Dear Friends,

I am very reticent about sharing huge problems with anyone, including my PC family, but after weeks of consideration and prayer I have decided I must tell my story. If it keeps one person from harm, it is worth the embarrassment and horror that I will immediately feel upon posting this.

I used to tutor high school and college students and one day I met a young man who needed help with a college class. As we worked together we became friends. We were and always remained just close friends.

He was rough around the edges but I overlooked it. When he had a personal tragedy we became even closer as I helped him through his sorrow. When I was going through my divorce he “protected” me from the monster who hurt me so badly.

As a child of horrible abuse having a big strong male friend near who wouldn’t let anyone hit me was such a relief. I was homeless and he took me to a friend’s house so I wouldn’t die. I leaned on him and where you saw one you usually saw the other unless he was with his girlfriend.

Anyway, as time passed my friend, whom I’ll “M”, needed money. I thought nothing of it at first. A couple dollars here or there doesn’t make a difference when you don’t have enough anyway. His temper became worse, but it was never pointed toward me then. He demanded more and more money, always promising to pay it back and I payed dearly for the friendship. I went without and he had all the clothes and toys he wanted.

When he came in bloodied and cut I patched him up and put him back together. I set his shoulder back in place countless times. He started calling me Doc in front of his friends. Oh yes, I met his friends. They were rough and scary. He became rough and scary.

I wanted out, but he threatened to kill my brother and my niece. He knew where my Mom lived. I had taken him there. I couldn’t leave. If he didn’t kill me, he would kill one or more members of my family.

He took my car and refused to bring it back. He said if I turned him in he would kill my family. I had to protect my family. They were innocent.

When I finally got my car back, it was trashed. Unbelievably trashed. My almost new, in perfect condition car was ruined with an additional 50,000 miles on it that wasn’t there before. In your worst imagination you wouldn’t believe what he did to my car.

When he did bring the keys back I was told in no uncertain terms what he would do to me and my family if I tried to find him or talk to his family, with whom I was very close. I had PTSD before then, but I could feel something ripping apart inside me as he talked. He told me in the goriest, most graphic detail how he would dismember each body and scatter the pieces so they would never be found.

I lay in my bed in my dark apt in a fetal position for two weeks. I wouldn’t answer the phone or door. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think. Terror engulfed me. Slowly, my life came back together and I cast aside my losses and moved on…

A year later, the phone rang and I was too afraid of him to tell him to never come back. So he came back and begged my forgiveness for what he had done. He swore he had changed and he did for about two weeks and then it all began again.

The honeymoon cycle of any relationship, whether romantic or platonic, is wonderful. The abuser treats the abused like she’s made of gold, doing anything and everything to gain back her trust. Then when he is fairly certain he’s ok, he becomes his true self again.

“M” certainly became his true self again, to the tune of thousands of dollars that on my credit card and more threats and abuse. Finally this January I had enough. I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and told him to never, ever come near me again. Typical of his ilk, he did.

I live in a locked door apartment building. You have to have someone let you in before you can enter the building if you don’t have a pass card. I opened my apartment door to someone else and he was hiding around the corner so I couldn’t see him out of the peep hole. He started in on me and since I had company and didn’t want them to hear an argument, I stepped out into the hall.

Among other things he called me the one name I cannot stand. He knows it’s a trigger and pushed it for everything it was worth and I did the one thing I never, ever do. I lost it. He had pushed me beyond reason and I stood up to him.

He slammed me against the wall so high and hard that my feet weren’t touching the floor. I couldn’t get away. I struggled but it was like a kitten trying to bat at a gorilla. He’s very tall and extremely strong.

When he hit me, his fist coming toward me seemed to be in slow motion and I knew I was going to be badly hurt. He knocked me unconscious and hit me so hard I flew up the hall and landed on my back and the back on my head on the hard concrete hall floor.

He broke my necklace and my brand new glasses. They landed about twenty feet away from me.

I made it back to my apartment and my friend who was visiting took me to the emergency room. My face was swollen and black and blue. I had a black eye and my lips were cut. . The bone that surrounds my right eye was broken. One of the bones in my right ear was broken. My chest and arm were black from where he slammed me against the wall and held me there.

I had a major concussion and the Dr. gave me IV meds for pain and nausea. I was drowsing and thought I would get to go home soon. All at once my heart stopped. I flat lined twice and they brought me back each time.

My Dr. told me my body had so much trauma inflicted on it that it just couldn’t take anymore and shut down. Period.

I was so afraid I wouldn’t even give them his name right away.

So now, I wear a brace to try to put my chest back where it belongs. “M” reopened an old injury when he hit me. I may have to wear it forever. We don’t know. The current one is not working just right, so I am going to have to have a new one made that goes from under my arms to my tail bone. It’s hot and heavy and wears me out and I wouldn’t have to wear it if I hadn’t been beaten. I can’t bend over and I can’t reach and get anything. I have to use a “reacher” even at my desk to pick something up from the floor.

There is nothing sexy about the brace. It sticks out from under my clothes and it’s quite obvious that I have it on. I can’t hide it or my discomfort.

Because the bone in my ear is broken I have to take antivert. I have had to train myself not to bend my head over to look at things and I don’t dare look to the left or right quickly. I also can’t shake my head and since I am a most expressive person, that’s a hard habit to break. I have to hold onto the wall or whatever I can find to keep from falling over when I accidentally turn my head too fast.

I can’t see well out of either eye. The Dr. says it will take months for the tissue in my face to heal so that I’m not in constant facial pain. He hit me so hard that the blood vessels in my face are weak. They snap and break and I have a bleed. Not only is it extremely painful, but when that happens I get black eyes again because of the bruising and pooling of blood. I almost constantly have a swollen face and black eyes. Makeup won’t hide it. I have to take a strong pain medication and get in bed because I am literally blinded in one eye for hours when it happens. I am literally praying that I never become blinded in both at the same time.

I have hearing loss from the broken bone in my ear. I go Monday to see how much loss there is and if I need a hearing aid. I don’t know how in the world I’ll pay for it because my insurance won’t cover it.

I also go to Physical Therapy on Monday so a therapist can try to alleviate some of the neck, shoulder and back damage from being beaten and from hitting the concrete so hard.

I have brain damage. My short term memory is shot. I am no longer capable of taking care of my own housework. It’s too upsetting. My friends here are doing their best to wash my clothes, clean my apartment and help me remember to pay my bills, etc. It’s not fair and I’m not used to accepting help from anyone for anything. I hate it. It’s humiliating and I feel like I’m using my friends.

I’ve had to buy a pay as you go cell phone because I get lost now. I’ve lived here on and off all my life and I get lost. I can’t remember where I’m supposed to be or what I’m supposed to be doing. I can’t find my car. I walk right past it and don’t recognize it sometimes.

Lists are wonderful as long as you can remember to make one. Even if I make one, I can’t always remember to read it. Even if I read it, sometimes I can’t understand what it says.

I am left handed and he hit me so hard on my right side that my handwriting at times looks like nothing more than a scribble. My keyboarding skills are at times non existent. Sometimes my hand goes numb and I can’t use it. When I’m upset or tired I stutter. Sometimes my words are jumbled. Sometimes I can’t read. I definately can’t spell like I used to and my grammar is now fragmented.

I am a good mimic and do different accents just to goof off. Now they come out at the most inappropriate times. I gave some poor soul directions in a perfect British accent and could not help myself from speaking that way. Anything that is in my memory may pop out at any time.

I’m allergic to the medicine they normally use for brain trauma patients so I am own my own. I am to do puzzles, computer games, etc., to make my brain think. I am to avoid stress at all costs. Avoid stress - what a joke.

I am to get a service dog. I need one now. I am trying to start that process and hope I have the patience to get through all the red tape.

I have no patience now and I have a temper. That scares me to death.

I have a year to press charges against “M”. My pdoc and counselor consider “M” so much a psychopath that they feel he will kill me once he is released from prison. So, I have to think long and hard about what I need to do.

He knows that if he comes near me for any reason, even by accident in a store, I’m calling 911 and he’ll go to jail. He has stayed away so far, but I don’t know if he’ll try to come back. I feel more free now. I have written documentation everywhere so that if something happens to me they will know to go after him.

I should have gotten rid of him long ago. I should not have listened to his threats and I should have gotten away even if it meant moving away.

If any of this sounds remotely like a relationship of any kind that you are in, please get help now. Get away today. There are Domestic Violence networks everywhere with shelters you can hide in until you can start a new life. He or she will hurt you. He or she can and will very well kill you and swear it was your fault and that you made him do it. That’s what “M” says about beating me.

January