My name is Desire’, or Dezzy as I prefer to be called. I thought I had met this wonderful Christian guy who treated me and my two sons wonderfully and I was so lucky. Reality, I had met a monster who was going to destroy me as the person I was and turn my whole world upside down. He stopped being this wonderful Christian guy and started being this controlling, manipulative, drunken man who would abuse me emotionally, sexually, financially and mentally. He was a narcissist so no matter what the reason for him getting angry and drunk, I would feel the need to apologize and feel as though it was my fault. In September of 2014 I awoke to him being gone and my youngest child cold, stiff and blue, I was in a panic and he was calm cool and collected, even during the entire investigation, that monster of a man was so cold to the entire situation, after the investigation was completed, they said it was undetermined how my son had suffocated so they had to rule it as SIDS by suffocation. After this, I was in such misery and utter grief that this man spiked my drink, got me drunk and sexually assaulted me and even after pleading with him to stop he continued and caused me tons of pain, he also ripped out my IUD and decided to keep it in his wallet (which to my knowledge he still has to this day). After this, he became so abusive, drunken and rageful that me and my son both took so much abuse at his hand. He starved me because he would say I was ugly and fat and lock up all the cabinets and the refrigerator, he would make me feel guilty in front of other people in public if I ate or drank anything, and he would just make me feel so ugly and worthless. He would tell me I was the most worthless person in the world and he did the same to my son. Then he decided he wanted to have a daughter and forced me to have sex with him repeatedly until we could get pregnant, he even forced me to do sexual things I didn’t want to do because “it could improve the chances of getting pregnant” and when we finally got pregnant with my oldest daughter, he proudly showed me off to everyone that he knocked me up and I was going to have his daughter. His step-mother at the time tried to tell me to run and get away from him while I can, but when I asked her why she refused to talk to me about it any more than that. When my daughter was born, he went back to abusing me in every way he could and making me feel like I was the most worthless person in the world and I decided to try to get a job to get away from him for awhile since he was no longer working. I would go to work and he would constantly blow up my phone harassing me at work convincing himself that I was cheating on him with a guy at work. I eventually got fired because he showed up at my job and insisted that I come out at once because I was “caught” in the act, even though I was at work. After this, he took control of my phone, contacting everyone of my friends and family members as me and convinced them I didn’t need them anymore and that I was just fine with him. Then things progressed to him abusing my daughter by locking her in the room and making her cry endlessly without any care or love because “she needs to learn to not cry” and then he would keep me from going to her aid. Then he lost a job he had been working and came home and told me he wanted me to have sex with him and when I refused he threatened my children and I told him I would do whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t hurt my children. He held my throat tightly, trying to strangle me until he was able to satisfy himself keeping me from screaming for help and then he refused to let me out of the house until the markings were completely gone. Then, feeling guilty, he started taking me and my children to church and of course he put on a good show at the church so no one really knew what he was like.
June of 2016 he had become so drunk that he threw me on the bed, locked the door and held me at gunpoint to have sex with him repeatedly until he was satisfied, he passed out, I got up and got the kids gathered into a room and locked the door, trying to gather up a bag so that we could leave, then he started banging on the door telling me to let him in or he would shoot me, then he busted through the door with the gun pointed at me and the kids waving it around and me and the kids were terrified. I told him I would do whatever he wanted, just as long as he didn’t harm the kids and I got up and walked over to him. He took me by the hair and once again sexually assaulted me over and over and over again….Then he left the house and I acted quickly, I ran to our neighbors house and requested to use her phone. I called his cousin and his cousin rushed to come get me and the kids and we fled to his aunts house and stayed there. He showed up drunk there and demanded I leave and he continued to harass me and my family until I came back, threatening he would turn in evidence that I had killed my own child and that I was abusive to him and all these things that would get me put in prison forever. I was scared to death about what he would do so I felt like I had no choice but to return to him and he only put me under tighter lock and key. It got so bad I was so isolated and scared and believed him when he said he had friends in the FBI and CIA that would find me no matter where I fled to and that I would never escape him he would always find me. I even tried to tell the pastor’s wife and the pastor of the church I attended that me and the kids were being abused and they decided to confront him with me and the kids present. That only made us get more abused and isolated us from everyone until no one but him was in our lives, he had even turned my own family on me and the kids to where they wanted nothing to do with us.
January 2017 I had finally had enough of his abuse and made the decision to leave. I told him this was my last day and that after work I was done with him and would be living with my parents until I can make other arrangements. He argued with me and tried to convince me that it was my hormones talking because he had once again knocked me up with another daughter and that I was just hormonal. Then I attempted to leave for work and he wouldn’t let me leave. Finally I got passed him and he told me that if I walked out of this house with my phone, he would report it stolen and have me arrested. I chucked the phone on the couch and walked out of the house only to have him follow me and stand in front of the vehicle so I could not leave. Finally, after what seemed like forever, he let me leave and I was halfway down the driveway before I realized what time it was, I was going to be late for work and policy is I had to call into work and let them know whether I was coming or not so I had to go back to the house because my phone was in the house. When I got there, he refused to let me in and I continued to beat on the door pleading with him to let me in. Finally he unlocked the door and before I knew it, he had left with all the phones. I waited for an hour and a half thinking maybe he would go get my son from school and come back and when he didn’t come back home, I took my daughter and left for the library to call work and let them know I wasn’t coming in. I eventually decided to go to the school only to find that my son was still there and I told him that we would stop by the house and grab some stuff and go to my parents house. When I got back to the house there were five or six cop cars sitting at the hill making it hard for me to get up to the house, I left the vehicle running because it was cold and the cops were coming to me yelling about a gun. They convinced me to go inside only to find the house being searched by the cops and I had no idea what was going on. After being asked the same question multiple times, I was handcuffed and taken to jail. I was told I was being arrested for fighting with my husband in the presence of children. Then three days later I was being charged with Terroristic Threatening, Aggravated Assault on a family member and child endangerment. He had told the officers that I had pointed a gun at him and my daughter and had me arrested. I spent 33 days in jail and my children went into the foster care system for nine months. I had to fight against my charges for almost a year before they finally dropped them, the system revictimized me because the judge wouldn’t listen to my side of the story or the abuse my children and I endured, he paid attorneys in several counties to keep me from getting a PROTECTION ORDER and he terrorized me at every child exchange I had to do with my daughter and refused to work with me at all. The DHS services wouldn’t listen to my fears of what my children had to endure with all the abuse and wouldn’t hear any of it because “he made me out to be the aggressor and that it what I was” and he gaslighted me at every turn. After the DV shelter I worked with was laughed at in court and decided it wasn’t a real shelter because it saw me and my children as the victims and not the aggressor, the DHS refused to allow me to have my kids back until my parent’s and I got a civil rights attorney involved and threw a lawsuit at the County Sheriff department for civil rights violations and the DHS for civil rights violations. The DHS office even threatened to take my rights away from me several times for following laws and the judge ignored my temporary protection order I had received from state of where I resided. The other woman he was with later came forward and told me that he and her had attempted to break into my house to plant drugs in the house to keep me from gaining custody of my children. I lost everything, job, car, house, clothes, everything and had to start completely over with nothing.
I struggled with even crossing into the state where he resided for two entire years because I was so afraid of him, I struggled to make a decision without asking someone for permission, I struggled with self value and worth and many days I wanted to just lay in bed and cry. My children were my inspiration to keep moving and fighting for something better. While I was in jail, I helped three other woman who were being abused find their inner strength to get out and get away from their abusers and find that they deserve better. I have been independent for over two and a half years completely self- reliant, struggling still but able to survive. I have provided for my children on my own and I am now a home-owner raising chickens. I am in school getting my Criminal Justice Degree with a minor in Psychology so that I can hopefully become a Victim Advocate and share my life’s experiences with those who are in similar situations, that it looks hopeless right now, but in time you can and will make it. I have hopes and dreams and aspirations to start a Project of having Self-Reliant Safehouses where women and children can take shelter and work on learning how to be more self- reliant so that they can achieve their full potentials and not feel afraid of leaving their abusers because they don’t have anyone to support them.
I am a Survivor of Domestic Abuse and the cycle that claims those who are trapped in it even before they realize what is happening and I am a stronger person because of the experience that I endured to get me to where I am now. I just want other’s to know they can escape their abusers and overcome the many obstacles that are in their ways.
