When The Devil Comes To Collect Your Debt

I have written articles about recognizing abusive situations.

I have talked in various articles about my past relationships while I was a traumatized, co-dependent, trauma-bonded youngling. I haven't in a while, because sometimes when your abuser lives nearby it sometimes creates a fear that keeps you from talking and sharing your full story. Especially when your abuser has a pretty well-off family who could and WOULD hurt you in various ways if they truly wanted to.

In a long life of events, I have been taught the police are useless. They can't help you. Unless there is documented proof - and even then sometimes they will do nothing. I have learned that even with DNA proof, a name and address, they still can't bring a rapist to justice. I've learned that even if you go through the legal route, justice is rarely experienced in America.

So when the Devil comes to town to collect a debt from someone truly despicable, it's a bitter-sweet feeling.

It started with dreams on the night connecting December 11th to the 12th.

The night before last I had terrible dreams. I've always had this ability to have the worst nightmares the night before something truly terrible happens. It's always been a thing. Before the Sandy Hook school shooting, I had night terrors for a month. Dreams of walking down an empty building waist-deep in blood, with children's bodies floating past me. Every. Night. After the school shooting, the dreams stopped.

The tsunami that hit Japan, I had dreams for a week of being on a beach, with people staring blankly at the ocean. They didn't move, didn't respond as I went from person to person, shaking and calling for them. As the tidal wave approached I tried to grab the hand of a woman and child and tried to get them to run, but they didn't, they just stood and stared silently. We were consumed by the water, and I would wake up drenched in sweat. After the tsunami, the dreams stopped.

The hurricane that hit Haiti that same year? Same thing. Dreams of being swept away by tidal waves of rain and water. The guilt that comes with the dreams of the unstoppable or undecipherable is a heavy burden. I know logically that I can't just call the police station and say: "I had a dream! Someone's going to shoot up and kill a bunch of kids at a school!"

I'd be laughed off the face of the planet.

It's hard for me to even believe that sometimes my dreams might be warning me. It sounds crazy. Especially to myself, if I say it out loud (so I don't!). I don't know why it happens. But I've quietly accepted this strange burden that God or the Universe or whoever/whatever saw fit to place on me in silence.

But I dream vividly and wildly, I get wary and worried.

On the night of December 11th and the morning of December 12th, I fought in my sleep. I woke up several times covered in sweat. I fight the dreams and try to wake myself up when they happen.

Unfortunately, I'm the sort that gets sucked back into the same dream when I awaken myself from it and go back to sleep quickly. I fought all night, and by the time my fiance roused to take our children to school, the bed was soaking wet from my side to his. For the 7th time I had woken up in the dark curled tightly into the fetal position, covered in sweat, struggling to breathe.

I felt like I had smoke in my eyes, and I couldn't find my way out of the smoke. That's the only thing I remember from my stupid dream. I stayed awake for an hour, letting the adrenaline pound itself out. By 7 A.M. I had finally fallen into an uneasy sleep, the sounds of my husband's keyboard while he worked and the sound of my toddler son squealing with laughter somewhere in the living room keeping me from falling deep enough to dream.

13 hours later, at 9:30 (or maybe it was 10ish) at night my phone rings.

I had been thinking about going to bed, though procrastinating for fear of my dreams. It's my daughter's father. It's his visitation period, so my heart jumps into my throat and I answer: "Hey. What's wrong? Everything okay?"

"Hey. How long has it been since you spoke to *Name*?"

"Honey, it's been years! Why?"

"There are three counties of SWAT and tactical cop teams outside his house. The road's closed. There are ambulances. What are the chances he finally snapped and killed his whole family?"

"If he's still using meth and heroin? Pretty good." My voice is tight, my heart is pounding, and I feel sweat beginning to trickle down my body in seconds. I take a moment to thank God that I got away from him when I could. I had gotten wise and realized I couldn't help OR save a drug addict who LOVES being high. That I got my daughter and me out of that situation.

I let out a nervous laugh on accident. It's inappropriate.

"I'll keep you updated if I hear anything else."

You might be wondering why it's any of my business if I had left him years ago and am now happily betrothed to a wonderful man. And you'd be right in saying it's NOT my business.

Except for the fact that this man almost killed me several times in his life - and all I could imagine was his nephew and sister and mother dead in a pool of their own blood.

The man that we are talking about tortured me emotionally, mentally - and even physically for three years.

Long nights of rough uncontrolled sex because he had taken a hit of really good cocaine before he showed up at my house. Sex I didn't always want. Years of keeping him controlled, and standing between him and the doorway so he couldn't attack his mom or sister while he was coming down on day 3 of no sleep.

Being cheated on and told it was my fault because I wasn't fun enough because I didn't do drugs or 'let loose.' Years of him using his family (whom I LOVED [and still do] very much) as a weapon to get back once I'd found the strength to break it off.

Hours of being held in a room while I was pregnant, while he was on day 3 of an Adderall/meth/xanax/suboxone cocktail with no sleep while he loaded and unloaded his AR, accusing me of cheating on him and me staying still as a statue, with a soft voice, using my seductress techniques to talk him off the ledge, convincing him to put the AR rifle DOWN.

Long nights of him telling me he was going to kill me and himself.

Long years of me trying to get him to stop selling drugs to other people, to get clean, trying to convince him there was more to life, and learning of people associated with him overdosing and dying... on HIS prescription medicine.

The last straw was when he spiked my drink and drugged me - for the second time - in an attempt to get me to "try to have fun."

I had even called his doctor once and reported him for selling his medicine.

He lied his way out of it, painted me out to be a crazy woman who was obsessed with him, and in a fit of jealousy, I was telling lies to get him in trouble.

It wasn't even about that. It wasn't jealous. It was the fact that I had recently become a mother, and I was horrified that he had seduced an old acquaintance who was fighting for her sobriety, got her high on his suboxone, and dragged her straight back into addiction. I didn't care about the cheating part. I cared that he destroyed everything she had worked so hard for.

I had done what I thought was right, and he managed to worm his way out of it.

I know what he's capable of. So I couldn't help but worry.

I texted his sister and his mother. I tried to call them. Nothing.

I get on Facebook. I know I can't go down there. I am happy with my life, and NO WAY IN HELL am I letting this drag me back into the darkness. To the mess that is that family of enabling trauma-bonded people where the parents lost control of their son at such a young age. He's now 42, and still living life as if there are no consequences. And I KNOW him. And I know his family think they are showing him love and support by protecting him at all costs - but I know they aren't. They are protecting themselves from HIM. So I am looking for miracles through other people, on a social platform I usually avoid.

The community was blasting it on Facebook and I am calling his sister's best friend to see if she knows if they are safe.

"There's a stand-off near the ballpark!"

"The road is blocked off, there is SWAT everywhere."

One neighbor posted on the update: "The police were having a stand-off with someone in a house. He had an AR 15, and he wouldn't come out of the house. The police eventually broke down the front door and gassed them. They arrested someone, but no one else came out of the house, so it's unclear if anyone else is in the home. The police are starting to clear out now."

40 minutes later the friend still hasn't heard anything.

It's almost midnight now when I see this post about someone being arrested. My phone lights up and I grab it.

It's from my Ex's sister:

"Everything all clear. Everyone ok. Talk later. Just pray."

I forward the information to the friend I had dragged into my search. And I cry with relief. The boy I called a nephew, the woman I loved as a sister, a mother who looked after me when my own mom was out of state, and the old man who I had so much respect for were alive. And that was just fine.

I take my PTSD anxiety meds...and go to sleep. And I do not have any dreams.

I awaken to a phone call from my daughter's father telling me to check out the text he'd sent me.

A mugshot of a man I hardly recognize, a man who is nothing but flesh and bone and waste and a post on the community police page:

On 12/12/24 Blaine Police Department was called to the 300 block of Old Rutledge Pike for a suicidal male with a AR-15 rifle. Officers were not able to get the subject out of the home. Jefferson County and Jefferson City tactical teams were called to provide assistance. After several hours of trying to get the subject to come out of the residence, gas was deployed into the home. The subject surrendered and came out of the home without further incident. The subject is facing charges and was transported to the Grainger County Justice Center. Thank you to all the departments involved that assisted us in this incident.

Sheriff James Harville, Sheriff Jeff Coffey, Chief TJ Holt,Chief Andy Dossett, Rutledge Police Department, Grainger County Sheriffs Office, Bean Station Police Department, Jefferson County Sheriffs Office, Jefferson City Police Department, Grainger County 911, Grainger County EMS, Blaine Fire Department.

I thank God no one was hurt.

And I smile.

A drug dealer who is a danger to himself and everyone around him is off the streets. For now.

His court hearing is on my mother's birthday, December 17th according to the public records website.

And I can't help but laugh a little at the beautiful irony, and the subliminal message that God and the Universe and Karma are telling me.

They ARE watching. And though it may take a while even the Devil must pay his dues eventually.

I pray he gets help. But I doubt it. His family will protect him. But he can't lie his way out of this. He likes being a drug addict, and that will probably never change. And his parents will always enable him. And his sister will always lie for him.

But he can't lie his way out of this. And neither can they. They will be forced to deal with the consequences of all of their actions starting today. I wish them nothing but the best - because I know the worst has yet to come for them.

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