This is where I'm going to answer my own interview question that I asked people for the testimonials page. Imagine that you have a man in your life whether it's a family member, a friend, or an intimate partner. They love and care for you, What was it that they did that made you realize that they did not actually like you?

 

My Story begins when I was probably 4 years old, maybe five My mom and dad were split up because he was violent towards her.  He never put his hands on me, well, with the exception of the time when he was trying to grab my mom and get her out of the car. He accidentally missed and pulled my hair. That was the time that he had drug her out of the car and and took her behind a building and was trying to strangle her. Meanwhile, he left me alone in front of a building. The building at the time seemed really tall but now that I think back,  it was probably just like a 7-Eleven or something. Luckily, my mom got away but when she came running around the building to get away from him and find me, we ran into each other. The next thing I remember was waking up and we are in the hospital. As far as I can remember both of us were fine aside from the trauma.  Sometime after that he had gone to court to try to get unsupervised visitation because obviously due to his actions he was not allowed to be alone with me. He ad also threatened to kidnap me and so he just wasn't allowed to see me unless it was supervised. He had gone to court and was awarded three unsupervised visits. He took one of those and then he moved to North Dakota. I think at the time I was probably mostly just relieved because I really didn't like spending time with him. I think even if I didn't realize it at that point that was when I really knew that he just didn't like me. I think the whole reason for the courts and all of that was just to get back at my mom.

 

That was the first but definitely not the last man that was abusive towards me.

 

I started dating probably when I was about 15. That first real boyfriend was very toxic. We broke up and got back together several times. The last time that we got back together we ended up sleeping together. That had been my first time. Then after that happened he immediately broke up with me again and told me that he had only got back together with me so that we could sleep together.

 

 I went on to have other boyfriends that were controlling and would tell me how to dress. In fact, my mom had a suspicion that one boyfriend disabled my car so that I wouldn't be able to go anywhere. I had boyfriends that had shoved me through a glass coffee table. That one also wrapped a belt around my neck and a nother timehad his hands on my throat. When I punched him in the face he flung himself back on the bed and cried. I asked him what he expected me to do with his hand around my neck.  That particular boyfriend actually realized that he was not making good decisions and didn't want to end up like his dad. We went to therapy and he never put a hand on me again. That's not normally the statistic so I will give him credit for that.

 

With every relationship the abuse got worse. Not physically, but in other ways. It usually consisted of mental and emotional abuse, although my first husband did demeaning things to me like throw food at my face and spit on me. He quickly found out though that spitting on me was not the correct thing to do as I smacked him in his face. I've had men lie to me. Cheat on me. Gaslight me. The gaslighting was probably the worst because it just makes you question your sanity so much.

 

 I would have to say that my second husband was probably the worst. I can't tell you how many times that man lied to me. One time that I can remember very vividly was when he had locked himself in our room with my cats and he was breaking all of my stuff. This was before I found out that cops were worthless so I had called the them. They basically told me that because we were married that all of my stuff was his stuff and that he was breaking his stuff which he was allowed to do. They couldn't break the door down. They couldn't do anything because we were married. Even though he was not on the lease it did not matter, he was allowed to be there. There's another time when I had to call the police. I had a couple of friends over and him and I were fighting. He had walked out of the house without taking his dog (my dog now because you don't get to keep a dog that you don't take care of). He was trying to break the door down. He actually broke the door but instead of breaking it open he broke it so that it would not open. When the cops got there they told me to just stay in the apartment and call the apartment office in the morning. They were just going to leave me there locked in that apartment while my husband was kicking the side of my door in. They did threaten to arrest him but didn't actually do anything. I had to beg the police officer to break the door open. I told them that I had severe anxiety disorder and that I couldn't be left locked in the apartment all night.  I had to say that I would be responsible for any damages to get them to knock the door down. This was long before I took possession of the dog so that night I let him take the dog so that he would leave me alone. The door ended up being $700.

 

My friends would ask me all the time why I wanted to stay with him when he treated me so badly. I just never had an answer for them. It wasn't until I had my first DV advocate explain to me what trauma bonding was. A quick explanation of this is that you're constantly trying to chase those few good moments that you would have in the relationship even though the majority of the time the relationship was toxic. One day I finally just got the strength and when he left that time, I didn't try to get him to come back. I also took precautions to make sure that he didn't come back on his own because he had a habit of successfully getting back in the house after we had a fight. I ended up having to get a restraining order against him because he became when I wouldn't let him have his dog back. On one of his drunken benders (this one took him to Hawaii for 2 months, leaving me with the dog) he had told me he was going to kill himself so the dog was mine. That same day I got the dog microchipped and registered in my name. Unfortunately the dog had some medical issues that needed handling and I knew that he wasn't going to take proper care of the dog. The majority of his friends even said I should be keeping the dog.

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As a divorce present to myself I got a couple of tattoos. One of them said t”It Was All A Lie”  to remind myself that the entire relationship was not real. I got another one of the word “PERFECT” to signify the meaning behind the video Perfect by Pink that meant a lot to me.

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​​​​​​​ It took one more horrible relationship after that before I finally just couldn't anymore. One day after enough disrespect, along with the fact that I was dealing with my sick mom who shortly after that passed away , something just changed inside of me. I remember when it happened. I remember where I was standing when something snapped in my brain. I was forever changed. I was never the same after that and since then I have been single. I have no interest in dating a man ever again. I don't even know if I have interest in dating anyone ever again. There are some things that you just cannot come back from and that's okay. I think back on times of my life and I wish I would have gotten to this point earlier. My life would have been so dramatically different if I was how I am now but in my twenties. There's nothing I can do about that now. I learned and will not make the same mistakes again .I will try to find happiness in other ways. I thought my happiness was being in a loving relationship but I never ever got that. Now my path leads me to trying to just find happiness within myself and my animals and the people that I do still have around me as well as the possibilities of adventure that lie in front of me.