The picture you see is of me, in my bathroom, taking a selfie of a goose egg on my forehead if you don't see it. It was taken 01/23/2017, this I sent to one of my best and dearest friends. I asked her to keep it. If you would ask me if the man, ever put hands on me like this, I would have told you no. This is proof that he did. I can't for the life of me remember this. She said that I didn't say anything but to keep it for me. Now that is my best friend, why would I not tell her what happened? Also, in this time frame a customer (Julie bird) I waited on came to me the other day and we was talking about the old store and if I recalled the "times", yeah, times that I came in like this and asked me what happened. Guess back then I simply told her is what it is and didn't have much to say to her either. She says after a little time she said I "lost the pep in my step". She said that I acted medicated, I guess I checked out a long time ago. And honestly, I can recall I was slowly going down. My customers started to notice, and my anxiety started to get bad. I couldn't have told you about this time, it's not in my memory at all.
This isn't what started to break me, there were things happening far worse than an ass beating. There are a lot of things I am not ready to talk about yet, but things got bad enough that broke me. The sad thing about losing your memories is the ones you keep most the time, they aren't pleasant. For me, I can remember every ass whooping from my son's father, I think. Most of them nearly killed me (someday I will tell that story). But as far as this last relationship, I would have to say I was the aggressor, I did the hitting and throwing stuff. I also wasn't on the right meds either. No excuse for my behavior, but the way I seen anger handled is by physical means, from early on I would always hear the words "spare the rod, you spoil the child". Words I was taught to live by, and I was a very angry woman who didn't want to be silenced anymore. I guess there was that time, maybe I said to much, or did something really bad to him. The picture is worth a thousand words. Like I said, I don't remember this happening. I stare at this picture and try to recall something. I come up with not even a fight that could have led to this. There are other pictures that was sent with this one, bruising all over my legs. I don't know what happen, but I was covered in them.
I stayed with this man mostly because one, He's the only dad my son has known, and two, my mom and pop loved him so dearly, they still talk, my mom still thinks I can't make it without him, and last, I was scared out of my mind with no knowledge that a fight like this ever started. I can only think that maybe I felt I was in the same situation, I had to live in fear for so long I just maybe regressed back. When I felt I had to just get by day by day, I started to color. This is a great way to escape. All I thought about was colors and getting lost in them and the picture I was coloring. I colored 8 adult books in under a few months, front to back. Honestly wasn't healthy mentally either. What happened is that I ended up in my room behind a closed door, by myself the whole day. If he was up, I called the friend I refer to as "master of memories". He would stay on the phone with me all day so as not to be alone. I am so grateful for his help through my transformation, if wasn't for him I may never know who I once was and that I wouldn't stand for this shit, I could be stuck with toxic in my life.
My hopes to whom this reaches find strength to get rid of toxic, I won't lie, it's truly been a hard one for me. I believed God gave that man to me. He is the father to my first born. Met him on calls from a jail where I believed he was serving his time. We met face to face and that then is all she wrote. I was head over heels and would have followed him anywhere. In the first trimester of my pregnancy, he sat me down and told me he had a court date coming up. His trouble hadn't ended, and I was Nieve to think that. He was taken from me on valentine's day, it was a Monday, and I was having a baby by myself. I left his mothers, she hated me and made life hard there. Needlesstosay, I landed in another bad relationship. Besides the point. Point is I had to move on and get my shit together and have this baby without him. We had been apart for over 20 years. When he walked in my house it was like he never left me. I wish I would have remembered then what happened in the past how he was. I wouldn't have gotten involved.
Sometimes, we think of things like this as a gift from God, I Thought that he was given back to me to live out my happy ending. That wasn't the gift at all. I went through it all to find it was closure that had to happen for me. There is the gift in that hell. There is no what if there anymore, I am blessed to know I have that closure now, that I don't have to wonder or want to have it back. So, I cleaned off my plate of life and trimmed the fat per say. I made room for happiness. And folks it takes a heartful to have it. So worth getting rid of toxic people in your life cause in the end they just take up needed space and holds you back in life.
God Bless you all!
