How It All Started

I am a woman with a case.....

1 count of Domestic Violence Felony Battery (Third Degree)

1 count of Criminal Mischief (Second Degree)

How did I get these charges? Well, I guess like with any story or movie you have ever seen, we should start from the beginning...

Lets start with the basics.

I was not this tattooed when I was younger just in case you were wondering but that would have been awesome ;)

I attended Christian school throughout my whole childhood and into my teen years. I come from a great family that always provided me with whatever I wanted and always had a roof over my head and always had food on the table. Also, think I should note I am an only child (this is important). I was the loser or uncool kid up until the point I started playing sports in high school and even then I still could not compete with girls that I went to school with when it came to how to dress, do my hair, and don't even get me started on makeup. I wouldn't have been able to tell you the difference between eyeliner and mascara. The only time a guy would come up to me was to tell me how good I played. It was like I was just one of the boys to them. The homie. The friend you don't want to have sex with. I always envied the girls who caught the guy's attention and when I tried to dress like them and tried to do my hair I failed miserably at it so I gave up on it.

At this point, some of you are probably wondering "Why is she telling us about this?" Well, my experience in high school and being an only child has played a big part in why my relationship issues led to something life-changing, my case.

College also played a big part as well. Let's get into that.

It goes without saying that basically I was looked at as the tomboy girl and never had a boyfriend in high school. But man did things change when I went to college. I got a basketball scholarship to play at a college in Florida which is where I am from. Well, where I have lived for basically my whole life. However, if we want to get technical, technically my birth certificate says I was born in Norfolk, Virginia which I barely remember because I was born and then on the road with my parents to Florida a couple of days later. So I always claim Florida.

Where was I?

Oh Yeah! So I get to college and somewhat know how to dress better, do my hair better, and start to slowly grow out of my tomboy phase. This gave me some new-found attention that I have never experienced before. Specifically from some members of the boy's basketball team. If you have ever played sports then you know the majority of the time the girls and boys team usually are close and go to parties together, the gym together, and so on. There is something very sexy about someone of the opposite sex that plays the same sport as you and is good at it ;)

College is where I had my first two boyfriends. Yay right? Wrong. Completely wrong. This was when I first learned love and relationships that happen in real life are not like they are in movies and tv shows that we watched growing up. Sure it always starts out great and lovely but it definitely does not end like how it ended in Disney movies. Well, at least not your first couple of relationships. Pretty sure this is why I have a love/hate relationship with Disney to this day. I love Disney because they fill you with hope, joy, and happiness but I also hate Disney because that hope, joy, and happiness does not accurately portray real life.

Let's dive into my first two college boyfriends...

My first boyfriend in college was someone I always dreamed of. Tall, in shape, sexy. The type you look at and automatically just want to have sex with because he just looks that good. Things started out great as they always do but then things took a turn. We normally had a routine where one night I would stay at his apartments and the next night he would stay at mine. Until one night he just randomly changed that routine and said he did not want to see me that night and needed some "me". This obviously made me feel like something was up so I decided to just go over there anyway and ignore what he said about not wanting to see me that night and wanting some personal time. When I got there I knocked on the door and his teammate came out and asked why I was there. I told him I wanted to my boyfriend. He proceeds to say that I couldn't come in so I asked him why I couldn't and he said "you just can't".

It kind of goes without saying that at that point the "crazy" switch turned on in my brain and things escalated from here.

I then proceed to try to run past the teammate and do little moves to try to get by him so I could get into the apartment. I almost got past him but I failed. Because I kept trying to get in, the teammate scooped me up, threw me across his shoulders, and closed the door. I started yelling at him and telling him to put me down and calling my boyfriends name at which point my boyfriend stepped out. I asked him to tell me the truth about why I could not go in and he told me because the mother of his child was spending the night.

I never knew he had a kid. To top things off, he is letting this woman he had a child with (that he never not once mentioned) sleep in the same bed that we literally had sex in the night before. I was so hurt and crushed by the whole situation. It made me feel how I felt in high school when I felt I was not good enough when it comes to guys.

But me never experiencing the attention he gave me before and being single throughout high school I decided to forgive him the next day and stick around even when he did not deserve me to because I was so desperate to continue to feel like I was enough for a guy. I also stuck around because being the only child I was mostly always alone and for the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn't alone and felt like I was good enough for a guy. It felt good to be like the girls in high school who were good enough for guys and got their attention.

The crazy thing is even though I overlooked his wrongdoings guess who broke up with who? If you guessed that he broke up with me, you are absolutely correct. He said he wanted to go back to dating the mother of his child and wanted to try to fix what they once had. Life is funny isnt it :)

Next up on the list of boyfriends that I wish I never dated is the second boyfriend I dated in college that some would call a high school sweetheart depending on how you look at it.

A high school sweetheart is your first love in high school. My second boyfriend viewed me as a tomboy in high school so I wasn't his first love but he was mine. I loved how goofy he was and he was very attractive. I had always wanted to date him since the first time landing eyes on him in high school.

After me and my first boyfriend were done I officially announced to the world that I was single. How you may ask? Well, in 2010 Facebook was the Instagram of social media, and changing your relationship to "single" on Facebook was like announcing it to the world.

Little did I know my crush from high school had his eye on me. Guess because of me blossoming into a sexy woman and getting away from the tomboy version he was used to in high school caught his attention ;)

After I changed my relationship status on Facebook he messaged me his number and said we should talk more. So we did and we ended up being in a relationship for two years. Everything was great until it wasn't.

When I was in Florida going to school, he was in Georgia and it would take me around 3-4 hours to drive to him and 3-4 more hours to drive back. I was the only one with a car so I would go see him pretty much every weekend when we did not have games. After practice was over I would shower and hop right in the car. Needless to say, I did a lot of driving. I remember one night I wanted to see him so bad and we wanted to see me so bad that I drove last minute to see him and had to drive back early in the morning because I had practice.

I was so tired when I was rushing back to my school that I almost drove myself off the bridge due to me falling asleep at the wheel. I was literally seconds away from ending my own life. I woke up just in time and realized I was still driving and did a swerve to save myself from going off the bridge. Luckily no one else was on the road at that time. Kind of stupid right? Rushing to see my boyfriend even though I knew I would not get enough rest to drive safely back to my college? Yeah I know. Young, dumb, and in love.

After not graduating from the Junior college I attended in Florida, I moved to Atlanta with my family at which point me and my high school crush were still in a relationship. When I moved to Atlanta since I was no longer in school my parents basically said if I am not going to school then I need to get a job. So I did. I worked at Red Lobster as a hostess and ate a lot of cheddar biscuits and cajun pasta. At this point, this is where our relationship started to take a turn for the worst.

As a lot of you may have already experienced, when you have a job it takes up a lot of your time and leaves you with very little time to spend with your loved ones. This was an adjustment for both me and my high school crush because now we could not spend as much time with each other as we used to. Even though I was in Atlanta, he was two hours away from me. Definitely closer but still required a lot of driving on my part. Driving that I just could not do as much as I did before because I had a job and couldn't just call out every weekend especially since the weekend was when we had the most customers.

This caused an issue for him and he started to accuse me of cheating by saying the reason I was not driving to see him as much was because I had someone else that was closer to me. So in order to get him to stop thinking how he was thinking, I decided to prove my loyalty to him so that he wouldnt leave me because I did not want to feel alone, because I was desperate to be in a relationship, and was emotionally dependent on men.

I went and got his first name, middle initial, and last name tattooed across my stomach.

Did your mouth drop in shock? Yeah I know lol

This was my very first tattoo. Before I got the tattoo, the tattoo artist tried to convince me to not go through with it and to get something smaller. I did not listen but man I sure wish I did.

The tattoo was the most painful experience I ever felt. At that time I thought it was worth it and I was super excited to drive down to see him so he could see it.

I could not see him for at least a month because I had to work and he still kept accusing me. I kept telling him he is going to regret accusing me because I had a surprise for him. Me constantly saying that kind of made the accusations lessen.

It was time to go and see him so I stopped and got him a whole bunch of clothes and shoes. I get down there and give him the clothes and shoes and show him the tattoo. His response to the tattoo was "Why would you do that?" This made me feel how I felt when my first ex said he did not want to see me the night I found out he had a kid. I felt like something was wrong with his response. I cried, we argued, then I drove back to Atlanta.

The next day I woke up to a text from him saying he was sorry and of course I forgave him. I went to work later that day and the manager offered me more hours because he liked how I worked. I was super excited because it meant more money that I could use to buy my boyfriend stuff and because I would have more money in my pocket so we could do stuff when I went to visit him. I told my boyfriend what the manager said and seemed unbothered and was happy. His response made me feel like something was up because now all of a sudden he is okay with me working more hours? But I decided to brush it off and not think too deeply into the situation.

A month went by and we had barely seen each other and the vibe between us was off. I asked my manager for the weekend off so I could go see him.

I saw him in person and the vibe was still off. The way he kissed me was off. The way he hugged me was off. Just everything was off.

A month later he ended it with me saying he could not deal with the fact that I could not see him as much as I used to. After he ended it with me and changed his relationship status on Facebook to "single" he literally changed it to "in a relationship" about two weeks later and had the girl tagged or whatever. So I automatically think "wow that was quick, almost too quick". So I go to the girl's page and she goes to his school. This girl had photos of him and her on her page around the same time I was dating him.

To make things clear, he was dating me and her at the same time. How did he get away with it? Well according to his teammate, who finally told me the truth after letting his teammate play me, he said that they weren't following each other on Facebook when me and him were dating and avoided giving her his Facebook so he could date me and her at the same time since I was not able to see him as much.

Key Points:

1. Because of me not feeling good enough for guys in high school, because I wasn't like the girls who knew how to dress, do their hair, and do their makeup and because I did not get the attention they got when I finally got that attention in college I became dependent on it.

2. Because I was the only child and by myself a lot of the time when I finally got boyfriends in college and did not feel alone anymore I became dependent on it on that and wanted to do everything I could to avoid being alone again.

3. Because of me becoming emotionally dependent on men, not wanting to be alone like I had been throughout my life, and being desperate to be in a relationship I did dumb things like form a bad habit of not walking away from people when I know I should and doing things like buying clothes and shoes and getting someones full name tattooed across my body to try to show my loyalty, show I care and show I love them.

These two relationships were the start of my trust issues, the start of my desperateness to be loved and not feel lonely, and the start of me being emotionally dependent on men which ultimately led me to eventually catch a case. It will all make sense soon.

The key points are very important to mention as I continue to share my story.

If you made it this far ( I know it was a lot), I want to thank you for sticking around and hope you continue to.

Thanks,

A Woman With A Case