In March 2019, I began dating a man with whom I lived with in the back of a refrigerated truck. The first 24 hours we were together, he held an axe over my head, and tried to convince me he was my boyfriend I had dated long-term reciting details of our personal life, with whom I was “on a break”. When I believed him instantaneously in a feat of Stockholm Syndrome, he then proceeded to perform a reverse exorcism on me, smash a cane over the head of a man who came to protect me, and throw the axe at me, the door and other people multiple times. When I attempted to run from him he grabbed me by the face and held me down on the ground.
I attempted to call the police, but he instead called in a false drug possession charge. The police, when I attempted to call for domestic violence arrested me, screamed at me, put a mask over my face, and called me an “it” because of my gender-orientation. They later released me with little to no charges.
Out of desperation, I went back to the man in the refrigerator truck. He had all of my belongings and I had no other place to go. After just a few days, he beat me, smashing my head and splintering my elbows against the inside of the truck in front of my current boyfriend’s teenage son, who came to my rescue. He smashed his guitar over my head, claiming I owed him $800 for it, and threw a radio at my head because it was playing Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You”. Blood spurted out of my head like in a Quentin Tarentino movie just above my eye.
While he was screaming in front of my current boyfriend’s son, “I don’t know if I’m going to marry you, kill you, or kidnap you and take you up in here,” I performed first aid on the wound, shouting at him to “get a towel”, “get some water”, and “get a long sleeved tee-shirt”, while comforting my current boyfriend’s son. I escaped by hiding in the bathroom for hours pretending to be using drugs while formulating an escape plan.
I snuck out when the coast was clear and made my way to a gas station where his boss attempted to get me to the ER with a nurse I knew. I declined and called the local domestic violence agency for help from a gas station where I cleaned the wound with my bandana I was given by a stranger. When domestic violence arrived they took me to the ER where they cleaned the wound and gave me stiches, kicking and screaming. I then left behind all of my things and received treatment for six months at a hospital where my friend and my current boyfriend came to visit me. I have been with my boyfriend, the one that my ex impersonated, for a year and a half today. I have a permanent scar on my face, and I still deal with stalking incidents to this day from that man. The police attempted to get me to press charges, and in fact, the policeman who pushed for my story was the partner of the cop that arrested me before, but for my own reasons, I chose to forgive and move on. I am thankful for my boyfriend and thankful to be alive. Respect.
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