“I had 3 months to figure out my escape. I stopped fighting back with my daughter’s father and kept calm. He was losing control, and it drove him crazy. ‘You’re not gonna take her from me,’ he’d say. I’d wake up to him pacing the kitchen talking to himself. I stayed quiet and texted a friend who said, ‘Wait 10 minutes, and then you call the cops. He could be lying.’”
‘I want to live!,’ I was screaming. The cops were on their way. I was trying to get out of the bathroom, trying to get my boyfriend off me, trying to hide in the tub.’: Single mom’s empowering story of surviving domestic abuse with infant daughter
‘My stepdad always told me I was bad luck. I never fit into his picture-perfect family. To avoid fights, I’d lose myself in a book or math problem. School was my safe-haven.’
“I didn’t care what school I went to as long as I could get away from home. I later dropped out of high school and started working the night shift at a restaurant. Weeks later, my school counselor called. ‘If I work something out with you, would you agree to come back?’ It was my second chance at life.”
‘If I did good at work, I felt like I was failing at home. Fighting between the two worlds broke my heart. I put on a mask of perfection. I felt like I was drowning and couldn’t come up for air.’
“So, I did the only thing I knew how to do. I wish I could tell you everything was fine the next day. That my feelings resolved themselves or my prayers were magically delivered to my doorstep. In fact, it was quite the opposite.”
‘He dragged me out of a bar. I begged him to stop. I remember his face. His eyes looked so evil. I loved him so blindly, I didn’t realize I was losing myself.’
“The hospital staff and police officers were horrified, they told me I looked like an animal attacked me. How did I end up here? I wanted to show off our love, he wasn’t in the mood that night. I looked out of the window and watched him leave the apartment. That killed me.”
