Erica: A Survivor’s Journey Through Domestic Violence

Hello, my name is Erica and I am a domestic violence survivor. I first experienced domestic violence in my teens. I grew up on the west side of Chicago. Both my mom and dad were addicted to drugs and I guess you can say that I was looking for love in all the wrong places. Since I didn’t get love and attention at home I was easily influenced by boys my age. I had a boyfriend at 12 years old. he was so Jealous and possessive and didn’t like me talking to anybody one day I was talking to someone outside of a window, he invited me to come upstairs so that we could continue our conversation in the hallway. I went up there and the next thing I knew the guy came from out of nowhere. He called me out my name and told me that I had until the count of ten to get down the stairs. I asked the other guy to give me something to protect myself. The guy handed me a knife. the other guy counted to ten and he slapped me so hard that my head hit the incinerator. I closed my eyes and before I knew it I just got to swinging the knife wildly. I heard the guy scream and I opened my eyes to see that he had been stabbed. I pushed past him and ran out of the building and back home. a little while later the police showed up to my moms apartment and placed me under arrest. I tried to tell them that I was just protecting myself. But I was told that since I used a weapon that I would placed under arrest. I was only twelve years old at the time. I was put on probation. I wasn’t a problem child and had never been in trouble before. one day my probation officer came to our apartment to do her visit. She smelled drugs coming from the apartment and contacted DCFS and me and my sisters were taken away. They went to live with relatives and I went to a group home. One day I ran away from the group home in search for my mom. She had lost our apartment but I remember her taking us over to my unlces house and I remembered where he lived so I went to his place to find her. She wasn’t there but her boyfriend was home. He told me that my mom had went to the store and that she should be right back. He kept telling me how much I looked like my mom. I noticed that he kept picking up this coffee mug but it didn’t smell like it was coffee in it. He sat disturbingly close to me on the couch. He was so close that I could smell the liquor on his breath. He kept asking me for hugs. the last hug that I gave him he kissed me. He rubbed on my breast and the next thing I knew he had my clothes down and me bent over the couch and he raped me. he fell on my back once he was done and just laid there. eventually, he got up. while doing so he told me how good I was and how he was going to take care of me because we was going to do it again. He then told me to go into the bathroom and clean myself up. I did as I was told. He went into the bathroom and I went into the bathroom and turned on the water from the faucet. I sat on the toilet holding my underwear in my hands. I remember crying so hard. I heard him close the bedroom door. I hurried up and put on my clothes and ran as fast as I could with nowhere to go. I became a teenage mother. I graduated the 8th grade with a baby. By that time I was in foster care. I moved to the south side of Chicago and went to highschool. My mom eventually got herself together and she got back custody of us by the time my baby turned one. We still lived on the south side and I was able to attend the same highschool. I had joined the cheerleading team and everything. One day one of the guys from the football team offered me a ride home. I accepted the ride because it would have taken me three buses to get home. When we pulled up to my moms apartment my boyfriend was sitting outside on the steps waiting for me. I don’t know why but I instantly got scared. I hurried up and got out of the boys car and I walked up the stairs and into the apartment. my boyfriend followed me. I went straight to the bathroom. He blocked the door from closing and asked me for a hug. I asked him if he could wait until after I finished using the bathroom and he said no hug me now. I gave him a hug, but when I tried to let go he held on to me. I went to push him up off of me and I felt something sharp in my back. I tried harder to push away. When I was able to get him off me and closed the door I heard him yelling that he was going to kill me. I felt a sting in my shoulder blade and somewhere on my back. I had been stabbed. I heard my mom on the otherside of the door on the phone with the police. I did not open the door until I heard the police on the other side. They called me an ambulance. I remember being told that the knife was an inch from my lungs and that I could have died. I also remember laying in that ambulance on the way to the hospital with my eyes closed praying for me to make it. He went to jail and I was able to live worry free for a couple of years. I was set to graduate highschool and I started dating another guy. He was abusive too. not to the extent of the other guy but he would slap me around from time to time. The last straw with him was when I found out that he had been cheating on me. I was ready to break up and told him that. He refused to let me leave the house. he jumped on me and sat in front of the bedroom door so that I couldn’t leave. We lived on the third floor. I remember looking out of the window while he sat there asleep on the floor thinking if I would break a leg or something if I jumped. I didn’t have to jump tho. he suffered from sleep apnea and would sleep so hard that I was able to open the door with him laying on it just enough to get out. I looked for me some shoes to put on, he had hid all of my mates so I found two mixed matched shoes and ran as far as I could to the nearest pay phone and called the police. I met the police at the apartment and they took him out in his underwear. I had a black eye and some brusies. I didn’t press charges tho. I just wanted to leave and that’s what I did. I moved back in with my mother. believe it or not I went back to the guy that stabbed me. which was a big mistake. we moved to Indiana. Everything was going good. we had just got us a house together and I was set to start a new job. I was taking a bath and he was in the bathroom with me. My phone rang. and he answered. I don’t know who it was on the other end of the phone but the conversation mad him mad. he walked over to the tub and through the phone in the tub with me. He then grabbed me by my hair and started to push my head under the water. he would bring me back up after so long. he continued to do this several times. I just knew that I was going to die that day. He must’ve snapped out of whatever trance that he was in because he got to crying and kept repeating oh my god. He left the bathroom and I got out of the tub wrapped myself in a towel and followed him. He wnt into the kitchen and he grabbed a knife. I knew then that it was over. He said that he couldn’t belive that he put his hands on me gain. he said that he promised that he wouldn’t do that again. all the while he was holding the knife in his hand looking from me to the knife. I tried to convince him that everything was okay. I told him that I know that he didn’t mean to hurt me. I would’ve said anything to get out of there. before I knew it he placed his hand on the counter and he chopped off his baby finger. I screamed. his mom heard me and she ran into the kitchen. she told me to take him to the hospital. I hurried up and got dressed and I took him. as soon as he got to the back I ran out of there went back got my kids and some clothes and I haven’t looked back. I want to say that was the last encounter for me with domestic violence. Since then I have learned to love myself! I want to say to anyone who is experiencing this please get out! I am convinced that I if I hadn’t that someone would’ve probably taken my life or I probably would’ve taken theirs. its not worth it. Life goes on and it gets better. I will always have the memories of what I survived and it made me a stronger person today. I hope me sharing my story helps someone and give them the courage to leave.