February 27, 2023 • 56 mins
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains material that may be harmful or traumatizing to some audiences.
During this week's episode, my guest shares her story on escaping from her abusive boyfriend.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome. You are now listening to the professional profession It's
(00:37):
your girl Ebana from the Professional Homegirl podcast, the only
place where you would hear interviews from women of color
anonymously on stories that will enlighten, and expand on taboo topics. Now,
if you hear someone that sounds familiar, mind the business
that pays you child. Please support the show by leaving
a five star review by some merch or simply share
(00:58):
these stories with your Professional home Girl. You never know,
these storylines can be someone else's lifeline. Now, please keep
in mind that all of my guests are anonymous. So
let's begin this week's episode. I am so excited to
be speaking with my guests today. She is an author,
professional baker, and I heard her bakery. It's amazing, really
(01:23):
good and a survivor of domestic balance. To my guests,
thank you so much for coming on the show. How
are you feeling? I am great and thank you for
having me. Of course, of course, so let's start from
the beginning. You were previously engaged before you met your
ex boyfriend, right, yes, tell us about that relationship. So
(01:45):
I was with him for five years and it was
my first real relationship. So I was really naive a
lot about a lot of different things. But you know,
I got a little bit of trial and error. Um basically, uh,
(02:08):
just just when it comes to relationships in general, like, um,
how somebody should be treating you, How you shouldn't be
allowing people to treat you, UM, how you should love yourself,
how you shouldn't allow other people to love you, like,
just a lot of different things, um in regards to
self love and um loving someone else and um, there's
(02:35):
a lot of things that I put up with that
I shouldn't have put up with. And basically, um, once
it finally clicked for me that I um wasn't with
who I should have been with, then I just wanted
to cancel our wedding and basically be done with him.
(02:55):
Not that I left him for someone else. I left
him to find me, right, I like them to better
myself and be who I needed to be because I
lost so much of myself trying to be so much
for him, right. And I don't know, I felt like
when I was watching your your interviews, was he also
abuse of No? Um, No, he never put his hands
(03:18):
on me or anything like that. It was more, um,
more verbal abuse. It wasn't. It wasn't physical abuse, but
it was verbal abuse, right okay, and emotional. So in
the midst of you growing your baking business, because at
this time y'all had split up and who was starting over?
You met your ex boyfriend? Yes, how did me? So? Um?
(03:44):
I had already been baking um for a few years.
I started baking at eighteen, so um, I was already
baking UM before I had met him. Um. The way
that I ended up meeting my ex that was actually abuse, yusef,
was when I left my ex fiance, when I canceled,
(04:06):
when I canceled our wedding. Obviously, he wasn't very happy
about that, so I know he was tight. Yeah, Yeah,
he wasn't very happy about that. So I ended up
moving out, and I told him that he could keep
the apartment, right, and I was just gonna start over. Well,
(04:27):
I ended up coming back to the apartment because he
told me that he couldn't afford it and I could
just go ahead and have it. So when I came back,
just knowing him over the years, I knew something was
gonna be off. I knew something was wrong. I figured
he had like left the water on or let the
lights on or something like that, just something petty to
just get back at me. So when I got back
(04:52):
to the house, I realized that he had taken everything,
the bed, the TV, the couch, you know, everything like that.
So you know, originally we were supposed to split that
stuff up, but you know whatever, he just took everything, right. Um. Yeah, So, UM,
I just had to start over on everything. And UM,
(05:17):
I was in a very bad, uh financial stand at
the time, and I had a friend that I had
been friends with for a little while, and um, he
basically said that he wanted to move in as um
a roommate to kind of help me get back on
my feet right. And um, when he ended up moving in,
(05:40):
we ended up like soon being in a relationship. Um.
It wasn't necessarily planned, but it just happened. Happened, And UM,
like before, this was really the first person that I've
ever really opened up to do so comfortable opening up
(06:01):
to him because he was actually somebody that wanted to
get to know me. Mum. Before when I would try
to open up to my ex fiance, he wasn't interested. Mum.
It's basically like I was complaining about life by um
trying trying to vent UM. And it was also like
(06:24):
how I felt didn't matter, So I just didn't talk
to him about anything, and UM, I just kept everything inside. So, UM,
this was someone that you know, came into my life
and he wanted to know those things about me. You know,
he wanted to know a lot of different things about
me that I never even um thought about expressing. UM.
(06:48):
So we started to get very close, and UM the
connection was crazy, and you know, we we fell in
love really fast and and UM it was not it
was not long, not long at all. UM. Honestly, everything
(07:10):
happened so fast. I can't I want to say that
we were probably only together for maybe a few weeks
to a month before UM before things started to kind
of get crazy. UM. Like everything was good at first, UM,
(07:40):
but then UM, I started to notice that it was
jealous And I was used to jealousy, but not in
the way that UM, he was jealous and it made
me uncomfortable. So I tried to talk to one of
my friends about it, and UM, they were like, no,
you know, you just you just gotten out of relationship.
You know, you're probably just um, you know, nervous that
(08:02):
he's going to turn out the same way that he was.
You know, give him a chance and give him the
opportunity to show you that he's not like that. And
I was like, okay, you know that's valid, so let
me give him a try. So um, but looking at that,
looking back at that, now, why do you think you
didn't trust your gut feeling. Well, obviously now you know,
(08:24):
I know to trust my gut feeling. But at the
same time, like back then, you have to think, this
is only my second boyfriend. And I also I felt
I was in a vulnerable place right and that was
the perfect opportunity to find me. And I was vulnerable.
(08:47):
I needed financial stability, I needed emotional connection, and I
needed love. Yes, so um, he basically took that opportunity
and he ran with it. You know, I know now
to listen to my instincts, but back then I just
thought that I was tripping because when I would talk
(09:08):
to my friend about it, she would make it seem
like I was tripping. So I was like, Okay, well,
you know, maybe it's me right, So I was like, no,
you know, there's something's off, but I couldn't exactly put
my finger on it. And I was like, well, maybe
I need to get him around some people, because it's
one thing for me to feel some type a certain
(09:30):
type of way and tell somebody about it, but maybe
if they see it right, then they can tell me
and confirm my feelings. So I didn't tell my family
what was going on. I just told them that I
wanted them to meet somebody and I wanted them to,
you know, kind of see how they felt about him. Right.
(09:51):
So my cousin had came into town and he was
a police officer, So I was like, Okay, you know,
this is the perfect operation tuny for you know, me
to bring him around some people. He came in and
it was him, my uncle, my mom, and my sister,
and at first everything was fine. We were sitting there
(10:12):
having a conversation. And why my boyfriend decided to take
some drinks before we did this, I don't know, but
he did it. Yeah. And also before I get to
this point too, I want to say that I think
that he was schizophrenic because a lot of times, whenever
(10:35):
we would have some type of argument or something would
be wrong, it wasn't real, like it wasn't happening, but
it was very real to him, and you couldn't tell
him anything like it was very real to him. So
bake up a scenario and yeah, I don't believe that
it happened you over here, Like what the hell are
you talking about, nigga? Yes. So, like at first, everything
(11:00):
was fine and then my my uncle comes in and
he hasn't seen me in a while, so he's looking
at the tattoos on my arm and stuff, and he
was like, okay, you know, I see you, couse, you
know I miss you, blah blah blah whatever. Were sitting
there talking and I kind of keep looking over at
my boyfriend and he's side eye at me, and I'm like,
okay whatever. So then O wait, did anybody else see
(11:22):
how he was looking at you? Nobody said anything, so
I don't know if they felt some type of way
or not, because, like I said before, my uncle, I mean,
I'm sorry my cousin had walked in. Nothing was wrong.
We were sitting there talking about going to church, like
we weren't having no type of issues or nothing. But
as soon as he saw my uncle, as soon as
(11:44):
he saw my cousin, he had an attitude. But you know,
black people, we come in all different shades and everything
like that. My cousin. He's light skinned. He asked freckles
and you know, green eyes and stuff like that, so
he didn't believe that he was my cousin. Even though
you're in a room with my mom, my uncle, and
(12:06):
my sister. He didn't believe it. So he my cousin.
He walks into the kitchen, and my boyfriend he was like, hey,
you know, why don't you go in there and you know,
spend him time with your cousin. You know, you haven't
seen him in a while, you know, go talk to him.
I was like, okay, cool, So I'll go in there
and I give him another hug. And as I give
(12:28):
him a hug, I look over his shoulder and my
boyfriend's glaring at me, and I'm like, why is he
looking at me like this? So at that point I
didn't need to know anybody else's opinion. I didn't want
I didn't want anything to do with him anymore, because
there's no reason that you need to be given me
(12:48):
these type of weird ass vibes like this. So we
prayed over the food. We didn't even eat. After we
prayed over the food, we just left because I lost
my appetite and everything like, we need to go because
I was gonna break up with him as soon as
we got in the car. So we we start walking
(13:10):
out to the car and he's like storming off. I'm like,
what the hell is his problem? So then he gets
out to the car and he was like, bit, you
got some balls? Yeah? And I was like what And
he was like you don't let that nigga grab your
(13:30):
ass right in front of me. I was like, what
are you talking? Thank you? Thank you, that's all I'm saying.
That's all I'm saying. This is not real. This isn't
something that literally happened. Like I literally just gave my
blood cousin they hug. That wasn't something that literally happened.
So I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah,
I was like, what are you talking about? He was like,
(13:51):
take me back to the house, let me grab my stuff.
I don't never want to see you again. I was like, okay,
I don't never want to see you again either. What
are you talking about? So I started driving back to
the house and he lights a cigarette and he puts
a cigarette out on me, and um, then he spits
on me driving on the interstate, and um, he starts
(14:14):
swerving the staringwheel, so I'm like barely missing cars. Um.
We get back to the house and he starts packing
his stuff and I start trying to help him pack
his stuff because you need to go, like so um,
he gets math that I'm helping him pack his stuff,
Like I don't know what he was expecting, like I'm
gonna want you to stay. Um. But he was like,
(14:36):
did you call the police? I said no, I didn't
call the police, Like, I just want you to go,
like you need to get the fuck out, and m
he was like, uh. He was like no, I know
you caught the police. And he had like this big
it was like a sword and it had, um, like
some little intricate designs on the bottom of it. Wait
a sword, yeah, like a long sword. Yeah. And um,
(15:02):
he like chased me into the spare bedroom and at
first he held the sword to my stomach and he said,
if the police come in here, I'm killing you, and
then I'm killing me. And then he held it to
my throat and then I ended up running and getting
away from him, and um, he caught me. He hit
me on my eye, he hit me on my nose. Um.
(15:25):
And the crazy thing about this part is like when
he hit me on my nose, my nose started bleeding
and it was like it was like he didn't do it.
So he went and he grabbed some tissue and he
starts like dotting the blood from my nose, and I
like pushed him away from me, and so then he
(15:46):
hits me again. Um sonia, Yeah, So then he wants
to go get um he found a lock and he
wants to go try to find a sock so he
could put it in the side of it so he
could beat me with it. So that I ran. I
ran out the house and he ended up grabbing me,
(16:09):
pulling me back into the house and he raped me.
When he raped me, I had blacked out, Like I
don't even remember anything until the next morning. Wait, nobody heard,
was no, Like your neighbors didn't hear nothing going on? Like,
because I'm pretty sure you exactly exactly nobody Okay, So
(16:30):
all of this, when it comes to abuse, all of
this happened within a month's time. So the thing is,
I would scream so loud in the bathroom, and I
would get it worse because I was screaming so loud
in the bathroom because I was trying to get my
neighbors to hear me, but nobody ever came. Nobody ever came.
(16:53):
Like they would get mad and they would like throw
stuff at my car. Yeah, I would. I would come
out and have to clean out clean up my car
because I would have like mud on it. Like nobody,
nobody ever came for me. Nobody. Um. So then the
next morning I woke up and UM, I tried to
(17:20):
call the police, and he was like, UM. He told
me that if he goes to jail, he's not gonna
be in there long and when he gets out, he
knows my schedule, he knows where I live, he knows
where I work, he knows everywhere I go. And he said, um,
(17:41):
I'm gonna kill you, and I'm gonna rape your sister,
and I'm gonna torture your uncle. And I feel like
when I heard you said then in another interview that
you did, I feel like that was one of the
reasons why you stay longer, because you want to get
family exactly, because at that point it was based like
not only did I get myself in a situation, I
(18:02):
got them in a situation, right, and you know, they
kind of got upset with me. Because I stayed. But
I didn't stay out of love. I stayed out of fear,
you know. And yeah, and it's it's not that they
couldn't handle themselves. It's the fact that they shouldn't have to.
(18:24):
They shouldn't have to watch after me all the time
because I made a bad mistake. They shouldn't have to
be looking over their shoulder and be scared because of
something that I got them involved in. So basically I
had I felt like I needed to get out of
that situation to myself because I got myself in it.
So um, and that's what I thought to do. And um,
(18:52):
you know the thing about him saying that he was
gonna be out of jail quick, that was real. That
was something that actually happened. Um so when he went
to jail before, yes, yes, he's Um Now, I didn't
know about this until after I finally got a chance
(19:12):
to call the police, which is like later on down
the line. Um, the I have Um, I have repression.
So there's like certain points in areas that I don't
necessarily remember because it's something that's too traumatizing for me.
I literally don't remember block it out. So yeah, yeah,
(19:35):
my mind would just get rid of it. So that's
that's part of the reason why I write, because it
helps me put the pieces of my wife together, you
know that. That's why I said no, I was gonna
say that's very common with people who experienced trauma, that
because your mind is trying to pretty much like protect you. Yeah.
(19:55):
So that's why I don't necessarily know how long it
was before all of this happened. I just know it
wasn't long. And I know once he was abusive, I
was only with him for like a few weeks to
a month while he was still abusing me, and I
just stayed with him until I felt like I wasn't
(20:18):
afraid of him anymore. Because if I was gonna get
away from him, I didn't want to spend the rest
of my life looking over my shoulder. I didn't want
to spend the rest of my life worried about what
all is he gonna find me. You know, I don't
want to be scared for the rest of my life.
So I had to stop being afraid of him because
he's already taken so much in me. I can't I
can't allow him to have that part of me too.
(20:39):
So um the day I finally realized that I was.
I stopped being afraid of him. We were at his
grandma's house. Mind, you're going to slow up, slow up.
So wait, did anybody notice anything different about you during
this time? Because I'm pretty you had the bruises to
(21:00):
show for it. No. So, okay, here's the thing. If
I had well, when I had bruises, nobody was allowed
to see me, And if I was traumatized, nobody was
allowed to see me. So he would keep me from work.
Another thing is he had two jobs when he moved
in to help me pay for you know, everything that
(21:22):
was going on. When he started abusing me, he quit
both of his jobs to stalk me full times. Another
thing is so when he wasn't worked, he quit both jobs. Yes, ma'am,
and you was at the house. That is crazy. Yes,
so he knew where I was where all times everything,
(21:42):
At all times. I had to answer every text, every
phone call, every everything, because I was on a schedule.
You know what I mean. Like I was hit, like
I belonged to him. Um I even like even when
it came to work, I used to have to go
(22:02):
home on my lunch breaks to spend it, to spend
it with him to make sure that I wasn't around
anybody else if I was abused the day before, I
wasn't allowed to go to work the next day because
nobody could see that I was traumatized. Nobody could see
that I have bruises or anything like that. So you
(22:23):
know how I said, he had hit me and my eye,
my eye was swollen shut. When my eye was swollen shut,
what he did was he pried it open repeatedly and
tell it would finally stay open until it was blood
shot read. And he sent me to work to tell
them that I had pink eye. So they sent me
(22:44):
back home so I could be with him, and had
me call my mom and tell her that I have
pink eye. My mom even showed up to my house
to give me medicine for pink eye. So it was
it was crazy what happened. Um I met her outside
(23:04):
and um like, I couldn't even see her long. I
had a dog at the time, and he let my
dog loose, so I had to run and go chase
my dog, so I couldn't spend any time talking to
my mom. M Yeah, and I always thought that with
my dog, if anything was to ever happen, he would
(23:27):
protect me because when I was with my ex fiance,
like if we would argue, um, my dog, he would
lick the tears off my face and bark at him.
But when I was in my abusive relationship, he didn't
do anything. He sat on the on the couch and
he was like trembling, but he was scared too. Yeah,
(23:49):
so it was crazy. Nobody nobody ever saw me. I
dropped a lot of weight, um and um, Like, you
could definitely tell there was something wrong with me, but
nobody knew what it was. You shard the story about
your niece. She didn't recognize you. Yes, okay. So there
(24:13):
was two times where he finally let me see my
friends and family. One of the times I want to
go see my friends and we were at my friend's
house and we're, you know, having fun or whatever. He
calls me and my friend takes my phone and she
was like, sorry, just can't answer the phone right now,
(24:33):
and he goes off on her. I don't know what
he said to her, but I know he went off
on her by the look on her face. And she
handed me, handed me the phone and he was like, bit,
you need to get home now, blah blah, blah whatever.
And so then like my friends, they were saying, you know,
(24:54):
you need to get away from him, that that's that's
not safe. He can't be talking to you like that,
what's wrong with him? Blah blah blah. And I didn't
want to get them involved. Um, I was scared to
get them involved because I had already got my family involved.
So I knew that I couldn't be with him. I
knew that I wasn't safe, but I also knew that
they weren't safe if they tried to save me. So
(25:16):
I said whatever I could say to keep them away
from me. I needed to I basically I needed them
to be mad at me enough to have them leave
me alone. So I was just like, oh, you know,
his dick's too good, and um, they obviously were pissed
off and they were like no, like that's not enough
for you to stay with him, Like that's not okay,
(25:37):
that's not that's not something that you are you should
be putting up with. And I was like, I know,
but I couldn't. I couldn't say that. I was just like,
you know, it is, it is what it is. I
love him, I don't need to stay with him. And
so they were pissed and I left. UM. The time
that I saw my family, UM, I had watched in
the house, and I had walked in my sister's house
(26:00):
and I always would see my nieces, and you know,
we had a good relationship. When I walked in the house, UM,
one of them, I had hugged them, and then the
other one I hugged and she kind of pulled away
from me a little bit, and UM, I thought, she
said how are you? And UM, I said, I'm good, baby,
(26:20):
how are you? She said, no, who are you? And
I said, um, Auntie? She said, oh, hi, Auntie, and
she just wants to go play. And just the fact
that she did not recognize me was just that still
gets me, honestly, Like I don't I never thought I
(26:43):
felt like I was trying to protect everybody, and I
never thought that they could still see that I wasn't me,
you know what I mean, especially especially when it being
kids like that. That was hard for me, like that,
that's not my kids, but that's my kids, you know,
that's my babies. And UM, that was hard for me. UM.
(27:05):
But I wasn't able to stay there long either. UM.
He ended up calling me and UM, like I went
upstairs to answer the phone because I didn't want them
to hear the conversation, and I ended up leaving and
my sister and um, my family they knew something was up,
Like they didn't know what was wrong, but they knew
(27:26):
that something was wrong, like why are you answered the
phone upstairs? Like why haven't we seen you? Why are
you losing so much weight? Like they knew something was wrong,
but they didn't know what was wrong. So, um, I'm
assuming that I'm assuming that your family liked him. No, no, no, no,
they didn't like him. Um, they definitely didn't like him,
(27:46):
but they didn't know why I was with him. They
didn't like him, they didn't trust him. Like after that
night that they that we were together, Um, when we
left after like after I was finally able to really
talk to them, they told me that, you know, they
was pretty much ready to fight him, Like they didn't
(28:07):
they didn't like him, the energy that he was bringing.
They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know it
was to that extent because you it's it was literally
like two different people talking to him, like it was
like Jacqueline High, like he just he had like a
(28:27):
completely different persona to him, and um, like they didn't
like him, but they didn't know that it was like that, Mum.
So um, I ended up leaving and you know, going
back home, and that was at but Um, the day
(28:50):
I realized that I finally stopped being afraid of him,
we were at his grandma's house. And now, the thing
with his family is his family and his friends, they
didn't know that he was to be towards me because
the stuff that he would do, like beforehand, he would
try to hide it, but after a while he couldn't
hide it anymore, so he would doing it for his
(29:12):
family and friends. Yes, so that sends a lot right there. Yeah,
And I think I think that his family was afraid
of him because um, basically, anytime he would get outraged,
they would just kick us out like they wouldn't. They
wouldn't trying to help the situation, like nothing was done
(29:34):
like they they would just kick us out and I
would just be that like they didn't. They didn't want
to see it, They didn't want to be a part
of it. So, um, we were at his grandma's house
and at this point I wasn't supposed to make eye
contact with people. He told me that the eyes of
the window to the soul, so nobody should be making
direct eye contact with me except for him. So yeah,
(30:00):
so at this point, you're gonna go to stay in
the house. Yeah, but he wanted took party every night,
so we would go out with his friends and his
family and he would want a party. So but he
didn't want me to make eye contact with anybody. So
his cousin had came in, and when his cousin, when
(30:20):
his cousin came in, he said hi to the both
of us, and when he said hi to me, he
got mad because he thought that we looked at each other.
And at this point he had taken my gun because
I had a gun, but like after he started abusing me,
he obviously took it from me and at that point
it was his so um, so he had my gun
(30:44):
in his pocket or whatever, and he's going off and
he was like, oh, you fucking her, and Leah, I
knew you was a hole and all this other stuff
like just going off. I'm like, bro, like what the
fuck are you even talking about? Like all he did
would say hi, like what is your problem? And so
his grandma was like, y'all not gonna be doing all
(31:05):
that up in here, and she ended up kicking us out.
So when he when she when she kicks us out,
he was talking about shooting his tires out and he
was like, he ain't never gonna be able to see
you again. I can't believe you'd be coming out here
and seeing him and all this shit y'all got going.
I'm like, bro, like that's not happening, Like that's not real.
Like no. So we ended up getting into the car.
(31:28):
We got in the car and at this point, he
points the gun at me and I'm driving on the interstate,
and um, he was like, I should kill you. And
at this point, like I felt like there wasn't anything
else that he could do to me. Like you've literally
(31:51):
done anything that you could possibly do to me, and
this isn't no way for me to live. So if
you're gonna do it, like stop talking about it, just
fucking do it. So I said Pullet, And he said
what he said, you think I won't, I said Pulley.
So he put the gun on my head and he
said I should kill you. And I just started screaming
(32:12):
and I started, um driving faster, and I said pullet
pullet pullet, and I just went crazy and um woww
yeah down just here in that part also made me
just like my heart breaks for you because at that
point you were just you get you you was you?
(32:32):
Was done? Yeah, I was done. And at this point
and if he would have shot me, we both would
have been dead. I don't want to interstate driving, like
what are you talking about? Like we both about to die?
Like I can't, I can't do this anymore. And I
just had got to the point where it was just
like this, this, this is not living. Like what am
(32:53):
I holding on to life for. If this is what
life is, I'm not doing it. So um he at
that point I scared him, and he put the gun
down and he was quiet the rest of the car
ride and like he was cool the rest of the night.
(33:15):
But that was when I realized that I wasn't scared.
I wasn't scared of him anymore. So basically it was
a matter of how am I going to get away
from him? So when I planned on getting away from him,
the only way that I could think to do it
was to get to work to be able to call
the police. So usually, like I said, if we fought
(33:36):
the night before. I could not go to work because
nobody can see that I'm traumatized, Nobody can see that
have bruises, none of that stuff. So I needed to
get through a day without fighting with him, and it
was an everyday thing like I couldn't even I couldn't
even use the restroom by myself. I had to have
the door open while I'm using the restroom because he
(33:57):
needed to see and make sure that I'm not I'm
not on the phone trying to call the police. I'm
not trying to text another man. I'm not I'm not
trying to do something to try to fight him with
or whatever. So anything that I was doing, he had
to know what I was doing, even phone calls. Phone
calls had to be answered on speaker phone so he
(34:19):
can hear what we're talking about. He went through all
my text messages to know what I'm talking about everything.
So anyways, I needed to I needed to be able
to get to work, to be able to call the police.
And the reason why I never called the police before
is because that whole time I was still afraid of him,
(34:41):
and I thought that if I put him in jail,
he would have came back after me. But at that point,
since I wasn't afraid of him anymore, it was just like,
fucking he come back after me. He gonna have to.
He know we're gonna be fighting. So the next day
I think it was the way um I want to
(35:03):
say it was like a Sunday or something. I don't know,
but um we had went to one of his friends
parties and um we get to the party. I didn't
even want to do anything at the party because I
already know how he operates. So I went into a
room by myself and I finding the Rubis cube in there,
and I started playing with a Rubis cube. I just
(35:25):
need something to occupy my time with um and and
and just be busy, like I need to to do
something that's not going to have me fighting. So um
we um were at the party and people keep walking
past and they were like, you know, why don't you
(35:47):
come join the party, blah blah blah, you know, why
aren't hearing by yourself? I was like, nah, I'm good.
You know, y'all go out there, y'all have fun. I'm
good and um So then he comes in there and
he was like, why you went here being weird? Seeing
here playing with the Rubi's cube, and he was like,
you were in here trying to be all sexy and shit.
Because I had my legs crossed. He's like, you in
(36:08):
here trying to be all sexy and shit, you know,
trying to attract all these men. I'm like, oh my god.
So then Um he was like, he was like, I
want you to come out here and enjoy the party.
I was like, no, I don't want to enjoy the party,
like I don't want to fight with you tonight, Like
I'm just trying to have a cool night. He was like, no,
you know, we're not gonna fight. We were okay. He
was like, We're not gonna fight tonight. I just want
(36:29):
I just want us to, you know, go enjoy the party.
I was like okay. So we go out to the party.
Soon as we go out there, they had a bartender.
Now we're at somebody's house. So Um says where I
asked somebody's house. I don't know what type of drink
this man makes. I don't know. So he asked me
(36:52):
what type of drink I wanted, and I said I
don't know. Surprise me. So here goes my boyfriend. He
gets mad again, and he was like, oh, you know him, Joe.
He gets mad and he starts punching me in front
of the whole party. So everybody starts grabbing him off
of me, and they're trying to like push us away
(37:12):
from each other. I have one of his friends walking
past me and they like, whispered in my ear, get
out while you still can. The girls they tried to
talk to me and they were like, are you living
with him? And I was like yeah, and they were like,
how are you gonna get away? I was like, I
don't know, and I was like, I'm trying to figure
it out. And they were like, oh my god, and
(37:34):
I was like, I know, I'm trying. I don't I
don't know what to do, but I'm trying to figure
it out. I was like, I was like, it's been
like this. And so then we ended up getting kicked
out of the party because the whole time at that
point they had to keep pulling him off of me
because anytime I would get away, he would just come
and attack me again. So they just kicked us out
(37:56):
of the party. So we ended up leaving and we
ended up going back home. When we went back home,
he shut all the lights off in the house, and
he got a lighter and some hairspray and he made
a blue torch and he chased me around the house
in the dark with the blue torch, and then he
(38:19):
turned the lights on. He told me I had beautiful flesh,
and he went and got some seasoning salt and catch
up and he poured it on me, and he started
biting at me, now like biting actually into like brakeskin.
It was basically just to like torment me and traumatize me.
And he just like bit at me for like the
rest of the night. And at this point, my phone's dead.
(38:46):
I don't know where my phone is and I needed
my alarm to go off to be able to get
to work. I knew that since we fought, I wasn't
gonna be able to get to work to be able
to call the police, and um, it was. It was
a big mess. So I didn't know how I was
gonna do what I needed to do. So I prayed
(39:08):
and I was like, you know, if you can get
me out of this situation, I will make sure that
I'm never in the situation again. Like I will do
whatever I need to do to fix me. And to
to fix my situation by myself, like just please get
me out of this situation. I can't I can't do
this by myself anymore. And usually my alarm would go
off at seven thirty. At seven twenty seven, UM, a
(39:31):
little black bird came and staying next to my window,
and I woke up. What do you what do you
think that black bird symbolized? And during that moment, UM,
so I had looked it up and it was like, UM,
my representation of it was like, UM, it said it
was a messenger bird. UM. And you know, I felt
(39:53):
like that that was God telling me, like you this
is what you prayed for, like like show me what
you're gonna do. Usually, usually he UM, he was always
up before me because he needed to make sure that
I'm not doing something I'm not supposed to be doing,
so he would always be up before me. This time,
he was still drunk and he couldn't move out of
(40:14):
the bed and UM, I was able to get dressed
and UM be able to leave and go to work.
And when I got to work, UM, I had talked
to my manager, and my manager she didn't exactly know
what was going on, but she knows that I've been
(40:35):
off and um, she knows I wasn't myself. Um, so
I had I had told her what was going on,
and UM, I told her I needed to call the
police because if if there was ever a time where
he did come back, I needed her to know that
he was not supposed to be there. So, UM, I
(40:58):
I called the police. When I talked to the police, UM,
I didn't know if I was gonna be able to
put him in jail because nobody had ever saw me
being abused, so I didn't have any bruises on me. Yeah,
I had no evidence, So I was like, I don't
know how I'm gonna put him in jail. But I
(41:20):
found out that he had he had a warrant out
for child support. So I called them and I was like, Hey,
it's a man in my house. He has a warrant
out for child support. Can you please come get him?
And so they pulled up, and you know, I went
(41:42):
to go talk to talk to him in his car,
and I was like, listen, I said, I know that
I called y'all about the warrant, but this man has
been beating on me and I don't know what to do.
I need him out of my house and I'm not safe,
and he looked up his record, and when he looked
up his record, he was like, I'm not going in
(42:05):
there by myself. He said, he has a warrant, he
has a history of violence. I'm not going in there
by myself. So he called for backup. When he called
for backup, he said, I don't even want you to
be here when we take him to jail. So they
had me give them um my key, and I went
to McDonald's and then after they arrested him, they came
back and gave me back my key, and you know,
(42:29):
went ahead and took him to jail. Now, later on
I ended up looking up his record before me, he
had he had a charge for what was it domestic
(42:49):
violence and it was confinement of a minor and the mother.
And then after me, there's also been two other counts.
Why this man is still out on the streets, I
(43:10):
don't know. So he's out of jail now. Yeah, he
wasn't even in there long for me. They told me
that he was supposed to be in jail for at
least thirty days for the child support. He got bailed
out in three days. There for three days and when
they bailed him out. It was on my birthday. You know,
(43:33):
usually you'll wake up you'll have like a lot of
messages like on Facebook and Instagram and stuff like that
for like happy birthdays. So I woke up to a
whole bunch of messages and I'm thinking that's what it was. No,
I had eighty seven miss text messages and like thirty
seven miss phone calls. Every single one of them was
from him. And he was like, I first just started
(43:56):
off all nights and he was like, baby, I'm out
of jail and I'm on my way. I wait to
see you when I love you and I miss you.
I got out for your birthday, like oh stuff, and
um yeah and um. Then like I had talked to
I had talked to my family and I let them
know what had been going on because if they saw
(44:18):
him around, they needed to know that he was not
supposed to be there. So, um, somebody, somebody has sent
him a message saying, UM, you know you need to
leave you alone. You know you you come around blah
blah blah and um. So he sends me the message
and he was like, oh, you got a new nigga already. Um,
(44:40):
I knew you was fucking around, like just escalated from there. Yeah,
and he was like, well, I'm he was like, I'm
coming back. I'm gonna beat your ass. So I'm gonna
do this and I'm gonna do that blah blah blah whatever.
So I'm like, what the fuck? So then UM to
reach out to you recently? No, no, no, no no, no,
(45:01):
hell no no. Um, he hasn't. It was it was
literally only that day and he was trying to get
his stuff. Um. I took all his stuff to his
grandma's house, and his grandma UM was saying that. You know,
they never really had him at any family functions because
(45:21):
he would always like be outraged and he would basically
ruin the party because, um, everybody would be having a
good time, but he would just blow up because of
whatever and he would ruin parties and stuff like that. So, um,
you know he has a history of this. You know,
this is somebody he's always been. Like I said, I
don't know why this man is still out. I don't
(45:43):
know why he's able to just roam this earth like
he's not destroying people and things and everything, Like I
don't I don't get it. So um So anyways, um,
I ended up giving his grandma all his stuff, and
I ended up going back home, and he was talking
(46:05):
about he was gonna kill himself and all this stuff,
and I was just like, I don't care. And so
then he finally stopped messaging me because I think he
just realized I was a different person at that point,
and I think he could realize that I wasn't afraid
of him anymore, and I think it genuinely bothered him.
(46:26):
And I also think that he just didn't want to
go back to jail, so so he he never reached
out to me after that. UM. The only other time
that I saw him is I was actually decorating or
not decorating. I was delivering a cake order and he
was at the party, and it was like he knew
(46:47):
that I was gonna be there because he was sitting
in the dark on some stairs and like I could
see the lining to his body. I know that man anywhere.
I could see the lining of his body and he
was just sitting there stairs at me, and I just left.
And that was the only time UM that had seen him.
After that, He's never messaged me or anything after that. UM.
(47:08):
But I also had him blocked, like after um. After
I put him in jail, I blocked him and his
messages and stuff like that. So UM, yeah, So what
is your relationship like with yourself now? And what role
did healing play in it? Um? So it took a
lot of healing and UM forgiving myself, forgiving myself for
(47:32):
putting myself in a situation, forgiving myself for UM, for
not loving myself more for not UM for allowing myself
to be in a certain situations. So I had to
do a lot of self reflection. But I also had
to do UM. I had to work on my trust.
I had to learn how to trust other people, had
(47:54):
to learn to trust my instincts. I had to learn
m to UM defend myself. I had to learn a
lot of different things. I had to learn to love myself.
Loving myself was hard for a long time, Like I
couldn't even look at myself in the mirror because there's
so much shame that comes with being in a domestic
(48:14):
violence situation. Because even though they're the monster that has
done all these things, everybody's mad at you and they're like, well,
why would you do this? You know, all these all
these good men out here, all these good men out
here and you know, you decided you wanted to be
with this one. And if like, there's there's no sign
up sheet for abuse, Like if I knew that that
(48:39):
was the outcome of him moving in, if I knew
that was an outcome of me loving him, I would
have never been with him in the first place. I
felt like I would have been safe, I would have
stayed longer, you know what I mean. So it was
it was a lot of different things that people didn't understand.
So then I had to learn to be okay with
(49:01):
people now understanding. I had to learn to be okay
with people not wanting to hear my side of the story.
I had to be okay with people looking down on
me because I was abused. I had to be okay
with a lot of different things just to be able
to heal and to love myself and to be able
(49:23):
to move forward in life. But I did it, And
I do love myself, and I do care about myself.
I care about my well my well being, and I'm
very proud of myself, you know what I mean. Like
I don't I'm definitely not a perfect person, but I'm
definitely an amazing person. And I think that you know,
(49:45):
the fact that there's a lot of different times that
I could have died and I'm still here. There's a
lot of different times where I could have hurt other
people because of what I was going through, and no
one else got hurt, you know, So UM, a lot
of I feel like a lot of times when we
(50:06):
go through traumatic experiences, UM, people get mad at God, like,
you know, why, why is this happening? And you know,
I didn't deserve this and everything like that, and absolutely
like I don't deserve this. But however, the fact that
I am still here and I don't have a scratch
on me, the fact that I am still here and
(50:29):
I'm able to love again, I'm able to trust again,
I'm able to heal, I'm able to love, the fact
that I'm still able to grow and and prosper and
you know, do these amazing things in the world was
God's grace for me. So I can't I can't sit
and um be mad at God for certain decisions that
(50:49):
I've made and the certain decisions that other people have made.
And I also can't um put so much on myself either,
right because so many people are like when I would
tell my story, they would be like, you know, well,
why did you do this? Well, why did you go
pick him up? Why did you do this? Or why'd
you do that? Like at the time, it was something
(51:12):
that I felt was necessary. At the time, I felt
like it was something I was I was doing the
right thing. You know, there's a lot of things that
I know now through healing and loving myself and a
lot of you know, experiences, but I didn't know those
things at that time. So I can't be mad at
(51:33):
me for who I used to be. I can't be
mad at me for who somebody else was to me.
That was these are these men's decisions for treating me
the way that they treated me. I understand that, you know,
I should have left beforehand. But life is a learning experience,
(51:54):
so I can't put so much on myself and be like, well,
why did I do this and why did I do that?
And I did that for so long and I hated
myself for it because I was like, you know, why
does the why do these things keep happening to me?
But I had to look at things in a different
manner for me to be able to make it through
(52:17):
and be okay with my process, be okay with myself
and be okay with the things that I've been through,
because if it wasn't for a lot of different things
that has happened to me, I wouldn't be who I
am today. And I love who I am. I love
who it has created me to be. So if that's
what it took to create this version of me, I
(52:40):
don't like it, but I love me, so I'm okay
with it. Right right? Come on? Now, that was a
word right there, child that you would have done differently?
And if so, what was it? What is it? I
(53:06):
wish that I would have loved myself before trying to
love somebody else. I feel like it would have saved
me from a lot of heartache because since I didn't
love myself, I kept looking for love through them, and
(53:27):
because they weren't properly loving me, I'm like, oh, well,
maybe if I do this, and maybe if I do that,
maybe if I try this, maybe if I try that,
you know, maybe they'll love me. And I still didn't
feel that love because the love that I really needed
I was supposed to give to myself. So I wish
(53:49):
I would have loved me first before trying to love
somebody else. Right, That's what I'm toime I own. This
was an amazing conversation. Other interviews they didn't allow you
to like tell this this story. Yeah, Like I feel
like you was able to tell your story, but it
was very chopped up. Yeah, right on to the show
(54:13):
and just being transparent and share your story. And I
know for a fact that it would definitely inspire everyone
and encourage them to, like, you know, fight back. Yeah. Yeah,
I want to thank you for allowing me to be
on the show. You know, it was um even even
(54:35):
when it comes to, you know, people not understanding what
it's like, um to be in an abusive relationship. You know, UM,
A lot of people have a lot of different assumptions.
And I was one of those people before too. You know.
I used to always be like, well, you know, why
would you put up with that? You know you deserve better.
(54:55):
That's not something that you know you should be doing.
And it look me going through that to be able
to humble myself and be like, oh my god, I
can't believe that this is a thing. Like it's not
It's not just a physical hold. It is a complete
mental hold. It is an emotional hold, and it's you
(55:19):
have to completely un just unfuck your mind to understand
life again. So um, it's it's it's a lot better.
It makes me feel better to be able to tell
my story because I would rather somebody hear my story
and learn from it than for them to go through
(55:41):
what I've been through to have to learn from it
that way. I don't want that for anybody. I wouldn't
wish that on anybody, so I would. I would rather
them hear my story and have an understanding of them.
In that way, maybe they can help somebody else. Right well,
if y'all have any questions, comments, and concerns, please make
sure to email me and hello at the PSG podcast
dot com. It was a pleasure to have you on
(56:04):
the show, and unto the next time. Everyone later Bye,
Welcome. You are now listening to the professional profession It's
(00:37):
your girl Ebana from the Professional Homegirl podcast, the only
place where you would hear interviews from women of color
anonymously on stories that will enlighten, and expand on taboo topics. Now,
if you hear someone that sounds familiar, mind the business
that pays you child. Please support the show by leaving
a five star review by some merch or simply share
(00:58):
these stories with your Professional home Girl. You never know,
these storylines can be someone else's lifeline. Now, please keep
in mind that all of my guests are anonymous. So
let's begin this week's episode. I am so excited to
be speaking with my guests today. She is an author,
professional baker, and I heard her bakery. It's amazing, really
(01:23):
good and a survivor of domestic balance. To my guests,
thank you so much for coming on the show. How
are you feeling? I am great and thank you for
having me. Of course, of course, so let's start from
the beginning. You were previously engaged before you met your
ex boyfriend, right, yes, tell us about that relationship. So
(01:45):
I was with him for five years and it was
my first real relationship. So I was really naive a
lot about a lot of different things. But you know,
I got a little bit of trial and error. Um basically, uh,
(02:08):
just just when it comes to relationships in general, like, um,
how somebody should be treating you, How you shouldn't be
allowing people to treat you, UM, how you should love yourself,
how you shouldn't allow other people to love you, like,
just a lot of different things, um in regards to
self love and um loving someone else and um, there's
(02:35):
a lot of things that I put up with that
I shouldn't have put up with. And basically, um, once
it finally clicked for me that I um wasn't with
who I should have been with, then I just wanted
to cancel our wedding and basically be done with him.
(02:55):
Not that I left him for someone else. I left
him to find me, right, I like them to better
myself and be who I needed to be because I
lost so much of myself trying to be so much
for him, right. And I don't know, I felt like
when I was watching your your interviews, was he also
abuse of No? Um, No, he never put his hands
(03:18):
on me or anything like that. It was more, um,
more verbal abuse. It wasn't. It wasn't physical abuse, but
it was verbal abuse, right okay, and emotional. So in
the midst of you growing your baking business, because at
this time y'all had split up and who was starting over?
You met your ex boyfriend? Yes, how did me? So? Um?
(03:44):
I had already been baking um for a few years.
I started baking at eighteen, so um, I was already
baking UM before I had met him. Um. The way
that I ended up meeting my ex that was actually abuse, yusef,
was when I left my ex fiance, when I canceled,
(04:06):
when I canceled our wedding. Obviously, he wasn't very happy
about that, so I know he was tight. Yeah, Yeah,
he wasn't very happy about that. So I ended up
moving out, and I told him that he could keep
the apartment, right, and I was just gonna start over. Well,
(04:27):
I ended up coming back to the apartment because he
told me that he couldn't afford it and I could
just go ahead and have it. So when I came back,
just knowing him over the years, I knew something was
gonna be off. I knew something was wrong. I figured
he had like left the water on or let the
lights on or something like that, just something petty to
just get back at me. So when I got back
(04:52):
to the house, I realized that he had taken everything,
the bed, the TV, the couch, you know, everything like that.
So you know, originally we were supposed to split that
stuff up, but you know whatever, he just took everything, right. Um. Yeah, So, UM,
I just had to start over on everything. And UM,
(05:17):
I was in a very bad, uh financial stand at
the time, and I had a friend that I had
been friends with for a little while, and um, he
basically said that he wanted to move in as um
a roommate to kind of help me get back on
my feet right. And um, when he ended up moving in,
(05:40):
we ended up like soon being in a relationship. Um.
It wasn't necessarily planned, but it just happened. Happened, And UM,
like before, this was really the first person that I've
ever really opened up to do so comfortable opening up
(06:01):
to him because he was actually somebody that wanted to
get to know me. Mum. Before when I would try
to open up to my ex fiance, he wasn't interested. Mum.
It's basically like I was complaining about life by um
trying trying to vent UM. And it was also like
(06:24):
how I felt didn't matter, So I just didn't talk
to him about anything, and UM, I just kept everything inside. So, UM,
this was someone that you know, came into my life
and he wanted to know those things about me. You know,
he wanted to know a lot of different things about
me that I never even um thought about expressing. UM.
(06:48):
So we started to get very close, and UM the
connection was crazy, and you know, we we fell in
love really fast and and UM it was not it
was not long, not long at all. UM. Honestly, everything
(07:10):
happened so fast. I can't I want to say that
we were probably only together for maybe a few weeks
to a month before UM before things started to kind
of get crazy. UM. Like everything was good at first, UM,
(07:40):
but then UM, I started to notice that it was
jealous And I was used to jealousy, but not in
the way that UM, he was jealous and it made
me uncomfortable. So I tried to talk to one of
my friends about it, and UM, they were like, no,
you know, you just you just gotten out of relationship.
You know, you're probably just um, you know, nervous that
(08:02):
he's going to turn out the same way that he was.
You know, give him a chance and give him the
opportunity to show you that he's not like that. And
I was like, okay, you know that's valid, so let
me give him a try. So um, but looking at that,
looking back at that, now, why do you think you
didn't trust your gut feeling. Well, obviously now you know,
(08:24):
I know to trust my gut feeling. But at the
same time, like back then, you have to think, this
is only my second boyfriend. And I also I felt
I was in a vulnerable place right and that was
the perfect opportunity to find me. And I was vulnerable.
(08:47):
I needed financial stability, I needed emotional connection, and I
needed love. Yes, so um, he basically took that opportunity
and he ran with it. You know, I know now
to listen to my instincts, but back then I just
thought that I was tripping because when I would talk
(09:08):
to my friend about it, she would make it seem
like I was tripping. So I was like, Okay, well,
you know, maybe it's me right, So I was like, no,
you know, there's something's off, but I couldn't exactly put
my finger on it. And I was like, well, maybe
I need to get him around some people, because it's
one thing for me to feel some type a certain
(09:30):
type of way and tell somebody about it, but maybe
if they see it right, then they can tell me
and confirm my feelings. So I didn't tell my family
what was going on. I just told them that I
wanted them to meet somebody and I wanted them to,
you know, kind of see how they felt about him. Right.
(09:51):
So my cousin had came into town and he was
a police officer, So I was like, Okay, you know,
this is the perfect operation tuny for you know, me
to bring him around some people. He came in and
it was him, my uncle, my mom, and my sister,
and at first everything was fine. We were sitting there
(10:12):
having a conversation. And why my boyfriend decided to take
some drinks before we did this, I don't know, but
he did it. Yeah. And also before I get to
this point too, I want to say that I think
that he was schizophrenic because a lot of times, whenever
(10:35):
we would have some type of argument or something would
be wrong, it wasn't real, like it wasn't happening, but
it was very real to him, and you couldn't tell
him anything like it was very real to him. So
bake up a scenario and yeah, I don't believe that
it happened you over here, Like what the hell are
you talking about, nigga? Yes. So, like at first, everything
(11:00):
was fine and then my my uncle comes in and
he hasn't seen me in a while, so he's looking
at the tattoos on my arm and stuff, and he
was like, okay, you know, I see you, couse, you
know I miss you, blah blah blah whatever. Were sitting
there talking and I kind of keep looking over at
my boyfriend and he's side eye at me, and I'm like,
okay whatever. So then O wait, did anybody else see
(11:22):
how he was looking at you? Nobody said anything, so
I don't know if they felt some type of way
or not, because, like I said before, my uncle, I mean,
I'm sorry my cousin had walked in. Nothing was wrong.
We were sitting there talking about going to church, like
we weren't having no type of issues or nothing. But
as soon as he saw my uncle, as soon as
(11:44):
he saw my cousin, he had an attitude. But you know,
black people, we come in all different shades and everything
like that. My cousin. He's light skinned. He asked freckles
and you know, green eyes and stuff like that, so
he didn't believe that he was my cousin. Even though
you're in a room with my mom, my uncle, and
(12:06):
my sister. He didn't believe it. So he my cousin.
He walks into the kitchen, and my boyfriend he was like, hey,
you know, why don't you go in there and you know,
spend him time with your cousin. You know, you haven't
seen him in a while, you know, go talk to him.
I was like, okay, cool, So I'll go in there
and I give him another hug. And as I give
(12:28):
him a hug, I look over his shoulder and my
boyfriend's glaring at me, and I'm like, why is he
looking at me like this? So at that point I
didn't need to know anybody else's opinion. I didn't want
I didn't want anything to do with him anymore, because
there's no reason that you need to be given me
(12:48):
these type of weird ass vibes like this. So we
prayed over the food. We didn't even eat. After we
prayed over the food, we just left because I lost
my appetite and everything like, we need to go because
I was gonna break up with him as soon as
we got in the car. So we we start walking
(13:10):
out to the car and he's like storming off. I'm like,
what the hell is his problem? So then he gets
out to the car and he was like, bit, you
got some balls? Yeah? And I was like what And
he was like you don't let that nigga grab your
(13:30):
ass right in front of me. I was like, what
are you talking? Thank you? Thank you, that's all I'm saying.
That's all I'm saying. This is not real. This isn't
something that literally happened. Like I literally just gave my
blood cousin they hug. That wasn't something that literally happened.
So I was like, what are you talking about? Yeah,
I was like, what are you talking about? He was like,
(13:51):
take me back to the house, let me grab my stuff.
I don't never want to see you again. I was like, okay,
I don't never want to see you again either. What
are you talking about? So I started driving back to
the house and he lights a cigarette and he puts
a cigarette out on me, and um, then he spits
on me driving on the interstate, and um, he starts
(14:14):
swerving the staringwheel, so I'm like barely missing cars. Um.
We get back to the house and he starts packing
his stuff and I start trying to help him pack
his stuff because you need to go, like so um,
he gets math that I'm helping him pack his stuff,
Like I don't know what he was expecting, like I'm
gonna want you to stay. Um. But he was like,
(14:36):
did you call the police? I said no, I didn't
call the police, Like, I just want you to go,
like you need to get the fuck out, and m
he was like, uh. He was like no, I know
you caught the police. And he had like this big
it was like a sword and it had, um, like
some little intricate designs on the bottom of it. Wait
a sword, yeah, like a long sword. Yeah. And um,
(15:02):
he like chased me into the spare bedroom and at
first he held the sword to my stomach and he said,
if the police come in here, I'm killing you, and
then I'm killing me. And then he held it to
my throat and then I ended up running and getting
away from him, and um, he caught me. He hit
me on my eye, he hit me on my nose. Um.
(15:25):
And the crazy thing about this part is like when
he hit me on my nose, my nose started bleeding
and it was like it was like he didn't do it.
So he went and he grabbed some tissue and he
starts like dotting the blood from my nose, and I
like pushed him away from me, and so then he
(15:46):
hits me again. Um sonia, Yeah, So then he wants
to go get um he found a lock and he
wants to go try to find a sock so he
could put it in the side of it so he
could beat me with it. So that I ran. I
ran out the house and he ended up grabbing me,
(16:09):
pulling me back into the house and he raped me.
When he raped me, I had blacked out, Like I
don't even remember anything until the next morning. Wait, nobody heard,
was no, Like your neighbors didn't hear nothing going on? Like,
because I'm pretty sure you exactly exactly nobody Okay, So
(16:30):
all of this, when it comes to abuse, all of
this happened within a month's time. So the thing is,
I would scream so loud in the bathroom, and I
would get it worse because I was screaming so loud
in the bathroom because I was trying to get my
neighbors to hear me, but nobody ever came. Nobody ever came.
(16:53):
Like they would get mad and they would like throw
stuff at my car. Yeah, I would. I would come
out and have to clean out clean up my car
because I would have like mud on it. Like nobody,
nobody ever came for me. Nobody. Um. So then the
next morning I woke up and UM, I tried to
(17:20):
call the police, and he was like, UM. He told
me that if he goes to jail, he's not gonna
be in there long and when he gets out, he
knows my schedule, he knows where I live, he knows
where I work, he knows everywhere I go. And he said, um,
(17:41):
I'm gonna kill you, and I'm gonna rape your sister,
and I'm gonna torture your uncle. And I feel like
when I heard you said then in another interview that
you did, I feel like that was one of the
reasons why you stay longer, because you want to get
family exactly, because at that point it was based like
not only did I get myself in a situation, I
(18:02):
got them in a situation, right, and you know, they
kind of got upset with me. Because I stayed. But
I didn't stay out of love. I stayed out of fear,
you know. And yeah, and it's it's not that they
couldn't handle themselves. It's the fact that they shouldn't have to.
(18:24):
They shouldn't have to watch after me all the time
because I made a bad mistake. They shouldn't have to
be looking over their shoulder and be scared because of
something that I got them involved in. So basically I
had I felt like I needed to get out of
that situation to myself because I got myself in it.
So um, and that's what I thought to do. And um,
(18:52):
you know the thing about him saying that he was
gonna be out of jail quick, that was real. That
was something that actually happened. Um so when he went
to jail before, yes, yes, he's Um Now, I didn't
know about this until after I finally got a chance
(19:12):
to call the police, which is like later on down
the line. Um, the I have Um, I have repression.
So there's like certain points in areas that I don't
necessarily remember because it's something that's too traumatizing for me.
I literally don't remember block it out. So yeah, yeah,
(19:35):
my mind would just get rid of it. So that's
that's part of the reason why I write, because it
helps me put the pieces of my wife together, you
know that. That's why I said no, I was gonna
say that's very common with people who experienced trauma, that
because your mind is trying to pretty much like protect you. Yeah.
(19:55):
So that's why I don't necessarily know how long it
was before all of this happened. I just know it
wasn't long. And I know once he was abusive, I
was only with him for like a few weeks to
a month while he was still abusing me, and I
just stayed with him until I felt like I wasn't
(20:18):
afraid of him anymore. Because if I was gonna get
away from him, I didn't want to spend the rest
of my life looking over my shoulder. I didn't want
to spend the rest of my life worried about what
all is he gonna find me. You know, I don't
want to be scared for the rest of my life.
So I had to stop being afraid of him because
he's already taken so much in me. I can't I
can't allow him to have that part of me too.
(20:39):
So um the day I finally realized that I was.
I stopped being afraid of him. We were at his
grandma's house. Mind, you're going to slow up, slow up.
So wait, did anybody notice anything different about you during
this time? Because I'm pretty you had the bruises to
(21:00):
show for it. No. So, okay, here's the thing. If
I had well, when I had bruises, nobody was allowed
to see me, And if I was traumatized, nobody was
allowed to see me. So he would keep me from work.
Another thing is he had two jobs when he moved
in to help me pay for you know, everything that
(21:22):
was going on. When he started abusing me, he quit
both of his jobs to stalk me full times. Another
thing is so when he wasn't worked, he quit both jobs. Yes, ma'am,
and you was at the house. That is crazy. Yes,
so he knew where I was where all times everything,
(21:42):
At all times. I had to answer every text, every
phone call, every everything, because I was on a schedule.
You know what I mean. Like I was hit, like
I belonged to him. Um I even like even when
it came to work, I used to have to go
(22:02):
home on my lunch breaks to spend it, to spend
it with him to make sure that I wasn't around
anybody else if I was abused the day before, I
wasn't allowed to go to work the next day because
nobody could see that I was traumatized. Nobody could see
that I have bruises or anything like that. So you
(22:23):
know how I said, he had hit me and my eye,
my eye was swollen shut. When my eye was swollen shut,
what he did was he pried it open repeatedly and
tell it would finally stay open until it was blood
shot read. And he sent me to work to tell
them that I had pink eye. So they sent me
(22:44):
back home so I could be with him, and had
me call my mom and tell her that I have
pink eye. My mom even showed up to my house
to give me medicine for pink eye. So it was
it was crazy what happened. Um I met her outside
(23:04):
and um like, I couldn't even see her long. I
had a dog at the time, and he let my
dog loose, so I had to run and go chase
my dog, so I couldn't spend any time talking to
my mom. M Yeah, and I always thought that with
my dog, if anything was to ever happen, he would
(23:27):
protect me because when I was with my ex fiance,
like if we would argue, um, my dog, he would
lick the tears off my face and bark at him.
But when I was in my abusive relationship, he didn't
do anything. He sat on the on the couch and
he was like trembling, but he was scared too. Yeah,
(23:49):
so it was crazy. Nobody nobody ever saw me. I
dropped a lot of weight, um and um, Like, you
could definitely tell there was something wrong with me, but
nobody knew what it was. You shard the story about
your niece. She didn't recognize you. Yes, okay. So there
(24:13):
was two times where he finally let me see my
friends and family. One of the times I want to
go see my friends and we were at my friend's
house and we're, you know, having fun or whatever. He
calls me and my friend takes my phone and she
was like, sorry, just can't answer the phone right now,
(24:33):
and he goes off on her. I don't know what
he said to her, but I know he went off
on her by the look on her face. And she
handed me, handed me the phone and he was like, bit,
you need to get home now, blah blah, blah whatever.
And so then like my friends, they were saying, you know,
(24:54):
you need to get away from him, that that's that's
not safe. He can't be talking to you like that,
what's wrong with him? Blah blah blah. And I didn't
want to get them involved. Um, I was scared to
get them involved because I had already got my family involved.
So I knew that I couldn't be with him. I
knew that I wasn't safe, but I also knew that
they weren't safe if they tried to save me. So
(25:16):
I said whatever I could say to keep them away
from me. I needed to I basically I needed them
to be mad at me enough to have them leave
me alone. So I was just like, oh, you know,
his dick's too good, and um, they obviously were pissed
off and they were like no, like that's not enough
for you to stay with him, Like that's not okay,
(25:37):
that's not that's not something that you are you should
be putting up with. And I was like, I know,
but I couldn't. I couldn't say that. I was just like,
you know, it is, it is what it is. I
love him, I don't need to stay with him. And
so they were pissed and I left. UM. The time
that I saw my family, UM, I had watched in
the house, and I had walked in my sister's house
(26:00):
and I always would see my nieces, and you know,
we had a good relationship. When I walked in the house, UM,
one of them, I had hugged them, and then the
other one I hugged and she kind of pulled away
from me a little bit, and UM, I thought, she
said how are you? And UM, I said, I'm good, baby,
(26:20):
how are you? She said, no, who are you? And
I said, um, Auntie? She said, oh, hi, Auntie, and
she just wants to go play. And just the fact
that she did not recognize me was just that still
gets me, honestly, Like I don't I never thought I
(26:43):
felt like I was trying to protect everybody, and I
never thought that they could still see that I wasn't me,
you know what I mean, especially especially when it being
kids like that. That was hard for me, like that,
that's not my kids, but that's my kids, you know,
that's my babies. And UM, that was hard for me. UM.
(27:05):
But I wasn't able to stay there long either. UM.
He ended up calling me and UM, like I went
upstairs to answer the phone because I didn't want them
to hear the conversation, and I ended up leaving and
my sister and um, my family they knew something was up,
Like they didn't know what was wrong, but they knew
(27:26):
that something was wrong, like why are you answered the
phone upstairs? Like why haven't we seen you? Why are
you losing so much weight? Like they knew something was wrong,
but they didn't know what was wrong. So, um, I'm
assuming that I'm assuming that your family liked him. No, no, no, no,
they didn't like him. Um, they definitely didn't like him,
(27:46):
but they didn't know why I was with him. They
didn't like him, they didn't trust him. Like after that
night that they that we were together, Um, when we
left after like after I was finally able to really
talk to them, they told me that, you know, they
was pretty much ready to fight him, Like they didn't
(28:07):
they didn't like him, the energy that he was bringing.
They knew something was wrong, but they didn't know it
was to that extent because you it's it was literally
like two different people talking to him, like it was
like Jacqueline High, like he just he had like a
(28:27):
completely different persona to him, and um, like they didn't
like him, but they didn't know that it was like that, Mum.
So um, I ended up leaving and you know, going
back home, and that was at but Um, the day
(28:50):
I realized that I finally stopped being afraid of him,
we were at his grandma's house. And now, the thing
with his family is his family and his friends, they
didn't know that he was to be towards me because
the stuff that he would do, like beforehand, he would
try to hide it, but after a while he couldn't
hide it anymore, so he would doing it for his
(29:12):
family and friends. Yes, so that sends a lot right there. Yeah,
And I think I think that his family was afraid
of him because um, basically, anytime he would get outraged,
they would just kick us out like they wouldn't. They
wouldn't trying to help the situation, like nothing was done
(29:34):
like they they would just kick us out and I
would just be that like they didn't. They didn't want
to see it, They didn't want to be a part
of it. So, um, we were at his grandma's house
and at this point I wasn't supposed to make eye
contact with people. He told me that the eyes of
the window to the soul, so nobody should be making
direct eye contact with me except for him. So yeah,
(30:00):
so at this point, you're gonna go to stay in
the house. Yeah, but he wanted took party every night,
so we would go out with his friends and his
family and he would want a party. So but he
didn't want me to make eye contact with anybody. So
his cousin had came in, and when his cousin, when
(30:20):
his cousin came in, he said hi to the both
of us, and when he said hi to me, he
got mad because he thought that we looked at each other.
And at this point he had taken my gun because
I had a gun, but like after he started abusing me,
he obviously took it from me and at that point
it was his so um, so he had my gun
(30:44):
in his pocket or whatever, and he's going off and
he was like, oh, you fucking her, and Leah, I
knew you was a hole and all this other stuff
like just going off. I'm like, bro, like what the
fuck are you even talking about? Like all he did
would say hi, like what is your problem? And so
his grandma was like, y'all not gonna be doing all
(31:05):
that up in here, and she ended up kicking us out.
So when he when she when she kicks us out,
he was talking about shooting his tires out and he
was like, he ain't never gonna be able to see
you again. I can't believe you'd be coming out here
and seeing him and all this shit y'all got going.
I'm like, bro, like that's not happening, Like that's not real.
Like no. So we ended up getting into the car.
(31:28):
We got in the car and at this point, he
points the gun at me and I'm driving on the interstate,
and um, he was like, I should kill you. And
at this point, like I felt like there wasn't anything
else that he could do to me. Like you've literally
(31:51):
done anything that you could possibly do to me, and
this isn't no way for me to live. So if
you're gonna do it, like stop talking about it, just
fucking do it. So I said Pullet, And he said
what he said, you think I won't, I said Pulley.
So he put the gun on my head and he
said I should kill you. And I just started screaming
(32:12):
and I started, um driving faster, and I said pullet
pullet pullet, and I just went crazy and um woww
yeah down just here in that part also made me
just like my heart breaks for you because at that
point you were just you get you you was you?
(32:32):
Was done? Yeah, I was done. And at this point
and if he would have shot me, we both would
have been dead. I don't want to interstate driving, like
what are you talking about? Like we both about to die?
Like I can't, I can't do this anymore. And I
just had got to the point where it was just
like this, this, this is not living. Like what am
(32:53):
I holding on to life for. If this is what
life is, I'm not doing it. So um he at
that point I scared him, and he put the gun
down and he was quiet the rest of the car
ride and like he was cool the rest of the night.
(33:15):
But that was when I realized that I wasn't scared.
I wasn't scared of him anymore. So basically it was
a matter of how am I going to get away
from him? So when I planned on getting away from him,
the only way that I could think to do it
was to get to work to be able to call
the police. So usually, like I said, if we fought
(33:36):
the night before. I could not go to work because
nobody can see that I'm traumatized, Nobody can see that
have bruises, none of that stuff. So I needed to
get through a day without fighting with him, and it
was an everyday thing like I couldn't even I couldn't
even use the restroom by myself. I had to have
the door open while I'm using the restroom because he
(33:57):
needed to see and make sure that I'm not I'm
not on the phone trying to call the police. I'm
not trying to text another man. I'm not I'm not
trying to do something to try to fight him with
or whatever. So anything that I was doing, he had
to know what I was doing, even phone calls. Phone
calls had to be answered on speaker phone so he
(34:19):
can hear what we're talking about. He went through all
my text messages to know what I'm talking about everything.
So anyways, I needed to I needed to be able
to get to work, to be able to call the police.
And the reason why I never called the police before
is because that whole time I was still afraid of him,
(34:41):
and I thought that if I put him in jail,
he would have came back after me. But at that point,
since I wasn't afraid of him anymore, it was just like,
fucking he come back after me. He gonna have to.
He know we're gonna be fighting. So the next day
I think it was the way um I want to
(35:03):
say it was like a Sunday or something. I don't know,
but um we had went to one of his friends
parties and um we get to the party. I didn't
even want to do anything at the party because I
already know how he operates. So I went into a
room by myself and I finding the Rubis cube in there,
and I started playing with a Rubis cube. I just
(35:25):
need something to occupy my time with um and and
and just be busy, like I need to to do
something that's not going to have me fighting. So um
we um were at the party and people keep walking
past and they were like, you know, why don't you
(35:47):
come join the party, blah blah blah, you know, why
aren't hearing by yourself? I was like, nah, I'm good.
You know, y'all go out there, y'all have fun. I'm
good and um So then he comes in there and
he was like, why you went here being weird? Seeing
here playing with the Rubi's cube, and he was like,
you were in here trying to be all sexy and shit.
Because I had my legs crossed. He's like, you in
(36:08):
here trying to be all sexy and shit, you know,
trying to attract all these men. I'm like, oh my god.
So then Um he was like, he was like, I
want you to come out here and enjoy the party.
I was like, no, I don't want to enjoy the party,
like I don't want to fight with you tonight, Like
I'm just trying to have a cool night. He was like, no,
you know, we're not gonna fight. We were okay. He
was like, We're not gonna fight tonight. I just want
(36:29):
I just want us to, you know, go enjoy the party.
I was like okay. So we go out to the party.
Soon as we go out there, they had a bartender.
Now we're at somebody's house. So Um says where I
asked somebody's house. I don't know what type of drink
this man makes. I don't know. So he asked me
(36:52):
what type of drink I wanted, and I said I
don't know. Surprise me. So here goes my boyfriend. He
gets mad again, and he was like, oh, you know him, Joe.
He gets mad and he starts punching me in front
of the whole party. So everybody starts grabbing him off
of me, and they're trying to like push us away
(37:12):
from each other. I have one of his friends walking
past me and they like, whispered in my ear, get
out while you still can. The girls they tried to
talk to me and they were like, are you living
with him? And I was like yeah, and they were like,
how are you gonna get away? I was like, I
don't know, and I was like, I'm trying to figure
it out. And they were like, oh my god, and
(37:34):
I was like, I know, I'm trying. I don't I
don't know what to do, but I'm trying to figure
it out. I was like, I was like, it's been
like this. And so then we ended up getting kicked
out of the party because the whole time at that
point they had to keep pulling him off of me
because anytime I would get away, he would just come
and attack me again. So they just kicked us out
(37:56):
of the party. So we ended up leaving and we
ended up going back home. When we went back home,
he shut all the lights off in the house, and
he got a lighter and some hairspray and he made
a blue torch and he chased me around the house
in the dark with the blue torch, and then he
(38:19):
turned the lights on. He told me I had beautiful flesh,
and he went and got some seasoning salt and catch
up and he poured it on me, and he started
biting at me, now like biting actually into like brakeskin.
It was basically just to like torment me and traumatize me.
And he just like bit at me for like the
rest of the night. And at this point, my phone's dead.
(38:46):
I don't know where my phone is and I needed
my alarm to go off to be able to get
to work. I knew that since we fought, I wasn't
gonna be able to get to work to be able
to call the police, and um, it was. It was
a big mess. So I didn't know how I was
gonna do what I needed to do. So I prayed
(39:08):
and I was like, you know, if you can get
me out of this situation, I will make sure that
I'm never in the situation again. Like I will do
whatever I need to do to fix me. And to
to fix my situation by myself, like just please get
me out of this situation. I can't I can't do
this by myself anymore. And usually my alarm would go
off at seven thirty. At seven twenty seven, UM, a
(39:31):
little black bird came and staying next to my window,
and I woke up. What do you what do you
think that black bird symbolized? And during that moment, UM,
so I had looked it up and it was like, UM,
my representation of it was like, UM, it said it
was a messenger bird. UM. And you know, I felt
(39:53):
like that that was God telling me, like you this
is what you prayed for, like like show me what
you're gonna do. Usually, usually he UM, he was always
up before me because he needed to make sure that
I'm not doing something I'm not supposed to be doing,
so he would always be up before me. This time,
he was still drunk and he couldn't move out of
(40:14):
the bed and UM, I was able to get dressed
and UM be able to leave and go to work.
And when I got to work, UM, I had talked
to my manager, and my manager she didn't exactly know
what was going on, but she knows that I've been
(40:35):
off and um, she knows I wasn't myself. Um, so
I had I had told her what was going on,
and UM, I told her I needed to call the
police because if if there was ever a time where
he did come back, I needed her to know that
he was not supposed to be there. So, UM, I
(40:58):
I called the police. When I talked to the police, UM,
I didn't know if I was gonna be able to
put him in jail because nobody had ever saw me
being abused, so I didn't have any bruises on me. Yeah,
I had no evidence, So I was like, I don't
know how I'm gonna put him in jail. But I
(41:20):
found out that he had he had a warrant out
for child support. So I called them and I was like, Hey,
it's a man in my house. He has a warrant
out for child support. Can you please come get him?
And so they pulled up, and you know, I went
(41:42):
to go talk to talk to him in his car,
and I was like, listen, I said, I know that
I called y'all about the warrant, but this man has
been beating on me and I don't know what to do.
I need him out of my house and I'm not safe,
and he looked up his record, and when he looked
up his record, he was like, I'm not going in
(42:05):
there by myself. He said, he has a warrant, he
has a history of violence. I'm not going in there
by myself. So he called for backup. When he called
for backup, he said, I don't even want you to
be here when we take him to jail. So they
had me give them um my key, and I went
to McDonald's and then after they arrested him, they came
back and gave me back my key, and you know,
(42:29):
went ahead and took him to jail. Now, later on
I ended up looking up his record before me, he
had he had a charge for what was it domestic
(42:49):
violence and it was confinement of a minor and the mother.
And then after me, there's also been two other counts.
Why this man is still out on the streets, I
(43:10):
don't know. So he's out of jail now. Yeah, he
wasn't even in there long for me. They told me
that he was supposed to be in jail for at
least thirty days for the child support. He got bailed
out in three days. There for three days and when
they bailed him out. It was on my birthday. You know,
(43:33):
usually you'll wake up you'll have like a lot of
messages like on Facebook and Instagram and stuff like that
for like happy birthdays. So I woke up to a
whole bunch of messages and I'm thinking that's what it was. No,
I had eighty seven miss text messages and like thirty
seven miss phone calls. Every single one of them was
from him. And he was like, I first just started
(43:56):
off all nights and he was like, baby, I'm out
of jail and I'm on my way. I wait to
see you when I love you and I miss you.
I got out for your birthday, like oh stuff, and
um yeah and um. Then like I had talked to
I had talked to my family and I let them
know what had been going on because if they saw
(44:18):
him around, they needed to know that he was not
supposed to be there. So, um, somebody, somebody has sent
him a message saying, UM, you know you need to
leave you alone. You know you you come around blah
blah blah and um. So he sends me the message
and he was like, oh, you got a new nigga already. Um,
(44:40):
I knew you was fucking around, like just escalated from there. Yeah,
and he was like, well, I'm he was like, I'm
coming back. I'm gonna beat your ass. So I'm gonna
do this and I'm gonna do that blah blah blah whatever.
So I'm like, what the fuck? So then UM to
reach out to you recently? No, no, no, no no, no,
(45:01):
hell no no. Um, he hasn't. It was it was
literally only that day and he was trying to get
his stuff. Um. I took all his stuff to his
grandma's house, and his grandma UM was saying that. You know,
they never really had him at any family functions because
(45:21):
he would always like be outraged and he would basically
ruin the party because, um, everybody would be having a
good time, but he would just blow up because of
whatever and he would ruin parties and stuff like that. So, um,
you know he has a history of this. You know,
this is somebody he's always been. Like I said, I
don't know why this man is still out. I don't
(45:43):
know why he's able to just roam this earth like
he's not destroying people and things and everything, Like I
don't I don't get it. So um So anyways, um,
I ended up giving his grandma all his stuff, and
I ended up going back home, and he was talking
(46:05):
about he was gonna kill himself and all this stuff,
and I was just like, I don't care. And so
then he finally stopped messaging me because I think he
just realized I was a different person at that point,
and I think he could realize that I wasn't afraid
of him anymore, and I think it genuinely bothered him.
(46:26):
And I also think that he just didn't want to
go back to jail, so so he he never reached
out to me after that. UM. The only other time
that I saw him is I was actually decorating or
not decorating. I was delivering a cake order and he
was at the party, and it was like he knew
(46:47):
that I was gonna be there because he was sitting
in the dark on some stairs and like I could
see the lining to his body. I know that man anywhere.
I could see the lining of his body and he
was just sitting there stairs at me, and I just left.
And that was the only time UM that had seen him.
After that, He's never messaged me or anything after that. UM.
(47:08):
But I also had him blocked, like after um. After
I put him in jail, I blocked him and his
messages and stuff like that. So UM, yeah, So what
is your relationship like with yourself now? And what role
did healing play in it? Um? So it took a
lot of healing and UM forgiving myself, forgiving myself for
(47:32):
putting myself in a situation, forgiving myself for UM, for
not loving myself more for not UM for allowing myself
to be in a certain situations. So I had to
do a lot of self reflection. But I also had
to do UM. I had to work on my trust.
I had to learn how to trust other people, had
(47:54):
to learn to trust my instincts. I had to learn
m to UM defend myself. I had to learn a
lot of different things. I had to learn to love myself.
Loving myself was hard for a long time, Like I
couldn't even look at myself in the mirror because there's
so much shame that comes with being in a domestic
(48:14):
violence situation. Because even though they're the monster that has
done all these things, everybody's mad at you and they're like, well,
why would you do this? You know, all these all
these good men out here, all these good men out
here and you know, you decided you wanted to be
with this one. And if like, there's there's no sign
up sheet for abuse, Like if I knew that that
(48:39):
was the outcome of him moving in, if I knew
that was an outcome of me loving him, I would
have never been with him in the first place. I
felt like I would have been safe, I would have
stayed longer, you know what I mean. So it was
it was a lot of different things that people didn't understand.
So then I had to learn to be okay with
(49:01):
people now understanding. I had to learn to be okay
with people not wanting to hear my side of the story.
I had to be okay with people looking down on
me because I was abused. I had to be okay
with a lot of different things just to be able
to heal and to love myself and to be able
(49:23):
to move forward in life. But I did it, And
I do love myself, and I do care about myself.
I care about my well my well being, and I'm
very proud of myself, you know what I mean. Like
I don't I'm definitely not a perfect person, but I'm
definitely an amazing person. And I think that you know,
(49:45):
the fact that there's a lot of different times that
I could have died and I'm still here. There's a
lot of different times where I could have hurt other
people because of what I was going through, and no
one else got hurt, you know, So UM, a lot
of I feel like a lot of times when we
(50:06):
go through traumatic experiences, UM, people get mad at God, like,
you know, why, why is this happening? And you know,
I didn't deserve this and everything like that, and absolutely
like I don't deserve this. But however, the fact that
I am still here and I don't have a scratch
on me, the fact that I am still here and
(50:29):
I'm able to love again, I'm able to trust again,
I'm able to heal, I'm able to love, the fact
that I'm still able to grow and and prosper and
you know, do these amazing things in the world was
God's grace for me. So I can't I can't sit
and um be mad at God for certain decisions that
(50:49):
I've made and the certain decisions that other people have made.
And I also can't um put so much on myself either,
right because so many people are like when I would
tell my story, they would be like, you know, well,
why did you do this? Well, why did you go
pick him up? Why did you do this? Or why'd
you do that? Like at the time, it was something
(51:12):
that I felt was necessary. At the time, I felt
like it was something I was I was doing the
right thing. You know, there's a lot of things that
I know now through healing and loving myself and a
lot of you know, experiences, but I didn't know those
things at that time. So I can't be mad at
(51:33):
me for who I used to be. I can't be
mad at me for who somebody else was to me.
That was these are these men's decisions for treating me
the way that they treated me. I understand that, you know,
I should have left beforehand. But life is a learning experience,
(51:54):
so I can't put so much on myself and be like, well,
why did I do this and why did I do that?
And I did that for so long and I hated
myself for it because I was like, you know, why
does the why do these things keep happening to me?
But I had to look at things in a different
manner for me to be able to make it through
(52:17):
and be okay with my process, be okay with myself
and be okay with the things that I've been through,
because if it wasn't for a lot of different things
that has happened to me, I wouldn't be who I
am today. And I love who I am. I love
who it has created me to be. So if that's
what it took to create this version of me, I
(52:40):
don't like it, but I love me, so I'm okay
with it. Right right? Come on? Now, that was a
word right there, child that you would have done differently?
And if so, what was it? What is it? I
(53:06):
wish that I would have loved myself before trying to
love somebody else. I feel like it would have saved
me from a lot of heartache because since I didn't
love myself, I kept looking for love through them, and
(53:27):
because they weren't properly loving me, I'm like, oh, well,
maybe if I do this, and maybe if I do that,
maybe if I try this, maybe if I try that,
you know, maybe they'll love me. And I still didn't
feel that love because the love that I really needed
I was supposed to give to myself. So I wish
(53:49):
I would have loved me first before trying to love
somebody else. Right, That's what I'm toime I own. This
was an amazing conversation. Other interviews they didn't allow you
to like tell this this story. Yeah, Like I feel
like you was able to tell your story, but it
was very chopped up. Yeah, right on to the show
(54:13):
and just being transparent and share your story. And I
know for a fact that it would definitely inspire everyone
and encourage them to, like, you know, fight back. Yeah. Yeah,
I want to thank you for allowing me to be
on the show. You know, it was um even even
(54:35):
when it comes to, you know, people not understanding what
it's like, um to be in an abusive relationship. You know, UM,
A lot of people have a lot of different assumptions.
And I was one of those people before too. You know.
I used to always be like, well, you know, why
would you put up with that? You know you deserve better.
(54:55):
That's not something that you know you should be doing.
And it look me going through that to be able
to humble myself and be like, oh my god, I
can't believe that this is a thing. Like it's not
It's not just a physical hold. It is a complete
mental hold. It is an emotional hold, and it's you
(55:19):
have to completely un just unfuck your mind to understand
life again. So um, it's it's it's a lot better.
It makes me feel better to be able to tell
my story because I would rather somebody hear my story
and learn from it than for them to go through
(55:41):
what I've been through to have to learn from it
that way. I don't want that for anybody. I wouldn't
wish that on anybody, so I would. I would rather
them hear my story and have an understanding of them.
In that way, maybe they can help somebody else. Right well,
if y'all have any questions, comments, and concerns, please make
sure to email me and hello at the PSG podcast
dot com. It was a pleasure to have you on
(56:04):
the show, and unto the next time. Everyone later Bye,
Host
Eboné Almon
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