Christina's Story

I went through my adolescent years. My adopted father passed with lung cancer when I was 19; I wasn't told till it was almost to late to say, "Good-bye" and hug him. I lost my best friend. I was upset with my mother for the longest time for not sharing my father's illness with me; knowingly what we were like, wherever you see him, I would follow and visa-versa. That all happened in 1985.

A couple of years passed; but in the meantime, I had married my high-school sweetheart and we had a son. My husband took towards using drugs and I knew the marriage was failing. I had found a friend that I could talk to and he would comfort me. With my marriage failing, my relationship with this friend grew stronger. I had left my husband; after trying to reconcile with him; but he wouldn't give me the time or day.

My friend and I got a place together, along with my son and I had filed for a divorce. Approximately a year after the divorce, I remarried. We had altercations before; but always felt it was because of my ex and the crap he would try to pull to make our lives miserable. When I turned 24, that's when it all started. My new husband started treating me like a nothing and wouldn't do anything with me or my son. He would come home and wipe his fingers on the coffee table and would say, "what have you done today? Where's my dinner? Run me a bath." Maybe I had taken it the wrong way and thought he was tired. I done what he asked of me.

Thereafter, things had gotten worse. If I had a problem with my son and asked for his opinion, he would go and scold my child and make him stay in his room. The words that would come out of his mouth was of not a loving husband and step-father but of a 'demon.' When I had enough of it, I started standing up for myself and my son. I would get beaten down, told that I wouldn't be anything without him, and that I had a retarded son. Before the violence started, I had written the state where I was born to find my family and was waiting on a reply.

After the violence had started, I received documents on my childhood and a note that my biological mother had put in it - location, that my older brother was living with her ( and that was on parole for 10 years). It gave me a phone number to contact her, along with an address. Well, my husband had gotten the mail that day and even though addressed to me, he opened it and read it, then he gave it to me to read. I held onto it like a child holding onto a teddybear. He would tell me that it wouldn't do me any good to contact her. I would argue with him and held my head high. After all these years not knowing where my family was, I had finally found the main source - my mother.

I would wait untill he left for work and write a letter to her and mail it the same day. I had to walk to the mailbox, because he had taken the keys to the extra vehicle. He left me stranded. No money, No vehicle, couldn't go anywhere. He was taking everything away from me but my dignity. My biological mother had called me and we were reunited on the phone. I had convinced him to let us take a drive to go visit her. Lord, I done a lot of convincing. We finally got to go and I didn't want to leave. I felt safe. Instead of him taking it out on me, he would try to take it out on my son, I stepped in. Things got bad and I felt ashamed. I had to get away from him.

In the meantime my adopted mother was dying of ovarian cancer that had reached her stomach. She asked to come and live with us. We got her in the house and two weeks later, she passed. I had an inheritance coming from her but never got to spend it, for he would get the mail and forge my name, put it in the checking and get what he wanted. I always thought that wills take a while and that they would be on their way, untill one day I received the mail and looked over the monthly statement. I was furious.

Then DV started again and again. It had gotten as bad as ever. He would rape me if I wouldn't do it with him. He would break the overhead light cover and take the broken glass and threaten to cut me up. He has put a knife to my throat. I would have a chance to call the police but without any scars or sightings of abuse, they couldn't arrest him. One day, I let him put bruises on me and then they came out and arrested him. While he was in jail, I FILED FOR A DIVORCE. FILED AN EX-PARTE. HE WAS SERVED IN JAIL. He had the guts to call me and ask me to come and pick him up. I laughed and hung up the phone. I had gone over to my biological mother's house and had asked my brother to stay with me and asked that my mother watch over my child. Well, he got out of jail and went straight to my mothers and moved in. I thought my mother would protect me and my son. I got my son back with my brothers help. My brother moved in officially.

My ex called the officials and told them about my past and gave them documents (the ones I rec'd when I wrote the State about finding my biological family). They immediately called DFS. They came out to investigate and took my son away. I felt like I was living in hell. I worked to get my son back. I had no chance. They had my past childhood against me and whatever they found in the evaluation. I was becoming seriously depressed, to the point, I wanted to die. Then here we go again - more violence - this time, my brother. He called it a "rude-awakening"; but he would rape me and beat me. Beat me and then rape me. He would beat me in a way that I couldn't think. It would confuse me. One day when I came to my senses, I went over to my mothers house, she wasn't doing well and an ambulance was called to come get her. My ex had moved out weeks ago; but I didn't think anything of it. My brother showed up and $h!% hit the fan royally. He beat me to a bloody pulp, threw something that bounced off me and hit my mother in the ribs and poked a hole in her lung. The ambulance showed up, while I was being held in the kitchen with my mouth where I couldn't scream. I had broken loose and one of the EMTs had seen me with blood dripping from my mouth and black and blue all over the face. My brother said I was all right. Ended up going to the hospital - my guardian Angel was there to protect me.