On Survivor Identity 

I'm a doctor and um, and I work with abuse patients, victims a lot. And I've seen some really horrible things, right? Like I never had bruises, I never ended up in the emergency department, I'm not dead. Um, and there are women who've gone through a lot worse than I ever went through. Like, realistically, I did have a lot more resources than other people do, so it just, it feels really arrogant to call myself a survivor when I haven't been through those same things.

I also don't want to call myself a victim either, because that just feels like I'm looking for pity. I don't know. I feel like a survivor's gone through a lot, and when I tell this story, sometimes people's mouths usually drop open in shock, which I guess should probably be an indicator to me that something was very wrong with my story, but I don't know. I don't know if I like to think of myself as either a survivor or a victim. Just, it happened. 

On Disenfranchised Grief

Well, I think my family especially, um sometimes they, I think they've tried to understand the sense of loss that I feel, and sometimes they do a good job of it, but sometimes I don't know that they really get it. I think they think I should be happy that I'm away from the person. I don't miss him. Sometimes I'm totally fine talking about this, and I don't know what it is about today that it's hard, but um, I don't miss him at all when I think about what he is, I don't miss him, but I miss what I thought he was.

I had my children's names picked out, I was supposed to be a mom right now. And, um, and I, I miss the dream of what I thought I had. And it's hard to say that. I mean, when I think about what he is, you know, my family will tell me, think about it rationally. When I think about what he is, realistically, I know I couldn't have that. And I know that that just wasn't going to happen, but I thought I had that, you know. I didn't want a lot. I wanted, um, a stable home, I wanted a family, and I wanted a partner who would love me and I wanted more than physical intimacy, I wanted emotional intimacy. I wanted to feel free and myself and safe. I wanted to feel safe and for the longest time I haven't felt safe and I miss that.  It's hard to explain that to people.

On Grief

 Kind of a constant undercurrent- it's been better recently, it's been a lot better recently ever since I started working- I love my job. It's like the happiest I've ever been professionally. So, but there's always that undercurrent, especially when I see friends moving on with their lives. Um, settling down, starting families, and here I am picking up the pieces of my life all over again, unexpectedly, and I struggle with PTSD, and I feel behind, and I feel like I failed.

Um, what's embarrassing is I'm, I'm a psychiatry resident, I'm a psychiatrist, and I, um, I feel like I should have seen this coming. I deal with human behavior and like some of the worst of it, and I deal with domestic abuse a lot, and then I walked into my own situation.

 I think only in the relatively recent past have I started to acknowledge that maybe things were worse than I thought they were. I used to say he only hit me once and, um, he put his hands around my throat once. And that's true in the sense that he did that in anger... um, actually no- that's not even true that he did that in anger only once. Those are the two incidents that I remember the most, and those are the incidents that I talked about a lot, but there were others if I had to think about it. And um, I never really admitted that until recently.

My institution, my former institution, will tell you that I'm changing my story and therefore I'm not credible, and he'll also say I'm changing my story and therefore I'm not credible. I don't know why I never admitted that before. I just, I didn't want to think about it.

And also I guess I didn't realize that it was as bad as it was until I left. And even then it, it could be worse. It could have been a lot worse. 

On The Healing Journey

The non linearity is real- the non linearity is very, very real. There was a time not too long ago where the smallest thing, it could be anything, would just set me off in a way that I wasn't proud of. There were things that, you know, made sense to the average person, like my ex husband used to drive, um, maybe still drives a black SUV, and I'd go to pieces if I ever saw one. That made sense to people.

But then there were some things that just didn't make sense to people. And, I remember I watched this movie, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, it's about a, an older lady who works her entire life and just wants to do something pretty for herself and so she goes to Paris in pursuit of this like, exquisite Chanel gown that she has to save a lot of money for. And, um, I never had a wedding, but I had a dress. I canceled the wedding, it never happened, we eloped.. But, um, I was pretty in that dress. It's the first time I felt like that. And watching that movie, I mean, that set me back a lot. I remember just crying and crying in my room because that was one of the few times in my life I felt really, I felt beautiful. And I never, I never got to have that, he kind of ruined it. I tried to explain that to people, um, to my family, and the response I got was that just doesn't make any sense. And I can't explain it. I mean, maybe it doesn't make sense, but it's things like that.

On The Healing journey

 I think I'm still in the midst of my trauma. I left July 10th, 2022. It's my, my personal anniversary to myself, and I think I'm doing better. If I could say anything, I'm not going to profess to be the smartest person in the world, but that bastard had me questioning if I was even a good doctor. That's how much of my sense of self was gone with him. 

My ex husband went after not only my insecurities, you know, everyone has insecurities, but he also went after the things I liked about myself. And I've always been reasonably well read and reasonably well spoken and I liked that about myself. Once I used the word insular during a conversation with his family and he got so angry with me. Um, it wasn't the only time, but it's the, the one I remember most vividly, and he told me he wants a woman who can talk to construction workers and coal miners. And he put me down for the way I spoke. And it got to the point that I started actually worrying, am I off putting? Like, am I unlikable? Do I turn off people because of the way I speak? And I was planning on going into psychiatry and I was scared- I was scared that the way I communicate is off putting. 

And then just a few weeks ago, I had a patient who had pretty significant sexual trauma and physical abuse. And we came from two very different backgrounds, uh, you know, she's not my age at all, she's- she's much older, and comes from a different educational background, comes from a different cultural background, but she liked talking to me. She told me she liked talking to me. And I felt like I did a good job with her.

And I remember feeling proud of myself for the first time in a while. And. And I remember feeling really, really angry and thinking he took that from me too, he made me think I was going to be a bad doctor. And so that's what I would want to reassure myself. You're good at what you do, and you can be valuable to patients just because he doesn't care for you doesn't mean that your patients can't be helped by you. And that sounds silly now that I say it, but he really had me questioning my professional identity. He had me questioning my value as a woman. But the professional identity thing has been solved, at least. 

On The Story of Domestic Violence 

God, I haven't thought about much else for the last two years. Um, but sure, I'll share it. I'm very open about it. There's nothing- there's nothing I've been hiding because I didn't realize just how much this happened until it happened to me. Like, I knew it happened- as a clinician, I knew it happened, so I had a very, like, professional perspective on it, because realistically, this is some of the work I do. And that it happened to me, and the experience isn't something I'd wish on anyone. 

I was with my ex husband for, for four years. We met in medical school, he was a classmate. And, it was actually the most functional relationship I'd had. I felt safe with him. I felt happy with him. We got engaged after about nine months and I thought, you know, I found my person. I remember praying and thanking God that he finally blessed me because I hadn't had great relationship experiences. And the one thing about him before we got married is he was almost pathologically jealous, but I made excuses for that. I didn't see it as a problem because he talked about being cheated on, um, and having trust issues because of that. And I tried to empathize and I thought, well, you know, anyone would be possessive and scared if they had been treated like that. Um, and he had multiple experiences according to him. 

And then the first time I got hit was around the time we got married. And I remember thinking, what did I just walk into? But I felt locked in at that point. And then I thought, well, I annoyed him, Um, and he just snapped. This isn't who he is. We'd been together for two years by the first time I got hit. And then eight months into marriage, he started going to prostitutes. And he started a very long affair with a nearly 50 year old Asian prostitute that he met out in a massage parlor. She actually had the audacity to call me and weaponize a lot of very personal details that my ex husband shared with me. She said that I wasn't, I wasn't skilled at physical intimacy, and that's why he was going to her and not coming to me. She said he loved her more than me. Um, she started insulting me saying that, um, that I look down on her, and um, she weaponized some of my personal history. I've struggled with depressive episodes, nothing very severe. And um, and my grandmother also struggled with mental health, but never really got help and my grandmother committed suicide. And of course, I shared this with my husband and I'm not sure if she said this in reference to me, or in reference to my grandmother, but she asked me, if he leaves you, are you going to suicide yourself?

And that's one of the things that actually hurt more than the extramarital sex, the fact that my ex husband was so willing to share something so deeply personal and tragic with his prostitute. And actually, up until then, I almost felt bad for her because I thought he must have lied to her and then I just, I hated her from that moment, I really, really hated her. 

I have a lot of anger now towards my ex husband. My ex husband really just stripped away everything about me that I liked- like, it just, it almost feels like he just- was very strategic about breaking me down into nothing and he'd get mad at anything, like really anything. I was anxious all the time in my own home, I had to, I had to modulate everything, from the content of what I said to the way I speak, to the volume of my voice, depending on the time of night. When I did well in school, if I got a good evaluation, he got really, really angry with me for sharing that with him. He said, I remember him saying, How do you expect me to feel when my wife is getting honors, it just puts pressure on me like, I couldn't even share my professional successes with him, he couldn't be happy for me.

I did so many things wrong- you know, if I didn't wear makeup, it was, Honey, it looks like you're not even trying. And then if I did wear makeup, he wants a woman who's not so high maintenance and he wants a woman who's like independent and more outstanding, and I wasn't outstanding enough. I wasn't physically desirable enough for him- those are the exact words he used, physically desirable. He used to say I had chicken legs and he wants a woman with more meat on her and he wasn't attracted to my arms because my arms are too thin. And I used to just stare at myself in the mirror in the nude and cry and think, you know, of course no man is going to be attracted to you, I mean you- you look like a child. 

If I passed him a cup the wrong way, and the wrong way means the body of the cup facing to him instead of the handle, he would scream at me, look at what you're doing, tell me what you're doing wrong." And then I'd apologize. And I apologized a lot. I'd apologize for everything, anything and everything. And he'd say, say, you're sorry to me, like you mean it. Don't just say the words, apologize to me like you really mean it. And I'd apologize over and over. And he would just be screaming at me.

And, um, I mean, the first time I got hit, he really hit me in anger. And, um, sometimes he would slap me on the bottom really hard. He would say it's just a joke, but it would hurt. And I would tell him that. I got really upset about that. And he, um, he would say, I want a woman who knows how to play, you don't know how to have fun. He'd pretend to kick at me- pretend to kick at me. And sometimes he'd actually make contact. Pretend to push me. Um, once he whipped me with a towel. He'd throw stuff sometimes.

He once elbowed me in the car when I was crying because he was being awful about something, and we were actually on our way to visit my parents, and I remember him saying, Stop crying, I don't want your parents to see you crying. He'd read my journal, and he'd take pictures. And I didn't have a place to- talk to, or to process anything, so I just kept it quiet. I'd wake up with my heart racing all the time. I don't know that I called it abusive, I don't think I ever called it abusive. I thought something was wrong with me. That something about me was just so inherently annoying and fundamentally wrong that any man might treat me like that, and maybe this is the best I can do, and this is what I have to live with, and I'm already married.

It just kind of became my reality and I thought I can take it. You know, marriage is about compromise and maybe I'm not physically desirable and I'm too demanding, I'm too annoying. And I push him and I make him snap. And I'm inconsiderate about his feelings. And, of course, you know, med school's a lot of pressure, and I should be considerate about his anxiety and his feelings, and...

Anyway, he kept going to prostitutes, and um, I found an Ashley Madison account.

Um, the thing that he did that scared me- that's when everything started, and by everything I mean, the nightmares, the ramped up anxiety. One day, he came home late. I asked him where he'd been. I remember him saying, I was planning on coming home and having sex with you, and now I don't want you anymore. And then suddenly I was on my back, on our bed, and his hands were around my throat. And what I remember is the silver ceiling light just swinging, and me watching the light. And all I could think was, kick. I don't think I fought him off me, I think I got lucky. And I don't know that I would have gotten lucky again if I had stayed; but even then I didn't leave him.

A month later I found him harassing a stripper on Instagram and I call that the stripper that broke the camel's back. And I remember saying to myself, enough's enough. He doesn't love me. At the very least, he doesn't respect me. And I might be single for the rest of my life, but being single for the rest of my life is better than being married to this monster for another minute of my life.

I knew I could be persuaded to stay, if I spoke to him first, so I called his mother and then I called my mother. And my thinking was, once I do that, then this is over, and I need it to be over. I didn't trust myself not to stay if I, um, if I didn't tell someone. I didn't tell them about the abuse, but I told them what I found out about the infidelity, because when I found one thing, I just kept finding another one and another one.

And then it got worse. So I got my divorce. But in the process of hunting around for evidence for my divorce, I found out that he'd been having contact with his prostitute without protection. And I told him, because I was talking to him, in maybe the three or four days after I demanded a divorce, I said, you need to, you have an ethical obligation as a physician to tell any non sex worker partners that you have this risk factor.

And he exploded at me. He said I was trying to make him look bad, and that he didn't do anything wrong. And he asked me, how did I put you at risk? And I'm pretty decent at de-escalation, and I think I just had this moment of clarity where I just said, Why am I still taking this? I'm not even going to be married to him anymore. Why am I still taking this? So I remember saying very calmly, okay, this conversation isn't productive right now, I think we should hang up. And so, he got angry and hung up the phone. And then I texted him and I told him, don't contact me anymore because this is starting to scare me. And then I said, if he won't do the right thing, I'll do the right thing.

So I made some educated guesses as to who some of the non sex worker partners were. And I told them, I'm also a clinician. I'm his wife. I'm about to be his ex wife. He's been having contact- sexual contact, unprotected with prostitutes. You need to get yourself tested, and they're gonna test you, and it's gonna be more invasive and more rigorous than your standard STI screen. And I knew that part of it. And then I got tested myself. And I had to get tested twice, that's how concerned my provider was. It was the most invasive thing ever, and I remember crying on the table when the speculum went in. I just cried. And I thought, how could he do this to me?

I spoke to one of the women, the woman in question, there were, there were a lot, but she was 19 years old and she was a research intern at a hospital where he did an away rotation. And he made it sound like she came on to him, that she was pushing for a relationship with him, and he had to set a boundary with her. She told me it was something very different, and she described behaviors that I can only describe as predatory. At that point, I thought this isn't just. abuse limited to me. This is predation, and he's using the hospital to do it. He's about to be a doctor, and she's a young, vulnerable teenager. He was having a relationship with her and with a young receptionist in his department at the same time. And, um, the fact that he could do that, like a junior employee in his department, it just, it felt like more than just abuse it just felt predatory.

And then a patient at our hospital actually filed a sexual harassment complaint against him. She said that he- actually she ran out of the room screaming, she said that he exposed his genitals to her, um, during an appointment. And then a past partner of his contacted me and told me that he sexually assaulted her when they were together. The one that he told me cheated on him, he sexually assaulted her, and then she tried to break things off with him, and he kept harassing her, and even threatened suicide.

And so I thought, this is dangerous. My ex husband tried to portray me as this hurt, vindictive monster who was taking out my hurt at being, I don't know, rejected. And my institution didn't believe me, to make a long story short. And my abuser is now a practicing physician, with no record. But that's my story.

New Beginnings

 It's been good. It feels like a- like a new, fresh chapter in my life. It was unexpected. I didn't have the heart to not consider Rochester because the program here is so good. It's been really refreshing. The truth is, professionally, I'm happier than I've ever been. The community is really supportive. Um, it's far from home, but I think far from home is a good thing for me right now. And I'm grateful, like, that sounds cliché, but I'm genuinely really, really grateful.

I rearranged- well, I got a new apartment, I rearranged everything so it doesn't look like the home we shared. And I pay for everything myself, I don't have any, you know, encumbrances living with me or telling me how to talk. I used to stare out the window- so I like rainy days a lot, um, because it's a good time to curl up with a movie or a book, and he used to be more awful to me whenever it was dark or whenever it was raining. And every time I'd look out the window, I'd think, Oh crap, it's raining. He's going to be in such an awful mood. And I used to get scared of the rain. And not that long ago, it was raining and I was happy about it. And that's the first time in months, maybe a couple of years, actually, when I felt like that. 

From Where I Speak 

I speak as someone who's slowly rebuilding myself.

I always knew what I want- what I wanted. You know, I knew I wanted to be a doctor. I knew I wanted to be a wife and a mother. I wanted stability. I wanted a loving, committed partnership where I would give as much as I got, and I'm simple, you know, I didn't- I didn't want anything so very grandiose.

I think I'm someone who needs a good amount of external validation. Until I got to the actual level of doctor, I was never sure if I was going to be a good psychiatrist to my patients. I wasn't sure if I was intelligent. I wasn't sure if I was likable. And he really broke all of that. He really broke down all of that. I had me questioning, Will I be a good physician? I had myself questioning, not my identity as a woman, but my value as a woman. I've never considered myself especially beautiful. He made me feel replaceable. He made me feel like I'm something to be discarded. He made me feel like I didn't have value. And I'm rebuilding that sense of identity. The things I've confirmed for myself recently is um, I'm a good doctor- at my level of training, I'm a good doctor. And I think I am likable; I've gotten along well with my colleagues so far, I get along well with my patients so far and I haven't had trouble finding friends here, so I don't think he's right that I'm off putting. My value as a woman, I don't know, I think I'm still coming into that. We'll see. I don't know yet, but, it's been a year; maybe another year, I'll feel differently. 

On Affirmations

It's not something about myself, it's- It's both a visual representation and a mantra. So, I did something that my parents absolutely hate, I um- I love the book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo because it's- for me, it's about survival in the face of flagrant misogyny; both at an interpersonal level and at a societal level. I mean, there's this woman who's been through pretty much every level of abuse that anyone can go through at the family level- um, at the level of people who know her and who are supposed to be taking care of her wellbeing. And in spite of that, she enacts pretty much the most elaborate and phenomenal revenge plot in reclaiming her independence. And it's brutal and it is violent the way she does it, but I respect how meticulous and flawless the execution is and how her goal of attaining her independence is achieved. It's not just spiteful to get back at her perpetrator. It's, um, she really just flies in the face of all the abuse. And she, um, she actually works her way to her own independence, her own legal independence, which is phenomenal in my mind. But, like, to be clear, I do not intend to tattoo, "I am a rapist and an abuser" across my ex husband's chest. I can understand the appeal. I have no intention of doing that, but that scene always really stood out to me. So I ended up getting a tattoo of a dragon on my back. And, um, that's my reminder to myself that... I'm not going to profess to be as- as awesome as Elizabeth Salander, but my mantra and that tattoo are my daily reminders that I'm still here. And that's what I tell myself, is I'm still here.

I did go through an episode of suicidality. I was- I was planning on ending my life, at a point. Um, and clearly my ex husband was planning on ending my life at a point, but I'm still here and I'm messed up, and not together, and very broken, but I'm still here. And despite his best efforts, I'm not dead yet. So that's what I, I think that would be my, my affirmation or thing that I lean on every day. I got this necklace as well. Um, it was a Christmas gift and, um, I had it engraved with the words, I lived and it's kind of just my reminder.

Words of Care

The best thing that anyone ever said to me was a friend of mine who is a physician, um, at a different institution. He's also a resident- he's actually the first person that I admitted, uh, that there was abuse to. And only because he asked me very explicitly, I wouldn't have told him otherwise. He didn't judge me. He asked me, what do you need from me right now? Do you need me to tell you what I think? Do you need me to listen? And I said, I just need you to listen. And he didn't make me feel less than. The first time he asked me that, I wasn't ready to leave. So he didn't, like, explicitly tell me what to do, but he listened. And, when I made the decision to leave, he supported me. And I would encourage family and friends to think in that same vein. When you're dealing with an abuse victim, the judgment's really, really isolating. The shame is really isolating.

Words of Care

 The first thing I would say is, um, you're not obligated to heal in anyone's timeline but yours. If anyone makes you feel that you should be over this by now, that's a reflection on them, not on you. And, I would encourage them to remember that you've lost so much agency in this relationship. Your sense of agency is the first thing that you owe to yourself, and if it means grieving on your own timeline, then that's your choice, and you should do that.

Words to Abuser 

If you had a few things you could say to an abuser, your abuser, what would you say to him or her? 

Anyone can be an abuser and an abuse victim, but in my case it's him. I would hope everyone has something validating, angry, passionate that they want to share.

Mine is two things. The first one is if you had to pay 200 for it, it's not love.

And the second thing is I can't make you what you're not. I'm more of a man than you will ever be. And I would encourage every survivor, victim, person who's experienced domestic abuse to, when you're feeling at your lowest, say to yourself what you would want to say to your abuser, because it's not your shame, it's their shame.