The humiliations. The threats. The beatings. Yet Monica (that’s what we’ll call her) bowed her head and suffered. She was subjugated by that man, with whom she occasionally shared the euphoria of cocaine, who became more and more violent year after year. Eight years passed before Monica decided to go her way, after having already backtracked once by withdrawing the complaint she had filed. Last July she sat in the barracks and she told everything about that destructive love, without second thoughts. Him yelling at her: “You disgust me, you fat f…, I’ll kill you.” And then punches and shoves. Ended up on trial for mistreatment, the ex-partner – 52 years old, from Fidentino – settled for 2 years. The judge granted him a suspended sentence, but the man will have to follow a rehabilitation process lasting at least a year.
There had never been periods of serenity. Ever since they began living together in November 2015, Monica had had to suffer psychological and physical abuse. In addition to cocaine, alcohol often made him particularly aggressive. At home, but also outside, in clubs or on the street. It happened that Monica took refuge in some room of the apartment and he challenged her: “If you come out of there, be careful not to put my hands on you, otherwise I’ll kill you”, he shouted at her. At the end of March 2020 the first complaint arrived, but ten days later Monica decided to “forgive”.
The metamorphosis had not arrived. In fact, he had become even more aggressive. And Monica felt cornered, crushed by her fragility. With that continuous deluge of threats: “If I touch you, I’ll make you turn around two or three times.”
A perpetual situation of fear. The fear of his every return home, because everything could degenerate in a matter of moments. You didn’t even have to whisper a word, a gesture or a look was enough to make him explode. In January 2018 he rushed into the kitchen, opened the stove and shouted at Monica that he had to die. A day engraved in his memory, a pain that doesn’t go away: shortly after he attempted suicide.
Attempted escapes, those of Monica. Like the one in February last year, when, after receiving her insults, she rushed out of the house and took refuge in her partner’s van. And he had had the usual violent reaction: «Where the… do you want to go? Stay here”. Then he walked through the fields surrounding the house.
Monica had held out until July. Then she decided to take the step that she had imagined and planned for years. Nothing more serious had happened in those days than the constant verbal and physical aggression to which she thought she had become accustomed by now. Instead, she had begun to be afraid. To feel that fear that paralyzes you more and more every day. And she was free.
Georgia Azzali
