Finding my out of the dark...

My life wasn't always such a mess. I grew up in a nice neighborhood, nice town on the upper class side of things. My parents loved me and did their best. It all went wrong when I was 17 and met my first husband. He was older then me, 28 to my 17. He was handsome and had a way of saying just the right thing, all the girls working at the local pizza place had crushes on him... in hindsight I wish I had let one of the others have him. I don't actually mean that though, without him my oldest, my princess would not ever have been born.

We dated for a whooping 5 months before we found out I was pregnant. I moved with him not much after that. The night she was born should have been a red flag, my warning sign to run away. He left me, 18 and afraid in the hospital with our new joy... I told myself he was tired from being at the hospital for 36 hours straight, that he needed a shower because I had thrown up on him. Truth of the matter... he wanted to get high and see his girlfriend. We got married 1 month later, in a Red Lobster with friends... no fan fair, no white dress, no honeymoon... Just all you can eat Shrimp. Again this should have came as a warning sign, but I clung to the thought of happy ever after. 3 months into our marriage I came home from working 2 shifts and fund him in bed doing meth with my best friend. Oh he still denies that part to this day, but the scar from my wedding ring hitting his forehead when I violently threw it across our bedroom tells the story all too well. Odd thing is this is not where my life took its tragic turn, this was not where the darkness entered and consumed all the light in my life, this was only the beginning.

For three months I made my way through life and motherhood like a clumsy foal, surviving on the grace of god and good friends alone.

This is where things get bad, but I didn't realize it yet. A close friend and I slowly became more shortly after my husband left. He was funny, exciting, handsome, and wealthy. He held me while I grieved my first marriage, made me feel safe in his arms. Those same arms would soon make me feel anything but secure.

He started using meth... Enter the darkness. Not only him but several of my closest friends starting using and selling the evil substance. I watched as they grew paranoid and quit eating or sleeping. I watched as my protective, loving boyfriend turned into a monster before my eyes. It started small, he would smack me for arguing with him, break a plate when the kitchen was a mess. I never saw the first real blow coming, I stood with my back to the living room making supper, time had escaped me that day, it was late. He came from no where, silently. I didn't register what had happened at first, as I lay on the floor covered in pasta... dumbfounded I looked around, he stood over me glaring... "Look what you did!" he screamed at me, gesturing to the ruined meal on the floor. "If it had been on the table on time I wouldn't have had to smack you so hard." Now it dawned on me that my mid back area felt like someone had punched it... I fell when he hit me, I had assumed I hit the chair... "You hit me?" I ask sheepishly.. " Ya, maybe if you were doing your job and being good I wouldn't have to." I was stunned to silence...

It only grew worse the longer the drug was in his system, until one night 3 months after he started using he drug me by my hair into the bathroom and stuck an odd shaped pipe in my hands... "Try it, you will like it he said." Scared of what he would do if I said no I did as I was told...

The meth was at first great... I could get so much done and still have time for my daughter, I didn't feel the smacks and backhands as much, I lost a little weight... By the time I came to realize just what we were doing it was too late.. I was addicted. Meth owned my soul and he owned my body...

I got through life, barely surviving, not living at all. Our friends couldn't see past his charm, and his good side. Only I saw the bad. I felt alone, and had no way out.

Fast forward through 3 years of the same and worse... I got hired for a new job... after only weeks my boss saw through my happy outer shell and pulled me into his office. " Be honest, I can help you if you tell me the truth young lady." The tears and words poured out of my body like rain in a thunder storm. Years of things locked inside and kept to myself, laid out bare for him to see and hear. With tears in his eyes he pulled me in for a hug and told me it would all be alright. True to his word by lunch he had rented me my own apartment on the other side of town, even had some of the men in the company ready with trucks to help me get my stuff.

My daughter and I survived and got back to feeling like we were safe, it had been 3 months since my great escape. I thought I was free, that I had gotten away for good. I wish I had been right.

As a summer storm raged outside one night I lay in my bed spooked by the storm. My bed in the living room sat in a position that I could look out my sliding glass door into the flied behind the complex. We had a 2nd story apartment and should therefore had no access to the back patio. That night however I was sure I heard noise, like someone trying to climb the outer wall. It wasn't anything I told myself, but moved my daughter into my bed anyway, I wanted to have eyes on her.

As I lay down with her a lightning bolt lit up the sky, just in time for me to see him, soaking wet and clearly out of his mind. I saw him just as he threw my porch chair through the sliding door. As the shattered I grabbed my daughter and barefoot made my way towards my keys, the stairs and freedom. I thought I was going to make it, but as I reached the steps I felt his hands on my back, violently shoving me forwards. I felt us lose balance and start to fall, I wrapped my arms and body around my daughter as we started to topple. As my head the hard steel of my front door I had two thoughts above all else... 1. He is going to kill me if he catches me and 2. I must protect my daughter above all else. These thoughts drove me to my feet and as I fumbled with the door locks I could hear him charging down the stairs behind me...

As my door opened I ran into the storm towards my car, refusing to look back, not willing to stop. Finally inside my tiny hatchback car I tuck my daughter behind my seat, hiding her from the danger in the dark. He was spun out on meth and no where near his right mind. He flung himself onto my hood screaming how much trouble I was in, how he going to kill me.

I couldn't see the road, I drove though, towards the police dept, towards help. How could no one hear my horn, does no one see him I thought as we blindly traveled down the road...

10 long minutes later I swung my car into the police depts lot... on my hood he remained, madder then he had been before. as he punched the windshield I frantically hit my horn over and over. What feels like forever passes before finally I see them. 6 officers surrounding my cars front end, him on the ground after being tazed. A female officer is at my door guiding me and my daughter into the building... We are safe. He is arrested.

The darkness remained however, I was still addicted to meth, and he was not the only monster I am afraid.

*** If part one does well I will continue this story....