What Happened to Me

What happened to you?

This is a question I get a lot.

You used to be fun and easy-going. Now you're just tense and seemed stressed all the time.

I'll tell you what happened to me.

1. I was laying on my couch. My son's father came in, and sat on top of my chest. He took his penis out. He shoved in my mouth and said, "I just fucked N-------, and I want you to suck her off of me."

2. He said, "I fuck other girls because you won't have sex with me." Two weeks after I almost died giving birth to our baby.

3. He said, "If you tell anyone what I do to you, I will burn your family's house down with your retarded sister inside."

4. I told him, "No." He said, "But I love you," as he held my arms down and pulled down my pants and underwear. He shoved his penis inside me, while I laid there still with tears rolling down my cheeks.

5. He said, "No one ever say you are attractive. You look like Shrek."

6. He said, "You don't know how bad I want to kill you right now," as his hand was firmly placed on my throat with my back against the wall.

7. He said, " I just wanted to have a kid with you so I could own you."

8. He told a crisis center that he had thoughts of killing our infant when he cried. He's special needs, and was 8 months old-as if wanting to harm an infant wasn't bad enough.

9. He said, "You're too skinny."

10. I gained weight after many complications from my pregnancy. He said, " You're too fat. I wouldn't have sex with you if you were the last girl on earth."

11. He punched me in the arm 27 times with our infant in the same arm. Our baby was in the same arm. I truly believe he was aiming for his head. I used my body to shield the baby. His mom helped him escape the police.

12. He took my lanyard and hit me with my keys.

13. He sat on my head with my face in the couch. I cut my tongue off trying to breath.

14. I posted about that incident (#13) on Facebook after getting the courage, and someone sent me a screenshot that he sent making fun of me for it. (This was years after the incident. )

15. He stole the last $30 I had to feed our baby. I had to my 8 month old on whole milk because I didn't have money for formula.

16. He told everyone I was the one abusing him, and everyone believed him.

17. He would do things sexually to me, that I didn't want done. An example is him cumming in my mouth when I was pregnant and highly sensitive.

18. He took me to another state to meet his family, and told me he was not going to bring me home. I had to threaten to call the police for holding me hostage to get him to bring me home.

19. He would come in my house at night and sleep in my bed. I would wake up next to him, and not know when he got there.

20. He kicked my windshield and cracked it. We had went out of town, and had to leave a go-cart track early because I had an allergic reaction to something. He was mad at me, and used both feet to kick my windshield from the inside. He cracked it all the way across.

21. He was walking down the road near my apartment, and jumped out in front of my car. I stopped by surprise, and he got in. He told me he had an interview. I took him and dropped him off at it to get him out of my car. Once we got there, he said he didn't really have an interview he just told me that. So I tried to take him to his friend house. He didn't want to go, so he grabbed my hair and slammed my head into the steering wheel.

22. He borrowed my car, and wouldn't bring it back until I told him I was going to call the police.

23. He wouldn't work, and would hit me if I didn't buy him what he wanted.

24. Your front teeth look like you could park an 18 wheeler between them.

Reading all of these things, people may say, "Well, why did you stay?"

Leaving that situation is not as easy as everyone makes it out to be. Not everyone has a great support system. Not everyone has a place to go. Not everyone's town has a domestic abuse shelter to tell them how to get out. Not everyone has someone to tell them that they don't deserve it.

Now that I am out, I can see he was a coward. He would have shit his pants against a real threat. I wasn't physically stronger than him. I had to defeat him the only way I knew how. I had to outsmart him. He may have convinced me I was the ugliest piece of human flesh on the planet, but I knew I was smarter than him.

Escaping this kind of situation takes strategy. You can't just leave. Sometimes the reason is you cannot support yourself financially, and other times it's the mere fact that you have no where to go. You feel like you will be found no matter where you. You don't want to put anyone else's life in danger so you stay put. There's also the factor of who's around. I tried to escape, and my neighbors, who I thought I could trust, told him where I was. They knew the situation, and even let him stay with them.

I ended up going to school from 8am to 3pm Monday through Friday. I worked from 3:30pm to 10pm. My little boy stayed with my parents. We slowly worked out way out, but not before #6 happened. That was the day he finally got arrested. I was free. I can't take the credit for my escape nor can I give it to the police. Many times I had called the police, and they would not take the action I felt they needed. (One time, the cop even blamed me and said I was abusing him.)

I give the credit of my escape to God. When he had his hand on my throat telling me he wanted me dead, I said to God, "God, either let him kill me and get this over with, or get him away from me." The moment I finished that sentence the police knocked on the door. I didn't call and everyone around me said they didn't call.

So I am not the fun and easy-going person I used to be. I have experienced a great deal of trauma. Trauma that therapy has helped, but it hasn't healed me. I still look in the mirror and see someone with whom I am not happy. I have questions for myself. Why didn't I see the red flags? What did I do to deserve it? Is it worth dating again? It changes a person. Bruises fade away, but the trauma stays.