This is the last installment in Hannah’s Story. Part one. Part two.
My eyes began to open to my reality. Things that were my normal, weren’t so normal at all. I would talk to friends at work and realize how foreign their healthy relationships seemed to me. I realized that love isn’t angry, and that there is never an excuse for a man to raise his fist to a woman. I realized that even if I was unlovable, I didn’t want to die at the hand of this man.
So I began a six-month period of establishing my escape plan in order to try to make it out alive. Every night as we got ready for bed he would pull out his machete, sharpen it and place it in the bed. I could, to this day, tell you exactly how he would’ve killed me had I not gotten out. I had to know his every move in order to avoid being killed, hit, or yelled at. Life had became a massive game of chess.
The night leading up to the morning of my escape brought everything full circle. He had gotten drunk, which had become a nightly event, but that night he wanted sex. It didn’t matter what was in his way, or that I had already fallen asleep… He wanted sex. I woke up to my 6’5” 200 lb husband on top of me, and his hand over my face. I was crushing under the weight of his body, begging him to get off of me so I could breathe. But it didn’t matter.
I remembered that night so many years ago, and I laid there with tears streaming down my face as my very own husband raped me. He rolled over and passed out, and I rolled over into a puddle of tears. The next morning I walked out of that door with my dog and never saw him again.
I got out alive, and that’s only by the grace of God. The journey of healing has taken me into the darkest of places before it brought me to the most beautiful places. I was diagnosed with PTSD, and it’s taken 2 years of intense counseling to experience some level of freedom from it. I’ve had to work on processing things, emotionally, that I would rather have just forgotten. But I’ve been blessed by individuals who work hard to build me up and support me, and I’ve learned how to let those who don’t, out of my life. It’s taken four years for me to finally say, confidently, that I am happy with where life has me. I’m finally learning who I am, apart from the influences of those who wrecked me. I’m learning to have opinions on things that I was never allowed to have an opinion on. And most importantly, I’m learning to love myself in a way I never thought was possible.
#IAmWorthy #YouAreWorthy
Local Resources in Indiana:
The Julian Center
Crisis Line 317-920-9320
Prevail Inc.
24 Hour Crisis Line: 317.776.3472
Thank you for sharing your story! Sharing your story can save a woman that may be in a similar situation. As a DV survivor and advocate awareness is very important. I’ve created a blog to help empower women to be free of DV. (www.womenempower.today) It’s a critical epidemic that needs a lot of work.
Thank you for your help!