It’s been said that, “The devil doesn’t come to you with pointed horns and wearing a cape. The devil comes to you as everything you’ve ever wished for.”
I first met the woman who would become my abuser when I was working part time at a local pub. I had no particular interest in any romantic involvement with her. What stood out to me was that she was coming in after work by herself and had the appearance of being down to earth and not trying to draw attention to herself. At the time I was only curious what her story was and saw her as someone to have good conversations with. All the while there were red flags I should’ve noticed then that I’m able to notice in retrospect. Because of the interest I was showing her she insisted on being more than friends though I hadn’t done anything or made comments I would’ve mistaken for courting. Missing the red flags all I saw was a positive spiritual person.
I was pressured into having a committed relationship immediately. Not long after I was pressured to spend the majority of my time in her apartment. We were practically living together. Next I was pressured and encouraged to tell her ‘I love you’ several times a day. Everything she’d insisted on she had sensible justification for. All the while I didn’t take notice of the looming disaster I was setting myself up for. The first weeks it seems that she was trying to be everything she believed I wanted. She seemed genuinely happy and even stating several times we were soulmates. When the relationship ended I learned that this was referred to as “lovebombing.” My abuser became increasingly paranoid asking about other organizations I am involved in, wanting to know how many women are around and what they are like. When I had visited her at her job I had a feeling that she was showing me off to her coworkers and even got defensive with a female coworker she insisted was trying to get me to notice her. Often when she would visit me at work she would get defensive if a guest was needing my assistance. Even going so far as to glare at them enough that it was being noticed. My abuser would ask me to tell certain coworkers not to hug me any longer and would watch me to ensure I’d done as asked. I knew it was foolish at the time especially considering she had nothing to be insecure about with me. I just chalked it to the probability that she had been burned by a former partner in the past and it was such a devastating experience she feared it repeating.
My abuser asked if I had any female friends. I told her yes, two. I explained that I’d been friends with these women for several years and it was strictly friends. The following day she demanded that I ended these friendships and explained her reasoning’s that the friendships were no longer necessary. I hadn’t ended the friendships. Not out of willful disobedience but I thought to myself “How am I supposed to do this and explain it?” and “If I do this are all problems solved or is this the beginning stages of being asked to cut ties with all my friends then my family?” As time went on the company was enjoyable but sometimes when my abuser was having drinks I would get questioned thoroughly and accused of getting involved with other women from the very moment I would walk out the door. Probably on a daily basis she would go through my phone and who knows what else. Some mornings after she’d already been up she would aggressively wake me to question me on messages she would find in my phone. According to her she wasn’t going through my phone and this was all because of things revealed to her when she was using some tarot cards. She would give me very evil looks and breathe erratically while interrogating me.
Looking back I don’t think there was anything I could’ve done differently. Messages between my family members weren’t private. Messages between coworkers she questioned if they were “coded” to arrange covert meetings without her knowing. I can never truly know if she believed I was going behind her back or if this was just the controlling abuse. Anything I tried to do to be reassuring or pleasing was just insufficient. Sometimes I would ask my abuser if she had gotten bored with the relationship and this was just a means to entertain herself. I would get no response and only a look. As the joy of the “honeymoon phase” continued to decline, there were some moments I’d be yelled at being accused of things and told to leave, or I’d tell her “I can’t do this anymore” and leave. I’d always go no contact and 2 or 3 days later my abuser would call 5 or 10 times within a couple minutes and message and talk me into trying to work it out. After all the lovebombing in the beginning of the relationship I would sometimes be told by my abuser that she was at peace before she meet me and I was the one being controlling. If I’d tell her that everything she was explaining to me says she’ll be happier and better off with someone else over me I would get a look but no response. I’d say that I’ve done as she asked cutting ties with people around me, asking coworkers to distance themselves from and it still hadn’t pleased her and was poor decision making on my part for agreeing. I was never able to have any rational conversations with her over what she perceived as wrongs I’d done to her. When I’d try and say relationships are supposed to be about mutual understandings she’d always counter that relationships are about compromise. I hadn’t made demands of her in exchange for anything. The demands always came from her.
The final night I was with my abuser her and I were having a night out at the pub I worked at. She had more drinks than I did since she arrived before my shift had ended. She had gotten angry because of my joking with the two bartenders I work with, one guy and one woman. As she said because I was “talking to another woman.” I can never know for certain if I truly did wrong or if it was her inability to have sole control over my thoughts and actions. As we were leaving she angrily walked ahead of me turning around once to flick a cigarette butt in my face. When we’d gotten to her apartment the next five hours would become the most unendurable night in my life. It had become impossible for me to care any longer about her hostility and the remarks she was making. I sat on the floor and turned on the playstation. As I’m about to start playing a game she loudly accuses me “You’ve been talking to other girls all night haven’t you?” In frustration I calmly replied, “Yep, sure, that’s all I do all day long.” She threw some smaller items at me before jumping on top of me, pushing me over with her hands around my throat. She’d gone through my pockets taking my phone then running to the bathroom locking herself in with my phone. She’d spent nearly an hour in the bathroom with my phone not making a sound. I drew the conclusion that I was completely done. This relationship challenge was just not within my abilities or rational communication. Being open to the possibility of rational and lasting mutual understanding was impossible and useless.
I spent the next several minutes trying to persuade her to come out and just talk to me. I’d also said I can’t do this anymore and want my phone back so I can leave. She never responded the entire time. Looking under the door. I can see that she was standing there and I presume going through anything and everything she wanted to. I got the few things together that I had there and put them in my car. I continued asking for my phone all the while trying to decide what to do. Do I cut my losses and just leave? Then I’m at her mercy if family, friends, and coworkers try to contact me until I’m able to get a replacement phone and don’t know everyone’s numbers offhand. Then for the next day or two she has the power to respond however she chooses. Since she left her phone on the counter do I use hers to call 911? The nearest police station was also just a couple blocks away if I were to go straight there. Either case I still run the high risk that she decides to injure herself claiming I did it or make me out to be the aggressor with the likelihood the police would side with her. Then any future career goals I have been working toward would be limited if I’d been arrested over this. The third option I keep my calm and composure and hope for the best when it seems there’s no end in sight. After she was satisfied with the time she’d spent with my phone in the bathroom. She comes out and asks what do I want to talk about. I asked for my phone and told her I can’t do this anymore and want to leave. Reason was impossible.
She started making demands of me and I was never any closer to getting my phone back and leaving. She demanded I get my things and clothes out of my car and hang them back up in the closet. Still no closer to getting my phone and being let out of this situation I felt trapped in. Not knowing if this would ever end I asked if she would at least message one of my managers to let them know I won’t be able to make it to work the next day. I couldn’t even get that much. I looked around the bathroom to see where she may have hidden my phone. She resumed with the physical assaulting from before. She latched on to my face digging in with her nails drawing blood. Getting on top of me she had such a firm grip around my neck it broke a neck chain I was wearing. I started losing consciousness when she did what is referred to as a blood choke. She let up when she could see I was blacking out. I could have easily pushed her off of me but I couldn’t bring myself to do this to someone I once cared about and I’m certain she was trying to get me to react in a way that that isn’t in my nature as far as using my hands on her. I can’t tell but I suspect part of why this lasted so long was she wanted me to retaliate to make her the victim. I was hit in the face when she brought up a text in my phone between me and a buddy complaining about her behavior from weeks earlier. Because of that message she yelled, “I’ll slit your throat while you sleep! You think I’m afraid of prison?” When asked about another previous text between a friend I was giving thought to moving out of the state for a fresh start. I responded that this was said when her and I were broken up. I got hit in the face more. In my duress I yelled “help!” I don’t know, it was just such a stressful ordeal. Maybe I was hoping a neighbor would come and check or someone would contact the police. She was unfazed saying, “you think someone is going to call the cops?”
All I could do while hoping this ends with the least amount of collateral damage was just start praying to myself. Hearing my praying she said to me in a calm tone as such one would when speaking to a toddler she says, “I’m a child of God too.” I guess I was supposed to believe it was all deserved or God authorized her actions and absence of mercy or empathy. I’ve never experienced anger like this that evening or when she’d wake me to question me about what’s in my phone on previous days. I’m a reasonable man but the look on her I would see I was questioning reality wondering if the soul was gone and she may actually be demon possessed. Several times during this she asked if I wanted my phone so I can call the cops. If I’d say I won’t tell anyone I just want to leave, she was nowhere near starting to back down. Picture if you can the setting I’m in experiencing this and the course of events as they’re unfolding. And though she’s two thirds the size of me I could easily just walk past her and be on my way but I can’t because she told me if I walk out that door she will start beating herself up then call the cops to tell them I did it to her. I saw no end in sight. I’m also a veteran and have spent time in the Mideast in some understandably dangerous combat areas. But here I am trapped by the threats of this woman that used to say I’m her soulmate. I can stay or leave either way until she’s satisfied that she’s destroyed my life mentally and by misusing the law, or I have one exit that is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.
At the time I used to keep a small pistol in my car for personal protection. All I could think was she won’t just understand and let me leave and never bother me again. My only escape would be to end my life. I decided I’m going to get my pistol and take my own life right there in front of her home. I couldn’t make myself do it or even try, or go to the car and put my hands on it for that matter though this seemed to be the only way to escape. I just stayed there subjected to the unrelenting torment. At some point, 4 or 5 hours after this began, she must have worn herself out. In an instant her demeanor changed into a side I haven’t experienced before. The demon was gone, the person I first knew months earlier wasn’t there, she calmly looked at me and would kiss me and ask if there was any way we can work this out. After the trauma now this. I was still very shaken and felt like I should cry but wasn’t able to. Over and over she would kiss me and each time I’d pull away and tell her I can’t. Over and over she would ask me to be intimate with her and if there was any way of working this out. I would still pull away and tell her I can’t. After asking me to work it out with her I even said “How are we supposed to work this out? What are people going to think and say when they see the scratches on my face?” Without hesitation she simply told me, “just tell everyone my cat scratched you.” I couldn’t go back and count how many times she’d keep trying and I’d keep pulling away. It must have lasted a half hour or better. She finally starts falling asleep and gives me back my phone saying she did everything she needed to. As I’m leaving it’s after 6am and the sun is coming up. I told her I don’t want to be contacted by her again.
I hadn’t gone to sleep. I was afraid to leave my home and even face people I knew with the scratches behind my ears and the sides of my face. Thankfully she hadn’t changed the pin on my phone but blocked and deleted several numbers. As soon as offices were opening, I had gone to visit three different attorneys seeking consultation on how to protect myself. Each time the first thing I was asked is when was I arrested? Or when is my court date? This only made me feel more hopeless and that somehow I was the one in the wrong. I was advised against making a police report since the police would have inquired from her what happened also. While I was with one attorney she called and sent messages telling me she felt bad. Even writing a lengthy poem about losing me. I was not going to respond.
I filed for an order of protection. I had to appear in court three times over the next two months. Each court date she wouldn’t show. A feeling of panic and dread would be over me anticipating her walking through the door. Like clockwork every two weeks after I left, late at night she would call repeatedly. Naturally I wouldn’t answer and the calls would be followed by texts saying things like she found someone new that wants a relationship with her but she still has feelings for me, or asking me to respond that I never truly had feelings for her. One message was even a meme reading: “She doesn’t miss you, she misses the man you pretended to be when you first met her.” I never responded and finally blocked all means of contact after being granted an order of protection. I was never asked but would’ve shown these messages and calls as evidence that I don’t feel safe and am avoiding my abuser. The next couple of weeks I would park in different locations, not take the same route to and from work two nights in a row. With the threats she made and owning a handgun herself, I truly believed there could be an attempt on my life as I’m getting in my car after work.
To my surprise months later, a mutual acquaintance she worked with had mentioned to me that she bragged that in her words she choked me out cause she caught me cheating. This was referencing the messages she’d read between me and a long time female friend back in my hometown when I was considering moving back wanting to leave my negative surroundings and influences. It’s easier for me to say I wasn’t cheating on her than it is for me to prove I wasn’t. I recalled something she said in the first weeks I’d known her when she made a statement, “You can be cheating on me without actually seeing another woman.” Something about that felt like a premonition then. Maybe it was her way of saying I reserve the right to declare you guilty of whatever I declare is unjust and unleash a narcissistic rage at a time and place of my choosing. Also a former friend of hers asked if I still talk to her. This friend told me my abuser had said: “her and I got into it several times but that I would never put my hands on her.” I couldn’t fully comprehend why she admitted all this truthfully. I also found out afterwards that years earlier an ex-husband of hers had filed a protection order against her too. So I wasn’t the first and, unfortunately, probably won’t be the last.
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Genesis 50:20
“You were afflicted so that you can help deliver other people from what you escaped from.” – Bishop TD Jakes
When all this happened to me I had to recover entirely on my own. The people closest to me were little or no help. No one even fully knows every detail of what I shared here. No one really wanted to hear what happened. As soon as I started telling anyone in my inner circle, I’d be cut off getting asked why do I keep talking to this woman and giving her chances after however many times I’d tell everyone I was through with her the weeks before. It’s taken me close to a year to write this. Each time I’d start I’d feel a bit of anxiety remembering that night. It would nearly ruin the remainder of my day having it all replaying in my mind. I understand now how easily one could be lured in and fall prey to a narcissistic abuser. At the time I was unaware of Harmony House. I hadn’t utilized the services Harmony House offers, but since I had to struggle on my own, if it’s within my power the little bit I can offer may help another survivor to not struggle alone. I’m just one man. There’s only so much I can do to make a minor impact. I make the occasional donations of clothing, household items and such, to Harmony House for survivors that may have had to leave everything behind to flee a domestic violence situation. Donating one’s time or material resources may not change the world, but it could easily change the world for one survivor.
