// READ FIRST! // This blog is a continuous work-in-progress and will be updated every few days. This is a venting and processing space for my personal escape and recovery from an abusive relationship. There will be discussions of DV, abuse, depression, trauma, PTSD, BPD, and SA. Please be advised! 18+
R E B I R T H
1
I was born in an apartment complex parking lot on a Thursday as a twenty-year-old girl with her car keys in one shaky hand and her rage in the other.
I started the engine and pulled off in my "ugly mom car" without a second glance back. I did look, however, in the rearview mirror at my one-year-old daughter in her car seat. Her hair was a tangled mess and her cheeks were red from tears- yet she giggled at her peekaboo farm board book and bobbed her head to the radio with sheer bliss.
I felt overcome with nausea and reached for my water, only to find I’d left it. The lunchbox. I’d left the lunchbox, too.
The nausea turned to violent shakes that overtook my body as I pulled the wheel back into the neighborhood and finally let my first tear fall.
What if he woke up? What if he heard me leave a minute ago? What if this is my only chance?
For the first time since I bought this car, I didn’t back-in to my parking space at home. I whipped into the first empty spot, left it running and flew towards the front door. The apartment was the same I’d left it a moment ago– silent, dark, asleep. I sprinted through the living room and kitchen, grabbed it, and returned back to the car.
I fumbled with the aux cable cord as I peeled off for the second time, and the line rang only once before my best friend answered.
"Distract me, I'm on the way."
I stayed on the phone with her for the next half an hour, until I reached her home and she came out to help me get my daughter and our bags. I was cool, collected, quiet. My mind and heart were racing together. The lunchbox, containing all the main foods my daughter likes that I could think of grabbing, was unpacked and put in the fridge.
She asked if he’s called.
"No, but any minute now he will."
She asked what my plan was. I gave her the “I don’t know” look, which she’d been familiar with since we were ten. She asked if I wanted to see her new baby chickens.
We spent the afternoon walking around her property, playing with my daughter, and avoiding the subject. I continuously checked my phone, knowing that calls and texts would come flooding in at any moment.
She asked if I was actually leaving this time. My head answered for me, bobbing up and down before she finished the question. I looked at her and she looked at me, and we knew I was serious.
In the three weeks and some days it's been since she asked me that. I have not once thought of going back. Instead, I have spent much time thinking of who I am, who I am going to be, where I am going to go; and feeling, remembering. and processing lots of horrific things for the first time because I am finally safe enough to do so. I have been watching my daughter thrive in an environment specifically curated for her, and I have begin learning how lovely life can be.
This will be where I write about my understandings and findings of processing abuse, PTSD, leaving a partner with whom you have a child with, trauma bonds, coming to terms with your past, and discussing -purely for amusement and educational cautionary- some of the nonviolent (the violent ones I'll save for therapy) but still unbelievable tactics and actions taken by that nasty man. This is in no way romanticizing or glorifying any of the above, and none of such will be tolerated.
To be continued soon..
