Written by: Andrea, Survivor and BTSADV Volunteer
How to even begin to explain where my story begins… It started as an innocent friendship with no romantic involvement. As I began to hang out with my abuser more and more, there were so many red flags like the fact that he had to wake up and immediately start drinking or he would get sick. I never even saw any of the flags, as I was too consumed with my own life and struggles.
That is when his father asked that I help him move to Nevada because he had never really lived on his own. At this point in my life, I loved to travel and had nothing really tying me down, so I thought a new start would be great. So, we moved to Nevada, and yet again, we were still just friends.
As we got established in Nevada the relationship changed slightly but, I was not completely invested. We had a two-bedroom townhouse and continued to live separately. Then for my birthday, we decided to go to dinner one night. That was when everything changed. At dinner everything was fine. Afterward, we went back to the house and were talking about random events in our lives.
I mentioned that years ago when I lived in Memphis, I had the opportunity to go out with Justin Timberlake (not knowing it was him) and turned it down. As I was laughing about it, I watched his whole demeanor and body language change. It was like someone else had possessed his body and he completely different. He started getting irritated and upset at the fact that I had the chance to go on this date, even though it never actually occurred. I was completely dumbfounded and told him I was not going to allow someone to ruin my birthday and I was leaving so he could calm down because this was silly.
I left for the evening and went out with some friends. When I arrived back home the next day, I walked into hell on earth; I could tell that he was still upset so I went upstairs to just pack a bag. That is when he cornered me in the bedroom, screaming and yelling at me, and then dragged me down the stairs and started to go through my purse. I attempted to reach for my phone to call 911 and he threw it, breaking it.
I then tried to run to the kitchen where he tackled me and attempted to rip my jaw from my mouth. I managed to get away by biting down; to this day he still says that I was the one that hurt him by biting him. I then ran to the kitchen looking for something to defend myself with when he grabbed a knife and began choking me; I assumed that this was the end at this point.
I tried to scream as much as I could the whole time, and that is when I noticed that the back door was open. I still don’t know how to this day I got away but, I ran out the back door, climbed the 5-foot wood fence, and ran to a convenience store where they knew me – and they called the police. He left the house and was found walking down the street covered in my blood while the police assisted in filing the report. Unfortunately, that is just the beginning of my never-ending story.
A protective order was issued immediately, and I tried to contact some family. I didn’t have the best relationship with them but, I also didn’t have anywhere else to go, nor did I know what to do. For about a week I was okay, and he didn’t contact me. Then the texts and phone calls started and the “I love you’s” and “I’m sorry’s” and “I won’t do that ever again.” So, I do what most victims do: I believed him, but this time he wanted to move to Texas because his Mom was sick and having heart surgery. We could help her and get a fresh start. And so, I agreed to move to Texas only because this was NEVER going to happen again. And so, the story continued…
We got to Texas, and things were calm for a little while; everyone was so welcoming. And then the drinking and abuse began all over again. At first, we were staying at his mother’s house, and I would just hide in our room for fear of him. It got so bad that because his mother was a registered Foster Care Home and had medically needy foster children placed in her home. Child Protective Services stepped in and stated that he was not allowed to be around the children or myself. He had to go stay with a friend, and this infuriated him, his mother, and his step-father (who was a deputy sheriff).
I soon found a house and seriously considered whether I wanted him to move in with me but, as he would constantly remind me, I was nothing without him and his family. I was working for his mother at the time as well. Once we moved in together, it didn’t take too long before I made a huge decision that I was going to have to leave and couldn’t continue to live like this.
Then I kept getting sick and went to the doctor and found out I was pregnant. It was the hardest decision I had to make, to stay and see if he would change or leave and know either way there would be damage to be done. Yet again, I stayed, but we started to live separate lives. He stayed in the garage and drank, and I worked on getting the baby’s room together. We would have the occasional physical altercation after he had been drinking, and I would sleep in the baby’s room to avoid being around him.
His mother would enable and cover for his behavior by buying things for the baby or me but then make me feel guilty and ultimately telling me it was my fault. He never attended any of the prenatal appointments as I told him that he wasn’t allowed to drink on the way to the appointments. He responded by telling me that it was really because I was going to have sex with the doctor, not go to the doctor appointment.
A few months into my doctor’s appointment I found out I had cancer but, it was not a type of fast-growing cancer or one that they could do anything about while I was pregnant. This was yet again something I was told had caused and put on myself. I ultimately and thankfully gave birth to a healthy baby girl while he drank in his car that night. The day I was released from the hospital he yelled at so many of the staff because he wanted to get back to drinking, that they rushed the paperwork and allowed me to leave even though I was asking them to let me stay longer.
Once home, we continued to live separately, and he pretty much kept his distance from me and didn’t have much to do with me or the baby. At one point we discussed counseling and he even attempted to stop drinking, but it didn’t last long. And once he started drinking again, he would constantly tell me that it was the worst time of his life to be around both our daughter and me.
We then decided to make a trip to Colorado to visit his father so that he could meet his granddaughter. The trip started off well even though we missed our flight. Once we got there, things seemed to be going well. Then a couple days in he started drinking heavily and when we went to bed that night, he tried to start an argument with our daughter asleep at the foot of the bed.
I wouldn’t argue and allow her to get woken up, but he continued and physically grabbed me, so we went out into the hallway where his father, step-mom, and step-brother were at this point. I told him this was stupid, and I wasn’t doing this here, and I was just going to a hotel. That is when he told me if I took one more step, he was going to choke me out on the floor, and I wasn’t going anywhere.
I looked at his Dad and said, “What are you going to do?” and he just shrugged. I immediately ran to the bathroom and locked myself in there to see if I could find the first flight home. I couldn’t change my flight home at a reasonable cost, so I had to wait out the next two days and essentially ignored him and his family as they told me that I was to blame in this, too.
A friend of mine picked us up from the airport, and I warned her that when we got to the house, I was not planning on allowing him inside. She helped me into the house so he could not get inside, and I told him he was no longer welcome there. He was quite calm and agreed. He left willingly, but he still had the garage door opener which gave him access to the house.
About a week later I went and got a standard visitation plan in place so that he couldn’t say he didn’t have access to our daughter. He had yet to contact me, and I thought maybe things were calming down and would play out well. Then that all changed quickly and drastically; he began calling me every day, sometimes up to 100 times a day, with the same number of messages. He would also demand to see our daughter every single day even though that was not what was in the order.
He began to start to come into the house when I was not there and re-arrange the house or move items out. He even would wait until nighttime when I would come home. There he would be sitting in the dark waiting for me in the house. I had to hire an attorney for him just to remove his belongings from the house and attempt to follow the visitation order.
At this point, I would start to get knocks on the door at all hours of the night and began sleeping with our daughter in the closet with a baseball bat just to be safe. I also started to receive threatening messages at my work of what could possibly happen to me as well as other staff members. The babysitter that was caring for our daughter then began to receive messages threatening her and our daughter as well. This was when the police told me that I needed to obtain a protective order immediately.
I then went in and met with the Crime Victim Advocate. The day that I did this, I received 52 messages from him with 32 threatening my life in detail as well as our daughter’s. The Emergency Protective Order was put into place, and he was arrested that evening. He was immediately bonded out by his mother and began his reign of stalking and harassment. He became friends with my neighbor and would have him throw fireworks into my backyard when I would attempt to go outside or let the dogs outside.
Right before I got the protective order, Texas passed the law that covered your pets as well, so fortunately they were protected as he made numerous threats to come to get the dogs if they were outside and kill them since he couldn’t have them. He had several his other friends obtain what are called “burner” phones and continually call me and send me messages all day long as well as call my work; this would ultimately cause me to lose my job.
After losing my job, I didn’t leave the house much as he constantly followed me everywhere I went. I typically had to call the police every other night because he was trying to beat down the door or sending me messages about how he was going to kill me. I was calling the police so much that they wouldn’t even say “911” anymore they would just say “Ma’am we are already on our way.” When they did come out and attempt to go find him, typically his mother would hide him somewhere on her property.
Finally, they charged him with two misdemeanor counts of violation of protective order and put him on probation. His probation conditions were to follow the protective order and have an ankle monitor as well as an alcohol monitor. None of this stopped his behavior, and he continued his path of destruction to the point where I had to barricade myself in the house. There were times when they had to return our daughter wrapped in a blanket from his house, so he didn’t know for fear of what he was going to do.
At this point, his mother attempted to reach out to me and state that she feared him and wanted to help. I was leery but put her in contact with the Crime Victim Advocate where she filled out an affidavit stating she lived in fear that he was going to kill me, possibly himself, and our daughter, if not her as well. Later this proved to be a tactic for her to ultimately take custody of our daughter as she tried to state she never filled out the affidavit and he was/is a fully capable and loving father. After she filled out this affidavit and he repeatedly violated the ankle monitor which tracked where he was going as well as the alcohol monitor, he was put in jail for six months. I finally had a little bit of peace and was able to start to heal.
Then he got out of jail; things were calm at first but, he immediately took me to court regarding custody for our daughter, which I found odd. About three months after he got out, I received a message from him stating everything I had done that day….and so it had begun again.
I decided to visit my family who I had been away from for years now at this point. Because he continued to harass me and had the two prior charges, they charged him with Felony Violation of Protective Order; it is the first charge of this in the county. When I did this, even though he was not actively seeing our daughter, he chose to start fighting for custody for her and has kept us actively in court for the last six years – even though he is on Felony probation.
It has ultimately caused us to not be able to co-parent in any way, shape, or form as well as the damage it has caused to our daughter has been both mental as well as cause medical issues. I have listened to professionals want to challenge what I have said which in turn makes me question my own motherhood as well as my relationship with my child. This is something no parent should ever go through.
I currently work in family law where I think there is much that needs to change regarding protective orders as well as custody agreements that involve protective orders. I am also getting my Ph.D. in Psychology so that I can understand all aspects of this mental process in order in enact change.
There are days I feel like we make progress and then there are days I feel like we take ten steps back, but that is the life of living with an abuser. His probation will end in May of 2019, and there will be a lot that will change. I must pray that for our daughter it will be positive changes. Right now, I am not sure there is an end to my story but, there is a reason and purpose for it and for that I am truly grateful.
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