My journey into Narcissistic abuse...

“We don’t air our dirty laundry,” my husband always told me.  I was also taught to protect your husband, and not talk bad about him.  The pain I was enduring through the emotional torment was excruciating!  For years he only treated me badly behind closed doors.  He would tell me what a terrible wife and Christian I was.  He would pin me down and call me names, tell me I was overreacting and nagging him all the time.  Any time I had concerns about the children and their safety when he was with them, I was of course being ridiculous.  It didn’t matter that I had left them with him and came home to him passed out from drinking, and our toddler sucking on the cap of the beer bottle...I was still making a mountain out of a mole hill.  I quickly learned that I could not go anywhere unless I could take my children with me.  So, I spent day after day for years at home, and going nowhere.  

The abuse got worse over the years, and he started calling me names and making fun of me in front of others, so it was getting harder to hide. He could no longer hold down a job for more than nine months.  There was always something wrong with the owners of the companies he worked for, and so if he didn’t get fired, he would quit.  I would ask him if he wanted me to go back to work, and he would tell me no; it was his job to provide for the family, and would get angry at me for even asking because it made him feel like less of a man.  We went many times without a vehicle for months.  If he secured one for us, it would break down beyond repair, and we would have to wait for another.  We went through six cars one year!  It wasn’t long after we lost our first home to bankruptcy that we began moving from rental to rental.  Whether it was because the landlord needed to move back into the home, or we couldn’t pay rent, we ended up moving six times in ten years before I had enough and took matters into my own hands.

It’s difficult to put into words the type of abuse I endured.  It was strange things he would do and say to leave me confused and beaten down.  It could be something as little as making his favorite dish for dinner, and he would comment on how he didn’t want that for dinner.  “But this is what you said you wanted me to make for you.”  Him: “Do you think I’m stupid?  Are you calling me a liar?  I never told you to make this!  You are losing your mind!”  Me: “What are you talking about?  I didn’t call you a liar.”  Pinning me up against a wall, “Listen you fu**ing cunt, how dare you call me a liar!  You are seriously messed up in the head!  Get out of my sight, you bit**!”  I would walk away and go into another room, often the bedroom, and he would proceed to berate me for the next half hour.  Then later, he would expect sex.  If I said I wasn’t in the mood, he would quote scripture to me and remind me how I am not to deny my spouse.  There were times afterward, that he would then tell me that I wasn’t any good in bed, and didn’t know why he bothered with me.  Talk about feeling used and like trash!  I would cry so much, wondering where my best friend and love of my life went, and if he would ever return.  I kept hoping and praying that my love would return to me as quickly as he had left.  I was waiting for him to come to his senses, tell me how sorry he was for everything, that I and the children meant the world to him, and then go back to the loving man he was for the prior eight years.

My world became a roller coaster.  Not the fun kind where you throw your hands into the air and scream with delight.  No!  It was the kind of ride where the carny didn’t quite buckle you in correctly, and at every loop you feel yourself coming out of the car; you’re screaming for someone to stop the ride and let you off before you fall to your death, but no one can hear you and no one can save you!  

Me: “Hey; do you have money to grab dinner and put some gas in the car?” 

Him: “Food and gas; take care of the kids!  And you want me to promote a great image of you to the family that hates me???  Great, thanks, wife!  You are in no way, shape, or form godly!  You can’t even stand by Adam.  I see who is on my side...not even you; just god and love.  So much for talking and fixing the marriage!”

Me: “Your insults are over the top and unnecessary.  I understand you are upset, about something, but calling me names and saying mean things is not the way to go.  I love you and forgive you.”

I eventually got a job and went back to work.  My husband landed himself in jail, and so I did what any solid minded single parent would do in that situation - I went back to school.  It was a necessary step.  So I was working part time and going to school part time.  He was in and out of jail a few times over the next few years: attempted theft, DUI, violation of probation.  Of course none of this was his fault...none of it!  In fact, I don’t think anything that happened to him was his fault.  He had the worst luck in life, and people were just mean, and things just seemed to happen to him (insert eye rolling).  And if it wasn’t someone else’s fault, then of course it was my fault.  Nothing I did was right by him, either; even if I did exactly what he asked of me.  In fact, when I did finally get a job, his exact words were, “It’s about time you got off your butt and pitched in around here!”  

His madness grew, and he made less and less sense.  There would be times when I would have dinner ready for him for when he got home from work, and when he walked into the door I would greet him then go into our room to study while he took over caring for the kids.  I would not have so much even spoken a word to him in two hours or even have come out of the room, and he would just bust in the bedroom screaming at me about something, anything!  I would ignore him and continue studying.  He would walk out after about ten minutes, then come back ten minutes later to yell at me some more.  After which he would tell me he couldn’t stand me and was leaving.  This new behavior would go on for the next few years, and as time went on, he started to not return for days after he would walk out of the house.  There were times when we hadn’t even argued for a week; he would just say he was going to hang out with a friend and be back in a few hours....a few days later he would return.  And if I dare called and texted him to find out where he was, what he was doing and when he would be back, well I was just controlling and I was the reason he wouldn’t be returning until he was darn well good and ready!  It was around this time that I started getting calls from my family and friends telling me that he had called them talking trash about me, and was trying to get them to join him.  When they didn’t, he got angry at them.  They eventually stopped answering when he would call.  

Things escalated to where he started punching the walls, throwing things, tried to lock me into our bedroom so I couldn’t get out.  If I walked away from him when he was screaming at me, he would either restrain me and tell me not to walk away when he’s talking to me, lock me out of the house if I managed to escape, chase me down the road, or stand behind my vehicle so I couldn’t go anywhere.  There were times when I tried to hide from him, but he always knew where I was.  He would tell me that he could “sense” me.  One day I was trying to hide from him, he sent me a text, “I know where you are.  Remember, I can smell you a mile away.”  If I ever challenged him, he would prove to me that he did in fact know where I was!  He believed he had supernatural powers, and I was witness to some of them.  I told him that he had spirits that he needed to be delivered from.  He told me he would not let them leave, because they were his friends.  

He liked to convince me that everyone was talking about me and that no one really liked me, they just put up with me.  He would tell me that everyone else could see that I have a mental illness, but I’m too daft to see it.  When I started to realize, finally, that he was being abusive to me, he likened me to being a puppet, and brainwashed by my church.  He would call me perfect (in a condescending way), self-righteous, and tell me that I was not being faithful to him or our vows.  One of the last places we lived at, we talked about dividing up the bills.  I agreed to pay for everything except rent, and he said he would take care of paying that.  Three months later we received an eviction notice.  He read it, looked angrily at me and said, “What were you doing to help?!!!  Why didn’t you pay the rent?!”  I ignored him and walked a plate of food for our son toward the table. He stepped in front of me and knocked the plate to the floor.  “I’m talking to you, bit**!”  As the plate broke into several pieces, and our two-year-old son sat at the table looking at us, I tried to walk around the island to get away from my husband and get the kids and leave.  But he kept cutting me off and getting in my way.  I pushed past him, told the girls to get into the van.  He told them to stay put.  I was terrified and didn’t know what he was going to do!  I just needed to get myself and our three children out of the house and to safety.  The girls wouldn’t leave the couch, so I walked over to them and grabbed them by their wrist.  I pulled them toward the door, but my husband was now standing in my way and refused to move.  He said, “You can leave, but the kids are staying here.”  I looked at him, and said very sternly, “Get out of my way.”  When he refused, I pushed him and he crashed to the ground.  I said, “Oh how nice; dramatic much?”  He stayed out of my way, and I got us all into the van.  As I tried to leave, he came outside and stood behind the van with his arms crossed and refused to move.  I called the police and told them that I was scared and trying to leave the situation, but that he was not allowing me to leave.  As I was talking he moved from behind the van and stood next to my door.  He was telling me to get out of the vehicle.  As I slowly started to pull out of the driveway, he stepped toward the moving vehicle, and then started screaming that I ran his foot over.  He threw his cell phone at my windshield, and I drove to the police station.  They talked to me, went to the house and talked to him, and after they were sure he was not a threat to me, I returned home.  My husband proceeded to sit my children and me down and explain to them that mommy is an abuser, and that I need to leave.  He had told the cops that I broke his ribs when I pushed him, and that I busted open his toe when I ran his foot over with the van.  No charges were pressed, but I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!  It was at that moment that I decided I had to get away. 

The Nightmare Begins

We began our forever together.  A beautiful two-story home with a fireplace, bath and a half, and a baby on the way.  I was pressing in to the Lord more and more, and taking different classes to learn all I could about God, and the man who died so that I could live.  My husband worked hard, and went to church with me every Sunday, as he did before we got married.  

At eight months of pregnancy, I quit my job so I could prepare our home for our baby.  My husband and I communicated so well together.  I remember talking with him once, thinking we were so lucky to be so much in love, sharing everything together, and communicating so well.  There was no way we would ever become one of the statistics of divorce.

During my delivery, he was so kind and patient with me.  He stayed by my side throughout the eight hours of excruciating labor.  He was such a good dad. About three years into our marriage (eight years being together), he received a promotion to Supervisor, and was always working.  He would leave at 6am, and wouldn’t get home til 7 or 8pm.  He worked for a landscape company, and after all the trucks got back to the yard at 5 or 6, he had to empty out all the trucks and clean them.  When he got home he was so exhausted he would eat dinner and go to bed.  This went on for weeks, and I was exhausted from taking care of our extremely active one-year old daughter all day, who wouldn’t sleep through the night.  Plus, I felt like a single mom.  My husband decided to quit work, and go to work for a different landscape company.  While he was there, he met someone who mudded and finished drywall.  He quit that landscape company to work with him.  He then left him to work for someone else who was going to pay him more.  When that didn’t happen, he got a job offer with a good Christian guy, who was going to pay him exactly what he asked for.  When he told his current employer this, the man offered him a partnership.  He had me and my husband over for dinner, and explained everything.  My husband was smiling, but I didn’t like what I was hearing.  I point blank asked the man, “Are you going to make my husband a legal partner?” He said, no, that it would only be verbal.  I thought, great; this is the end of this deal, and now my husband can accept the stable job offer with the Christian man.  So, I looked back over at my husband expecting him to fully say it was time to leave; instead, he was still smiling.  I knew my husband, and I told him this wasn’t going to work for him.  Needless to say, when we talked he was all in to the “verbal” partner deal.  He turned the stable job down, and took the partnership. Well, after a month or so, my husband seemed happier, but something still wasn’t right; I could feel it.

By this time we were enjoying friendships with neighbors, and neighborhood block parties.  The guys in the neighborhood took turns playing practical jokes on each other, and would hang out drinking well into the night.  Sometimes, our friends would come over and hang out at the parties too.  Around the time our daughter was two, my husband starting drinking more, and talking about other women “friends” at work, along with some of the guys.  No big deal; he was a friendly guy, and often talked about how women he worked with were nothing more than men with boobs.  Who was I to disagree?  Our sex life had declined due to my lack of wanting.  Hormones, exhaustion, not sure what it was, but my husband would tell me how disappointed he was in me for this.  In fact, I saw a side of him that night that I had never seen before.  He pushed me up against the wall, after I had told him I wasn’t in the mood, and very angrily got in my face and said, “If you don’t start giving me what I want, you will be sorry!” He had never spoken to me like that!  I didn’t know what to think. It wasn’t long after that, that one day when he was leaving for work, he told me how I was the problem with everything that was wrong with his life.  I was spoiled, ungrateful, a horrible wife, and a few other choice words.  Then, he left.  I stood there, broken!  I had no idea he felt this way.  I cried for hours that day.  When he came home, he apologized and said he didn’t mean it, that he was just stressed.  He told me that things at work weren’t going so well, and that he wanted to start his own business.  He asked me what I thought.  We just got out of debt, and we would have to go back into debt to get what we needed for his business.  We lived paycheck to paycheck and had nothing to fall back on, and we stood to lose everything including the house.  Construction was not a constant and solid business, and I didn’t think it was a good idea for us at the time.  We argued about it, and this was the first argument we had in our marriage.  He thought God wanted us to do this, and I said, “That’s strange, because He told me no.”  So, I did what any good wife does; I said “okay, but know I am still saying this is NOT a good idea.”

So, the partnership failed, and he started his own business the next day.  I helped with placing ads in the newspaper for laborers, doing the pre-interview screening, bookkeeping, etc.  He came to me one day and told me he wanted to make his best friend his partner, and wondered what I thought.  I told him that it was not a good idea to make someone with no business sense or construction knowledge, his partner; there was no way it would end well.  He got mad at me, and did it anyway.  After awhile, he stopped asking my advice, and just did what he wanted.  His drinking increased, he started going to church every other week, and he now was screaming at me and calling me names at least four days a week.  I tried to talk things over with him so we wouldn’t go to bed angry, but it only made things worse.  On the days he was actually talking to me, he told me how his best friend wasn’t running the company well, couldn’t frame or hang drywall right, and it was costing him money.  It wasn’t too long after that, that he fired his partner.  Amazingly, this guy was one who could keep business separate from pleasure, so their friendship remained intact.  Though, his friend told me that he was worried about my husband, because something was different about him, and it wasn’t good.

I was becoming more and more depressed, as I didn’t understand why my husband was so angry with me all the time.  I gave in to him more than I wanted to to try to keep him happy, but it didn’t seem to help.  With our oldest now two-and-a-half, I found out I was pregnant with our second child.  My husband was happy, but I was miserable.  Not about our baby, but about where our marriage was.  I didn’t understand how he changed overnight.  It was like I was having a nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from.  I wanted so desperately to wake up one morning, and have everything back to the way it was.  But instead, everyday seemed to bring new grievances.  His business wasn’t doing well, and we were having trouble making our mortgage payments. On top of this, I ended up losing our baby eight weeks into the pregnancy.  My husband took this hard.  A few months after this, we were pregnant again, and at the same time period as before, I started bleeding and cramping.  I went to the midwife who made me come in two days in a row for blood samples.  The next day was a weekend; I had to go back on Monday for the last day of blood samples.  Friday night, the pain became unbearable, and I cried out to God to save our baby, but not my will be done.  “If it’s your will, Father, for this baby to not be carried to term, then so be it, but you know my heart’s desire.  Please save our baby; but if not, please just stop the cramping!”  After I said this prayer, I felt a peace come over me; the cramping stopped, and I was finally able to fall asleep.  During my dreams that night, I dreamt that the Lord told me everything would be okay.  When I had awoken that morning, the bleeding and cramping had stopped, and I knew I had a prophetic dream.  On Monday I went to get the last of my blood drawn.  The next day I called in for my results, and the midwife got on the phone; “I don’t understand what I’m looking at.  The first two days your HCg levels were increasingly dropping, which is consistent with a miscarriage.  But then, Monday’s numbers spiked upward drastically.  I don’t understand.”  “I understand!”  I retorted.  “My God has saved our baby!”  

About two months into this pregnancy, I started grieving for the one I lost. Even though I was pregnant again, I would see women who were seven months pregnant and think, “That would have been me right now.”  The grieving lasted until the due date of my miscarried child had passed.  I was then able to move forward and enjoy the blessing of my current pregnancy.  Unfortunately, my home life was now miserable, and no one knew the lie I was living.

Love

That night we got drunk together, and spent the night in my car.  I was 20, and he was 18.  I was young and stupid, and didn’t care anymore.  From that day forward, we were inseparable.  We spent every day, and every moment possible of every day together.  He touched me in a way no one else had.  We would talk for hours.  We laughed together, we dreamed together.  He showed me a side of life I didn’t know existed.  One day I was talking with him on the phone, saying how much he missed me, but I couldn’t come pick him up.  About an hour later he showed up at my door in roller blades.  He said he roller bladed all the way to my house from across town....I was hooked!  No one had EVER payed this much attention to me.  He was cute, charming, romantic, and he had a way with words.  We finished each other’s sentences, and knew what each other was thinking.  He was dark, mysterious, and yet, exhilarating all at the same time!  He told me he loved me three months into our relationship...it took me another two before I told him I loved him.  

Five months after we started dating, he asked me to marry him.  I told him yes, but we would be engaged for five years before we actually got married.  We were both young, and I wanted to make sure we were ready.  Through the years, he showed me a different part of life.  There was a time where I told God that I wanted to do things my way for awhile, because I was tired of never having any fun...and fun I had (or so I thought).  I started smoking weed with him (but not until I properly researched it...I had to know what I was putting into my body, afterall).  We went to parties, smoked, hung out, played cards, listened to people jam.  My guy was a bassist, and played with bands.  We moved in together, and partied as much as we wanted. We went to Rainbow Farms once, which was a scaled down modern-day version of Woodstock. There, I left my inhibitions behind.

I had never felt such closeness with another person; a oneness that could not be described by any other word than love.  I was his, and he was mine.  Five years later we finally tied the knot.  Two days later we left for our honeymoon - England.  We were going to visit his hometown.  I had never flown before, and while we were on the flight, he left for a few minutes to go to the bathroom.  A few minutes after he returned, a steward came over to us and said something to my husband.  My husband looked at me, took my hand and said, “Come on. I’ve got a surprise for you.”  We followed the steward through a double-decker jet to the cockpit.  Before I knew what was happening, I was shaking hands with the pilot and copilot, and took in the horizon with all its beauty!  I could see another plane in the distance, the clouds, even some birds.  It was breathtaking!  What a beautiful gift I was given that day; one I will never forget.

Everything about our wedding and honeymoon was perfect: From the horse-drawn carriage and butterfly release on the day we became one, to the bluebell strewn forests of Gloucestershire and one day trip to France, which completed a lifetime dream.  We started talking children, and I knew I had to give up smoking.  So many times I quit, but my husband always talked me back into smoking with him.  I would cry, and hate the feeling, and be so mad at myself for giving in.  For our one-year anniversary we went camping in Canada.  I remember giving in to my husband yet again, and smoking some hash-heesh that he said he had saved from his brother on our trip to England a year prior, while sitting on a hill watching children play in the near distance.  As I was sitting there high, wondering when I would be a mother and would be watching my own children play, something came over me and I began to cry uncontrollably.  My husband asked me what was wrong, and I couldn’t answer. I bawled for a good twenty minutes before I could contain myself.  Even then, I couldn’t tell him what was wrong, but one thing was for sure, I was suddenly sober.

On our way home, immigration was doing random car checks.  We were one of them, along with a car full of nuns.  Well, they found the weed that we hid in the wheel well of our spare tire, and I got strip searched (so embarrassing). Thankfully we got off with a fine, and were on our way home.  It was at that time that I knew I had to straighten myself out, and never smoke again.  With God’s help, I was able to do it, and good thing too, because a few weeks later I was pregnant.  I got pregnant in Canada!  Over the next several months, I rededicated my life to my Lord, and so many wonderful and powerful things were happening.  I was growing in knowledge and wisdom, and for once in my life I was actually seeing immediate results from my prayers.  I was seeing shadows and blobs with red eyes, and I knew what I was looking at....the devil. It took some time, but I finally realized what had happened to me that day in Canada: The Holy Spirit had filled me, and I repented for all the things I had done wrong.  The tears were tears of repentance and cleansing.  I was walking with the Lord in a new way, and it was exciting!  For the first time in my life, I was happy.

The Next Chapter

Two months in to my senior year of high school, I was called down to the office where my aunt was waiting to take me home.  I had no idea what was going on, except that there was some sort of family emergency.  When I got into the car to go home, my dad’s boss was there.  He started talking to me, telling me how sorry he was and that he should have known something was wrong.  I had no idea what he was talking about.  When I got home, a lot of my family was there; my sister was crying, and my mom was just sitting at the kitchen table.  It was there that I was faced with the cold reality that I missed my chance earlier that morning to say goodbye to my dad.  You see, just moments after I left the house for school, my dad got up from the couch, put his wedding band in a drawer in the kitchen, and went to the garage and hung himself.

When my mom got a call that morning from my dad’s work asking her where my dad was, she, at that moment, somehow knew.  She woke my older sister up, and made her come out to the garage and help cut my father’s body down from the rafters.  Why did she do this?  Perhaps she thought there was a chance he was still alive; I don’t really know.  

That day, my life fell apart.  I got angry at people, and life.  The rest of my school year was a bit of a fog.  I left for college several months later, and this was the first time I was ever away from home.  Things were good for the first semester.  I was making friends, felt included, and was having fun.  I went home for Christmas, and when I came back, everything was different.  Some of the friends I had made starting calling my dorm room asking for my roommate. The other friends in my group became too busy for me, and soon I was eating alone, and spending all my free time alone in my dorm.  I became very depressed, and flunked my second semester.  I got kicked out of school, and started working right away to pay back my school loan.  Once at home, hanging out with some of my old high school friends, I found some acceptance. I was going to parties, and having fun; trying to forget my troubles.  At one of my jobs I worked at a photo lab.  I liked to watch the people come in and out of the store.  I remember this one day a cute guy walked in, and came to my counter.  That started a year-long friendship of persuasion of him trying to get me to date him.  After several months of me turning him down, he sweet talked my female coworkers into being on his side, and they too tried to get me to go out with him.  Part of the problem was the fact that I had just finished my first year of college, and he was a senior in high school.  Nevertheless, about eight months after our first meeting, his mom came to the photo lab and asked me if I would please go to the prom with her son so he would shut up about me!  I remembered how much fun I had at my senior prom, and didn’t want him to miss out, so I agreed to go with him as friends.

I went to the prom with him, and a week later, he graduated and left for the navy.  Back at the store, I worked up the courage to ask out a really cute college guy that I thought was out of my league.  We went out a few times, but we lost touch after his mom died.  So, I went on to date a couple guys that I did not like, but was just tired of being alone and wanted to know what it was like to date.  Mostly, they were bad experiences.  This one guy, my guy friend talked me in to dating.  Our first kiss was his first kiss, and it felt like I kissed the grill of a car!  He left marks on my face - it was horrible!!  His way of flattering me was telling me, “You know you’re pretty, so just shut up.”  He broke up with me the day before Valentine’s Day, but still showed up for our pre-scheduled date and brought me candy.  I was a bit confused to say the least.  He was a bit messed up, and I was glad that relationship was over.  After that I dated a guy that I had liked for awhile. He ended up getting involved in drugs, gangs, swindled some money out of me, and got locked up in ju-ve for a bit.  I was hanging out with him when I got my first contact high.  I remember, though, that there was some sort of excitement being caught up in all that, but I finally broke off all communication with him.  My next boyfriend was someone that had pursued me for over three years.  I knew there was no future with him, but decided, what the heck?  We dated for like, a month I think.  When he told me that he didn’t want me seeing my guy friends anymore, I knew it was time to let him go.  I presented him with a white rose, a symbol of friendship.  He stumbled off into the darkness that night, and I literally never saw him again.  I tried talking to him, to smooth things over, but it was no use; I broke his heart.  

One day in September of 1995, I went back to the store I used to work at to visit some of my friends, and there, was the guy I went to prom with!  I gave him the biggest hug, and asked what he was doing there.  I found out that he was no longer in the navy, and had moved in with a friend.  I hung out with him that day.  He was different somehow.  When I knew him, he was a bit nerdy.  But now, something had changed.  I guess three months of boot camp will do that.  What followed that day, was a whirlwind of intrigue.

The Early Years

I wish I could tell you some flowery story about how great my life was growing up and how I had lots of friends.  The truth is, that is what I truly desired.  But I was different somehow.

I went to a small private school with the same twenty kids year after year.  I was the nerd in the class that got picked on and put down.  When I got home from school, the teasing would continue by my sister and some kids in the neighborhood.  I never got beat up, but some went out of their way to make my life miserable.  The worst was when they would pretend to include me, which ended up being a rouse just to humiliate me or steel something of mine.  One year I finally had enough and started sticking up for myself.  After that, people didn’t pick on me as much, but I could still hear my name being uttered followed by laughter or shushing.  I spent the next several years alone in my room.

In an attempt to fit in, I began doing what the kids that let me hang out with them did.  I didn’t drink or do drugs, but that was the year I got introduced to the Ouija board (and even a seance or two).  Weird things started happening: nightmares, bumps in the night, games “falling” out of my closet in the middle of the night, but when I woke up and looked at my floor, the games were actually stacked neatly in a pile!  I was having frequent nightmares of Freddy Krueger - you know, the one who killed you in your dreams.  All of this was going on while I was struggling to maintain friendships.  I was so lonely and didn’t understand why people did not like me, but this was my story.  My eighth grade year I said to God, “For once, I would like to know what it’s like to be popular.”  

My freshman year of high school was the first time I had people genuinely tell me that I was a cool person.  I joined lots of clubs, and had some friends finally.  I was the friend to the friendless, the jocks, the popular kids, the not-so-popular kids.  I never thought of myself as popular, and never saw myself that way.  I was still struggling with thoughts of not being liked; not being enough. These thoughts were exemplified by the fact that I never had a boyfriend.  I was always searching for something more, but I was happier as a person than in years past. Weird things would still happen around my house from time to time.  We could hear someone walking around upstairs, but no one was there. I would see shadows moving from one room to another.  My sister would see red eyes in her closet, and hear voices calling her in the night!  We didn’t talk about these things with anyone; who would believe us? 

My senior year started out great.  Top of the school, and my whole future ahead of me.  Two months in, I left for school one day and quietly snuck out so not to wake my dad who was sleeping on the couch.  A few hours later I was called down to the office, where my aunt was waiting for me to take me home. She wouldn’t tell me why I was leaving, but within minutes everything became clear. 

My Journey Through Abuse

So many people face abusive situations in life.  Some we face growing up, some in the workplace, some is random, and some we find ourselves in before we understand what is going on.  And some, is a conglomeration of all these instances.  

This is the story of how I married the man of my dreams, and like a dream, I woke up one day in a nightmare I couldn’t shake.  Perhaps you’re like me and never understood why people stay in abusive relationships, why they don’t “just get out” already.  Or maybe you know someone who is in a bad relationship and you don’t know how to help them.  Maybe you ARE the one in the abusive relationship, and wished you could talk about it to someone who would understand.  Or, perhaps you are just looking for understanding.  

This is my journey through where I have been, what I have come out of, and where I am now.  It is my hope that by writing these blogs I can not only gain a better understanding myself of what happened in my life and why, but to also help others through their journey.  I will try to write at least one blog a week, and start from the beginning, as all stories do :)

Let us walk this journey together, from pain to healing, and learn how we will get beauty for ashes.