I saw my abuser this last summer while on an outting to the river with my kid, my boyfriend, and his kid. We stopped at a little deli grocer to get some snacks and drinks. J & I get out to the car, load the treats, load the girls, and lit our cigarettes. We're standing by the end of the car when I look up and see a beautiful multicolored dog in the bed of a big red dodge truck. His back turned to me, I ask in a melodic voice, "does he bite? He's beautiful." Before I can finish the last word, he turns around and all I can do is freeze and repeat like a crazy person, "Its Drew. That's Drew. It's Drew. Drew. It's Drew." I was overcome with fear so crippling, I completely froze and repeatedly stuttered his name. A name I can only say with less fear as of recently. Everything came flashing back. The sound in his voice when he said, "just a little bit more," as I was kicking and screaming, crying, and trying anything I could try to get out from under him, as he kept raping me. He raped me in my parents house that I grew up in. That I helped build. Where I buried my favorite dog under her favorite tree to lay under in the shade. I was told it wasn't rape. My abusive alcoholic father was my educator. It's not rape if you're already having sex. Plus, he is your boyfriend. It isn't rape when you're already having sex with your boyfriend. He was angry at me for hitting him and kicking him and ruining it for him, even though he finished. He was so mad, he dismantled my entire bed frame and threw it out of my second story bedroom window. Kicking the frame, snapping the smaller pieces in half with his knees. Smashing it with a maul. Screaming at me. My parents loved him. He is a great guy. Maybe you just need to learn to do what he says. Maybe try not to piss him off to that point. I wanted to leave him, but how could I? He rented the spare room downstairs. So I was stuck. Months later, my dad came home shitfaced drunk, at 1 am. Pissed off and fueled up is not the time to wake up the little kids, the older kid, the wife, grandchildren, and daughter raping house mate. But, he felt it was a good time as any, to get us all up and cleaning the "disgusting f'ing pigstye." Mom is trying to get him to calm down and Dad is threatening to shut her up if she doesn't do it herself. She slinks back into her passive position as always. The kids are all crying. My 3 yr old daughter is hysterical and I'm worried she's going to start puking like she does when she's really upset. My 8 month old is in her crib, almost ready to pop from crying so hard. But I can't get to either one of them with drunk dad in my way. Since Mom stepped down, it's my turn up to bat. It didn't go at all as I would have liked. Lots of me telling him to shut up and leave us alone turned into, get your shit and your kids and get the F out of MY house you ungrateful F'ing C**t!
With my three year old's hand in mine, asking to be carried too, and my 8 month old in my embrace, we begin walking down our unlit gravel driveway toward nowhere and nothing is open until 6 am. We walk, all crying, all shivering from the nearly winter weather, and I have no hope. My mom eventually comes running down the drive at me and asks me for my babies, she'll put them in my sisters' room for the night. She tells me Drew has his private entryway unlocked and to come sneak into the house. So I lay as close to the bed as I can, out of view if my dad comes knocking. And I'm terrified. Tomorrow, I have to leave and I have nowhere but here to go to. What am I going to do? I have no job, money, a car, now a home? Why?
At 10 am, Drew and I sign our (my first ever) lease on the apartment he paid for, for us to get into. So my kids had a home. So I wasn't on the streets.
I had to forfeit my 8 month old to her father who lived in Texas. There was no way Drew could afford to care for an infant. She had to go. And reluctantly, I called her dad and he arrived three days later on a greyhound bus. I was in agony.
Months, maybe 4, later, my 3 year old wanted to watch a movie with mommy on the couch. We had just gotten a hand-me-down tv and vcr and she never slept on her own anyway. It was just perfect, until about 11 pm. Drew went to the bar some hours earlier and came home a drunk mess, much like the night my dad sealed my fate with him. Screaming at me, how bad of a mom I am to let a toddler be up this late, he grabs her by her one ankle and hangs her upside down for a moment before throwing her straight down onto her head, onto the floor. Go put that F'ing brat to bed! She's hysterical as he's telling me to shut her up. And I'm trying not to let my cries radiate any further than my mouth. I'm scared of what he'll do if he catches me crying. My dad used to laugh at me and flaunt how prideful he was of his power to make me cry like he could. If Drew was acting like my dad does, who knows what other similar traits they share. The abuse went from screaming, throwing things, punching walls, to throwing the thing AT me, punching me, screaming at me asking why I made him do that to me? Why can't I just do what he says? I eventually had to make up excuses for my bruises. Had to wear long sleeved shirts to work. One day, I came home and asked where my daughter was. He, in a proud voice, says, "I had your mom come get her. I am tired of her always whining and wanting you and you always ignoring me for her." I was devastated. But, what could I do? Drew made up lies to my parents about me. They never talked to me. Only until recently, like 2 months ago, did my mom find out that it wasn't me who requested her to take my kid, it was him who took her away from me. Once she was gone, the raping became a normal activity of his. Then the beatings and threats of murdering me if I ever tried to leave. All while waving a .22 like a trophy. I tried killing myself at 19. I had tried to leave Munroe multiple times, and failed. Suicide was my only option. Both my kids were in safe places. He found me in the bathroom and I went to the hospital in an ambulance very drugged up. I was in the hospital under suicide watch for 4 days. He was on the no access list by my best friend, whom he hated. After I was released, I went home with her. That lasted only two weeks because all we did was party and it made me feel guilty, so I begged him to let me come back. I somehow missed the abuse. The attention. He had said it before, many times, he was the only man who could ever love a stretch marked mother of two kids from different daddies. I needed him. How would I survive without him? He gave me everything I had. I would've been on the streets if it weren't for him. He was the only one who cared. He was right. When I called my dad to tell him what I had tried to do weeks prior, he could only tell me how selfish I was. How stupid I was and how he would not comfort me for something so mental. I knew as I hung the phone up, there really was no way out. I was going to die by his hands, and when I did - it'd be because I deserved it for being such a useless person. He pitied me so much that he continued the relationship. And I was lucky he was so forgiving.
I didn't get away for another year. When I did, the city's entire police force was there, aiming guns in his body laying face down on the ground, while I put what was left of my belongings that he didn't just tear up or burn, while laughing at me and my inability to stop him. I got in the car that was filled with my infant daughter's dad, my first love and at the time, who I still loved, and two of his friends. We drove away and 24 hours later, I was crawling into his bed and sleeping without the fear of being abused or screamed at or forced to have sex because it was my obligation to him as his girlfriend. I could just sleep.
When you're in an abusive relationship, it's not that you're just being hit by a stranger. That you've got other options. You're being groomed to stay, to feel like you deserved it, that it's the abusers right to you. You are not you. You are their property and obedience is a must lest you get punched in your already bruised cheek. Being hit in an already bruised spot is more painful than you could imagine. I needed a miracle, for someone to care about me, to be able to get away. Someone who won't take 'no thank you, I'm fine' as an answer.
I am diagnosed with PTSD. He was only a small piece contributor. There is a lot more torture. A lot more venom released into me. I am broken.
With my three year old's hand in mine, asking to be carried too, and my 8 month old in my embrace, we begin walking down our unlit gravel driveway toward nowhere and nothing is open until 6 am. We walk, all crying, all shivering from the nearly winter weather, and I have no hope. My mom eventually comes running down the drive at me and asks me for my babies, she'll put them in my sisters' room for the night. She tells me Drew has his private entryway unlocked and to come sneak into the house. So I lay as close to the bed as I can, out of view if my dad comes knocking. And I'm terrified. Tomorrow, I have to leave and I have nowhere but here to go to. What am I going to do? I have no job, money, a car, now a home? Why?
At 10 am, Drew and I sign our (my first ever) lease on the apartment he paid for, for us to get into. So my kids had a home. So I wasn't on the streets.
I had to forfeit my 8 month old to her father who lived in Texas. There was no way Drew could afford to care for an infant. She had to go. And reluctantly, I called her dad and he arrived three days later on a greyhound bus. I was in agony.
Months, maybe 4, later, my 3 year old wanted to watch a movie with mommy on the couch. We had just gotten a hand-me-down tv and vcr and she never slept on her own anyway. It was just perfect, until about 11 pm. Drew went to the bar some hours earlier and came home a drunk mess, much like the night my dad sealed my fate with him. Screaming at me, how bad of a mom I am to let a toddler be up this late, he grabs her by her one ankle and hangs her upside down for a moment before throwing her straight down onto her head, onto the floor. Go put that F'ing brat to bed! She's hysterical as he's telling me to shut her up. And I'm trying not to let my cries radiate any further than my mouth. I'm scared of what he'll do if he catches me crying. My dad used to laugh at me and flaunt how prideful he was of his power to make me cry like he could. If Drew was acting like my dad does, who knows what other similar traits they share. The abuse went from screaming, throwing things, punching walls, to throwing the thing AT me, punching me, screaming at me asking why I made him do that to me? Why can't I just do what he says? I eventually had to make up excuses for my bruises. Had to wear long sleeved shirts to work. One day, I came home and asked where my daughter was. He, in a proud voice, says, "I had your mom come get her. I am tired of her always whining and wanting you and you always ignoring me for her." I was devastated. But, what could I do? Drew made up lies to my parents about me. They never talked to me. Only until recently, like 2 months ago, did my mom find out that it wasn't me who requested her to take my kid, it was him who took her away from me. Once she was gone, the raping became a normal activity of his. Then the beatings and threats of murdering me if I ever tried to leave. All while waving a .22 like a trophy. I tried killing myself at 19. I had tried to leave Munroe multiple times, and failed. Suicide was my only option. Both my kids were in safe places. He found me in the bathroom and I went to the hospital in an ambulance very drugged up. I was in the hospital under suicide watch for 4 days. He was on the no access list by my best friend, whom he hated. After I was released, I went home with her. That lasted only two weeks because all we did was party and it made me feel guilty, so I begged him to let me come back. I somehow missed the abuse. The attention. He had said it before, many times, he was the only man who could ever love a stretch marked mother of two kids from different daddies. I needed him. How would I survive without him? He gave me everything I had. I would've been on the streets if it weren't for him. He was the only one who cared. He was right. When I called my dad to tell him what I had tried to do weeks prior, he could only tell me how selfish I was. How stupid I was and how he would not comfort me for something so mental. I knew as I hung the phone up, there really was no way out. I was going to die by his hands, and when I did - it'd be because I deserved it for being such a useless person. He pitied me so much that he continued the relationship. And I was lucky he was so forgiving.
I didn't get away for another year. When I did, the city's entire police force was there, aiming guns in his body laying face down on the ground, while I put what was left of my belongings that he didn't just tear up or burn, while laughing at me and my inability to stop him. I got in the car that was filled with my infant daughter's dad, my first love and at the time, who I still loved, and two of his friends. We drove away and 24 hours later, I was crawling into his bed and sleeping without the fear of being abused or screamed at or forced to have sex because it was my obligation to him as his girlfriend. I could just sleep.
When you're in an abusive relationship, it's not that you're just being hit by a stranger. That you've got other options. You're being groomed to stay, to feel like you deserved it, that it's the abusers right to you. You are not you. You are their property and obedience is a must lest you get punched in your already bruised cheek. Being hit in an already bruised spot is more painful than you could imagine. I needed a miracle, for someone to care about me, to be able to get away. Someone who won't take 'no thank you, I'm fine' as an answer.
I am diagnosed with PTSD. He was only a small piece contributor. There is a lot more torture. A lot more venom released into me. I am broken.
