My Survival Story #2 | Written By Anonymous

My first husband we met in school at 17. He used to pick on me. Everyone always says when a boy picks on you it means he likes you. I hate that saying now come to think of it and I will never tell my kids that. I ended up falling for him because I thought he liked me because he was always picking on me. We ended up pregnant and married before 18. I moved in with him and his family. The nightmare began. He had an addictive personality I was unaware of before. Porn, alcohol, drugs. I would catch him, get upset, say something. Argue. Get screamed at, hit. Locked in rooms and told horrible things through the door. I was always told well what did you do this time to make him mad. Why couldn't you just keep your mouth shut. It was always my fault. His family knew something was wrong with him since he was a kid but never said anything to anyone. It got so bad to the point where he had me in a headlock I the car and his older sister was trying to pull him off of me and he yelled he was going to snap my neck and kill me. I stupidly went back to him once so I could see our daughter more but it always ended the same way. That last time I got lucky enough to get out thanks to his sister. His mom admitted to me about knowing something was wrong with him. He's bipolar and finally is on medication for it. But I still suffer from PTSD because of it and its been over 10 years. The thought of him, his name being brought up, certain sounds like a motorcycle bring panic attacks, fear, nausea, elevated heart rate and sometimes crying. I dropped down to 82 pounds and was covered from head to toe in bruises when I finally got out. I vowed to never again wait that long to ever get out if I were to end up in a situation like that again. My kids will definitely be told about abusive relationships and we will have in depth discussions when they come of age because I never want that to happen to them.