“I am 43 and have been holding all of this inside for so long. The abusive relationships started when I was in 10th grade. I got pregnant the next year and my baby’s daddy was my abuser. He found a branch that fell off a tree, peeled the bark off, shellacked it, carved my name in it, and called it “the chastiser.’ He told me he did it because he loved me and was trying to toughen me up and prepare me for life. He broke my arm with that stick and beat me when I was pregnant, but I didn’t think it was that bad because my stepdad treated my mom worse. 

Then, I met my psychotic abuser. 

He would break into my house and hide in the closet until I came home. He was a short man and popped out like a Jack In the Box, then he would beat me and hold me hostage by knifepoint.  He rigged all of the doors and windows so he would know if I opened them. He broke all of the locks on the downstairs windows and doors so he could easily get in and do terrible things to me. I would call 911 and he would get away before the cops arrived. They were getting tired of my calls every night. One officer finally told me I had to protect myself, so I put hammers in every corner of my house. 

I was sleeping on the couch the night he broke in through a window upstairs. He pulled me off the couch and my head hit the floor. He drug me into the kitchen and poured bleach into my private areas saying, “If I can’t have you, no one will.” He sat there with a knife, grinning as he watched my pain. Thank God it wasn’t Clorox. 

The next day, I told myself and a friend that this was going to be the day it ended and I prayed to God to help get me out of the situation. If it means something gets broken or the death of me, so be it. I was getting out. 

He stopped by the house, took my purse and said, “Give me your car keys. I have a bitch I want to go see.”

I told him, “No, you need to go to your mama. I am not giving you my car. I am ending this confusion, conflict, and confrontation, and you need to leave me for good.”

He jumped up and came after me with the hot iron, but it unplugged from the wall. As he looked back, I grabbed a hammer from under the seat of my couch and swung for my life, my safety, and all that I had left. This was my first chance to fight back. If I didn’t cause damage to him, he would kill me. I got two hits on his head and the blood trickling down is what stopped him. 

My friend called the cops as we had planned and he ran out of the house as they pulled up. He told the police that I attacked him and said, ‘That bitch is going to jail.’

He was the one going to jail. I had filed a Protection From Abuse order (PFA) and signed a warrant for his arrest. I moved to another apartment in a different location but he found me and left a note saying, ’I know where you live.’

One day I got a call from a friend to turn on the news. He and his friends robbed and killed a girl and her boyfriend almost died. They had just found out she was pregnant. He was arrested for capital murder. That had been what he had been trying to do to me.   

He is in prison without the possibility of parole and he is still inside my head and torturing me. I got a Facebook message from him a few months ago that said, “Hello, Grandmother.” How is he on Facebook in prison, and how does he know that I am a grandmother?

After all that I have been through, it is hard for me to be in a relationship and I became the abuser in the next relationship I was in. I have PTSD and anxiety so bad that it feels like ants and spiders are crawling up all of my nerve endings. I have attempted suicide five times, the last time was in 2010. All of the abuse has also caused wear and tear on my body. I have sleep and eating disorders and don’t sleep or eat every day. 

I took four years to be alone and deal with my emotional and mental issues. I proved to myself that I didn’t need a man to validate me or my worth. I learned to love me. Today, I have finally found a man who is good to me and loves me past my scars that are healing. He loves me for who I am, not for what I provide. 

Life is better, but not easy because now my daughter is going through her own issues of domestic violence. This is the third generation.  A couple of years ago, he beat her so badly that I didn’t recognize her when I got to the hospital. 

I just wanted a house with a white picket fence and I am there now, even with the physical and mental disabilities from the abuse. The sky is a little bluer and the sun is a little brighter today because I got to share my whole story for the first time. I have a voice and maybe I can help someone else who is suffering inside.”

(This week I am putting up stories from some of the abuse victims I interviewed for the series “From Hell to Hope” about domestic violence. It starts Thursday in the Lagniappe in Mobile. Many victims were brave enough to tell their stories, some for the first time, and I could only use small parts in the series. But these victims are now survivors and want their stories told so maybe it will help another woman going through the same thing. I will share their whole stories and give them a voice on Souls.)