Smart, Successful & Abused by Angela Mailis

Author:Angela Mailis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Sutherland House Inc.

Josie

Despite the pressures of family, religion, and culture, Josie finally felt she had no choice but to leave her family, including her children. Saving herself, she decided, was the best way to help them, much like donning one’s own oxygen mask during a bumpy plane flight in order to best protect dependents. Josie, who attended my forum, was born in Guyana to a Christian family of East Indian descent. Several half-brothers, products of her father’s infidelity with several women, joined Josie and her sister when Josie was nine. Josie’s father was abusive to her mother, a wonderful, witty woman who encouraged Josie’s educational ambitions.

When Josie was twelve, her father died. One of her half-brothers subsequently convinced Josie’s mother to sign over control of their father’s lucrative business. Due to his conniving, Josie, her mother, and her sister slipped from princesses to paupers in a short time. Fortunately, Josie’s mother had her own small cleaning business, allowing Josie, at eighteen, to attend university in Toronto. There, Josie fell in love with Zora, a blue-collar Eastern European. After graduating from college, she married him, although his parents made it clear they disliked and disapproved of Josie as a woman of color.

After only a few months, Zora began a litany of demeaning comments. When their son was only sixteen months old, Josie arrived home earlier than expected to find Zora in bed with a coworker. During a stormy breakup, Zora kicked Josie and the baby out of the house, even though Josie, a mediations specialist in charge of employer/employee relations, was the primary breadwinner.

Josie’s mother, who had joined her in Canada, attempted to patch up the relationship because she could not bear the idea of divorce. During a reconciliation, Josie became pregnant with her second son. Zora grew increasingly abusive, both verbally and physically. Though Josie was very attractive, he called her “fat and ugly.” In one violent incident, he threw her down the stairs. When she called the police, she received no sympathy. “You didn’t get hurt,” they said, dismissing the incident as no big deal. Josie endured the abusive relationship mostly because of the pressure of her Christian friends, who felt it was her duty to tough out her marriage.

Even while building up her professional reputation, Josie grew terribly depressed and physically unwell. Eventually, the aching, burning pains throughout her body were diagnosed as fibromyalgia, a syndrome characterized by changes within the nervous system caused by physical or emotional stress. Zora’s emotional pounding was relentless. After twenty years, Josie crashed. She wrote a farewell letter to her children and disappeared with only the clothes on her back. Two lawyers, three courts, and five years later, she obtained a costly divorce, leaving behind an almost fully paid house and agreeing to provide alimony and tuition for her children’s education.

Tragically, Josie became involved in another abusive relationship, isolating herself from friends and dropping out of sight. Later, I heard from others that she did eventually free herself from that relationship too.

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