Ralph and I am a fifty year old man.”
If there is full stage lighting and everyone has a microphone, then each character could do their monologue in situ and drop their chain in the tin in front of them. Each character would be lit with a spot and the rest in shadow during their monologues. Lights could flash red and blue during the bridging. If there is only one microphone and one spot light (or no microphone and no spots) then each character who is about to deliver their monologue could move to centre stage before starting their monologue. If theatre lighting is possible, then during all of the following bridge sections with the chains, the lighting might flash blue and red.
This play can be used with various numbers of people. A 15 minute presentation for a schools or conferences can be done with just three monologues. It is possible that some groups or clubs or even police departments and boards of transition houses will use one story at each meeting as way to educate and start dialogue. It is hoped that high school and university drama classes will use the monologues in the classroom to not only teach acting and drama but also to educate.
To accompany the presentation of the play, the program could include the names and phone numbers of available resources and a fact sheet about Domestic Violence. Presenters of each monologue are encouraged to make each story ring true. To this end, the presenters or directors should feel free to personalize the stories, to add humour and/or to add or delete passages.
One idea for bookending the play is to have a young beautiful flowing colourfully dressed couple begin the play by running towards each other centre stage. They are very much in love and they come together as the cast chants “fate, date, mate”.
Possibly during the monologues, the two people (in tight black) could do dance movements that depict the abuse behind a scrim. At the end of the play, the colourfully dressed couple would be old (in movement and demeanor) and still very much in love (representing the possibilities of a good relationship), as the cast chants appreciate, communicate, etc. It could be these two that help Anne up from under the shroud, then every one chants “appreciate, communicate….educate, celebrate” and then everyone bows.