How could you stay with him?

The next two years of my life would change everything. Boyfriend Two entered my world, and corrupted my mind, heart, body, and soul. The scary thing about people is that, just like myself, you never know when they are wearing a mask. He started out funny, adventurous, kind, a good listener, and intelligent. Two weeks in he would be calling me a "F**** cry baby" when I complained that I wanted our jog to be longer. The verbal abuse never stopped after that. My whole life I was always rather judgmental of women who stayed in abusive and manipulative relationships. Then when I was the woman in an abusive relationship I was not judging myself, I was simply making up one lie after another about our relationship, making it something it was not, in hopes that I would believe it was true as well. Denial had become my coping medicine. I was no longer drinking much, and no longer popping Klonies, so denial became my drug.

He was the typical abuser. He first wowed me, then the subtle manipulation began. He began to draw me away from my family. At first it was subtle, then it became so in your face it was scary. He grew to hate my family. He really hated everyone, but especially my family. He hated them for being Christian, he hated them for being Conservative, he hated them for being Republican. He called the "hicks" he called them every name in the book. I received an email from him, that was purely psychotic, saying in detail how he would murder each member of my family one-by-one. Nope not even this scared me off. Denial.

He also had a hatred for God. He truly believed it was his mission in life to be the one to "kill God". He wrote another psychotic letter ranting and raging about how he was going to "kill God." He claimed he was an atheist, yet he had this obsessive hatred for God. He wanted me to hate God with him. He wanted me to hate my family with him. He wanted me to hate Conservatism with him. He wanted me to hate my friends with him. He did draw me away from God, so far away I did not call myself a Christian any longer, after all, It was God who gave me my messed up head, right?

The first thing he did was drag me across the concrete and throw me in the pool. When I looked at him scared and horrified he simply yelled, "That's not a big deal!" He would later routinely grab me by the neck and pin me against the wall and stare at me like a maniac, and talk to me in a voice that was filled with rage and hate. He would call me every hateful name you can think of. Every extreme word and curse. He would accuse me of the most insane and horrendous things, that made no sense. He would throw things at me, smother me with pillows, drag me across floors until I bled, smack me across the head. He was smart enough to not to leave bruises, but he was a master at intimidation.

I was a Behavioral Support Provider for children and adults with severe behavioral disorders during this time. I was trained in behavior management, de-escalation, and how to handle people in high stress situations. If I did not have this training, I do not know if I would have survived, or if he would have survived. I was able to bring him down from his rage through the training tactics I had learned, not always, but many times. I was trained in how to stay calm, when his hands were around my neck. I was schooled in what to say, and when to speak, when people are in states of extreme anger and and acting out in violence. It was because of this training that I did not lose my composure. I did not look at him as a boyfriend any longer, but as a client that I saw everyday that was my duty to help. I was a classic "fixer" only I fixed everybody but myself.

This guy was even abusive towards his mother. Verbally and physically. I watched him pin his mother down on the floor by her neck, while his father slept in the bedroom down the hall. He also broke her heart with the terrible things he called her and accused her of. He truly believed his mother and I were against him, and out to get him. 

He was also an avid drug user. He was basically dependent on marijuana to get through the day, loved Ecstasy, was always looking for LSD, and Shrooms. Honestly because I was so messed up at this point, and frankly just not wanting to go through the abuse cycle, I would rather him be high and happy, then sober and violent. Healthy, right? Again, I just had been through so much by this point, so many bouts of depression, so many humiliating experiences I just gave up caring about anything. I had gotten to the point in life that a man was beating me up, how much lower could it get? There is a song lyric by my favorite artist that defines my attitude towards his violence perfectly, "He hit me and it felt like a kiss." Sadly that is how routine and numb I became to his abuse. I would not be until late summer that I would wake up from my denial coma, and walk away, and never look back.

I do not remember what triggered it, but he was raged. He was so raged that it caused his grandmother to intervene, but she was unhealthy as well, and yelled at me for causing him to become abusive. She, more conservatively, called me every name in the book, and just riled him up even more. I could defend myself when she spoke, but this just enraged him. I truly feel that even he became fearful of his anger at this point, and if his grandmother was not there, I do not know what would have happened. Instead he got into a car a drove down to their other house in Murrieta. Later that night when I called to see if he made it there alive, he went off on me like never before. He just named all the ways he was going to murder me. At that moment I just shut him off, hung up, and emotionally left. The next day I permanently left. Within the next week, I would cut all ties. Apparently this would cause him to emotionally breakdown, but I did not care. I would later move, change my phone number, and get police escorts to my car and classes at my University because he attended there as well. Fortunately I would eventually get to the point that I no longer lived in fear of "the monster."