Who is Tri­cia St John?

Tri­cia St John is a moth­er, au­thor, event co­or­di­na­tor, mo­ti­va­tion­al speak­er and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence sur­vivor. St John lost her left fore­arm and two fin­gers on her right hand to a do­mes­tic vi­o­lence at­tack in 2004. In 2009, St John’s ex-hus­band was found guilty by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry of at­tempt­ing to mur­der her. He was sen­tenced to 25 years and ten strokes.

St John is mak­ing im­pres­sive strides as she moves on with her life. She was recog­nised by the Tra­di­tion­al Afrikan Women’s Or­gan­i­sa­tion with the Har­ri­et Tub­man/Clau­dia Jones Award on March 27, 2021. Here she con­tin­ues her sto­ry of abuse from No­vem­ber 12.

TRI­CIA JOHN

Fi­nal­ly, I got to that place where I was re­al­ly and tru­ly ready to move on. To be dif­fer­ent. To feel dif­fer­ent. To ac­cept dif­fer­ent. What I lat­er on came to ac­knowl­edge as my ‘own lev­el of tol­er­ance’ had reached its peak. In my mind, there was no rea­son left to stay. I had ac­cept­ed his be­hav­iour and be­liefs about how our re­la­tion­ship should be for too long, strug­gling every day to make the sit­u­a­tion bear­able be­cause I be­lieved my sons need­ed their fa­ther. The lib­er­a­tion came when I re­alised that I did not have to die try­ing to keep them at­tached to a fa­ther who wasn’t a good role mod­el be­cause his be­hav­iour would teach them things that his words could not.

There was a shift in my uni­verse af­ter that. I be­gan to dream of my­self and my sons free from Cur­tis. I no longer be­lieved it nec­es­sary for them to have us both. I still be­lieved they need­ed a fa­ther but I fi­nal­ly ac­cept­ed that I didn’t have to die try­ing to give them what I’d nev­er had. It was a re­lief to fi­nal­ly re­alise in that ‘aha’ mo­ment that I’d reached my lev­el of tol­er­ance. I’d had enough, and noth­ing, not even the thought of the sup­posed ef­fect our sep­a­ra­tion would have on my chil­dren could con­vince me that I should stay.

I thought about my es­cape every day. I even went back to the sta­tion but the of­fi­cer from that night, a night that would stand out in my mem­o­ry, was not be­hind the desk and I had not got­ten his name. The hug I would have giv­en him would have sur­prised him sure­ly, but his re­ac­tion to me had been the last straw, and the events that fol­lowed had on­ly strength­ened my re­solve.

I con­tin­ued go­ing through the mo­tions but the feel­ings of free­dom and readi­ness that surged through me as I bid­ed my time came with fear on its heels. There was ac­tu­al­ly more fear now be­cause I had to al­ways be on my guard. Mind­ful of what I said and how I said it. Care­ful of what I did and how and when I did it. I even prac­tised con­trol­ling my thoughts in his pres­ence, lest I give away vi­tal in­for­ma­tion.

I be­gan squir­relling away mon­ey when I went to the gro­cery. It frus­trat­ed me that I couldn’t get much this way be­cause the first thing he checked when I got home from the gro­cery was his change and re­ceipt. Some­times a dol­lar, some­times five. I would tuck it away at the bot­tom of the tow­el draw­er un­til he left the house. Then I could add it to the grow­ing stash I kept tied in a plas­tic bag in some loose dirt be­hind his pi­geon coop. I lived in fear that he would find it.

I had to func­tion in the midst of the fear that my chil­dren, aged five and six, would say some­thing to their fa­ther. Per­haps, sens­ing that some­thing had changed, they fol­lowed close­ly on my heels when­ev­er their fa­ther was not at home. But I was afraid to con­fide in them in case they told him. In the end, I didn’t con­fide in any­one. Not un­til I’d saved two thou­sand dol­lars whilst watch­ing as new welts and bruis­es criss-crossed the old­er ones on my legs and back.

My sis­ter was re­lieved when I fi­nal­ly told her. The on­ly thing that hadn’t been de­cid­ed yet was where I would go. I had heard of safe hous­es but didn’t know where they were or what was need­ed to get in. I want­ed to go back to the sta­tion and ask who­ev­er I saw but I was afraid some­one he knew would see me go­ing in and tell him.

End of the road

In the end, my sis­ter went in and got the in­for­ma­tion for me. To get in­to the safe house, I need­ed to have a re­port or re­ports logged in at the sta­tion, and I would have to go there and they would take me to one with avail­able space, prefer­ably with­in their ju­ris­dic­tion.

When I re­alised I would have to have at least one re­port in the sta­tion I went from want­i­ng to hug the of­fi­cer who’d sent me away to want­i­ng to stran­gle him. I felt as though I would go crazy if I had to spend an­oth­er minute in Cur­tis’s com­pa­ny. Sure­ly, the pro­found re­lief I felt at be­ing so close to the end of this ter­ri­ble era would spill over and make him aware.

Be­cause I want­ed to have more than one re­port logged in, I post­poned my es­cape for an­oth­er month. Every two days I would dash furtive­ly in­to the sta­tion, whether I’d been beat­en or not and make a re­port. I think he be­gan to sus­pect that some­thing was afoot be­cause al­though I tried to be­have the way I usu­al­ly did, he sud­den­ly be­came nicer to me. He went back to be­ing the very nice, very sweet man I’d known in the be­gin­ning. He would make me break­fast, take me for walks, and sing for me, and the heav­i­ness that seemed to per­vade his touch, even in gen­tle mo­ments, evap­o­rat­ed. This was the fa­ther of my chil­dren, who had cap­tured my heart with his kind­ness and con­sid­er­a­tion. My feel­ings to­ward him be­gan to soft­en. The thought of him alone af­ter we left made me feel sad. I sur­prised my­self by ac­tu­al­ly want­i­ng to be in his com­pa­ny. Where­as, nor­mal­ly, I would avoid him when he was home, I found my­self, now, seek­ing him out. Cud­dling with him on the ham­mock. Be­ing gen­uine­ly con­cerned if he didn’t feel well or was up­set about some­thing.

Un­aware of what was ac­tu­al­ly hap­pen­ing, it was my el­dest son who saved us. One night as I went to tuck them in, he held my hand tight­ly, looked at his fa­ther wash­ing wares by the sink, squeezed it and said, “No mum­my.”

There was clas­sic bat­tered woman syn­drome, feel­ing em­pa­thy for the per­pe­tra­tor. I was not re­spon­si­ble for him, and whether or not he re­mained lone­ly af­ter we left was en­tire­ly up to him and had nought to do with me. My re­spon­si­bil­i­ty was to my­self and my chil­dren.

Fi­nal­ly, I’d reached the end of the road. My rose-coloured glass­es had been left be­hind in the de­bris, and yet, the thought of a safe house did not ex­cite me. There would be strange peo­ple and rules. Two el­e­ments I’d been forced to live with for such a long time.

‘But there would be safe­ty there’ my mind screamed. ‘Your skin would heal. Your chil­dren would stop look­ing so afraid all the time.’

I thought about the mon­ey, still wrapped in plas­tic and shoved it hur­ried­ly in­to my bra. I re­mem­bered how I’d strug­gled to save every cent. How ap­pre­hen­sive I would be when­ev­er I went on er­rands. How thank­ful I was that no one gave re­ceipts in the mar­ket, mak­ing it eas­i­er for me to take from the change.

As the po­lice jeep bounced and bumped along the un­paved road, so too, my thoughts rat­tled around in my head. If I could see my life as this un­paved road, I thought, then sure­ly, I could fill in the pot­holes. Smoothen it out with new lay­ers of liv­ing. The jeep slowed and swung in­to a big yard filled with fruit trees. I stared at the dull, yel­low peel­ing paint of the house and my mind be­came, in­stant­ly, bogged down with fear and doubt. How did I get to this place?

The door to the house opened and I walked to­ward it, the fe­male po­lice of­fi­cer lead­ing the way. I held both boy’s hands tight­ly, feel­ing sweat trick­le be­tween our palms. I felt like scream­ing, run­ning away and stand­ing still all at once. There was a sud­den ur­gency to get in­side be­fore some­one he knew saw me. I was re­lieved when the la­dy stepped back and al­lowed us to en­ter.

The re­lief that coursed through me as I stood with­in the safe­ty of those walls took my breath away. The tears spilled over cours­ing down my cheeks as I stood there silent­ly.

The woman who had opened the door en­veloped me in a hug. And as I leaned in­to her, I lost a lit­tle of the ‘alone­ness’ that had be­come a part of my psy­che. We’d be okay.  Be­cause the oth­er al­ter­na­tive was not even worth con­tem­plat­ing.

Feel­ing safer than I had ever felt be­fore

Of course, af­ter all that cry­ing I had to be re-in­tro­duced to every­one. I hadn’t even been aware that the of­fi­cers had left and some­one had brought our lug­gage in. My sons were both seat­ed by the din­ing ta­ble eat­ing corn­flakes and watch­ing car­toons. Fi­nal­ly, I smiled. I felt safer than I’d felt in a long time, and for now, that would have to be enough.

Ac­cep­tance

Late that night I sat on my bed in this new place watch­ing my chil­dren sleep. I ad­mit­ted to my­self that there was the very re­al pos­si­bil­i­ty that he would hunt us down. And as I sat there think­ing about all the things he’d done to me, to us, the anger rose again in my bel­ly and my re­solve strength­ened. Even if he hunt­ed us like prey, and even if he found us, I knew I would nev­er give in to him again. Re­gard­less of what he thought, he didn’t own me and nei­ther was I ob­lig­at­ed to him. And for the first time in what felt like for­ev­er, I fi­nal­ly un­der­stood and ac­cept­ed that truth.