Why She Stays

A “friend” posted this article from the Billings Gazette on her Facebook page:

A man was accused Friday of kidnapping a woman and holding her in her home — including making her stay in a crawl space — for several days while repeatedly and severely beating her.

Matthew Ryan Bertagnolli, 31, appeared from the county jail in Yellowstone County Justice Court on felony charges of aggravated assault, three of partner or family member assault and one each of aggravated kidnapping and intimidation.

According to the affidavit a woman, identified in the documents only as Jane Doe, came into an apartment on the 3500 block of Granger Avenue saying she needed to call for help. When officers arrived, they noticed she had two black eyes, a severely swollen face and bruises and burns on her body.

She told officers that she and Bertagnolli had been dating since March and that on July 11 he accused her of cheating on him. He allegedly hit her numerous times until she left, the documents say. The woman returned to her home two days later and found Bertagnolli waiting there. He ordered her inside and assaulted her until she passed out from the pain, the affidavit states.

Through that day and into July 14, Bertagnolli "began a systematic torture of her with repeated beatings in different parts of the house," according to the charging documents. The woman told investigators that at different points, he beat her, urinated on her, threatened to kill her, possibly burned her with a cigarette, told her to give him money and said "you're going to suffer through this pain ... go lay down" when she tried to take Ibuprofen, according to the court documents.

The affidavit goes on to say that Bertagnolli forced the woman to hide in a crawl space several times when her mother came.

The woman told investigators that she ran to a neighbor's house on Thursday when Bertagnolli let her out of the crawl space and decided to take a shower. Court documents say her injuries include a broken nose, fractured orbital bone, burns and bruising and swelling.

Officers arrested Bertagnolli at the home on Granger on Thursday evening. He remains in custody at the Yellowstone County Detention Facility and is scheduled to appear in District Court on Thursday.

Perhaps more heinous than the atrocities this woman suffered were some of the comments posted by Billings, MT readers.

One individual named ‘small town football’ made this comment online: “Well how stupid was this woman? There had to be red flags before this all happened. Unless she was constantly chained or tied up she could have tried to get away sooner."

My immediate response to this person is not publishable in the paper until I remind myself that ignorance must be bliss and you just can’t argue with stupid!

After all I would only imagine that ‘small town football’ is more concerned with pigskins and touchdowns than volunteering to work with the local domestic violence shelter.

I would have to guess that if this individual spent any time with domestic violence victims, he or she would understand that women who stay in abusive relationships do not do so out of stupidity. The real stupidity is in thinking that the reason a victim might stay in a relationship wrought with domestic violence is simply black and white.

Perhaps ‘small town football’ has never considered that maybe she stays because she has children and he has threatened to take those children away from her; as horrible as it might be to stay, she can at least protect her children from his abuse – sacrificing herself to his rage.

Maybe over the months and years of his manipulative isolation she no longer feels like she has support from her family and friends. No one to call. No safety net into which she can fall.
Maybe all of the degrading, belittling and emotional abusive whacks at her self-esteem have completed chipped away at what flimsy self efficacy ever existed until she believes that she cannot ‘make it’ without him.

Maybe she beats herself up for being stupid, worthless, unlovable – the negative self talk making her depressed – sadness leads to guilt – more emotional turmoil – a vicious and toxic cycle so closely mimicking the relationship that has been fodder fueling the fire of herself degradation.

Maybe her only option, if she leaves, is to find a job that doesn’t pay above minimum wage. She might not have any education beyond high-school. If she works full-time, she will make enough money to afford daycare for her children because if she works full-time hovers at the poverty line, she will have too much income to qualify for ABC vouchers or social service programs.

Maybe she grew up in an abusive home – and however twisted or warped it might seem from an outsider’s prospective – abuse is a normal part of everyday life. It is what it is.

There are so many reasons why she stays, but I doubt small town football would have the complex and critical thinking abilities to understand those reasons. It must be incredibly convenient to walk through life heaping blame on everyone else and never accepting responsibility for the part one plays in creating a society where we blame victims instead of offering them the unconditional help and support they need to make better life choices.

My FB friend who posted that article was in a relationship with the accused Bertagnolli. She has a daughter. Thankfully she made it out of that relationship alive. And there are many reasons she stayed as long as she did, but stupidity isn’t one of them.

Life is What You Make It

When I picked Emerson and Ella up from their first day at Y camp yesterday, my first question, of course, was how’d you like it? Ella was the more excited of the two, which was unexpected considering our tearful morning good-bye. She announced that she had three new friends named Madison and another friend whose name she never quite figured out.

Em, who already had friends in her age group, and whom I assumed would be most excited, said it was hot and she had to walk. A lot. All in the whiney, yet terribly bored tone of a seven-going-on-thirteen-year-old girl.

Based on her response, you’d of thought we enrolled Emerson in some outward bound wilderness program for oppositionally defiant teens that are given some flint, fishing line and a sleeping bag and told to rough it out in the wilderness and decide which is worse: home life or trying to fend off grizzly bears in the darkness of night.

As an elementary aged child, I spent my summers at Muss Park – one of the many in Miami Beach’s parks and recreation division. The only air-condition at Muss park was a wall unit in the coaches’’ office where our lunches were kept in refrigerators and we campers were prohibited from lingering for any length of time unless there was some life-threatening circumstance requiring adult supervision.

I loved Muss Park and the friends I would reconnect with only during the dog-days of summer. Of course I was hot. We played outside in the heat of Miami’s summers all day long. We had one shelter in the center of camp equipped with multi-colored picnic tables and water fountains, but there weren’t fans or air conditioning.

Our camp counselors provided us with organized games like kick ball, dodge ball and jumping rope contests. We created all sorts of arts and crafts with way too much Elmer’s glue, beads, feathers and paint. Mostly, we invented our own games to play. We would sneak water from the drinking fountains so we could make mud pies or construct dirt villages for neighboring lizards and tickle bugs.

When my mom picked me up from camp in the afternoons, she always had a towel to protect her car seat from my filth. Pig Pen from Peanuts had nothing on this girl! My dirt and metallic smelling sweat were badges of honor I wore with the pride of all I had accomplished that day. After all, when you’re a little kid, playing is your job in the summertime.

I left Emerson in tears this morning. As a mother, this always makes me feel about two feet tall. I never want my children to be unhappy – especially when there is something I can do to prevent it.

At the same time, however, I want Em and Ella to experience what it should be like to be children – to play out of doors without having to fear some stranger swooping down and scooping them out of their own front years.

To laugh and giggle without having to worry about being disruptive.

To learn about life through controlled experiences like making new friends, going on field trips, following rules, team work, playing well with others, coming to the realization that the world does not revolve around them completely and totally, and that even when situations are not ideal, it is how we choose to see them and respond to them that ultimately define our successes or failures in life.

Helping Em get ready for her second day of camp this morning, I was struck with the realization that I am more like my mom than I ever imagined. That epiphany made me smile. As I sat on the corner of her bed, I asked Em if she had ever heard the saying that when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Her response, of course, was I don’t like lemonade.

I took a God-grant-me-the-serenity kind of breath I needed and continued: Em, Grandma taught me this a long time ago. Sometimes she still has to remind me. You have complete control over whether or not camp is fun this summer. If you decide it isn’t going to be fun, then guess what? It isn’t going to be fun. If, however, you decide that you are going to have the most fun possible at camp, then guess what? This is going to be the best summer camp experience ever!

Life is what we choose to make of it. Yes. Sometimes when we least expect it we are pummeled with a crop of lemons when what we really wanted was an ice-cold pitcher of sweet peach tea. It is what we decide to do with the lemons that matters. 

A Mother's Love

When I was pregnant with my first daughter, I received an abundance of advice from everyone I knew and strangers that I didn’t know. I bought and read book after book trying to prepare myself for the joys and challenges of motherhood. The truth is no child comes with an operating manual. And anyone who has multiple children can attest to the fact that what works with one will probably fail miserably with the next.

My daughters are now 6 and 4 years old. What I have learned thus far in my journey as a mom is that every day is a learning experience, every experience a teachable moment.  Above all else, I have learned that my mother, even though when I was a teenager I thought she couldn’t possibly understand anything, is one of the smartest people I know. She has taught me valuable lessons about life, love and motherhood when I wasn’t even looking.

As a single parent, my mom supported us as a nurse. One of the greatest memories of her revolves around her Sunday night preparations for the Monday morning return to work. Every Sunday night she would polish her nursing shoes until they shone bright white. Her white uniform was always meticulously ironed and her nursing cap was crisp and ready for placement atop her neatly pulled up hair the next morning. Watching her, I learned to take pride in my appearance. Not in terms of beauty. All of her preparations were because she took pride in her job as a nurse and the orderly nature of her appearance would show her patients and co-workers how seriously she took her job.

Nursing has always been a labor of love for my mother. It was her chosen career path and a talent she has been practicing for over 40 years. She has always been a care giver to family and strangers alike. I’ve never met another human being like her – someone who is always willing to give of herself if it will help someone in need. She has taught me that time is the greatest gift one person can give to another. Time is precious, and it can never be bought or repaid. Sometimes all we have to offer someone is our time – time to listen, time to sit silently – and that time can be more valuable than any gift purchased from a store.

Raising me by herself was not always an easy task. Like nursing, I know being my mother was a labor of love. When we didn’t have a car, she took four different buses to get me to daycare and herself to work on time. I can count on one hand the number of sick days my mom ever called in. This model of determination and diligence has taught me that hard work is important and that the easy way around things is not always the wisest choice. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to accomplish a task, but the completion of that task is worth every ounce of effort.

As I look back on the last 30 plus years I can say with absolute certainty and honesty that there has not been one day in my life that my mom has not told me that she loves me or that she is proud of me. And that love has always been without condition. No matter what has happened in my life, I always knew that I could depend on my mom and that I would always be loved by her regardless of poor choices I might make, hurtful things I might say, thoughtless behaviors I might act out.

Now that I am a mom, I do not let one single day go by without hugging my girls, kissing them and telling them how much I love them, how proud I am of their accomplishments, how special and amazing I think they are, how they make me laugh, how they inspire me to be the best version of myself possible. I know that I am blessed every time I look into my daughters’ big brown eyes and I am overwhelmed with love. As a daughter, who is also a Mom, I never want a day to go by without telling my Mom how much I love her, respect her, value her and appreciate her for giving me the gift of being my mom.

Happy Mother’s Day.