I want to tell you a story. Its definitely not for the faint of heart and I implore you to read it slowly and carefully. You see…this is MY story. The string of words soon to follow are full of a lot of pain and sorrow that only my therapist and maybe two other people know about. Much like the fall of Troy, this pain and sorrow all starts because of one thing….love.

I was a 21 year old woman whose idea of love was fashioned by Disney and romance novels. He was a 23 year old marine vet who I considered a great friend back when we were in school together. We hit it off great when we started hanging out again. It was like or conversations picked up right where we had left them all those years prior to our reunion. Things were amazing. I hadn't felt like about someone in years. After one year, we moved in together.

This was where things got…interesting. We did all the normal couple things; cook dinner together, play games, hang out with friends, etc. It was pure bliss. Then he had his first severe night terror about stuff that happened to him in Iraq, at least his first one while I was next to him. He insisted it was nothing and I let it go…until he started drinking way more than usual. I kept asking him to maybe go see a counselor since it was obviousley a factor in his drinking habits and he flat out refused, saying there was nothing wrong.

Flash forward a few years. I am down in Phoenix pursuing my associates degree, he is still in Flagstaff working for the County. Every time he comes down to visit on the weekends, he spends his time drinking and playing games. I didn't mind the video game playing. I played with him until he got to that point of drunkenness where he was just flat out mean and condescending. The pattern continued. He’d visit, be drunk all weekend, leave. I started feeling alone even while he was there with me. I just accepted the behavior because I wasn’t about to try to reason with a drunk man; working as a detention officer taught me better. The few times he was sober, Id try to talk to him about getting help for alcoholism and he would get angry and say it was his problem to deal with…..except he wouldn’t deal with it. After a year and a half of living apart, things took a turn for the worst.

It was shortly after Christmas time in 2016. He was visiting and was on his usual drunken binge. I was trying to sleep because I had work the next morning. When he came to bed, he tried to get intimate with me. As I was kissing him, i noticed something in his eyes change, then before I knew it, his forearm was my throat and he was pushing down, hard. Luckily my training kicked in and I tucked my chin to prevent my esophagus from being crushed. He kept trying to hurt me, yelling about how he didn’t know what I was. I tried to scoot off the bed to get out from under him, but he wouldn’t relent. I ended up having to do a closed hammer fist to the side of his head to get myself a opening to get away. I ran out of the bedroom and closed the door, holding it shut as he banged on it, roaring. Then I remembered something important….our guns were in there…and I hadn’t hid them. Saying a silent prayer and a curse, I let him open the door and when he rushed at me again I stepped to the side and tripped him, he hit his head and was dazed. Keeping an eye on his prone form, I his our guns in the closet. Why didn’t I close the door and lock him out? I was still concerned about him. I went to see if he was okay, and called his brother about what was going on, hoping his voice would help snap him out of whatever world he was in. It didn’t work, his brother flat out said I needed to get out of there, telling me this wasn’t his first episode. I made my way to the kitchen to grab my keys and my fiancé had grabbed a kitchen knife and was prepared to use it on me. As I grabbed my keys, he slashed at me. I threw a plate at him to give me enough time to run out the door. I closed the door and an locked it, terrified. I remember holding the door closed, fearing he would follow me, then scared about not having anywhere to go. I worked a minimum wage job, school full time and had no real financial stability. Then I heard his voice. not the Mr. Hyde that was just trying to stab me, I heard the man I fell in love with. “Baby, what are you doing outside? I’m scared. Help.” There is was. That word that sucked me back into my lovelorn stupidity, “Help”. I went back in, immediately checking his hands for the knife. I saw it on the ground and kicked it behind the couch. He smiled and then grabbed my arms, the smile turning to a sneer and the grip getting harder. Mr. Hyde was back. I flat out yelled that he was hurting me and he let me go, but not before slamming my back into the door so hard it almost knocked the wind out of me. He kept going in and out of his monster state. One second he’d be the man I loved, though scared and vulnerable, then he would be the monster that I called Hyde and say horrible things about how he wanted to kill me or my sisters. He swore he as a demon and would say the guy I cared so much about didn't exist anymore. This lasted for 5 hours until I was finally able to put him to bed. I tried to sleep in the living room. It was the first time I can honestly say I literally slept with one eye open.

The next morning before work, I sat down next to him on the bed and just birst into tears. I told him everything, every little detail about what he did to me and the silly positive side of me thought, hey, maybe this will get him to get the help he needs! Alas those thoughts were soon crushed. The drinking continued, the emotional and physical abuse continued. I was in a constant state of hypervigilance that I didn’t even experience when working at the jail. My stress levels increased, I gained a shit ton of weight and my self esteem suffered. What made it worse? during his drunken rages, he would tell me I was the reason he drank and that he never actually loved me.

Flash forward to where we are living together in flagstaff again. These would be our last six months together. His drinking got to the point where it was effecting his job. He would drink almost every single night and would call in often. I would beg for him to ease up. I tried hiding his beer, he tore the kitchen apart and pushed me down out of anger. He pointed his revolver at my new puppy and pulled the trigger. Me thinking it was loaded, forced my hand between the hammer and the primer. The next morning? He said it was “Out of spite.” We had a favorite brewery and he would get two growlers filled. He would go through a single growler in an hour. To prevent him from drinking the second one like he usually did, I drank the other one and almost subjected myself to alcohol poisoning. Why did I drink it instead of pouring it down the drain? The last time I tried that I was pinned to the wall with a hand on my throat.

I felt like I “obviously” wasn’t worth loving. After all, I would tell him every single detail of everything that he would do to me and he STILL wouldn’t get help. So naturally my thoughts were full of “my fault”, “not worthy” “useless” I wanted to kill myself. I wanted it to end. Honestly it was those thoughts of ending it that prompted me to do a crazy three day trip to see my family for Christmas. I drove early Sunday morning all day to make it to Oklahoma just to spend Christmas eve with my family since we hadn't been together at Christmas as a whole in YEARS. I then drove the long 14 hours back on Christmas day with the intention of killing myself within the following two weeks. When I got home, I was hoping for an I missed you kiss and a hug. What I got was a drunk Mr. Hyde holding a loaded Glock to my head and pulling the trigger. The only thing that saved me was my training and my reactions kicked in before I could think. I grabbed the gun, slightly pushed the slide back so it was out of action, and punched him in the junk 3 times. He went for a walk as he usually did when he was drunk and I then decided I was done with him AND that I did not want to die. I wrote out my two weeks notice and asked my sister in Colorado if I could come up ASAP. I proceeded to pack up and move, he tried to promise that he would get help. Obviously it was way too late for that. I moved here to Colorado Springs to finally start a new chapter in my life as a single woman for the first time in 10 years.

It hurt A LOT. I loved this guy with every fiber of my being, but I was never truly loved in return. It has been a long two years of healing, one that I don't think will ever be truly over. It has been super hard for me to trust people, even those that are great friends. Its a daily battle of me fighting my insecurities or the voice in my head saying “why bother dating? The last guy didn't hit you until 6 years in…” Even through all the bullshit this healing process has thrown at me, at least I have finally grasped onto that one thing that I lost so long ago…hope. Hope that i will find my true self again and hope that someone will genuinely appreciate it and not take me for granted ever again.

For those of you that have similar stories or know loved ones that are having these issues, I am hear to talk and here are a few resources that may help:

Break the Silence: https://breakthesilencedv.org/

Veterans Affairs: https://www.ptsd.va.gov/gethelp/crisis_help.asp

SAMHSA:https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline

Suicide Prevention:https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/