I drove to his house that evening after work, just as I had done for weeks. I spent the entire time telling myself, “You can do this.” I was terrified but knew that if I failed to act in that moment, I might never have the nerve to do it again. I walked into his house and tried to act casual, but he immediately knew that something was different about my behavior. I was nervous and reserved. This immediately angered him, and he demanded an explanation. I told him that I wanted to end our relationship.
That was the exact moment when hell became my new reality.
Much of what happened next is still a blur, sometimes returning to me in brief clips and memories just as a dream often does upon waking. I was struck immediately with a closed fist on the side of my head. I fell backward, overcome by shock and not yet feeling pain. When I regained some sense of consciousness, I witnessed him taking my car keys and breaking my phone.
It was approximately 6 p.m., and I no longer had any means of escape or effective defense. I was completely under his control.
He proceeded to physically assault me at gunpoint until well past midnight. My abuser stopped only to regather himself or verbally berate me. People say that in times of great threat or danger, your body goes into a fight-or-flight response. I had the privilege of neither. Survival was my only hope.
I apologized, told him that I was wrong, and wanted to stay together. I choked back tears with a lump in my throat and told him that I loved him. The words made my skin crawl, but I wanted the pain to stop. Finally, around 1 a.m., he told me that he forgave me, and the physical abuse ended. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize that my night of torment was only just beginning.
After enduring nearly seven hours of fear and physical abuse, your brain tries to convince your body that things simply cannot get any worse. Unfortunately, sometimes they do. The sexual assault began approximately one hour later.
