Domestic Violence Awareness Month 💜💜💜💜

October is the month of a lot of awareness. October represents a month of a lot of strength and a lot of pain wrapped up in a bow of different colors.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month

But I cannot speak on those. I do however, know some amazingly kick ass men and women who have had to endure that type of pain and I send them so much love and strength.

I am here to bring a small amount of awareness to Domestic Violence. October is also the month of Domestic Violence. I am a Domestic Violence Abuse Survivor and I want to take a moment to recognize any women or men that have experienced this and want to be free from it. It is engraved in my skin. Literally, I have the tattoo on my foot to prove it, with my purple ribbon and words that say, Survivor. You survived, I survived, we survived. We have survived the things that were supposed to bring us down. This too, is what makes me thrive to teach myself and others how to love a battered woman. I am a battered woman.

August 8, 2014 was the day that forever changed me. April 30th should have been the day that changed me, but we will get into that later.

August 8, 2014 was that day that showed me everything that I needed to see, in me, my partner, and this world. I thought that I would never be able to get to this side of happiness and strength, but I am. I survived. I won’t take the opportunity to tell that story just yet. I think I will wait a few days and explain that story later in this month of Awareness.

We however, can talk about April 30th. It was just a regular night as any. I was going to a party with my spouse at a family members house (of his, not mine… I think that is rather important). Of course alcohol was involved and there were a lot of people around playing beer pong and dancing to music. Taking shots of whatever we can find. My ex spouse and I had a no snap chat rule. For the simple reason being I was continuously disrespected by him and the females he liked to be involved with, so we had no snap chats, or so I thought. Well I glanced over and saw him snap chatting a girl about something, I got upset and I went and sat outside. After I told him I thought we didn’t do snap chat. Which now is so silly, if you cannot respect me on or off social media, then we cannot be together, yet another lesson learned. Anywhoozle… I was sitting outside talking to the girlfriend of my ex spouses sister, and as I am sitting there I see a car pull up and a girl get out and say to her friend “OMG I can’t wait to see *insert exes name here*, I haven’t seen him in a while and he is so fucking sexy”. Any woman would get upset to hear these things about their man. I went back in the house to find out whom this woman was… and as I walk into the house I can hear my ex speaking ill of me to some mutual friends of ours. “She’s so fucking dumb. She’s always tripping on me and she is always making a big deal out of shit, I can’t do anything”, etc.

So now I had three things on my mind with alcohol swirling through my system. I went up to him and asked him why was he not defending me. I asked him why he always had to down me and make me look stupid and now this woman is here for him. “Oh she is only here to smoke and drink and I invited her to come hang out as a friend, you always fucking tripping get out of my face” *Pushes me*. I got upset and I pushed him back (no it is not right to return a strike, but I did). His sister then proceeds to get in the middle and says we need to cool off and she grabs me by the throat. I pushed her hard enough to where she hit the wall. And then next thing I know I was getting jumped by two girls. I was getting swung on and pushed and then punched again. The next thing that I know I am on the ground with his sisters girlfriend laying on me saying “I love you, but if you hit my girl again we are going to have problems”. As she is shielding me from being punched and kicked. A few seconds later I am being picked up and thrown over a shoulder of my ex. My ankle is busted and I cannot walk. He drags me outside where his sister is repeatedly threatening to kill me. Over and over again.

I get in the car. I am freaking out and punching everything I see in my wake. So beyond angry and upset. We get back to the house, I am still drunk. So is my ex. Not sure how we made it home. I get out of the car and go sit on the sidewalk and I just need a few seconds to breathe. My ex grabs me by my arm and attempts to get me up. And I told him I needed a few seconds to catch my breath, I just got jumped by his family. He goes, “You are so fucking dramatic, always being extra, you didn’t get jumped. Get your ass up and get inside!”. So he grabs me by my arm and is pulling me to the door as I can barely walk because of my ankle. I am trying to get him to let go of my arm and he does not. He’s grabbing me and I barely walk. I am telling him to get off of me. And yet he doesn’t. I tried to push him off of me. He gets angry. After he got the door open he slams me against the wall and puts his forearm in my throat and says to me “You are going to remember that I am the man in this, and that you are going to listen to me and you are going to fucking respect me”. And then pushes off of me. I am trying to walk up the stairs, as I am limping and in tears because my ankle is so hurt.

We are walking down the hall going back and forth of him pushing me, me pushing him back. I was trying to get him off of me. He opens the door to the apartment and pushes me so hard that my head bounces off the wall. I turn and I smacked him in the face and told him to stop putting his hands on me. All I remember is being punched in the face and being tackled and body slammed onto the box spring in our bedroom (we had a movie night in the living room and brought our mattress in there and left it, so I got body slammed into a box spring). He puts his forearm back into my throat and says “I told you, you are going to fucking respect me, you stupid ass bitch”.

And then he leaves. And like an idiot I try and run after him, I try to make him stay. But he leaves. Only he had a car, and I didn’t. He used that against me a lot. Anyway. I was just left on the floor, crying, in pain.

That night… I didn’t place blame. I chose to stay. I didn’t make an issue out of it, because we were drunk. Everyone was drunk. People do things they do not mean when they are drunk. So I just put it out of my mind. And I shouldn’t have. I should have left, when I stayed. I should have listened to my best friend and my mentor to leave. But I didn’t.

This is the first time I have actually published this story. And I have only told a few people.

But none of that made me weak, none of that made me any less of a woman because I stayed. Sometimes we stay because it is the only thing we can do, until we get our footing to leave.

I am stronger now. Yes, I am battered, but I am stronger.

Stay tuned for August 8th. Because that is when I knew, for sure.