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Escaping

Abuse Story

By Theodore DembowskiPublished 2 years ago 8 min read
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Escaping
Photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash

She stands in her living room looking across the room at him wondering where she went wrong. ‘What did I do to deserve this?’ she asks herself. She knows it's coming and can’t help the racing thoughts in her head as she tries to find a way out of this. Her son sleeps in his crib a few rooms away. He is standing between them, rage in his eyes. She has no choice but to fight as much as she can. She can’t leave her son behind.

He lurches forward towards her, fire in his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have said that,’ She blames herself. She puts up her arms in defense, which quickly does nothing as he grabs her and slams her body to the ground. Putting his hands on her throat he squeezes, “I should kill you,” he says. Choking her for the better part of a minute she thinks, ‘Is this it? Is this where I die?’

She fights for each breath, struggling to get away from the hands she thought that loved her. Hands she has held before with love and care. Hands who put a ring on her finger promising to love and protect her until death. Hands that now were squeezing the life out of her as she kicks and struggles to get away.

He switches positions, realizing he can’t kill her, just yet. He takes her and picks her up, throwing her across the room. Her body slams to the floor with a loud crash. ‘Is this going to wake the baby?’ she thinks to herself as he winds up with a kick to the ribs. ‘Just a little longer and he will stop.’

She was right, he eventually gave up after about an hour of punching, kicking, and screaming at her. She would leave him as soon as she could, but she had nowhere to go.

Her family doesn’t talk to her much and she practically raised herself anyway. A mother who was supposed to protect her, instead taught her how to do drugs at a young age. A problem that would haunt her most of her 20s as she struggled to get clean. Now that she was clean, all she wanted was a bright future.

So she met a man who seemed like a promising way to that future. He was kind and encouraged her to go to school, at first, and had a big house and a family who cared for him. He had all of the toys she could dream of. Dirt bikes, four wheelers, boats, and everything fun to do outdoors. Her dream life. A big, sturdy house with a big sturdy man who had a good career. He would easily be able to protect her and take care of her for the rest of her life. She could go to school and get her dream job, and he would support her.

After a few short months of dating, she moved in with him with high hopes of a bright and safe future. This facade that he portrayed to the world would start to unravel about a year later, but it was priceless in her eyes as she moved forward into the future.

The whole scene started to come undone the summer a year and a half into her relationship. She had a sixth sense that something was wrong and started to question his loyalty. At this time in her life she had a steady job, friends, and seemed to be living a good life. All it took for the suspicions to start was a condom, in a wrapper, to change that perspective. She had been here before. Her ex-boyfriend cheated on her and it devastated her. So her suspicions grew.

She kept it to herself for about four months before questioning the idea. The whole time she was looking for more evidence and refusing to believe it could possibly be true. The evidence that should found were receipts from places he never mentioned going to, an immense amount of pornography on his computer with sites he visited regularly, and some online dating memberships that he claimed he never logged into. Call it being paranoid, call it what you will, but when confronted about any of it, he denied all of it.

It was around this time that she was in school for about 2 months and almost done with her first semester. It was almost winter and she was getting overwhelmed a bit with working full time and trying to get all of her work done. She was succeeding, but to relieve the pressure, he offered to take over her bills and for her to quit her job. A noble thing to do right?

She had been pretty self-sufficient up to this point of her life, so it was a struggle to let someone else control her finances and to take care of her on this magnitude. Stubbornly she held onto the job for another month or so before giving into his wishes. A move she would regret in the future. She would learn it was a power move on his part. He didn’t want to take care of her, he wanted control. Her friends did warn her about this, but she was in love. She believed that contrary to the evidence against him, he was loyal and loved her. He wanted to take care of her. To live her dream life.

Two months later, she was into her second semester, jobless, and doing well in school. Then she found out that she was pregnant. The stress was getting to her. Being pregnant and in school. She was not ready for a baby. Not yet. He came in and ‘saved the day’ asking her to marry him. By this time she had her doubts and kept finding more evidence that he was unfaithful. She ignored all of it. She ignored her intuition and ignored any advice her friends gave her on the subject. She was too close. So she said yes, got married, and was pregnant with her son. She also took time off of school to focus on her new life. At this moment, she was destined to be a house-wife, taking care of her son, her husband, and the house.

The first time he hit her, she was pregnant with their son. He grabbed her and threatened to throw her down the stairs and kill the baby. It was summertime and they were hanging out with friends and she noticed he was flirting with one of the girls who was in their party. She confronted him and he raged up and started throwing her around the room. ‘What is going on?’ she thought. ‘Is this real?’

It was unexpected for him to get physical with her and she was blindsided. Later she would find out that this was a pattern in his life. His first wife was beaten up and at the divorce was paid off to keep hush about it. One of the perks of being wealthy is that money helps you get out of trouble if your parents enable you to be abusive. His parents were enablers, always making excuses for their son’s poor behavior. Using money to bail him out of trouble his whole life. It was normal for him. He was untouchable, as long as they were there to bail him out.

Almost two years later she is stuck in her situation. No job, raising a son, hoping not to get beat up on a daily basis. She is back in school with hopes it will lead to a good career for her to take care of him. Her husband violates his restraining order regularly, but she can not leave. She has nowhere to go and no money to go anywhere. What is she supposed to do? The state fails her on a daily basis. Her husband going to jail would put her in a situation where she has zero freedom. He still pays the bills and gives her money to care for their son and for gas. Is she stuck? For how long? Will this pattern ever end?

Millions of Americans have a similar story to my friend here. They think they have no way out and many times they are right. They have no money and nowhere to go. Even if they did go, their abusers will track them down and come after them. So they are stuck. They want a better life, but have no way out. The law is a joke and doesn’t protect them. The government doesn’t have enough programs to help these people and the non-profits are overwhelmed.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The above story is based on true events. Names have been left out to protect the identity of the people involved. This is an ongoing story...

Let’s help our fellow Americans get out of their situations and away from their abusers. Help me raise money for victims of mental and physical abuse, donate today. 100% of the donations will be donated to one of these victims to help them relocate, pay for a good lawyer, and get out of their abusive situation.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a good family to turn to and good friends to take them in. The best bet for these men and women stuck in these situations is for them to become more self-sufficient. Which starts with the ability to escape. Abusers have a tendency to get a hold of people and once they get their claws in, put them in these inescapable situations. Most of these abused people are ready to leave, but just don’t know how.

I have been writing for a lot of years. I have several stories in the works, and lots of poems. I found Vocal Media in March 2021 and since then have been revising, editing, and creating more poems and stories. I absolutely love writing anything from poems and short stories to history. If you want to reach out to me and learn more you can find me @theodore_the_spartan on Instagram.

Want to read more of my work Click Here. Give me a follow! I only profit off this website through reads, tips, and challenge wins. So read on! Feel free to tip and give a heart to any of your favorites ;)

Thank You For Reading!

~Theodore

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About the Creator

Theodore Dembowski

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