REFLECTIONS OF AN ABUSED WOMAN

May 14, 2017 News

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“Abuse is not something that any woman should accept for any reason.”

 

By Sharmain Grainger

Years after leaving an abusive common law relationship, which not only left her damaged emotionally but with little or no self-esteem, Challise Pearce, at the age of 52, has decided to speak out about domestic violence even as she pursues restoration.

“Abuse is not something that any woman should accept for any reason,” she asserted during a recent interview.

But she herself is only now accepting this fact. For years she cowered in silence and tried to hide herself from society. Yes, she has literally been trying to hide herself because of the physical scars that she has been forced to explain on far too many occasions when people see her in public.

The scars were inflicted by the father of her three children – a man she said she’d loved and was prepared to spend the rest of her life with. He had other plans. His was to bring an end to her existence which he demonstrated by dousing her with acid and then stabbing her twice, to the neck and face.

Although the years keep elapsing, the Vergenoegen, East Bank Essequibo resident relives this traumatic day in her head every time she glances in a mirror or sees her reflection.

But she is on the road to recovery, and perhaps she will be able to salvage what she can of her appearance in hopes of finally moving on with her life.  You see, because Pearce was never able to undergo any restorative skin grafting, a section of her face and back are essentially disfigured because of the acid attack launched by her former spouse – a man who never spent a single day imprisoned for this deed.

Pearce is convinced that the judicial system failed her and her children, who have to see her scars daily and remember it was their father who did this.

But in her desperate attempt to now leave the past behind, Pearce said that she hopes to someday forgive and forget. For now, the memories remain intact, punctuated by tears that randomly flow whenever she reflects on how it all went down 25 years ago.

DOOMED FROM THE START

Their relationship started much like any other. They met in 1985 and decided there was enough attraction for them to be together.

But Pearce wishes she had taken heed to her mother’s instant disdain for the man she wanted so badly in her life.

“My mother just did not like him [name withheld],” recalled Pearce.

Prepared to reject her family and prove her love to her man, she made the bold decision of leaving her mother’s Vergenoegen home in order to shack-up with the man at a domicile at De Kindren, West Coast Demerara, several villages away.

It was a mere few months into their relationship that Pearce revealed to the love of her life that she was pregnant with his child.

She can’t be sure that this triggered a change in the man, but it wasn’t long after that she started to see another, less attractive, side of him.

“He started to abuse me for any and everything…If I answered him when he talked he would beat me. If he didn’t like how I did something, he would beat me,” recalled Pearce, who claimed that the man, based on her knowledge, was neither an alcoholic or drug addict.

“Everything he did, he knew exactly what he was doing…it wasn’t influenced by anything but his desire,” she shared.

Among the worse of the beatings she recalled was one day when she had just returned home from visiting her mother with her 11-days-old baby in arms.  According to Pearce, the man, in a rage, rushed to her complaining about not having a clean spoon to use. She retorted by highlighting that the dilemma was his fault, since he was home alone. Before long she was struggling to protect her child as the man dealt her several blows with a milk tin to her head. “That man burst my head with that milk tin. I still have the mark to show,” said Pearce as she fingered through her hair to locate yet another scar.

But returning home to her mother’s home simply wasn’t an option for Pearce. She already knew that there was no returning there because of the manner in which she left.

“My mother said ‘you left and go with him and so you have to stay with him’,” recounted Pearce.

She recalled that by the time her first child was 10 months old, she was again pregnant, and when her second child was just over one year, she found that she was again with child.

Even if she wanted to, Pearce simply couldn’t manage on her own. And so she stayed because she was dependent on the man and believed in her heart that he would change one day.

The abuse never stopped. In fact it got considerably worse.

Pearce said that she was eventually forced to pick up her children and leave after a neighbour enlightened her to the fact that the man had purchased a quantity of acid and had hidden it on a nearby empty lot. Pearce, like the neighbour, was convinced that the acid was intended for her as the man had, on repeated occasions, “threatened to destroy me”. The neighbour discarded the acid.

It was at this point that Pearce truly recognised the gravity of the situation she was in and decided that she had to take drastic action. By this time her mother had migrated and only her siblings were living in the Vergenoegen home. She moreover decided that she would head there for the safety of herself and children.

“He never hit my children, but he would constantly beat me in front of them and threaten me, and I knew this wasn’t good for them,” related Pearce, who said that she had to build a great deal of courage to beg her siblings to accommodate her and three children.

A PLANNED ASSAULT

It was mere weeks before Mothers’ Day in 1992 that Pearce returned to her mother’s home. A few days later, she recalled that the man had turned up there enquiring as to when she was planning to return.  She remembers all too well how he called out to her to “open the door” so that they could have a ‘face to face’ conversation, but she refused to acknowledge his presence.

“He said ‘you upstairs and you not answering, but when day clean you will beg me’,” Pearce recounted. She hadn’t an inkling of the man’s plan, after all, she was convinced he no longer had any acid to throw on her.

The man from all indications stayed the night under the wooden single storey stilts-suspended house and awaited a convenient moment to launch his attack. The moment was when she was home alone with her children and was casually cooking in the kitchen.

Pearce said all that she recalls is the man tossing a substance in the direction of her face through an open window. The substance hit her mouth first and fell on a counter top and she noticed it frothing. Pearce attempted to rush out of the house but was accosted by the man, who continued pouring the substance onto her head and back. She remembers instinctively guarding her face.

As she felt the burns, she fought her attacker and was able to free herself and scamper over to the house of a next door neighbour. The neighbour was reluctant to let her in, suspecting that the substance on Pearce’s skin was poison.

By this time her attacker had gained upon her and dragged her down her neighbour’s stairs and started to stab her before running off.

Though bleeding and burnt, Pearce said that she remained conscious throughout the ordeal and even recalled when a neighbour wrapped her in a sheet and placed her in a taxi. The intended destination was the Leonora Hospital. But she was refused medical attention there.

She was eventually taken to the Georgetown Public Hospital where she remained for months.

Although police caught the man and the matter was taken to court, for reasons that Pearce will never understand, the case was quashed. She remembers at one point the man had even fled the jurisdiction and then eventually returned and was captured.

“I used to be going to the court and he came up to me one day and said he gonna show me that he will not spend one day in jail for me,” Pearce recalled.

According to Pearce, she was subsequently informed by the prosecutor that the case was ‘struck out’ and that she would have to seek compensation for her injuries at the level of the High Court.

MOVING ON

Pearce said that her former spouse has since moved on with his life, but she has been unable to do so because of her injuries. She recalled feeling too ashamed of her appearance and even embarrassed for her children on the occasions that they would have to explain “why your mother look like that?”

It was this situation that has since helped her to muster-up some courage to change her situation. Since making up her mind in this regard, Pearce came into unexpected contact with her attacker.

“I ran into him one day at the market and I couldn’t help but tell him the least he could do is compensate me so that I too could move on with my life. That man said he ain’t got no money to give me and that God designed me this way,” said a tearful Pearce who recalled the man even asked, “why you didn’t just dead?”

In her quest to move on, Pearce has been gaining counselling from Help and Shelter but, according to her, it has been a very difficult road. She, however, is hoping that she would somehow be able to raise funds so that she could be able to have a laser operation done at the Dr. Balwant Singh Hospital to help restore her appearance.

In the meantime, she is appealing to women to not accept abuse, verbal or otherwise, and choose to escape at the very first sign of this.

Anyone desirous of helping Challise Pearce to restore her appearance can make contact with Help and Shelter or contact her on telephone number [592] 674-3132.

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