Surviving Domestic Violence - Pt. 1

Part One

Trigger Warning- This post contains explicit descriptions regarding domestic violence, emotional abuse and substance abuse.

If you or someone you know is in a dangerous situation, please don’t wait. Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233

Hindsight is 20/20

Before I dive into this topic, I want to make abundantly clear of a few things number one- hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, I know where things went wrong. I can identify all of the red flags - the ones that I blatantly ignored and the ones that took me a while to catch onto. However, none of that really matters when you’re in a domestic violence situation.

The number one question that plagued me for a very long time was, “How did I get into this situation?” I also asked myself "How could I allow someone to slip into my life and cause this amount of chaos, doubt, turmoil, all in the matter of one year" and "How could I allow myself to fall away from God and ignore his voice so blatantly"?

A Broken Heart and A Silent God

Well, I know how. It had been about one year post separation from my estranged husband. If I’m being honest, I was very angry with God during this time. I had prayed and prayed for my marriage to work and in my mind my prayers had fallen on deaf ears. I stopped praying, I left my worship leader position, and I changed...

Let's Call Him, Frank

It was September 2020 when I met a guy while recording in the studio. There was an immediate attraction between us, and it seemed magnetic, very strong. We went on one date, and it was actually horrible. I should have blocked his number immediately afterwards because I couldn’t figure out how a date could go so badly. But, against my better judgment, I was still very attracted to this man. With that being said one date turned into two and before I knew it, we were casually hooking up at my apartment. Keep in mind that all of this was going on about 6 to 7 months post Covid so things were still on lockdown. For the most part so we did a lot of hanging out at my house which wasn’t abnormal at the time. About a month into us seeing each other- let’s just call him Frank - Frank was very persistent and he was very excitable.

This, I learned later, was love bombing. Now, if you’ve only been in healthy relationships, you really only see love bombing as something totally normal. It’s somebody who likes you, who outwardly expresses that they like you through gifts and compliments and, you know, normal stuff.

However, this was not normal. And before I knew it Frank was moving his things, little by little- almost strategically.  It stated with a couple pairs of shoes and a small drawer full of items and then before I knew it, his entire wardrobe was at my house!

It was at this point that I realize that oh my gosh, I think I’m in a relationship, but I that wasn’t my intention at all.

I reasoned with myself because truthfully, I did feel like it was moving too fast but - I doubted myself. This was a mistake.

From Bad to Worse

After we established a relationship that is when things went from good to bad, then bad to terrible and from terrible to devastating. It had only been about three months into the relationship that I found out that Frank had presented themselves to be somebody that he was not. Frank had a baby on the way, he did not have a full-time job, and he also had no place to stay. I didn’t know this until about three months into dating.

It was also around this time that I discovered that Frank also had a drinking problem. The more time we spent together, the more apparent it became. It was something that he hid very well in the beginning, but looking back, I should’ve seen the signs. He was always caring, a fifth of patron and he usually had a beer in the morning.

Side bar-my father growing up was an alcoholic. Actually, my father got clean about six months after meeting Frank so, at this point in time, my father had been an alcoholic my entire life. For me, seeing a man drink throughout the day wasn’t as alarming as it probably should’ve been. You see, although my father was an alcoholic he was a loving alcoholic, which I found out later is very rare. Probably unheard of. Even though my father wasn’t around or very present he always reassured me that he loved me and cared for me. We will come back to this because it is important.

A Nightmare

It was Christmas Eve that I found out that Frank had been cheating on me, and I tried to put him out of the house. Instead of him leaving like a normal person would when being kicked out of a house, he threw me back on my bed and told me to shut up and began to apologize profusely.  Frank told me that he would stop texting the woman that he had been entertaining. He claimed that he just wasn’t 100% about a relationship because it had been so short of a time that we’ve known each other and that he just wasn’t sure that I really cared for him and so he continued to talk to women in the beginning, but he assured me that he would stop. He went on to say, as he held me down to the bed that he didn’t want to ruin Christmas. So, I let it go believing that he would change. I mean it made sense right? No.... this is called gaslighting.

Now, I have to apologize because this is where the timeline gets fuzzy for me.  I believe it was sometime around New Year’s Eve or ON New Years Eve -- the first time that he put his hands on me. I just remember him being very very drunk. We were leaving his friend's house, and I was fussing at him because he was drunk, and I didn’t feel comfortable with him driving my car.  We also had to pick up his kids from his mother's house afterwards, so we had his kids in the backseat, and he was drunk. Frank insisted on driving and inevitably was swerving all over the road. But he wouldn’t allow me to drive my car, so I was throwing a fit about it — rightfully so. It was a big fit, I was scared he was going to wreck my only car, with all of us inside. Well, Frank pulled over into an apartment parking lot and I will never forget.

He grabbed me by my hair and banged my head against the window and the dashboard over and over and over again..-

I cried and begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t, and he just kept going. I was crying uncontrollably. One thing I distinctly remember was that his kids were silent in the backseat. I remember thinking, Oh my God, they’ve seen this before. They were so calm and so immune to the violence- in that moment, I knew I was in trouble.

This next part was the grace of God because I'm not sure how much time had passed but he had not stopped assaulting me and some time had passed. Thankfully, his cousin called him, and it caused him to pick up the phone -- giving me a break. His cousin asked him what he was doing, and for whatever reason that call snapped him out of the trance that he was in. Frank replied, oh man I’m just headed home with Audri “. And so, in saying that, he started the car and proceeded to drive home. Once he got off the phone, I told him that I was just really tired, and I probably just needed to go to bed. He agreed and once we got home, he passed out in the front seat of the car. I carried him upstairs got the kids in the bed and went to bed myself.

The next morning, I woke up early and I laid in bed for a few minutes recalling the events of the previous night. It felt like a dream... or more like a nightmare, but I knew that it wasn’t because I still had the markings on my face from the incident.  So, I did the only thing I could think to do- nothing.

I went downstairs and started cooking breakfast as if nothing had happened. That was probably the worst thing I could’ve done because instead of confronting him and causing another scene or trying to kick him out of my house again I decided that it was easier to pretend like nothing had happened. Frank came downstairs. He probably heard me cleaning and cooking and he just stood at the end of the stairwell looking at me with a blank stare. I looked up and I said, "Good morning honey" and he replied with good morning.  He walked up, kissed me and asked me how I was doing. I told him I was good, and I asked him if he was hungry-- and that was the end of that.

Looking back, I should’ve called my dad. I should have called my mom. I should have told my best friend that I needed help kicking him out of my house and getting rid of this crazy man who had just put his hands on me. But I think a part of me was ashamed, I was embarrassed and by pretending like it didn’t happen, in my mind it almost made it like it hadn't.

But unfortunately, it had.

Why I'm Sharing My Story

Why did I decide to share this story with you all? I’m sure you’re wondering. It's almost been 5 years, why now?

I feel like people ask all of the time about how women get in domestic violence situations. They think— oh, this woman must have low self-esteem, or she likes getting hit OR she could’ve done more OR she should have done more.

But if you recall, i had already asked him to leave.  And when I did, he manipulated my emotions and convince me that he was going to do better. You could even argue and say that was the first time he put his hands on me, because he threw me on the bed and held me down with his hands. Nevertheless, I knew if I tried to object, he would further object and I felt like I needed to think of a better way.

I know I'm not unique, or special. My situation has been the reality for so many other women; you possibly ignored one or two red flags because you think nobody’s perfect, maybe I’m making a big deal out of things or maybe I need to be patient. Maybe I’m jumping the gun, maybe my intuition is wrong.

I know I’m not the only one and that’s why I’m sharing my story today.  As a woman in a domestic violence situation, it helps to know that you are not alone. Because your abuser will make you feel alone, he will make you feel stupid, he will make you feel hopeless. But the reality is that you are not alone you are not stupid, and you are not hopeless — is a light at the end of the tunnel.