By Survivor Shawn
This is the true story of how survivor Shawn escaped domestic violence.
Meeting on Facebook
I am a victim of Domestic Violence. Beginning in the month of December of 2020, I took it upon myself to seek a relationship on a dating site for Facebook. It was a new feature offered by Facebook, so I gave it a try since it was free.
Not knowing what I was in for, I sought out a woman who I thought was wonderful. She was just over 40 years old and she was single with one teenage daughter.
She lived nearly an hour from me, but distance wasn’t relevant. Immediately, we spoke on the phone and met for the first time shortly after. She was radiant, beautiful, and her hair was stunning in my eyes.
The short meeting lasted mere minutes, but the second date placed us into my bedroom and the relationship began quickly.
Moving In Fast
The first several months were great. I was living in a 2 BR condo with my 2 Weimaraner dogs, aged 1 and 2 respectively. We were a close-knit family and I never had the opportunity to garner children. My pups were my kids. In these days and we welcomed my new partner rather easily.
It all began going south when in the first several months, she demanded I move in with her, or she would leave the relationship. I had fallen hard for this woman, so I chose to abide by her demand and move in and cut my lease.
It would be one of the largest mistakes I would make in my entire lifetime.
The Domestic Violence Began Almost Immediately
Once I moved in to her place in July of 2021, my life was over. She began strangling my freedom by hacking into my emails, my phone, my life.
Cryptic as this sounds, I saw elements of her strange and erratic behavior daily. This woman was one of the worst cases of anxiety I had seen in my entire life.
One day, she would be smiling and having a lot of fun, and then, at the snap of a finger, she was raging mad and accusing me of cheating on her.
Relative to what you may believe, I was faithful to this woman, yet her accusations were psychotic. Eventually, her anger and a bottle of vodka would create the worst scenario in my entire life.
Worst Night of My Life
She began drinking heavily one evening and without recourse, she began beating me viciously upon my head and body. I laughed it off because this 5-foot nothing woman was attempting to dent my stature as I stood there.
She would leave marks on my face for the world to see, but my laughs created a worse mistake.
“Honey, if you hit me one more time, and I will have the cops here picking you up and taking you to jail”.
That sentence caused her to freeze because she was arrested several years prior for beating her last boyfriend. It most likely saved her from a visit to jail, but it was far from over.
Awoken to a Nightmare
Later that evening, I lay on the couch with my puppies as I began to suffocate with a heavy presence upon my chest. My eyes awoke from the darkness and a 3D image of a metal barrel stared back into my left eye.
She was sitting on my chest in her underwear and pointed a revolver at my head. Attempting to pull the hammer backwards, the noise woke Samantha (one of my Weimaraners), and she began to viciously go after this woman.
Grabbing the gun with her teeth, she managed to dislodge her grip, while Madison (my other dog) comforted my face by laying her head upon my neck.
Both my girls were protecting me, and my girlfriend suddenly awoke from her rage. Dazed, confused, and delirious, she picked up the gun off the floor and began walking towards the hallway and upstairs to her room.
I was sure I was about to be executed, but my dogs saved me.
She Begged Me Not to Leave
Believe it or not, the next morning’s apology arrived hard and fast. She was sorry and begged me not to leave the relationship. I was at my wits end and I decided to get an apartment and move. Despite my anger, I loved her and she promised she had no intention of murdering me that night.
That night would become a year old before I decided to move away for good, thanks to an episode of the TV show 48 hours.
There was a story resembling everything I went through before and the perpetrator looked exactly like the woman I was dating.
I couldn’t believe it. All in all, after the story aired, I had no intentions of staying in the abusive relationship.
Years of enduring fights, false accusations, control, fear, caused me to finally wake up and move on from the catastrophe I planted myself in. I wouldn’t stand the domestic violence anymore.
I would move out quickly and never look back on this horrific nightmare. Within weeks of my departure, Rebecca grappled another victim and is now doing the same to him.
Check These Resources:
- Understanding Coercive Control
- Online Dating Safety
- Complete Guide to Mindful Meditation, and Emotional Healing.
- The Hidden Impact of Teen Dating Violence
- Find Support with BTSADV
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