[Yoda]

TRIGGERS ABOUND IN THIS POST

The day was September 19, 2000. It was a warm sunny day. It started without event but within hours became the worst day of my entire life. At the time I did not realize that you had to experience the worst before you could improve. The events of the day were surreal. At the end of the day I was asking myself if the day was real.

In 1991 I went on a blind date with a man that I fell in love with. Within a few months we began living together and he became step-dad to my then two year old son. It was idyllic. The relationship was wonderful and passionate. We soon decided that it was pointless for him to drive to work quite a distance each day for his meager salary as a mechanic so he became the stay at home dad. It was perfect for both of us. I made a good salary as a RN and was pampered when I was home. I called him one day from work and said what are you doing and he said scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees. In the mornings he brought my coffee to me and heated my car for me. In the evening my son was already bathed when I arrived home from my typical twelve hours shifts and he would serve a homecooked meal to me. He loved my son dearly. He helped him catch crawdads in the creek, turtles, camp out and everything a good dad would do. Life had never been better. We continued in bliss for seven years.

But after seven years something changed. Something horrid. He met a guy who was trafficking drugs from California to West Virginia. I thought it was just pot. I was very wrong. During the next two years my boyfriend became a person I no longer knew. He lost weight, became irritable and then "mildly" violent and then severely violent. I would find him passed out in the back yard or garage and could not waken him. I knew he had been using alcohol since age eleven so I assumed his alcoholism was affecting his brain. I would find cut up straws in his pants pockets but still it didn't click with me that he was using a serious drug. Most of his friends stopped coming around because he was nasty to them as he was to me. The only ones who continued to visit him were the ones with serious drug habits themselves. I did not learn until after he was dead that the drug he was abusing was meth.

I was afraid of him and at times I thought my death was imminent but because we had those wondrous seven years I didn't understand how somebody I loved so much and loved me had turned into somebody I no longer knew. I just wanted to fix it. To return to the wonder years. I tried everything I knew to do. As the battering became more serious I started filing assault charges but his brother was an attorney so he was always out of jail in about twelve hours and then he was madder than before. We tried counseling; he walked out of therapy and disabled my vehicle. I filed a restraining order: translation useless piece of paper. I had been supporting him for several years which initially was fine but then his brother forced him to sell his house and he then had nowhere to go. I loved him but feared him so I moved in with my mom and tried to decide what to do. After three months I moved back to my house with my BF. Two weeks later I walked away and asked a neighbor to call a state trooper to take me to a domestic violence shelter. A few weeks later I was at the house to check on my horse. My BF forced me inside and held me at gunpoint for three hours. During the third hour he forced me to kneel beside the bed while he laid in bed trying to decide what to do with me. He barricaded the door so I could not escape. He had my handgun and his shotgun. At the end of the third hour he walked into the bathroom and when he returned he threw my pistol at my knees and said, get out of here. I thought he was giving me an empty gun so I could point it at him and then he could feel justified in shooting me with the shotgun. I grabbed the pistol and ran out of the house. No keys to my car. In the dark. Gun in my hand. I quickly hid behind a bush outside. He came to the door with the shotgun and yelled for me but I was motionless and he did not see me. When he moved from the doorway I ran to my neighbor's house about a quarter of a mile away and crawled under his house. I saw my BF driving my car up and down the country road looking for me. I was under the house for two hours before I came out. My neighbor was not home. I was afraid to be on the road so I hid another two hours in my neighbor's horse barn. It was then that I discovered my gun was loaded with one in the chamber. If I had chosen to I could have killed my BF that night. Is that what he wanted me to do? Finally I ran to another neighbor's house and asked them to call my sister to come get me. By then it was 2am and I had never met these people and I am certain they were astonished by the situation. But they were nice people. The man asked if he could hold my gun. Sure, I didn't need it while I was in their house. I was too scared to call the police because my BF kept saying if he let me leave alive I would call the cops and I kept telling him I wouldn't. The next day I filed a mental hygiene petition on him hoping he would get a psych evaluation. But they insisted I talk to a sheriff so I did and told him everything. He took pictures of my wounds. Later that day they arrested him. I hid at my aunt's house waiting. He was released six hours after his arrest.

Then he disappeared. Gone. Nobody knew where he was. After several weeks I moved back into my house with my son but I was terrified. I wore my pistol in my holster mowing the lawn, in the house, everywhere for a very long time. Then I got a letter from him. He had gone into drug rehab (probably upon the advice of his attorney). He apologized and said he understood if I never wanted to see him again but please hold onto his stuff until he had a place to move it. I did not respond to his letter. A month later he had returned to the nearby city and called me. He asked if I would buy his psych meds because he had no money and was living on the streets. I bought his meds but was very uneasy in his presence. Over the next two weeks we had a few conversations and I bought him some food. He was sober. He said he intended to stay sober. He asked to sleep on the couch. I was uncertain what to do but despite all the abuse I still cared about him and it seemed nobody else did. He slept on the couch a couple of weeks. My gun was loaded but well hidden. I didn't know what to expect. He had become Jekyll and Hyde and I wasn't sure who I would see next. But in those weeks he was sober and calm. I had not forgotten the beatings but still I wondered if it could ever go back to the first seven years.

In the morning of September 19 it seemed like pretty much any other day. Any day when I had become accustomed to being battered at random intervals for unknown reasons. Two days before my boyfriend and I had been sitting on the couch holding hands. That Tuesday morning we drank coffee and then he took my car because he had to appear in court that morning for one of the assault charges. He was fined $250 and time served. That was all. But he was furious. He bought a 12 pak of beer and came home and began assaulting me again and telling me he intended to kill both of us. Again. And again. He called me a rat for telling the police when he hurt me and forced me to eat cheese. I could not escape. He took my keys. He assaulted me for at least two hours repeatedly telling me he intended to kill us both. He had told mutual friends that he intended to kill me and they told me. Why was I still with him after all that you are wondering. I honestly don't know. I was as though there were only two choices: we would return to the wondrous good times and be happy again or we would die together.

As I watched him that day all I could think of was how sad it was that my eleven year old child was going to grow up without his mother. That was what it took to push me over the edge. When he took a break from assaulting me to look for the gun under the cushions in the living room I went to where the gun was hidden and grabbed my emergency car keys and headed outside to safety. Or so I thought. He was behind me with a beer in hand. Something in my mind snapped and I realized that unless I killed him he would kill me. Maybe that day. Maybe a different day. But unstopped he would kill me. I didn't want to die. I fired two warning shots into the ground hoping to shock some sense into him. Nothing. He didn't turn, didn't put his hands out, didn't say don't shoot me. No effect. I then shot the gun until it was empty. He fell to the ground but still I didn't know for certain if he was hurt or faking or what. All I knew was I was still afraid because he was still alive. I ran into the house and locked the front and back doors still fearing him. I peeked through the window. He was still on the ground. But was he still going to kill me? I called 911 and asked for police and ambulance and told them what happened. Finally they arrived. I went outside and collapsed onto the ground. I watched as the paramedics took him away. If he lives he will have every reason to kill me now but if he dies... I couldn't process that. I went with a trooper to the police station and for five hours told him my story. At 5:30 PM the trooper told me my BF had died a half hour ago. I was hysterical. I was bawling and telling the trooper what a wonderful father my BF was. He startled me because he said these men chose their behaviors and there is no excuse. On the drive home the trooper told me he understood why I did what I did and told me to not second guess myself. By then I was numb. None of it was real. Not until the morning when I bought the daily paper and my picture was on the front cover with the caption, Stormy Relationship Ends in Tragedy. I didn't eat for five days. Every day I walked outside and looked at my BF's blood still spattered on my lawn. Finally on Friday it rained and the blood was gone. My psychiatrist put me in a psychiatric hospital for five weeks. Then he insisted I stay a month at the domestic violence shelter before returning home because he was afraid home would be too much to handle. Everything was too much to handle. Every week for the first year I had an appt with my therapist and an appt with my psychiatrist. I looked at the calendar and said if I can just hold it together for two more days, for one more day,... I slept every day 12-16 hours and was stoned and in my own little world when awake. I kept the kid and animals fed but nothing else. I was in a severe depression and confusion. I didn't understand why things had happened the way they had. My therapist had to repeat herself to my same questions for months. There was simply too much input to process and my head shut down. The flashbacks were frequent and prolonged. They jumped from one scene to the next with no rhyme or reason. The video played endlessly in my head. And the audio. Even the feel of the kick of the gun as I shot it haunted me.

I thought my life had ended. I had no hope of ever returning to work or even being functional again. I was in the psychiatric hospital ten or twelve times total.

What I did not know then that I now know in 2009 is that on September 19, 2000 I made the most important choice of my life and that choice was to survive. That day in all its horror had to play out for me to survive and for me to begin to heal. When a surgeon operates it often causes the patient much pain. That day has caused me hours and hours of pain. But like the surgeon curing a patient I had to make my choice that day to solve my situation in the only way I knew how. I have spent endless hours on the what ifs and what else could I have done. I know of nothing else I could have done that would have kept me alive. I am so very very sorry that my BF is dead but I am happy to be alive today to look at my son's beautiful face and know that he knows his mother loves him.

It is strange how sometimes the worst part of your life is exactly what is needed to move you onto the next part of your life.

[jooker]

Wow! Yoda that is some tragic, traumatic story. I'm sorry this happened to you but glad you lived to tell about it.

((((((((YODA)))))))

You did a great job of taking care of U

Pax vobiscum, Yoda.

[Elysium]

((((((((((Yoda))))))))))

I read this a long time ago, shortly after you posted. But I never knew what to say or how to say it.

You were in a horrible position and none of your choices at that moment had the best consequences for you. You needed to make a decision, that you knew would affect the rest of your life...and your child's life and you didn't have the time to really process what needed to be done.

I do not condone violence towards others. I do however believe in self defense and I respect the decision that you needed to make at that moment.

I am glad that you chose to survive!! And I am sorry that it took me so long to respond.

[Typo]

((((((((((((((((((Yoda))))))))))))))))))))))))

[jooker]

Elysium said:

I do not condone violence towards others. I do however believe in self defense and I respect the decision that you needed to make at that moment.

Just want to say, I don't condone violence either. It must be a terrible position to be put in to have no other choice. (((YODA)))

[darkrunner]

Yoda,

Your strength is inspiring.
Thanks for sharing your story.
I wish you well.
darkrunner

[lynn P.]

(((Yoda))) thanks for sharing your very painful story and I'm sorry you've suffered a great deal. Naturally I also don't believe in violence, but I do strongly believe in self defense.

[amante]

Yoda, your story is very inspiring, I suffered domestic violence at the hands of a professional heavyweight boxer, you did what you knew you needed to do to survive, it was going to be him or you - I'm sure you have been to hell and back in thinking why things worked out this way for you. Just remember you didn't deserve or asked to be abused. Peace be with you. Amanda