Five years ago, a new chapter began....

So, here goes… I don’t know how long this will be. I don’t know what the message is, but I get the peaceful sense that it is about overcoming and persevering. As I listen to Rachel Platten’s “Fight Song”, that seems to have been the theme of my life. Don’t get me wrong; in most cases I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I suppose you’re wondering why I feel this way, or why today is a big day for us. Keep reading, I promise I’ll get to it…

March 14, 2010… Rewind 5 years to a 23 year old me, and a Monster that was 18 months. I had just been through the nightmare everyone knows is inevitable, you know, the death of a loved one. My Grammy passed away surrounded by those she loved most and who loved, adored and cherished her. I held her right hand as she left our Earthly home to cross the threshold of those Pearly Gates to be greeted by her buddy Joe, her siblings that had gone before her, her parents, and all the loved ones (too many to list or mention, death is cruel) who had gone before her. To then be held in our Heavenly Father’s loving and healing arms.

My Grammy was my everything, she was my best friend, my grandmother, my advice-giver, and she was my buttercup. We drove each other crazy, but loved each other more than imaginable. I never knew life without her until that day. I knew there was so much more to come in my life. Knew that I still needed her, but her body gave out because she had cancer we didn’t know about. She refused to have the dreaded colonoscopy that may have saved her life and kept her here with her loved ones for much longer. If you’re reading this and are of age for colonoscopies, I urge you to have one. If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones. It may save your life, especially if anything is present and caught early!

Not long after losing my Grammy I had decided to try one more time (this is a much longer part of our story I don’t want to get into today) with Monster’s father. We had split up when I discovered he was being less than honest with me and was the source of some of my health problems. I had moved home and had the opportunity to be with my Grammy around the clock (a blessing in disguise really). When I had moved back in to the home Monster’s father and I shared things were pretty incredible for about a week and a half, maybe two weeks. But, unfortunately the good things started to come to an end and I was suspicious he had gone back to his old ways. I decided to just be careful and observant about the activity around our house. I had bought a safe to keep my medications in and used it religiously. I figured it would help ensure that Monster’s father got the better of his addiction, instead of the other way around. Unfortunately he like most addicts was a charmer and I bought what he was selling, hook, line, and sinker.

Around the middle of June I knew something was up, I had no proof, but in my gut, I knew. I knew he had somehow gotten ahold of my medications. He had somehow cracked my code, found the back up keys, something. There was no denying it. My med’s were vanishing, and not by me. When confronting him, he was verbally, emotionally, and mentally abusive. Warfare I hadn’t been exposed to. I no longer had my Grammy to go to for advice, my family was all still grieving the loss of our matriarch, friends didn’t understand or were too busy in their own lives, I was alone, and on my own. I did my best to keep conflicts to a minimum, took care of our home, of our child, and tried like mad to take care of me. I was fading fast though. I felt hopeless. I knew I was already a statistic, having a child out of wedlock, I am disabled, and I was buried in grief, fear, and shame. I had no strength to do the right thing, or even prove that he was doing what I suspected.

Life went on like this for another three or four weeks. I was on autopilot, lost in my own mind, a shell of my former happy and positive self. My light faded and I needed help. I went to see a counselor. I sought validation for my fears and feelings, what I got though, was more fear, validation and a heaping mound of motivation. The counselor asked me one day around my 3^rd or 4^th session, “Brittany, where is your son right now?” I replied emphatically, “He’s with his dad!” I was annoyed that this man would question me with something so silly! “And what are they doing?” “I’d imagine they went to get an ice cream or a smoothie.” Was my retort. “So you’re telling me, your son’s father who you suspect is using your prescription medication, who you already know because you’re smart enough to know, is a drug addict. He is alone in your vehicle with your child. Do you think your son is safe? Do you think your vehicle is safe? Do you think YOU are safe?” OH MY GOSH!!! HOW DARE HE!! I was furious! This man who I’d seen only a few times was grilling me on my family?! He left me with these parting words that stick with me to this day, 5 years later. “If you bash your head into that brick wall, who gets hurt? Do you hurt the wall? Does it change things? Instead of beating the wall, build away around or over it, because you aren’t the one who needs to get through it.”

After that appointment I was furious! I kept telling myself that man didn’t truly know me, sure he had my medical files, but he didn’t know ME! What he said though never left my mind… No matter how I denied it, he was right, and I knew it. It impacted me so much. I knew after that day, I couldn’t fix Monster’s father. I couldn’t love him better. I and I certainly could no longer allow him to be heavy handed with our toddler. I could no longer make excuses for the marks on Monster’s back, the bruises on his cheek, his refusal to make and maintain eye contact. I couldn’t let his father’s addiction run our lives. Monster deserved better, at the time I couldn’t do it for me. I felt I deserved the punishment of an addict to protect my child from the abuse; after all I failed my son by his dad being whom he is. Little did I realize how wrong I was. Monster was still being abused; his father neglected him unless he was disciplining him, and then came the physical, mental, and emotional abuse.

We both suffered a great deal at the hands of his father’s addiction. I kept hoping and praying that my best friend was still in there. That someday he’d be back, but I knew as long as we stuck around, all that he was harming us, our spirits, he was doing just as much to himself. I knew what I had to do. I didn’t know how, when, or what… But I knew I had to leave him, for Monster, for his father, for me.

July 27, 2010… Something woke me up real early that summer morning, most likely the heat. Vacaville summers on the side of town we lived, they are brutal! I cracked an eye, looked at the clock and noticed a shadow looming close by. I quickly closed my eye only to open it the slightest crack to peek through my lashes. As I did this… It happened… I caught him… The one pill I had out to take immediately upon awakening, he was taking ever so quietly, and carefully. He looked practiced, skilled at this… He was replacing it with one that looked so similar you’d have too look closely for the stamped numbers that identify it. I knew I had to wait. What felt like hours, were just a few minutes… He finished his task, went into our son’s room, said his goodbyes and went to fix his coffee to leave for work. I knew I had to do it, right then… This was the opportunity I knew would come eventually… The old adage playing on repeat in my mind, telling me what I knew, “Sh!t or get off the pot!” I took a deep breath, checked my pill bottle, examined the pill and shed a few silent tears before steeling my nerves. This was it, the proof I knew was there, the proof I needed to build my strength and courage, to escape the cycle of abuse, to be and do better for my son and for myself.

I quietly called his father into the bedroom we had shared for most of the last three years of our lives. I asked him to close the door so we didn’t wake Monster. His father asked me almost immediately, “What? What’s wrong?” As I weighed my words carefully, decided which of the rehearsed lines I’d give him… I said, “You have two choices right now, choose carefully and wisely because this is the rest of our lives waiting on the balance…” He waited pale as a ghost, I’m sure knowing what was coming, running through his own practiced lines of charm, disarming me with the same dimples our son still disarms me with… Only this time… I had found my resolve… I had my answers, I had found my ounce of strength and it was now, or never… “You can either sit down as you are in the living room while I call the police and wait for them to come take you away for stealing my medications. I’ll press charges and have an excellent case against you to keep you away from me and our son… Or, you can pack your things, move back to your parents, and get into treatment TODAY!” I toyed with calling the police anyway, I was so angry, so hurt, so betrayed but we have a child together, and I loved him enough to not destroy more than three lives with one phone call.

His father tried very hard to twist things, as I knew he would. He blamed me, telling me I put too much pressure on him. He had to escape it somehow. Being that addiction runs in my family, I knew a bit about addicts, their behaviors, their tactics, not to mention the goldmine out there that is the Internet. I let him pack his things and told him to call me in a few days after we had a chance to calm down, but that I still expected him in good faith to help with our son.

There is so much more to this story… But on this day, five years later it is my hope that in spilling my heart. Putting in words the feelings that so entirely overwhelmed and consumed me, expressing what it was like to endure this, that I can help even just one person escape from an abusive relationship, get help for an addiction, or be the person someone in this type of situation can turn to for strength, help, hope and support.

I didn’t write this to bash Monster’s father. I didn’t write it to hurt any feelings, or for any other reason than I felt it was time. Time to get it off my chest, off my mind, give myself the freedom to truly close this chapter in my life… I know what I deserve now. I know my worth more now than ever before. I know I’m strong, and that I broke the cycle of abuse. Monster will not grow up being abused, watching his parents fight, argue, etcetera.

With much love, hope, happiness and strength and inspiration,

            Brittany & Monster

If you’re a victim of any form of domestic violence, there is help available. Call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at: 1-800-799-7233