August 8, 2014
I promised to share about this day, so I am. Right now. It seems as good as any moment since today (October 14) two years ago I had to get plastic surgery on my nose in result of August 8, 2014…
So… here we go.
It was a regular day as any. I was in a trigger phase and I needed comfort. And I didn’t receive any comfort. In fact he left the house to go engage in shenanigans. He came back and saw me laughing at my phone and assumed that I was fine. However, I was laughing at my friend who blocked my phone number because she thought I was someone else… and we were tweeting about it. It’s crazy how this all plays out because I needed her phone number and her more than she will ever know.. because she was the closest person to me once all of this unraveled.
Anyway… so I approached him because he went into another room and was completely ignoring me. I had been texting him… and he ignored them. So he was mad at me because I pretended to be fine… by laughing.. for a few seconds…
Let me give a slight back story for a seconds. A few days before that he was unable to pay his cell phone bill, because he didn’t have any money. Because he wasn’t working. But he needed a phone because he was actively looking for a new job… or so I thought.
And out of the goodness of my own heart, I had given him my iPhone 5s… the brand new one with the new finger print to unlock the phone on it… the one I worked so hard to get myself… I gave to him. And I was only at the time able to afford an iPhone C. And he wasn’t able to afford anything. I know this seems materialistic.. but it will all play out. I promise.
So.. I put him on my phone plan and I was paying the phone bill and I was going to help him because he needed a phone to hear about a few jobs and he was also working for a temp agency… but I had a really bad feeling in my gut as soon as I did that. *sigh*
Flash forward and he is in his brothers room… on the phone that I gave to him.. doing god knows what. And I asked him if he could put the phone down for a few seconds so that I could talk to him. He put the phone down with an attitude. I told him that I really needed him. And that I would love to spend some time with him. I was having a trigger moment. He says to me “well you look fine… because you were just smiling and laughing at your phone so you don’t need me”. I explained to him it was a friend I went to high school with who lived 3 hours away from me and I was trying to get ahold of her and I was laughing because she blocked me and assumed I was this person she was trying to avoid. But that didn’t change what I needed from him.
He didn’t care. He just kept ignoring me and flipping the situation back on me and saying that I was acting and faking. He kept looking at the phone I gave him. Texting people back while I was talking to him. And I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Because that was something he had always done to me. He had always done that. Instagram females were always more important. Females in his state wanting to fuck him again we’re more important. People trying to boost his ego were always more important. So I had enough. Because I know that it was nothing good that was on that phone. Given everything that I had seen in the past on his other phone, social media, etc.
So he put the phone down… and looked at me. He wasn’t touching the phone. The phone wasn’t on his person it was laying next to him on the bed…
I told him “I can’t do this anymore… I just can’t keep being disrespected anymore. I am trying to talk to you and you don’t even care enough to put the phone down that I gave you.. and you’re mad at me for laughing… for five seconds…. so… I’m just going to take this phone back and I’m just done.. I can’t keep being treated like this”.
*I grabbed the phone*….. I did not touch him, I did not hit him, I did not threaten him.
I simply grabbed the phone to take it back.. it’s my property, it is in my name… and I wanted it back. How dare I keep being disrespected on something that I worked my ass off to get and he was not responsible enough to work because he wanted to play basketball and that was it. So I had to pay for yet another thing to keep his head above water. Me. And yet, I was being disrespected right in my face.
So, as I grabbed the phone he proceeds to grab me by my neck and slam me into the bed. And my face slammed straight into the bed. He did that three times. I rolled over and he was on top of me. He then puts his arm into my throat and I started screaming for him to get off of me. For him to stop. And he wouldn’t. He had his forearm in my throat as I was trying to get him off of me. I am screaming at the top of my lungs. Praying that someone would hear me. I started punching at him and he wouldn’t get off of me. I got away from him and I was the furthest away from the door. And the door was closed.
I told him to let me leave. And he wouldn’t. He wanted the phone back. And he was going to get it at any cost. I was screaming for him to move. To let me leave. And he wouldn’t. He just stood there right in my way. So I tried to get passed him. And he slammed me in the bedroom wall. Right next to the door. And he was fighting me to get this iPhone 5s back. I can only imagine what was on it that he didn’t want me to see… yet again.
At this point I am exhausted trying to figure out how I am going to get out of this room. He’s holding me against the wall. And he’s slamming me against the wall repeatedly. I dropped the phone. And I put my foot on it. And he turns me to the door and begins to ram his head into my stomach. Several times. And I am just screaming. And screaming. And screaming. At that point I realized there just wasn’t any reason that that phone was more important than my life. So I tried to pick it up to give it to him. But as soon as I tried to pick up the phone he slammed me back into the door. My head smashing back into it. I kicked it at him. And told him he could have it.
We were walking down the hallway because I was trying to leave the house. And it was a shoving match. He pushed me. I pushed him back. He pushed me so hard the side of my head smacked into the wall. And as we get into the kitchen I pushed him so hard that he fell onto the couch. (Yes there was a couch in the kitchen and I’m not sure why). I told him to stop putting his fucking hands on me. He stood up. And balled a fist up and acted like he was going to punch me in the face. He called me a Bitch and then picked me up and threw me into the kitchen counter. Picked me up again and slammed me into the kitchen counter again. I was screaming and I was crying. I reached down to grab something. Anything to defend myself. And I grabbed a pot. I picked it up and I hit him in the face with it.
He got pissed. He backed away from my clutching his face and he asked me “what the fuck is wrong with you”. And I told him “I told you you were going to stop fucking putting your hands on me”.
I was trying to get passed him to leave the house and as I got to open the door he’s trying to stop me and the door hits him in the face. The same spot I just hit him with the pot. And he pushed me out of the way and got in his car and left.
Growing up, my dad always told me… if there is ever a situation where a man puts hit hands on you. You do these three things in this order:
1. Defend yourself
2. Call me
3. Pack your shit and leave
And I never thought that I would ever have to use that advice. But I did that. In that order. I called my dad and he didn’t answer. I called my mom and she picked up and I’m screaming on the phone for her to put my dad on the phone. My dad gets on the phone because he could tell something was wrong. And I was screaming. “He fucking put his hands on me dad… he put his hands on me. I need you to fly out here so I can drive back with you and we can pack my shit… I need to get out of here.”
He told me that he couldn’t fly out to me and that I just needed to pack what I could and leave. Mind you, my dad is in Denver, Colorado and I was in Fayetteville, North Carolina. 1400 miles away from my dad and my family. And in that moment I remember I just had gotten my friend to text me back and she was 3 hours away. I called her twice. She texted me and said “I am in class.. what’s up?” I said “I need your address… I am in danger and I will explain everything later… I need to come to you”. With no hesitation she sent me her address and that was that. I packed all I could while crying and screaming in the phone to my father.
His mother comes in the house to ask me why her sons face is bruised and why I look perfectly fine. Which I didn’t. And she said to me “you just need to learn a mans place in this world… and that’s what that is going to be”. Coming from a mother… who’s son had lost his front two teeth because of one of her abusive boyfriends. I was completely baffled.
My dad was on the phone the entire time. He told me to ignore her, keep packing, stop talking and to get out of there as fast as I could. So I did. And I got on the road and drove three hours to my friend. Who was in Charlotte. Not one time did I cry… not one time did I do anything. I just drove… and I drove for three hours with my dad calling me off and on. And I just drove… I finally made it to Charlotte and I waited in my car for about 20 minutes until my friend was home. And once she got home she brought me inside. Asked me what happened and I told her. I still hadn’t cried yet. Or broke down yet. I was still pumping adrenaline from the whole entire situation.
We went to dinner with her family and my dad spoke to her dad and thanked all of them. And I went to sleep… or I tried… and I woke up at about 4 am to start the drive back to Colorado. By myself. Over the course of two days I made it back to Colorado. And I had the help of some friends who dedicated their time to stay on the phone with me to make sure that I made it back safely. When I wanted to cry I called one of them.
I made it back to Colorado and it was the hardest thing I think I ever had to do. Replaying all of those events in my mind. I struggled for a very long time.
Over the course of two years I had began to have some issues with my nose. I could barely breathe. I was getting six or seven sinus infections a year. And I didn’t know why. So I finally went to an ENT specialist (ear nose and throat). He looked at my nose and was baffled at how badly deviated it was. The septum is supposed to be in a straight line. Mine was in an upside down U. Completely damaged. He said that I needed surgery but asked how this happened. Asked if I had any sports injuries and I said no. And then it hit me. My face was slammed into a mattress a few times and was also dodging elbows to the face, etc.
I told him my ex was abusive and he was baffled. I left the office with a surgery date and a plan to get it repaired and I was hurt all over again. Reminded yet again that I had to deal with this situation. Surgery was supposed to be about 45 minutes but it turned into almost 2 hours. The surgeon comes out after I woke up from anesthesia and says to me “surgery was longer than expected because the damage was far worse that expected”.
Things just seemed to have kept getting worse from this whole entire situation. Recovery was absolutely brutal. It was painful. It sucked. I was off work for three weeks and all I could do was finally deal with it all. I was depressed and I had to deal with the result of it all. Once I got back to Colorado I threw myself into working and finishing school and I never emotionally coped. So all of it came back on me like a ton of bricks. And it was heavy and it was brutal. And it fucking sucked.
I finally recovered from it physically and I was still in the process of recovering from it emotionally. And I found out that due to the trauma to my neck, the base of my neck was degenerating and my spine is badly misaligned and my C3 is damaged causing brutal headaches. It just kept coming at me. All of this. And I just was forced to take it. I was forced to deal with it. And I was forced to get through it.
I got the purple ribbon and survivor tattooed on my foot as a reminder every day that I survived. No, my abuse wasn’t as bad as most horror stories you hear. But it happened to me. Still. It happened to me. It happened to me a few times. And I knew that in the moment of that situation, broad daylight, no alcohol involved that that was who I was dating. And I needed to get out.
But I got the tattoo on my foot as a reminder on my heavy days that I survived. I made it. And I will keep surviving. No matter how bad it gets.
But August 8, 2014 changed my life in so many ways that I am still dealing with today.
But I survived. And I will keep on surviving. Every. Single. Day. 💜