Begging For My Life
How Loving The Wrong Man Nearly Killed Me
Trigger warning: this story centers around domestic violence.
I spent 2019 to 2020 in prison. When I got out I started dating this guy named Mike that I had known for awhile but didn’t know that much about.
I had heard things. His cousin, Yoda, who’s also a very good friend of mine told me one time that Mike likes to “zip tie bitches, put them in his trunk, and drive around trying to decide whether he’s going to kill them or not.” I laughed it off like the joke that it was…that it had to be because who does that?? And I let it go.
At this time, I was still using pretty heavily, and meth was a favorite of mine. So I decide I’m going to get this guy high, and give him a huge shot of this shit.
After which, he promptly turned into a meth monster. He started getting paranoid, thinking everyone was in on some grand conspiracy surrounding him…crazy off the wall shit. I had heard of methamphetamine induced psychosis before but never seen it in action.
Despite listening to this guy rant about all this craziness, and about who he needed to kill, I still continued to see him. All I can say in my defense is, A. He didn’t threaten me, and B. He was so sexy. You have no idea.
Anyway, it got to the point to where I couldn’t be around him if he was on meth. He would turn from the sweetest guy into a nightmare in 0.5 seconds. I couldn’t deal.
One night the insanity came to a head. We had been out at his friends house and of course he’s getting high and I said something to piss him off. Not sure what. We leave shortly there after with him driving my car. Right away he starts accusing me of all this crazy shit; while doing so he’s driving me around in the country on the same six roads…a circuitous path that doesn’t take us anywhere but is miles away from any type of safety for me.
He begins punching me in the face, shatters my phone and then gets angry at me for not being able to call someone when he told me to. It’s at this point that he began threatening to kill me.
Anybody that knows me knows that I’ve got a slick mouth, have no problems taking up for myself, and that I’ve never been one to take this type of shit from anyone. So this is a first for me.
Because of this, I don’t recognize the very real danger that I am in, and proceed to talk shit to this guy that is threatening my life.
Until he takes a very large knife and begins stabbing my legs and chest with it, in between punching me in the face and head. It was at this point that I realized there was a very good chance I wouldn’t see the sun rise.
Begging anyone for anything does not sit well with me. It’s something I am not comfortable with at all. So when I finally listened to that small inner voice of mine when it told me to shut the fuck up before I goaded this asshole into killing me, it was a much slower reckoning than it should have been.
I sat there, helpless, terrified, enraged, and worst of all, desperate- desperate to see my children one more time, desperate to see my loved ones one more time, desperate for one more chance to tell them I loved them, desperate, even, to see the sun rise, one more time.
I sat there in terror for my life, and watched this ordinarily placid man vacillate back and forth in his own mind, trying to decide if he was going to let me live, or die. It was horrifying to watch.
I was so certain that he was going to kill me that my prayers changed from begging God not to let him kill me to begging God not to let it hurt. Begging for it to be as quick and painless as possible. I found out later that this man had beat the last girlfriend he’d had with a tire iron, very nearly killing her, so it was a reasonable request to make.
This went on for about six hours. At one point, my gas light came on, and he looks at me and says “ Oh no, bitch, you done let your car run out of gas- you gone die tonight.”
When I think of it now, it makes me laugh, the absurdity of it, but then, in that moment, I felt utterly defeated. I was going to die. The car was going to run out of gas very soon, and when it did this stranger wearing my boyfriends skin was going to stab me or beat me to death.
Shortly, thereafter, the sun began to rise. When it did, his demeanor began to change. I don’t know if he let me live because he thought he might be seen, or if the rising sun brought with some glimmer of sanity back into his mind, but either way, I am sitting here now because of it.
I got away from him by convincing him we needed to go get his car before mine ran out of gas. When he got out of my car I jumped into my drivers seat and locked the door. Then I drove to a gas station with him right behind me, praying it was open. I parked at the pumps and refused to get out until he got scared and drove off. Then I went inside, paid for gas, bummed a cigarette off the attendant, and went back out, pumped my gas, and drove away.
I was still terrified, but I never called the police. I regretted that decision a week later when I found out that he had gotten in touch with a friend of mine looking for me, held her hostage basically, and beat the shit out of her for three days, trying to get her to tell him where I was. Sad thing was, she didn’t even know.
He stalked me for about 5 months, showing up in places where I might be, calling my friend’s asking if they knew where I was. I avoided him at all costs, never intending to see him again.
And I haven’t. I laid low, and managed to stay out of his line of sight until I eventually heard that he was back in jail, this time for shooting at the police during a pursuit. He’s now serving ten years in federal prison, and I am doing my best to heal from this whole thing. I’ve never seen myself as a victim, and it’s been a hard pill to swallow, being so much of one. Every day is better than the day before it, and I’m finally getting to the point to where I can drive those same roads he took me on without freaking out. Growth is a beautiful thing. Life is even more beautiful, and something that I am infinitely grateful for. Every day, I thank God for it.
