Our rekindled relationship was hot and fast.  I pretended for the first month that everything was beautiful and that I was happy and getting all my needs met.  I started hiding any red flags I was seeing or feeling behind my rose-colored glasses telling myself that we were finally taking a chance.  That we finally had a real shot. 

The truth of the matter is NBK was systematically pulling me away from my friends, my family and myself.  What started out as feeling like walls being tested was boundaries being pushed and pulled.  Little comments here and there, making me question the loyalty of people I loved.  Making me question my own sanity and my own friendships.  Soon I only had him and the abuse got worse and more physical.  He kept me sleep deprived, hungry and alone so that I never really knew what was happening in my own home, or within myself.

I would catch him in lies, he would retaliate. I would stand up for myself and end up on the floor begging for him to stop hurting me.  He would break my phone, read my journals, go through my things and use anything and everything he could to psychologically abuse me as well as physically. 

One day he held me down on the couch for hours.  Hours. Smashing my face into the cushions telling me how terrible and awful I was.  Telling me how I wasn’t allowed to breathe without his permission.  Hours of endless abuse and then… just like that he decided he had to go to work.  Got up and left.  After torturing me for hours he just… left.

I called a friend, MJ, warned her that I had some bruises, but I needed her.  She came and picked me up and got us a hotel for the night.  I think I texted him it was over, but honestly, I don’t remember.  The next day MJ and I went to the police, and they told me I needed to file for a protective order.  They told me this after humiliating me by asking why I was with a guy “like that” and if I was on drugs.  It was a shit show. I filed for the protective order.  They set it for a court date instead of granting it immediately because apparently that is my fucking luck with this dude.

NBK didn’t show for court. The Judge apologized to me for not granting the PO immediately because he “hadn’t looked through the file” and seen all the bruises and police reports.  I had my protective order, but the nightmare was only in it’s beginning stages.  The timeline of events is fuzzy (thanks CPTSD) but the following is what happened after the restraining order:

He broke into my home. Completely smashed my front door to shreds.  Called, texted and emailed me relentlessly.  Ran me off the road at one point.  Posted numerous things on social media about me, threatening me with weapons, videos about how he was an abusive asshole, stole my mail, etc.  I went to the police station almost every day making reports.  Eventually they picked him up for stalking charges.  He continued to mail me things from the jail.  Yes, the dude that was in JAIL for stalking me continued to harass me from the jail… insanity.

It took almost three years, but we eventually faced off in court.  I wrote a victim’s impact letter (posted here somewhere). He read the letter and decided to take a plea deal.  He served three years for that charge.

I thought I was free.

Part three soon.