Mother Violence
In which I share the story of how my home was violated recently, on keeping our intuition industrious, and on the gift of fear.
Just last week, I wrote and shared the words “Mothering is being acutely aware of the blood I am willing to spill in order to protect the lives I made if ever called to the task” while writing about the more feral and primitive underbelly of femininity and mothering. And this week, in a way, I was called to the task. A man showed up in the dark night at my hidden away little house in the woods far off the road. I was home with my children alone, I was caught off guard, I had an adrenaline hang over for days after.
I will preface the rest of this with the fact that no-I did not spill any literal blood. I could have and I was ready to and some may say that those impulses were overreactions. I say though: those impulses are the very core essence of who we are. Every impulse that bursts forth from so deep inside the well of our souls is one that is tied to not just our individual survival but our collective survival. Without them, no one would live or thrive. The impulse to fight and protect is one that I would be broken without. There are people walking around with those metaphorical breaks in their beings and I think much of social conditioning is the weapon that inflicted that injury.
One thing about me-I know fear is a gift and I have always known this. I am suspicious and observant as a matter of self protection and I have always been this way since my girlhood. Perhaps these are inherent personality traits, perhaps they are simply the facts of being a female walking this Earth. I always had a sense that sometimes people wanted things from me and sometimes that those things were something I wanted no part of from a young age. I also always had a sense that certain types of fear were my intuition directly speaking to me and that not listening to them was a way of abandoning myself and disrespecting the highest parts of myself that I had access to.
I read The Gift of Fear when I was 21, shortly after giving birth for the first time and shortly after gaining sobriety. I had spent a few years not yielding to fear and not listening to my intuition as a result of my all-encompassing addiction to heroin and I had paid many different prices for this. In my new role as mother, I was compelled to once again know my intuition and tend my relationship with her. Reading that book was like a remembrance that I am a creature moving about in the world by way of free will but whom also has access to other modes of knowing and acting-if only I would let them come through and show a little respect to their wisdom.
I remember reading an anecdote in the book about getting on an elevator with a stranger, about a woman choosing to stay on an elevator when a man walks in and she felt threatened by him. Why did she not get off? The same reason so many women choose not to remove themselves from potential danger-she talked herself out of yielding to her intuition. We do this for many reasons, mostly to avoid being seen as bitchy or cold. It’s like a self-sabotaging tic we begin to develop as little girls that just gets louder and more stubborn as we get older.
When I was in high school, I went on a field trip for student council to a lake resort a few hours away, and I had my own elevator moment. My friends and I had just gotten on the elevator in the hotel and a man got in with us. We were all about 15 and in bathing suits. He looked at me with a look in his eye that made me hop right off the elevator as the doors started to shut and hold the door for my friends, who I demanded needed to come with me as I had “forgotten” something important. They all acted like I was out of my mind for running off that elevator as they were eager to go swim but I truly felt in that moment that being locked in that impenetrable box with that man would have been dangerous for us. Of course I could not say specifically why, but even then I knew that was irrelevant. I knew what I knew and that was enough information for me.
Those are the sorts of moments we often start to question ourselves. “There’s only one of him and three of us, what could he possibly do?”, “we’re in a semi-public place, surely no one would be so bold”, “he is probably a nice person, I’m just being presumptuous”. Where do those questions originate though? From a different type of fear, the fear of being misunderstood, the fear of appearing unkind. In listening to this type of fear, we partner with the people who want to prey on us.
From de Becker:
“Every day, people engaged in the clever defiance of their own intuition become, in mid-thought, victims of violence and accidents. So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it. A woman could offer no greater cooperation to her soon-to-be attacker than to spend her time telling herself, ‘But he seems like such a nice man.’ Yet this is exactly what many people do.”
Which fear should hold more weight ? The kind that preserves our sense of feminine decorum or the kind that preserves our lives? Since repairing the part of me that knows how to trust fear and intuition after birthing my daughter and getting sober-I have and always will choose life.
The other night I was standing in my kitchen, making chicken and dumplings inspired by
and listening to the podcast (shout-out city!). It was that time of day, that time when I finally cave and let my kids watch Bluey and I can be in the kitchen alone listening to something I enjoy, chopping and stirring and washing dishes as I go. The feeling of a day gone by, sweet and challenging moments with my children often in equal measure, chores mostly done, warm smells, sneaking bites as I cook, listening to something that makes me laugh or think all while I know my children are just a room away all snug and happy-it’s one of the treasures of motherhood. Only this night, that treasure was threatened in a very visceral way.My littlest had walked into the room between the kitchen and the living room and was playing with some blocks on the floor. The door we use the most to enter and exit the home is in this same room, with a small porch attached. I walked into the living room to check on the other two and my eldest said “someone knocked on the door a minute ago”.
Our home is in the middle of the woods. We’re a good ways off of the street and our driveway is long and swanked with “private property” and “do not trespass” signs as we are well aware that from the street, it isn’t obvious that our driveway leads to a residence. It was only about 6 pm, but after the recent change of daylight savings time and on a night with a very waning moon-it was very dark. No one was expected, no deliveries were due to come, we do not get solicitors where we are-there was absolutely no reason for someone to be there to knock. Normally I always have the door locked but I had gone outside about 10 minutes prior, as I had left the roasted chicken on the porch to cool in the autumn night before I had to bring my fingers to it to shred the meat. My husband was still at work. When my daughter told me those words, the heat of my sudden, unexpected vulnerability rose to my face, I felt I was being watched, and I ran to lock the door.
Outwardly, as a means to not frighten my children, I heard myself say “oh you just heard the baby playing with blocks in there, no one knocked”. But I knew. Right after I locked the door, I heard something on the porch, something that sounded like hollow plastic. What I know now is that this man had knocked on my door while my baby played feet away, walked into my backyard while I was talking to my kids in the room that faces that backyard-curtains open still, the room lit up and him cloaked in darkness and able to see us, then walked back into the porch with the water jug my daughter uses to water our animals and then tried the doorknob that I locked seconds before.
I walked into the kitchen and could vaguely see the outline of a man standing not feet, but mere inches, from my window. The window that the table we eat at is pushed up against, where I light a candle or lantern in the evenings to make the early sunsets seem less sad, where the bouquet my husband made me sits, where my kids spill milk and demand more raisins and hungrily eat with their little fat hands the food I make for them. The window where I sit and read and drink coffee on the rare occasions I wake before they rise. This window, my favorite place in my home, with a stranger in the dark staring at me while I stood there momentarily stunned.
He moved to the other kitchen window and knocked on the glass, held up our water jug and said he wanted me to get him some water. I told him our spigot is broken, which is true, and told him he had to leave. He groaned and rolled his eyes and turned away-but he turned and walked toward our backyard, not the driveway that would take him back to the street. The tiny protesting voice in my head, the one that wants to be polite and nice, the one that was telling me “maybe he really just needs help and some water”, stopped protesting at this point.
If he just wanted water, he would have left when I told him our spigot was broken. If he just wanted water, he likely would have brought his own vessel for it, instead of haphazardly grabbing our water jug out of our backyard when he realized I knew he was there. If he just wanted water, he would have gone to one of the 5-6 other houses on our street that are close to the street, well-lit and with hoses visible in the yards. He would not have instead chosen to walk past our “no trespassing” signs, up our long driveway, to the house so far off of the street that the lights aren’t even visible.
My body moved without me thinking. I grabbed my husband’s 9 mm pistol, loaded it, stuffed it into my apron pocket. I called him and quickly told him to come home. I called 911, while instructing my eldest to take the little ones up to her room and stay there and stay quiet until I told her otherwise.
All the while I stood in my corner, staunchly in place, holding my ground where I could still see him but where he could only see me if he came directly up to the window again. He paced, he threw things around on the porch, our things, my children’s things. He disappeared into the dark and came back. He lifted the hood of our riding lawn mower and fiddled with it. He walked through our garden of raised beds, looking at the rotten, frostbit remains of a fruitful summer. He then walked into my husband’s garage, realized the multitude of tools that were laid out before him, and walked excitedly back and forth, me only getting to see him as he passed the open doorway but able to see his shadow, frantically moving about in exaggerated motions. He walked behind that building and I could see the motion light of our chicken coop turn on, then off. My husband told me later that when he checked, he saw that the man had turned the lights on our outbuildings off manually. He returned to our porch and tried the other door. Back and forth, no rhyme or reason, no fear evident in his movements.
I kept tabs on his location, peeking through the window. I held the gun in my hand when he returned to our porch over and over. I stayed on the line with 911 for 15 minutes while I waited for officers to arrive. I felt my voice shaking when the dispatcher first answered my call, then felt it calm as I found my resolve. The officers arrived, he tried to hide behind our chicken coop but didn’t realize that it was entirely fenced in, and he was immediately arrested. The police knew him, the said he had lots of warrants. They left, I locked my door once more, I slid to the floor and felt the worst stomach ache of my life take over my body. My eldest, who had been keeping the little ones safe and quiet, sobbed. My husband came home and comforted us, frustrated and angry that he wasn’t here. I finished making dinner in a robotic sort of going-through-the-movements way, the children went to sleep.
With everyone I am responsible for finally settled, I went into the bathroom, took my sweater off, and laid on the cold tile floor and cried. I was covered in sweat, hot, had stomach cramps, and my muscles were extremely tense. I felt sick in a way I hadn’t experienced since my days of addiction, when I was engaged in the other side of crime, when I also didn’t have the sense to care or the responsibility of children to weigh so heavily on me. I got up and did jumping jacks, breathed deep, took a shower. I felt better but not okay. The adrenaline pulsed through me, I barely slept.
That man knew I was alone with no man home with me. He knew I had children with me, he could see them through the window. He knew no one could see him from the street, that no neighbors were aware of what was happening. He was very clearly on something, but not to the degree where he was incoherent-only to the degree where he had no care, no shame, no need to adhere to common human decencies. This is what kept me up at night.
I share this for a few reasons-
Firstly I think I am searching to be witnessed in a way, as this felt deeply invasive and also transformative. I feel like these more physical threats do not come about often in our modern lifetimes (in general) and that they are like a harkening to our past “ancestral” selves. The threats of our past were almost always of a physical, invasive nature. The threats of the present are more mental and social. The “fight” response that we are evolved to have rarely gets a proper outlet these days, and being called to that primitive place most unexpectedly brought me closer in touch with all that I am, with all that we are.
Additionally, coming up against what could have been a very physical threat to my safety and that of my children brought up feelings about the only other physical altercations I have experienced-all within the contexts of different abusive relationships I have endured in the distant past. My stomach cramps and stiff muscles and cold sweats were a response that lives deep in my bones, a response that is rooted in those moments where I have been hurt by men who said they loved me. The whole “the body keeps the score” thing rang very true to me in the days that followed this event, even though I wasn’t actually physically assaulted. The threat was very much there and my body responded accordingly.
I also want to sing loudly the praises of female intuition. My knowing to lock the door immediately, mere moments before he tried the door handle. My immediate shutting down of the “he just wants water” nice little girl impulses by my more crone-like, wise intuition. The unwavering knowing that something was off, that he was not benign, that my compassion for those who struggle with addiction like I myself have is not my wisest voice, that there is time for that later, when safety is assured. We do not have to lose our empathy and kindness in order to be smart and steady and self-preserving, we merely have to know what to prioritize.
Every time I have ignored my intuition or mistaken anxiety for intuition, I have wronged myself. Every societal message that tells us that this power is broken or silly or biased or bigoted or some sort of “ist” is deeply insidious and injurious to female existence. Listen to intuition first, process later. I want to stress here that sometimes when we do confuse anxiety for intuition, that we can then become biased or be led in the wrong direction, but this is why we have to focus and prioritize a cultivation of this knowing. It’s like muscle memory, we have to make our intuition an industrious intuition, one which is dedicated and exact. A workhorse of protective wisdom. This can only be done by pushing back against the learned impulse to ignore it.
When I mentioned earlier that our fear impulses are not only about our individual safety but about the safety of us collectively, it is because these gifts are in place to serve us as a species. Anything that threatens the preservation of those impulses is in service of a broken, misguided way of being on Earth. This is why so much of what is being circulated in popular culture and in the way people teach children certain concepts is a problem. It’s a mass deprogramming of our mammalian inheritances, and I think women and mothers especially are uniquely positioned to know this and fight against it.
Another, very relevant quote from de Becker:
“When a baby is born, the mother in particular enters into a new larger relationship with the world. She has become connected to all people. She is part of keeping us on Earth-not the ‘us’ comprised of individuals-but the species itself. By protecting this one baby, this gift, a mother accepts life's clearest responsibility.”
Women know things. Mothers know even more, not because we are “better”, but because we have to. It is our lot in life to preserve the sanctity of the home, to keep the children well, to notice the happenings, to communicate our observations with care and conciseness, to partner with men in whatever physical way is necessary to protect the young, the elderly, the vulnerable. In this case, my case, there was no other man present to partner with in those 15-20 minutes where I was so attuned to every tiny noise, every single strange, disjointed movement that man made, every breath my lungs pulled into my body. Where I was hyper-aware of the little breaths being pulled into the little lungs upstairs, hidden under covers and obediently silent save for those breaths, lungs my own body built from my blood. Where I was, in fact, acutely aware of the blood I was willing to spill to keep those little lungs pulling in breaths if I had to. I accepted Life’s clearest responsibility nearly 12 years ago and I held true to my promises as I held my ground.
When trouble comes knocking, there is no room for cowering. No time for anxiety and despair. Courage, a feminine courage, must lead the charge. It is for us all, to protect at all costs. It is the most feminine act of love and service to hold steady and be faithful in the messages our wisest selves have for us in those moments of truth, even if those messages require violence. Sometimes female violence isn’t something that happens in spite of who we are as women, contrary to popular belief-sometimes violence is born of the most gentle, sweet love that exists on this Earth-the love of a Mother.
Oh, Emily 🫂 I read this with the pounding of my heart flying out to yours. Thank you so much for sharing this wisdom- for detailing it piece by piece. I often think about this, especially in those moments when I’m recalling an experience during which I *wish* I had listened to my fear. You are so kind for telling it like it is. This has inspired me to take the concealed carry/self defense course that I’ve been considering. I don’t yet have babies- but I know already that I’d shed blood to protect them and myself. My dad carries almost everywhere we go & it helps me feel so safe. Not just physically, in those situations where he’s carrying, but spiritually and emotionally: knowing that he’s the kind of person who will go to any lengths to protect. Sending so much warmth and stillness to your body and soul while you heal from this ❤️
Gosh, Emily, I truly cannot imagine. I felt my own anxiety rising as I read this, and I was amazed and comforted to hear how your intuition kicked in and took over when you needed it to. Very glad to hear that you all are safe. Thank you for sharing this, for letting us see you in this moment.