My Story – Chrissy

October is National Domestic Violence Awareness
month. I think more people than I care to admit know
that I know more about Domestic Violence than
anyone should. Or my kids should. When I was 22 I
met my future husband and immediately fell in love
with him and what he was about. From the moment
we met he was always near and made me feel different
than anyone had prior to him. He cared and seemed
genuinely happy to be with me. As long as I was
with in his sight. I had a job where I worked 13 hour
shifts. This was a problem and he’d stop in to see my
unannounced a lot to make sure I was where I was
supposed to be. I just saw it at the time that he cared
that much and wanted to see me and found it oddly
endearing. Mind you, I’m 22. Couple more weeks go
by and he still hasn’t left my house and I’m thinking this
is something solid. He’s dropping me off and picking
me up now because he doesnt have a car or a home of
his own. Red flag, right? Nope. Chrissy is in love.
Then the accusations start. “You’re sleeping with my
friends. You’re sleeping with your boss. You’re sleeping
with my brother”. I end up quitting my job to ease his
mind. I am restricted from leaving the house to do
pretty much anything. When I do leave, I speed to and
from just so I cant be told I’m doing something wrong
because I took longer than he thought I should. I walk
a few steps behind him in stores because he thinks
I’m looking at every passing male. The very first time I
had ever been hit by any man was a very scary night.
He had just come back from Marshall and he was convinced i had cheated. (I found out later he was still
in a relationship with this girl from Marshall). His friend
had driven by and seen a male at my house. It was a lie
but he needed to believe that to feel better about what
he was doing. We fought. I cried. I told him I wasn’t
cheating and begged for him to believe me. But he was
convinced. In the back room of my very small trailer
house that me and my daughter shared, was the first
time I was back handed so hard I saw stars. He leaves
and comes back a few hours later and tells me how
much he loves me and I believe it.
He isnt going to work now and I gave up my job. I’ve
lost all my savings and I get evicted. I find out I’m
pregnant. I’m scared. He’s thrilled. But he was told he
could never have kids so I’m accused of cheating even
more than before. We fight and argue and make up. It
happens so much it’s normal now. The second time he
hurt me physically, I am about 5 months pregnant with
Janessa. I can’t even tell you why we fought that night.
I remember he ripped the head of my beloved teddy
bear I received 5 days before my birth from my parents
as a Christmas present. I cried and cried as I sewed
the head back on Charlie. Meanwhile, everytime we
fought Tristen was in her room pretending like this was
ok now. She’s 5 or so. He wouldnt leave me alone as
I sewed away. I took a knife after his down SouthPole
jacket. Feathers everywhere. I some how feel better
then boom. He pushed me so hard my stomach hit the
wall. I tried to leave. I couldn’t. He would hold doors shut. Beg me not to go. “It would never happen again,
baby. I promise.” The next day, flowers. I received so
many flowers in those 13 years.
We have Janessa and marry the next month. We
fought that night. He threw Subway and sprayed
shaving cream in my hair and face and I threw plates.
All with 2 kids in the house. He leaves and I’m cleaning
up the disaster we created. He comes back drunk and
wants to fight more. The aluminum broom gets busted
in half. He’s thrown me down on a couch and pries the
broom away from me that I am protecting myself with
and slices the hell out of his hand. Blood everywhere.
“You’re going to jail, you dumb bitch. You’ll never
see either one of your kids again”. He goes and gets
stitches but tell the ER he got in a fight uptown. Next
day, back to I love you baby, with flowers..
I’m not going to go into every single fight and detail.
I’d be writing all night. But this went on for years. I
had no self esteem. I thought this was my karma for
the things I had done when I was 18 and I deserved
this life. Thing is, when things were good they were
so fucking good. But when they were bad, it was epic.
We have Ava, then Carmine. I still feel like shit in my
head and in my body. Shortly after Carmine turns
10 months, I attempt suicide. Every pill I could find
drowned with booze and radiator fluid in the front seat
of my Tahoe. I’m pissed, it’s not working and I go in
our apartment. Hes asleep on the couch. Carmine is crying on the floor. I pick him up but I have no strength
at all. It took all i had to put him in his crib with a bottle.
The walls are closing in on me and I fall over right into
the Christmas tree. Bob wakes and realizes what has
happened and takes me to the ER. I spent a week in
the ICU. Paralyzed from the waist down for 2 of those
days. I really fucked up my system.
I get out and just nearly escape getting involuntarily
locked up in mental health.
Life resumes. More flowers. More I love yous. I start
college online. Now I’m fucking classmates from
Texas, he tells me. I’m drinking alot these days. We’re
fighting alot too. Multiple times the cops are brought
to our house. Sometimes he’s arrested, sometimes I’m
arrested. But always, right back to each other.
“I have a family here. I can’t leave.” He’s told me I
couldnt live without him anyhow and i believe it.
Carmine’s about 4 now and he’s having a full blown
affair with a 19 year old. I’m devastated. My family is
ruined. I’ve told him to leave, he begs me not too. But
he easily packs his bags and goes to his sisters house.
But he doesnt stay there. Hes with this girl at her
house a few blocks away and still telling me he wants
us to work out and wants his family to be whole again.
I tell him we can try again but he still doesnt come
home. One morning, my sister shows up at my house
and needs a ride home. I leave the house, bring her to
her house and drive past the girlfriend’s house. He’s there, with my truck. I’m actually on the phone with
his sister who’s living in Texas and were talking about
everything g like we used to do. Meanwhile, in my head
my life is falling apart. I say nothing more than “hes at
her house”. She tells me “go home, chrissy.” I do. I grab
our family picture right off the wall and grab a knife
and drive right back to her house. No one will answer
the door but I can hear whispering. I see his shoes
through the back door that is open a crack. I throw our
family picture through the door and proceed to slash
all 4 tires on my truck. But he tells me hes done with
her and she says it too and I take him back.
Shortly after, we go out for dinner and drinks and I’m
walking back up to the house and I hear the loudest
bang. I run into the house and lock the door. He shot a
handgun while my back was turned. I called the police.
Hes charged with unauthorized use of a firearm and
domestic aggravated assault and gets locked up. The
girlfriend pays his bond and hes released but there is a
protection order. Losing him to this female consumed
me. My friends told me to just quit, be done,
“he won’t
change”. I just felt like I was losing. He had always told
me I’d be nothing with out him and I believed it. All I’d
ever wanted to be was a mother and a wife and my
life is falling apart. This goes on for 2 years. Him going
back to her then back to me then back to her. Most
of the times I’d find out by her calling or messaging
me because she was mad at him and wanted him to
pay. But he has her in this same cycle hes had me in
for years. I was so jealous of her for years. Compared myself to pictures of her. I’ve had 4 kids and don’t have
any business comparing myself to a 21 year old. My
self esteem and self worth is shot. There’s nothing left.
Inside I’m dead for the most part and just get through
my days feeling numb.
More flowers. I’m telling everyone how he’s changed
and we’re doing so much better and we are such
a happy family. He gives me the largest diamond
ring I’ve ever seen and we plan to renew our vows.
Hes back to accusing me of doing things with men
at work. Hes coming out to my every lunch break
and mean mugging every person. But I’m still telling
everyone “everything’s ok. We love each other more
than we ever have”.
More fighting. Always physical. And it’s both of us.
He’s hitting me. I’m swinging away at him. Another
suicide attempt while I’m drunk and and in my wedding
dress because I want to wear it once before I die.
Another hospital stay. More flowers.
We renewed our vows a few weeks after he held
me down on our kitchen floor while the kids were
at school, braced himself with the kitchen stove
and jumped as hard as he could into my back. Both
of us sober, but he came home from work and
I was on my phone.
I can’t tell you how many phones I went through. How
many windows were busted. How many mirrors were
bashed off the side of my vehicle as I tried to drive
away. There are alot of other instances and alot of them are too bad to repeat and only those very close
to me know those stories. You have no idea how
ingrained I was to this man. The cycle of violence
happened over and over. My counselor called it the
honeymoon cycle. Things are great, then good, then
not so good, then something triggers a fight and then
all hell breaks loose. Flowers. Over and over. I can’t
escape. I know I cant support my kids and myself. So
I stay. Now that Tristen is older, he takes alot of his
anger out on her and I cant do anything or he turns
on me too. I’ve failed her.
One of the last fights we had, he threw my S4 at the
back of my head when I was doing laundry. It’s broken
now. I can’t do this today. I grab the money I’ve been
slowly hoarding and hiding in a Glade air freshener.
I escape the house. I’m locked in my van, crying. My
kids are in the house. How can I leave them? The van
is started. Hes telling me to come in the house but I
will not. I put the van in reverse. There goes my mirror.
I say fuck it. I go to a casino, buy 8 strawberritas, my
drink of choice back then and figure this is my last
day on earth, take a bottle full of xanax and put my
money into the machine and win. I won alot. Like
almost $400. Neat. I go to walmart and buy a cheap
phone. And that was all she wrote. They found me on
the floor in Walmart and called the police. Then called
the ambulance. I’m back in the ICU for 4 days. They
tell me I can go voluntarily to Avera Behavior Health or
I can go involuntarily. I consent to treatment and I’m released to get some things from home and go straight
to Sioux Falls. Bob buys me a beer and gives me a
vicodin. I cry in the shower as he packs me a bag.
Avera was the best thing that happened to me. I took
CBT therapy and they put me on a mix of medication.
I’m diagnosed with Dysthymia disorder and general‐
ized anxiety. One of the medications was to help me
lose weight because I had such body dysmorphic is‐
sues. I thought I was fat and if I wasnt fat I’d feel better
about myself. By the weeks end, I could see clearer.
I actually dreaded when he picked me up. The ride
home was so different. The only way I could describe it
was normally you look out into fields and just see stuff.
I could see everything, I could see for miles. I continue
with my new medication at home. I spend multiple
hours cleaning the house. Spotless, every day.
The unimaginable happens. Tristen turns 18. She tells
me the morning of that today was the last day she
would live with us. I understood as I wanted to escape
so badly too. I sign over a bill of sale to her car so he
couldnt take it and I pretended I had no clue of what
was going to happen that night. I’m angry he took
my baby away. The child I loved so much and didnt
do everything in my power to give her the life a child
deserves. This escalates to the very last time I let him
hit me. The picture, i look at still constantly to this day
as a reminder to what I’ve been through and what I’ll
never put up with again. He wakes me in the middle of
the night, so drunk and asks me “who is 8814228?” I have no clue I tell him. I’m tired. I start crying because
I knew this was going to be an all night fight and I’m
so, so tired. “Who’s 8814228? I’m only asking you one
more time. Who the fuck is 8814228?” Hes sitting on
my chest in our bed and he punches me, hard. I lost
consciousness. He leaves me and goes out to the
kitchen to drink more. I slowly pack some things and
he tells me “good, get the fuck out of my house. Noone
wants you here. I dont. The kids dont”. I wait for him to
go to bed. He wont. Finally I peek out. His head is on
the counter. I sneak out and he pops up and laughs.
Grabs my garbage bags of things, rips them open
shakes them all out. In a sing song tone he mocks
me,
“You’re not going anywhere, you’re not going
anywhere”. He slices his arm and says “you did this to
me, you’re going to jail.” I grab my medication and my
dead dogs ashes and a pair of black pants for work the
next day and run. I go to the parking lot of the Super 8.
I have to work there in a few hours and I hide. My eye is
completely swollen shut. I had sent the picture earlier
in the night when i was hiding from bob to tristen and
told her to please keep the picture as i was going to
delete it from the phone i sent it from. She showed this
photo to my sister and her husband. When I was at
work that day, bob swung through and took my phone
from my housekeeping cart and shortly after that my
brother in law showed up and said “you’re coming to
live with us, TODAY!!” I was so relieved. He also called
the cops and bob returned my phone. I went to live
with Heather but the head games continued still. He would follow me at work. He even stalked one of my
coworkers. He rushed into heathers house and stole
my phone again. Always so concerned that I was
cheating on him. He said he couldn’t handle the kids
so they came to my sisters too but the room we stayed
in was so small for all of us and they weren’t happy.
He eventually took the kids and ran off in the middle
of the night to Minnesota. He wouldnt let me talk to
them and what he was doing was completely legal
since we were married. I filed for pro se divorce myself
and waited. I filed for an order of protection. I rented a
small house and he eventually came back and violated
the order. I was able to get the kids back because he
was in jail. I ended up getting custody of the kids when
the divorce was granted.
There is alot to my story than what you have just read.
I don’t trust men. Only recently have I been able to look
in a mirror and find one or two things attractive about
myself. I’m still so scared to open up to anyone or feel
that vulnerable with anyone again. Not only that, I
don’t know how. I know abuse and dysfunction. I have
severe guilt about how I raised my children and what
I allowed them to see. Taught them the wrong ways
to show and receive love.