A day I will never forget.  It was the day I chose ME.

It started out as an ordinary day.  I got the kids ready and out the door for school.  I worked a job that had evening hours and so I headed home for my morning cup(s) of coffee before heading out for a job interview.  A job that I am not sure I really wanted, but knowing what was about to happen in my life, I knew that a job that paid a significantly higher salary was something I needed to seriously consider.

The interview went great, but the events that followed almost seem like they happened either extremely fast or in super slow motion.  To say it was the longest, hardest day of my life would be an exaggerated understatement.

Earlier that summer after returning from volunteering at Kids camp with my youngest daughter, I asked my husband to go grocery shopping with me.  I had some things I wanted to say to him because it had been pointed out by several people that the way I had been treated by him was not okay and they were concerned with my well being.  It was time for me to face some fears and address the ugliness of it once and for all.  

As we drove home from the grocery store, I turned the volume down on the radio, looked at him and told him that I was afraid of him.

I remember a small sigh escaping his mouth followed by the words, “You shouldn’t be.”  He turned the volume back on.  Discussion over.  That’s how it was with him.  When he was done with the conversation, it was over.  

From that night, I began having frightening panic attacks in the middle of the night and I had no idea why.  I found myself sleeping curled up tightly in a ball, and then waking up feeling like I was having a heart attack and gasping for air every night.  Most nights I cried myself to sleep and he had no idea.  A stranger in the bed next to me. 

It wasn’t until I started seeing a counselor in the fall that I realized why the panic attacks had started. 

Fast forward to the fall counseling sessions and the significance of this date.  My counselor told me I had Complex PTSD, severe clinical depression, an anxiety disorder and that I needed to create an escape plan.  I was clearly afraid of the man I married almost 20 years earlier and I needed to escape the situation before it could become any worse.

I became aware of the severity of his negative actions towards me and found myself withdrawing from him knowing that I would be leaving soon.  You can imagine that this caused a lot of tension and there was a confrontation that lead me to escape earlier than I had planned out with my counselor.

Immediately following that confrontation, I picked the kids up from school, ran home and grabbed a few necessary things from the house and drove 500+ miles to my parent’s house.  I left him a note informing him that I was leaving, the kids were safe and we were going to stay with them for a short amount of time.

I chose to go from victim to survivor that day.

I plan on sharing my story in bits and pieces here along with anxiety filled funny stories of my life to break up the seriousness of this.  I am not a serious person by nature so being here and typing this out is quite outside my comfort zone. It is my intent to talk about myself and what I have learned about myself during my 43 years on this earth.  I wish to not speak ugly of my abuser, but I will post my truth.  And there is healing in speaking my truth. My hope is that by sharing the details of what I have been through, at least one woman (or man) would be able to escape this similar situation.  

My heart hurts for those who have experienced domestic violence.  It’s not always broken bones and bruises. And it so much more common than we know.