Hello, my name is Jasmine Higgins and I am a survivor of Domestic Violence.
Just like everyone else when I first met my batterer he was very charming. He would buy me flowers all the time and he made it a point to show he was going to be the best father to my son because I was a single mother at the time. I believed everything and because I was seeing only through rose colored glasses I married him after on 4 months. He used to tell me his ex-wife would keep him away from his kids but I soon found out that was a lie shortly after we got married. I noticed she would regularly contact him to see his kids and he would ignore her or he would tell her he would meet her but would pretend to be sleep or too busy and never show up (first lie). After that he shortly started his control and power by controlling the religion it was I met him in. He would state I wasn’t doing my wifely duties at home and when I would try to get other people involved he would state that I’m crazy and I make up stories and my family knows me for that so they wouldn’t listen. He also started to enforce corporal punishment with my son who at the time was on 1 years old. My son would call him by his name initially and one day he back handed him in the mouth and made my babies mouth bleed and told him “you call me daddy”. A few days after that i snuck in my car and dropped my son at my mom’s and I lived out of my car for two months. When I came back to get me and my son’s clothes he just happened to be home (I had calculated when he should be at work). And he stated to me “when your married you want just leave, we are not dating we are married, u can’t leave without adultery so we need to talk. I remember talking to him and him breathing so heavily and rolling his eyes and saying blah blah blah. But I then came the cycle of love bombing.
He would buy me flowers if I stopped talking and would be extra nice to my son, knowing I craved a father figure for him and used that as his way to control me. The hitting my son never stopped, but got worse and his mother would state to me that “it was him bonding with him as a son” she also pushed me to stay with him swearing he loved me .
A few years passed, which during these years he would punch and destroy walls, I had a dog which he would kick all the time as well. He finally hit me. I was going to school for my nursing degree and he decided to stop working, I tried to push through bc he had child support and I felt I needed to help my husband support the family, which later I realized was false. I was working part time and going to school full time and I had my son in daycare during these times. He would tell me he was looking for a job for me to get home and see him sleep in the same position I left him and one day I couldn’t take it and I told him I was moving back with my mom. He took my phone and I grabbed my laptop to Google the address and took my laptop and smashed it into pieces. After that I tried to run out the door and he pushed me against the wall choking me and I pushed him off and started screaming for help. After that I packed all of my stuff and put my baby in the car and tried to drive away and he jumped in my car and started punching my dashboard over and over and over. I drove to my grandpa’s in tears bc I couldn’t believe I was in that situation.
When we got there he promised he would never do that again and we stayed at my grandpa’s for 3 months and moved bc he didn’t want to get a job so we moved to a small one bedroom which is where he would have my son sleep in a closet. One day we had his kids and they were crying bc they missed their mom and he screamed at them and told them they couldn’t talk to her. I didn’t feel that was right so I gave them my ipad to call their mother and we started arguing. While we were arguing my son was pushing him to leave me alone and he slapped my son in his face and busted his lip. After I went to hit him and he twisted my arm and rammed my head into the dresser. I grabbed my baby and ran out the house and went to my grandpa’s right after, which when my grandpa asked what happened I lied and told him I fell and hurt myself.
After this I went back because once again he apologized saying that that wouldnt happen anymore and we moved to a two bedroom apartment in the same area. He said it would be a great start for the kids, so I agreed and went bc we would start over. We stayed there for about a year and he pinned me on the bed slapping me back and forth for refusing to sleep in the bed with him bc he had just cussed his mother and stepfather out. Two days after he beat my son really bad and left him with bruises all over and a black eye and I was so scared nothing will compare to that feeling of fear and anger and I didn’t know what to do. A friend of mines and my mother called DCFS and opened a case. By this time I also want to add I had twins by this same man bc he said “the only reason you want to leave was because we didn’t have anything together” I feel sick to my stomach just thinking about it.
DCFS told me if I wanted to keep my kids I needed to seperate but I was a stay at home mom by this time and he was the sole provider and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to take care of my kids so I would sneak and stay with him. Prior to moving with his mom and him I stayed with my dad with the kids and I was scared and he would text me and tell me to come be with him and he was sorry and he would do better, and so as per usual, I believed him. I moved to his mom’s and his mom would play this sermon about a woman who stayed with her abusive husband for 20 years and he finally changed and that it takes patience and prayer. It made me sick to my stomach everytime. She played it 24/7.
While the case was open he never hit me but he abused me in every other way. Mentally, emotionally, financially and DCFS makes u take a DV course which I was able to see them I was getting abused the whole entire marriage.
After the case closed it was about a month before our anniversary and I made a dinner and had his mom watch the kids so we could enjoy it and this night was the night I finally mustered the strength to leave. He came in trying to argue about money he spent which was needed for the kids to get clothes. And I stated “I can’t depend on you” after that he took the bowl he had his crab boil in and threw it directly at my face. It was one of the really hard ceramic bowls. I got up and grabbed a knife about to stab him and mid way dropped it and threw it in the trash and he choked me on the wall and I broke out of it and he slammed me on the floor and put all of his weight directly on my neck. I remember crying and saying “God this is not how I pictured my life!” And I tried pushing off the wall to free myself and it put a hole in the wall. Afterwards he stated,”now look the kids are gonna get home and see you wanted to fight and put a hole in the wall”
Bc he was very possessive I had to coordinate an escape plan with my family to move away. Unfortunately that included me leaving him with my twins but me and my older son were able to escape and I currently have a restraining order against him.
Today I’m currently fighting for custody of my kids. He got remarried to another woman and paints me to be a horrible woman who abandoned my kids. She believes him and believes it’s in the kids best interest that she does not speak to me about anything in concern to my kids. She is fully aware he was convicted of domestic violence with both me and my kid and his previous wife with their kids. He has my kids address her as mom and controls me seeing my kids stating “you thought I would make this easy for you? U recently just left me”
I hate this man with my whole soul
