Surviving Domestic Abuse: My Journey to Freedom by Julia R

This is my story. My story begins when I was 19 years old. I had met this man online through a dating app. At the time I started speaking to him I was living in a shelter with at the time my 3 year old son. I decided after talking to him for only several days that I was going to meet up with him. I had my best friends since 3rd grade pick me and my son up and drive us to where he lived at in Baltimore. The shelter we were in was in Southern Maryland which was about an hour drive from where he lived. I had only planned to hang out with him for a few hours. His name is Brandon. A few hours turned into a few days then a few weeks then months. In that time frame the first signs of abuse that I encountered were that anytime anyone pissed him off he would take his frustrations out on me or my son or us both. I didn’t know what to expect or anything I was terrified as on what to do and just terrified in general. One day me, his sister Beverly, and her two kids Bahia and Brent and my son Camren and him all went to the park. As we were getting ready to leave he got mad about something I can’t remember what all I remember was that I was not the reason why he was mad but yet he still came up to me and out of nowhere punched me in my face. My eye had ended up getting black. I remember his sister trying to cover up my eye with makeup. Funny thing is his family knew he was abusing me even witnessed him abusing me but never did anything. Only one time they pulled him off of me. They begged me not to call the police on him so I didn’t. The abuse got so bad that he wouldn’t let me go to the store or out at all by myself if I went to the store his sister would accompany me. His family would allow him to hurt me and my son. One time I was reading bible stories to my son before bed, me and my son were in our room area that we slept in right next to the kitchen and their was a curtain separating the living room from that room in the kitchen that we slept in. He was in the living room playing a video game with his stepdad and when he heard me reading the bible stories to my son he stormed in the room and smacked the book out of my hand and yelled at me to stop reading it to him because it was annoying. Another time him and his sister, her kids, and their parents were going to Mcdonald’s they asked me if I wanted them to bring me back anything I had no money but all I asked for was a 10 piece nugget fries for me and my son to share. When they got back they had lied to me and said that Mcdonald’s had ran out of both nuggets and fries and then proceeded to throw leftover scraps of their burgers and a few fries at me and my son. Me and my son at the time were barely eating because they barely fed us and at the time I didn’t have any income or even any food stamps his mother was supposed to help me get my food stamps but never did. So as a result of us barely eating my son and I got very skinny and malnourished. We both had bruises all over our bodies from his abuse. One time he choked me for so long that I ended up unconscious and in the hospital. While I was in the hospital in and out of consciousness his mother was there with me at my bedside. I remember the nurse asking her how I had gotten all those bruises on my body and she lied to the nurse saying I had fell down a flight of stairs. Another time he gave my son who is deathly allergic to all forms of peanuts and peanut butter a piece of candy from Halloween lying to my son saying their was no peanuts in it. Even when he knew my son had the peanut allergy. One day I had managed to leave him with one of his sister’s male friends that I had started liking his name is Demetrius. I ended up getting away with my son and Demetrius and being able to get into a shelter that only had room for me and my son to stay there for one night even after I explained my situation to them. One night after trying to find someplace to go with my son and Demetrius I started having bad stomach pains so Demetrius took me to the closest hospital where I was told that I was pregnant. Thinking that since I’m pregnant Brandon would change so I called him and told him I was pregnant and asked him would he like me to come back so we could raise our child together he had told me yes so I went back thinking he would change because I was pregnant with his first child. I went back and he still continued to hit me knowing I was carrying his unborn child. He even told me he would kill me and the baby while I’m carrying it. My final straw was when he pushed me on the floor and I hit my head on a wooden chair while carrying his baby. I started packing mine and my son’s things after I gathered myself. At first I thought he was going to try to keep us hostage again but to my surprise he let us leave but I didn’t want him to change his mind before we could get away from his house so I grabbed my son’s hand and ran with him and our stuff through the woods that led to an apartment complex and got taken in by a woman who always saw me and my abuser on the streets walking together and she had told me she could tell that he was beating us and that she was glad we got away and she gave me and my son a hot meal while we waited for our ride to get us. When my friend had finally got to us he drove past my abuser’s house and had wanted to stop so he could beat him up but the minute we got near his house I started shaking and crying so my friend kept going. My friend drove me to my best friend’s house the one’s that had driven us to my abuser’s house so I could meet him the first time. My friend ended up paying for mine and my son’s greyhound tickets to take us to New York where my parents were. When we got to New York my dad was waiting at the station to meet us and when we got off the bus and he seen us he started crying because of how skinny and malnourished we looked and how we had all these bruises all over us. My parents had thought we were going to come back in body bags to them. My abuser never let me contact my family at all when I was with him so my family was not able to help me. My parents went as far as calling child protective services out in Baltimore to help me and my son but when the worker came my abuser had me and my son locked up in the back room and him and his family lied to the worker saying we didn’t live there anymore. By sharing my story I hope this could help someone who is, was, or in the future \will experience domestic violence. It may be hard but you can do it and speak out and leave your abuser. If you have a safe space in an area where your abuser is not around call somebody to help you. If not their are other ways that your abuser will not notice. I hope my story sends an important message as well with being careful who you meet off the internet and also to be careful with anything if you notice the red flags in the beginning of abuse leave before it gets worse. We all can be survivors and share our stories with support and help in the beginning.