#notworkingforme

His hands are so tight around my throat, I can’t breathe, and the world is starting to go black around me as I struggle to get free from his grip. My legs have turned to jelly, not that I can reach the ground, but I’m desperate for air. Tonight, I think he might finally be successful and actually kill me. At this very moment I wish he would so I wouldn’t have to struggle anymore. There comes a moment when you’re struggling for your life that you just wish it would just hurry up and end. The fear has reached a maximum level and you feel as though this is it, this is how I go out, this is how my life ends. In the grip of his hands around my throat, struggling for just the smallest amount of air, I was ready. Ready for it to all finally come to an end. But it didn’t, and that wasn’t the end of it for that night either. Threats to smash my head against the concrete brick wall, being punched and kicked for a few more hours, he was careful to never break a bone. This was the real reality of my early hours of Christmas morning 2018. The Christmas I was excited for, the first Christmas I would have in many years with my family, the last Christmas I would ever get to have with my Dad. Who knows what time I was finally able to get to sleep, but when I woke up in the morning and got ready to attend my family Christmas the violence hadn’t ceased. He continued to beat me until I drove out the driveway to spend Christmas day with my family. On arrival, I was noticeably shaking with tears in my eyes and hyperventilating. By now, my family knew if they ask what happened I’d make up some ridiculous cover story. Instead, one sister parks the car for me and the other hands me my niece for comfort, knowing that that is the best way to help me through that particular moment. Later, they would discover the marks on my neck from the early hours of that morning, when my scarf had moved, uncovering the hidden truth beneath it.

It has been just over 2 years since the last time Charles assaulted me, I still remember the multiple times that he attacked me to this day, and parts of it still haunt me. The actions of Charles have completely impacted and changed my life in so many ways. I cannot even begin to describe the feelings of terror I would get every time when he would assault me, but I will try my best. We were in a relationship together for about 3.5 years with the relationship ending with his arrest in March 2019.  Throughout our relationship, the violence became more and more frequent and the reasons for it became more and more ridiculous. I cannot recall the first time he assaulted me, there were so many times that the violence occurred that my memory fails me when I try to remember the first time it happened. It should have been the first and the last time that that occurred, but I was young and vulnerable, and I thought I was in love.

I have spent the last 2 years seeking help to get through the trauma caused by all the assaults. I have PTSD in relation to not only the violent attacks from Charles, but the emotional, psychological and sexual ones as well.

Not long after his arrest, I ended up in my local Mental Health Ward due to the impact of what had occurred over the 3.5 years we were together. It all became too much for me and I had attempted suicide, I had to be escorted by the police to the facility to ensure I did no further harm to myself. I have frequent panic attacks, nightmares, flashbacks, and sleepless nights, to name a few, that affect my everyday living. My doors are always locked, and I have weapons placed around my house that are hidden but easy to access, in the event that Charles finds out where it is that I live, and I can defend myself against him finally, because I fear that he will keep his “promise” to me. He promised me that “if I ever go to jail because of you, I WILL find you, and I will F**CKING KILL YOU! That’s a promise and don’t you ever forget it”. These words haunt me every day. My safety is my number one priority no matter what it is that I am doing or where it is that I am. I can’t even feel safe in my own home because of the impact these assaults have caused. For example, when I go out to do something as simple as my groceries, the moment I get in my car, I lock the doors as a precaution, who knows if he is nearby or knows where it is that I am, so it’s better for me to be safe than sorry.

Most of the assaults have gone undocumented or unrecorded. Charles would spend hours upon hours assaulting me over and over for the smallest of things. I wasn’t allowed my own opinion, I couldn’t think for myself, I couldn’t choose things that I wanted, I literally had no control of my own life because I was forever afraid that it would result in me being punched, kicked, threatened, strangled, or have a weapon used on me over and over until he was satisfied that he had beaten the result that he wanted into me.

I can recall one night towards the end of our relationship where he mentioned my weight and I wasn’t interested in talking about it, so he got violent. Screaming at me, telling me I was the fattest girlfriend he had ever had, and I looked disgusting. He spent 4 hours punching me in the same spot in my arm over and over, leaving a really large bruise, I would later tell my family members that it was caused by running into a door handle after chasing my cat through the house. I begged him to stop so many times, but that just infuriated him even more. In the end I gave up and told him what he wanted to hear. The next day we went running around the block, after 2 laps I was done. Half-way through the next I tried to slow down to catch my breathe and he was beating me as we ran around the blocking, and sometimes pushing me from behind, and when I tried to get away, he came after me, pushing me to the ground and punching me until I got up. After that lap I refused to go on because I needed to catch my breath, so I went across the street and sat at a picnic table, he did another lap then came up behind me and kicked me in the kidneys before slamming my head into the table followed by dragging me back to the house. Events like these contribute to the nightmares and flashbacks that I continuously get to this day. At times I often struggle to get through them because I feel that most people expect me to be over it by now, but that’s not the case. Many things trigger me into panic attacks or reliving the trauma. It doesn’t help that Charles will not leave me alone and keeps trying to contact me. Every time he does this, the most recent in April of this year, it’s like the flood gates of hell open up again and all the work I have put in to getting through everything has disappeared again and I’m back to square one and I’m being retraumatized again. This to me is so unfair, I want to move on with my life, I want to be happy, I want this chapter of my life to finally come to an end. I am the happiest I’ve ever been and this trauma that keeps occurring is the only thing stopping me from fully moving forward, so I need this to end so that I can be properly happy. The justice system has failed me on so many levels, Charles got a smack on the hand and I’m still living in fear every single day, struggling to comprehend all that has happened.