Shirley walked away from the sink, sat down, and wiped the drool from her mouth with one of the balled-up paper towels she constantly carried for the purpose. She picked up the stylus and wrote on her notepad.
I hate this.
Unable to speak or swallow, Shirley communicated only through writing notes and gesturing yes or no.
Shirley lived in Sidney, Montana, an oil town bordering the Bakken Shale. During the course of her four-year relationship, she was severely strangled twice by her then-boyfriend. On another instance, he brought her to her family's plot in the town graveyard, threatened her with a machete, and pulled her feet out from under her. She fell back onto her sister's grave. He told her that she would soon wind up there.
She was then in her early sixties.
After she left him, Shirley gradually lost function of her throat. She visited five doctors. The last one determined that while she was physically capable of speaking and swallowing, her trauma had caused her to lose mental control of these faculties.
Two months after I met Shirley, she was found dead outside of her home. The nature of her death is unknown.
Shirley is one of 10 million people each year impacted by intimate partner violence in the United States. She faced challenges specific to overcoming abuse in rural areas, such as high rates of poverty and less access to healthcare and human services providers. Like many, she struggled with taking action against her abuser.
Entitled My Water Chokes Me, Shirley's story is the latest chapter in my project Deafening Sound, which examines the roots of gendered violence and misogyny in the United States. This project aims to reduce the stigma surrounding gendered violence, address the cycle of abuse, understand trauma, and critique rape culture.