In August of 2009 I decided it was time to put an end to the
abuse and I packed up for Arizona.
For 18 months I was in a relationship with someone I thought
I loved. I never thought he was abusing me, but everyone around me told me he
was. For the entire 18 months we were together he seemed like he would go out
of his way to make me cry. He thought it would be a smart idea to break up with
me 3x a week, and then say all the right things to get me back.
From the beginning it was weird. He would ignore me while we
were at school and pretend like we were not together, even though everyone knew
we were. Then as soon as he got out of school he would call me and be the
boyfriend he was supposed to be. There were times where he would come pick me
up from school (I lived there he didn’t) and he would take me out to eat of
just somewhere to talk. It was only 3 months after we started dating that I
started to notice that he was a 21 year old alcoholic. He tried to tell me that
it was at “21 year old” thing, but I knew better.
He would call me the meanest and nastiest things you could
imagine. He would tell me that he could leave me and find someone better within
seconds if he wanted to. He would accuse me of cheating on him with my ex
husband. He was jealous of the time I spend with my son (who was 4 at the
time). He would tell me that I was a horrible girl friend. He would talk about
how he felt with his ex gf, and then remind me that he doesn’t feel like that
with me. He would rub it in how much better she was than me while at the same
time complaining about how bad she broke his heart. He wanted to propose to me,
but refused to get me an engagement ring or even ask me unless I bought him a
promise ring first. I still don’t understand why he thought he needed a ring
before we got married. He wanted me to move in with him, but I was not allowed
to bring my son because my son was ‘too loud’. Um.. yeah he is 4 they are loud.
When my son turned 5 he promised to be at the party, and then decided to stay
home and study for his GED. When I called him upset about breaking his promise
he called me an ungrateful bitch for not support him. He said him getting his
GED is more important than being at some kids party, even if he was going to be
his step dad within the year. 18 months of this and I was done. 
I enrolled in college. The school had online options, but I
wanted to go ground. I had an aunt that lived in AZ, where the school was, so
my mom decided to fly me out to live with my aunt so I could go to school out
there. I did not pass that up. I had the chance to get away from my boyfriend
.This resulted in being screamed at and cursed at for an hour. What I had not
planned on was my aunt being 10x worse than the boyfriend I just got away from.
I moved in with my aunt August 31, 2009. My son stayed back
home with my mom, and they moved out December 22, 2009. My aunt was great to be
around for the first week or so. She took me to the store to buy some summer
clothes for AZ. Cincinnati summers are so much different than Phoenix. This did
not last very long though. Every single thing I did mad her mad. She would
follow me around the house talking down to me and making me feel smaller than
the flies on a turd, smaller than the dust that floats in the air. She made me
feel horrible. If I tried to walk away from her she would follow me through the
house just to make sure I heard her until she was finished. Then after a day
like that she would be nice for a few days, then it was back to nasty. There
was one day where she is tearing into me verbally and I go to my room to get
away from her. I try to close the door but I can’t because she has her foot at
the bottom of the door keeping me from pushing it shut. I would throw all my
weight into my door to try to knock her off balance so I could close my door.
If I didn’t lock it as soon as it was closed she would force it back open. I
call my parents hysterically, sitting on the floor leaning against my door to
keep her out, and tell them what is going on and I can hear her in her bedroom
making fun of me and laughing about everything. If I told my parents something
she said I would hear her calling me a liar. Almost every time this happened
she would call my mom seconds after I hung up to bitch at my mom about me. My
mom thought I was crazy until she finally made it out there to live with us.
Again, things were great for a week or so, then my aunt
started with her normal shit. My mom finally saw what my aunt was like. Not only
would she talk to me like that, she had two more people to treat like shit. I
could handle what she was doing to me, but when she started in on my son I wanted
to beat the shit out of her. My aunt is a teacher and over the summer she would
have her friends kids over to have “summer school” to prepare them for the next
year .My son was forced to join in on this even if he didn’t want to. When he
decided he didn’t want to do his work she would tell him that he couldn’t go
swimming when they were done. This broke my sons heart, he spend most of the
summer in the pool in the back yard. My aunt would take the other three kids to
the back yard to swim and my son was not allowed to even go to the back yard or
she yelled at him. I was at school or work when she did this, I never happened
when I was home but my mom told me about it. My son would be in my mom’s room
bawling his eyes out because he couldn’t swim. Then even after the kids went
home she still wouldn’t let him swim. So my mom and I would wait until she was
in bed to take him to swim before he went to sleep.
Then came August 30th, 2010 and my aunt was particularly
harsh to the three of us. She was going to help my mom with one of her jobs.
They were not even out of the house 5 minutes before they came back. My aunt
storms in the front door and as she is slamming it shut she screams “your
fucking mother just tried to kill me!” So I go outside to see what the hell is
going on. My mom is standing next to her car holding her right arm up towards
the shoulder crying. My aunt decided to hit my mom in the arm 5 times with a
clip board. Not the flimsy clip board where it will break at any moment, but
the thick plastic ones where it has the compartment for paper (and my mom keeps
it full) so there is some weight to this thing. I get my mom calmed down and
she goes in the house to call the cops on my aunt. My aunt over hears her and
comes barreling out of her room. She grabs my mom by the wrist and shoves her
hand behind her. When my mom tried to get my aunt off of her my aunt grabs her
other hand. I am screaming at my aunt to get off my mom, but keeping an eye out
for my son to get him before he enters to room and sees this. My mom and aunt
are in the living room screaming at each other. My aunt has my mom’s wrists so
tightly that my mom’s fingers are starting to lose the pink and turn purple. After
what felt like forever, but was only 60 seconds or so, my aunt storms off into
her room and slams the door shut. My mom goes outside to call the police. They
come out and they talk to the three of us. They are not happy with my aunt but
they just tell us to stay away from each other. They told my aunt that if they
are called out again she is getting arrested.
The next day August 31st my mom, my son, and I go
out to do the mystery shop jobs my mom had scheduled. My aunt had said she didn’t
want to go so we left as soon as we woke up. We were gone from around 8am till
6pm. We get home and my aunt has the air off (its august in az.. 100* or so)
and all the doors open. My mom cannot breathe in the heat so we walk through
the house closing the doors and windows and I turn the a/c on. The control panel
is next to my aunt’s room. As soon as I turn the air on she comes out of her
room, turns it off, and goes back to her room. I turn the air on, she turns it
off. It goes like this about 10 times. I went to my mom and told her that her
sister is not letting me turn the air on. By this point my aunt is opening all
the doors again. My son was in the bathroom (also next to the panel) and I am
standing in my doorway (across from the panel) when my mom walks up to the
panel to turn the air back on. We heard what sounds like a herd of elephants on
the floor and look in my aunt’s room. She is coming towards the panel again. So
my mom squares her hips, plants her feet, and puts her hands over the panel to
keep my aunt from turning it off again. All I see is my aunt coming up next to
my mom, throwing her hip into my mom’s hip, my son screaming, and my mom flying
6 feet down the hall and landing on her back. My son comes running out of the
bathroom and lands next to my mom’s head screaming “Mamaw! Mamaw!” I make sure
my mom is ok then jump over her to grab the phone. I looked at my aunt and said
“your ass is going to jail bitch!” while dialing 911. Police were there within
minutes.
Before the cops get there I get my son over to the neighbor’s
house. My mom gets taken away in an ambulance, my aunt is begging the police to
not arrest her, and I am sitting on the couch in shock. After the cops leave
with my aunt I go get my son and drive to the hospital my son is at. There is
an advocate there to talk to us and she helped us find a domestic violence
shelter to stay at. We decided since my aunt would have to stay in jail over
night that we would just go home. As soon as we got home we started throwing
stuff in boxes and in my room. We then noticed my mom could not find her
needles for her insulin. An hour later we found them hidden in my aunt’s
bathroom (which only she used) under the sink behind the pipes. She hid my mom’s
needles, was she trying to kill my mom? We packed until 1 in the morning then
decided we needed sleep. We woke up at 6 am and called the shelter to make sure
they still had room for the three of us. Around 8 am, while we are loading the
car to the brim, my aunt comes home and sneaks in the side door. She then says “if
that car leaves the driveway I am calling the police on you,” and “if you do
not give back everything I ever paid for I am reporting you for theft” so we
called the cops to mediate so we could leave safely. She just threatened to
hold us hostage. The police showed up and tell my aunt to stay in her room
while we leave. She then tells them that the tags on our car are expired. We
told the police “yes they are expired, but we are leaving for a shelter for our
safety” my aunt laughed at this and the cop looked at her, and made my day, he
said “I do not care that the tags are expired. They are leaving to be safe and
to get away from you. For all I care their tags are fine.”
This was the day that the 2 ½ years of abuse came to an end.
I spent 7 months in domestic violence shelters (later blog) and have never
looked back. I am a stronger woman, a stronger daughter, and a stronger mother.
I REFUSE to ever let anyone think they can walk all over me ever again. I am
the strongest I have ever been in my life. I know there are woman that had it
worse than me, but verbal abuse and emotional abuse are still abuse and stick
with you a lot longer than the bruises of being beat. Domestic Violence needs
to end NOW!
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