Niki’s Path to Peace

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about

I’m a mom of four boys and wife of 12 years who lives in Southern Indiana.
  • Here’s Why

    Here’s Why

    Quite a bit has been going on in my world lately.

    The biggest thing is my husband, Aaron, made a change in careers and he’s back in the kitchens. He’s currently the Executive Chef of a very nice golf club about 15 minutes from our house. It’s nice knowing that he’s so close because before, when he was doing insurance, he could be up to an hour or two away. I’m still trying to get used to the hours and time off again (one week he has one day off and the next week he gets two days off) but he’s much happier than before and that’s what REALLY matters to me.

    I was also sick with that lettuce virus, the norovirus, or a stomach bug. I slept for three full days and ended up throwing up anything I tried to eat (which wasn’t much). And then my stomach was still trying to recoup for the rest of the week. It REALLY sucked whatever it was but Lola was my best friend though and stayed by my side the entire time.

    I’m still doing my Spravato treatments but I do have negative effects from it. Monday afternoon’s after treatments, my head will start hurting really bad and I’ll have to take a nap. Usually that will ease it up some but it doesn’t go entirely away. And because I can’t take my sleep meds on Spravato days (because Spravato lowers your respiration and so do sleep meds) I don’t sleep very well those nights. The next day I’m usually exhausted from not sleeping so I’m not worth much that day either. lol So every other week I lose two days. Ugh! But it’s better than the alternative of being depressed so I’ll take it. Thankfully the boys and Aaron step in and take care of things like dinner for me.

    On a more positive note, I’ve jumped into my creativity more and have joined some junk journaling groups. If you don’t know what that is you should definitely Google it, but beware, you might fall into a rabbit hole. The groups get women together and each woman starts creating a journal. Then, they send their journal to the next woman who creates pages in the same journal and it goes on and on until you get your own journal back. At the end, each woman has a journal that she and all the other women have created.

    Some groups have themes and some don’t. I’m currently involved in three:

    • Music-themed
    • Book-themed (I created this one)
    • No-theme

    It’s super fun and I can’t wait to see what everyone else creates in my journals. Even if you aren’t that crafty, you can still do this. There is tons of inspiration for different pages on Pinterest, Google, and YouTube.

    And for those of you that really know me, you know how anxious I get when I meet new people, but I really wanted to be involved in a book club since I LOVE to read. So I posted about it on our neighborhood Facebook page and found 7 women who were interested. We just met up at one of their houses this past Sunday to meet each other and decide on a book. We decided on The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett. We were open to all kinds of genres so this should be fun!

    Let me know if you fall into the junk journal rabbit hole and want to join any of the Facebook groups. I’ll make sure to add you!

  • My Dad Part 2

    My Dad Part 2

    My therapist “S” knows I struggle a lot with the relationship with my dad and that I hold a lot of regrets after he passed. So, after she assigned me with the task of writing a letter to my dad, which was super difficult emotionally, she asked me to make a list of all the good times I had with my dad.

    “Boy will this be a short list,” I thought to myself. “My dad owned his own business and worked 7 days a week, rain and shine. There’s no way we’ve had that many good times.” Hello negativity bias creeping into my thoughts already and I hadn’t even sat down to start my list!

    I went home and kept putting this assignment off. I was convinced that I was going to be wasting a piece of paper for just a couple of times, but boys was I wrong!

    When I started writing my list grew longer and longer:

    • fishing trips
    • weekend trips to the beach
    • the circus (EVERY YEAR)
    • anything on ICE
    • Luray Caverns
    • mountain trips
    • picnics on the side of the road (at picnic tables of course)
    • us fishing in the little john boat.

    I ended up listing over 50 good times I had with my dad. And I realized that NONE of this stood out to me over the negative things until I made this list.

    Unfortunately, I’m not sure what notebook I made this list in, it’s somewhere in this house. But since then, I’ve thought of more and more good times. I think I’ll restart the list in a notebook I’m using right now and add those new times along with the ones I had before.

    When I went back to see “S” I talked about how surprised I was to be able to come up with so many good times. I told her that I never really thought my dad loved me because of the way he acted. And, what came next was a huge epiphany.

    “S” said, “What if he loved you the only way he knew how? By taking you on trips, doing things with you and buying you things.”

    I immediately began to cry huge crocodile tears. It broke my heart to think of it that way. Giving me things and taking me places was his love language, but since it didn’t match mine (words of affirmation) I thought something completely different.

    So now I live knowing that my dad really did love me, I just didn’t see it because I was a kid, and then a teenager, and then a depressed and anxious adult. It makes me sad to think I could have had a better relationship with my dad, but unfortunately what is done is done and I can’t change that now. I still hold many regrets when it comes to my dad but I’m slowly trying to release this one. It was a matter of miscommunication between both of us and understanding on my part and I couldn’t see it until now.

    On a side note, I got really lucky when I ended up starting to see “S”. So many things that I once saw negatively, I now can see positively. Through her questions, I’ve been able to dissect things I never thought possible. She’s definitely the best!

  • My Dad

    My Dad

    My Dad… was a stern man. He owned his own company and worked seven days a week. He was one of seven children, the ONLY boy. At sixteen he dropped out of school, lied about his age, and joined the Navy. He served his four years and got out. He was a husband, Dad, Cop, Security Guard, Janitor, Grass Cutter, Snow Plower, and owner of a four-headed light (the only one on the east coast at that time) used for big openings, important events and such. In fact, he drove it down to North Carolina where it was in Dawson’s Creek episode. He was a hard worker who never stayed still and was constantly exhausted. But…

    When I was little, I got whippings so hard I had welts and fingerprints on my legs. I wasn’t a bad kid AT ALL but my Dad would always find a reason for a whipping somehow.

    “I love you’s” just sounded forced. Throughout my life, and into my adult years, I believed my Dad just tolerated me; he didn’t love me. Kisses, hugs, and I love you’s were initiated by me and he would grumble back an I love you. Everything having to do with emotions just seemed forced.

    When I was 16 years old, my parents got into a big fight and my Dad took my Mom’s keys to her car. I offered her my car, and I would take the bus to school, but she wouldn’t take it. She had to get rides to and from work. Luckily, there was a coworker of hers that lived close to where we lived so that became my Mom’s ride. I couldn’t take her myself because she worked about 45 minutes away from home.

    So being the problem-solver for my mom, I confronted my dad about it and told him I thought it was crap. He told me it was MY fault because I didn’t give her my car. Once again it was put on me. I bugged the crap out of him for a couple of days and he finally got so tired of me he threw my Mom’s car keys at me and said, “Here, she can have the damn things.” To say I felt good about myself at that time would be an understatement. I had gotten my Mom’s car keys back for her!

    After that I knew fighting back was an option, and it sometimes got results, so I continued to do this for my Mom. My Mom was very passive at the time and I thought she needed a protector like me.

    One day my Dad and I were in the living room and I was doing some school work. He wanted me to go do dishes and I told him I would do them right after I finished my work. He didn’t like that so he threw the remote controller at me. It barely missed my head but it put a chip in the wall.

    After my parents split up, my Dad didn’t reach out to me at all. I, unfortunately, only reached out to him when I needed money. I figured there was no other reason to reach out to see him because if he wanted to see me wouldn’t he reach out to me himself? And because he wasn’t reaching out it further validated my feelings that he didn’t love me.

    The feeling continued all through my teenage years; me feeling like he didn’t really love me and wasn’t proud of me. One of his coworkers would tell me my Dad was proud of me but I never believed it because he wouldn’t SAY IT TO ME.

    My Dad’s and my relationship continued to get worse. When I got arrested for shoplifting and I called to let him know before he found out from someone else (small town’s pass information quickly), he started yelling at me so I hung up.

    When my Mom had to sign me into the psychiatric unity, I called him, while having my last cigarette until I would get out, and he told me it was probably for the best. It ended up that it was part of what I needed, but at the time I just wanted him to come and pick me up, or even tell me he wished he couldn’t come to pick me up. Anything really, just not what he told me. For me, further validation (once again) that he didn’t love me.

    Into my adult years, I felt my Dad didn’t love me. It wasn’t until he passed and I started seeing a psychiatrist here in Indiana that my whole world was turned upside down by one sentence she said to me.

    Stay tuned for Part 2 next week!

  • Life Update

    Life Update

    So, I have a new nurse practitioner for my medicine. The one I had took an offer somewhere else not client-facing.

    Anywho, before she left she was trying to lower my dosages of medication to eventually eliminate some. Initially she talked about lowering my anxiety medicine but I was too worried about my panic attacks coming back. So we talked some more and decided we would take the Auvelity (for depression) down from twice a day to once a day. I did that for a week and a half and my depression started creeping back in. So I went back to two a day like she said I could if this happened.

    So naturally I had to make this note with my Spravato team (there are two women doing it now) because my depression had gone up. Thankfully, taking the two a day Auvelity kicked back in so my depression level has gone down again.

    During this time, my insurance denied one of my sleep aids (Quviviq). I’ve been on it for MONTHS with no problem. Now, ALL OF A SUDDEN, I get a letter from our insurance saying I need to try a different medicine (Belsomra) to see if that will work in place of the Quviviq.

    Now, I’m almost positive Belsomra is cheaper for insurance than Quviviq is and that’s why, but why would you mess with something that is working? I know why.

    Because it’s a numbers game! Some kid behind a computer sees that the insurance company can pay less if I’m on Belsomra instead of Quviviq. Craziness! This person knows NOTHING about me personally yet they are making quite a big decision in my life. *face palm* And the worst part is that it took over a month for insurance to send me a letter letting me know I needed to try this new drug. So my sleep has been crap for over a month because I’ve only been on one sleep aid.

    Oh, and even better, in order to get put on this other medicine I had to set up ANOTHER appointment with my new nurse practitioner a week after I had already seen her instead of just being able to show her assistant the letter and the nurse practitioner send in the script to the pharmacy. *face palm*

    And this happens to A LOT of people unfortunately, with all kinds of different medications. The insurance companies only care about the bottom line, dollars, they don’t care about the person behind the medicine.

    I mean, how do drug companies come up with the cost of these medicines anyways? It seems to me, the more people need the medicine the more expensive it is. And the more that someone NEEDS the drug, like one to help someone breathe, the more expensive it is, even with insurance covering a portion. This should NOT happen! All medicine should be affordable and available to everyone. People should not be having to choose between their medicine, bills, and groceries.

    But there are people whose pockets get padded by these insurance companies and it’s disgusting!

    End of my rant. I hope you enjoy your week.

    Join me next week when I talk about the relationship with my Dad.

  • Life After Separation Part 2

    Life After Separation Part 2

    Kavin was going through some things at the time so we talked to the boys’ pediatrician and he referred us to a psychiatrist. They tested him and found out he was ADHD combined-type (hyperactivity and impulsivity). They also believed he had Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), so it was Ritalin and Depakote. Our insurance at the time made us start with Ritalin but eventually we found that Vyvanse helped the most.

    As a side note, my therapist and I were just talking about this topic on Tuesday and we don’t think Kavin had ODD, he was simply reacting to what was going on around him in the only way he knew how.

    Anywho, we removed candy from Kavin’s diet, only a piece as a reward for something. However, his “father” took the candy to the extreme. He would buy Kavin and Logan bags of candy and let them eat it all day long, knowing it would negatively affect Kavin and his meds. No doubt, using the sugared up kids to get back at me for something. Pretty pathetic! So I would let the sugar rush wear off and they would inevitably crash and be sound asleep.

    One day, when he had the boys outside of court ordered time, he had family in from out of state, I had allowed him to take the boys for the day. He ended up taking them and a niece of his out to the park. Everything appeared fine. After awhile he called me and was slurring his words and asked if the boys could spend the night with their cousin. I tried to find out where they were but he wouldn’t tell me. I desperately needed the boys home and safe but going to get them ourselves was out of the question because he wouldn’t tell us where he was. So, I lied, and said, “Yes, they can stay the night but they had to get their clothes and Kavin’s medicine” (this was before he stole some). So he drove the kids to the house.

    Now, at the time, Aaron was as sick as he could be and I was pregnant with Micah. So I sat on the porch waiting for him to pull up. I know something wasn’t right but I didn’t know if it was drugs or alcohol. It didn’t really matter what it was though because I had no intention of letting them go back with him

    So Aaron is at the door and lets the boys in the house then immediately shuts it and stands there. My mom and I are outside of the porch letting him know that we know there is something wrong with him and he will not be taking the boys with him. In his intoxicated state, he tried walking into our house multiple times which Aaron was absolutely not having.

    Needless to say, he left with his niece that day and went home. I regretted not calling the police that day since he also had his niece with him. That evening he received his second DUI and had to serve time in jail.

    After the second DUI, I took him back to court about visitation. I did all of this on my own without a lawyer. In the complaint I filed, I stated that I believed he was a danger to the boys and that he could not be trusted. I had been keeping a list of dates and incidents which I included.

    The court appointed a guardian ad litem for the boys and she went to the boys’ school and each one of our homes. It was suggested by her that he have supervised visitation either by his mom or new wife. (Yes, he ended up getting married AGAIN, the day he got out of jail for his second DUI, which also happened to be… Logan’s birthday.) When he came over to see the kids, all he talked about was getting married and such. Never said Happy Birthday to Logan or anything.

    The judge agreed with the guardian ad litem. No longer did the boys have to spend the night at his house. Every other Saturday for 9 AM- 5 PM, as long as his mom or wife was around, he would be able to see the boys.

    Usually, it was his wife that supervised. The last time I ever dealt with his mother was on a Saturday (when he couldn’t drive because of his DUIs and he was sleeping instead of picking up the boys, no doubt from some kind of bender). She came to pick the boys up, which I allowed. While waiting for the boys to put their shoes on, she proceeded to tell me everything that had happened, including his two DUIs, was my fault, not her son’s. That was the last time she ever picked up the boys. I gave her what for that day and told her that if she wanted to see the boys she could take me to court for grandparent visitation (which is only a weekend a month or so). Needless to say she never did that and the last time they saw her was when the boys were about eight and seven, and then she didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

    The boys begged and begged their “father” to let Aaron adopt them but he refused. To this day when they are talking to someone they’ll say “My dad” talking about Aaron. That’s the only stable male figure they knew from such a young age and I’m so thankful that they have him.

  • Life After Separation

    Life After Separation

    All the violence was too much for the kids.

    Kavin was so traumatized from all the violence he had seen that every time I would go to leave the house, he would stand in front of the door with his arms out to the sides, begging me not to leave. When I asked him why, he’d say, “Daddy’s going to hurt you!” This broke my heart because I had allowed this to happen around my children.

    Coparenting didn’t go any better for me. At the beginning he would call me and basically harass me.

    “You’re no good.”

    “You’re an awful mother.”

    “No one will want you.”

    “I’m going to keep the kids and you’ll never see them again.”

    These were things he said to me daily and I would call my lawyer’s office crying.

    Finally, my lawyer reached out to his lawyer and said, “Enough!” He told his lawyer that if he continued, that we would file harassment charges against him. That calmed things down for awhile.

    One day, when he had the kids, he called and said, “I’m keeping the kids.” So I called my lawyer’s office and there was nothing I could do at the time because an agreement hadn’t been signed yet. This, yet again, broke my heart into a million pieces. My kids were my everything!

    The next day he brought them back to me because they were begging for mommy and he couldn’t stand it. This, again, traumatized the boys a lot. I think this was one of the reasons why things never went smoothly when it was time for them to visit him. Parenting obviously didn’t come easy to him and it showed greatly!

    Kavin, bless his heart, never wanted to go visit him. He would hide under beds and I’d have to drag him out to go for visits. I HATED having to do that but he would have had me thrown in jail in a heartbeat for not complying with our separation agreement.

    Kavin and Logan were treated very differently when they were with him. Kavin was treated poorly because he would say “no” at times, and Logan was treated like a prince because he would comply with everything. If Kavin didn’t something wrong, his biological “grandmother” (on his sperm donor’s side) would pull her wooden spoon out and whip him. Very rarely, if ever, did Logan get whipped with the wooden spoon.

    Eventually, he moved to Georgia for awhile so the boys didn’t see him for about a year and a half. They were happy kids, especially Kavin. Until one day he came up to visit his mom with his new girlfriend. He had said that he had straightened out (because after our separation I found out not only was he drinking but he was using cocaine) and I gave him the benefit of the doubt, so I let him and the girlfriend stay at the house with the kids while I went to run errands. When I got back, they left and everything was fine, or so I thought.

    About a week later, I noticed that we were missing some of Kavin’s ADHD medication. My ex had taken some of his pills from his bottle while I was gone. They were sitting on the counter. I should have known better but I didn’t think anything of it when I left the house. Needless to say, Kavin had to go without his medication for about a week, which was absolutely NOT fair to him.

    Eventually, my ex moved back. It was shocking to the boys because they had only seen him once in about two years and all of a sudden they then had to go to his house every other weekend again.

    Stay tuned for Part 2 of Coparenting Hell!

  • I Married a Monster Part 4

    I Married a Monster Part 4

    Welcome back! Sorry I didn’t post this last week but life happens and sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you just don’t get everything done. And that’s okay! (See, I’ve been working on my perfectionistic tendencies.) Anywho, let’s dive into Part 4…

    I continued to put up with the drink and emotional and physical abuse until one night.

    I had made some real friends in the AOL chat rooms that I frequented. I would always get into them when he wasn’t home so it didn’t cause a problem. There was also one girl that was in college like me and we would meet up at IHOP and eat and do our schoolwork. It was nice to get out but I had to be back home before he got home.

    Anyways, one night he hit me and then took off in my car. I told my friend and she and another one of our friends came over. We were all sitting in the car talking. They were trying to get me to calm down. But he kept calling and texting and I kept ignoring them and ignoring them. But he continued to keep calling and calling, so I finally answered the phone. And I’ll never forget what he said. He said, “The next time I see you, I’m going to kill you and I’m on the way back to the house now.”

    That scare me, like the time when I was about 11 years old and a togue wave swept me out into the deep blue part of the ocean. That day my tween self thought I was going to die. And I felt the exact same way that night.

    So I called 911. I told them what had happened earlier and that he had already put his hands on me once and then that my husband had threatened to kill me. They immediately sent officers out to my house. While they were there, he was still texting me. I told him the police were there and in just a few minutes he pulled right up to the house. I’m not sure if he just didn’t believe me when I said I had called the cops or what but they arrested him again that night. But this time I didn’t bail him out, his parents did.

    The next day they brought him over to the house and I told him to get his stuff and get out. So he did. My dad happened to be there visiting, my parents were reconciling, and so he gave me no trouble.

    After he left, I had to explain to my dad what had been going on for the past four years because he had no clue. He was furious when he found out and he even offered to have him “taken care of.” My dad knew all kings of people so I knew he was serious but I said no. I didn’t want that on my hands.

    So I was finally free. Well sort of. He still had to see the boys. But my mom and dad got me a good lawyer for the divorce. Tim Sceviour was former military (Navy) and he was the BEST attorney I could have ever had. I got full physical custody and he saw Logan on Wednesdays and bot boys every other weekend. That was the best I could do because, at the time, he was living with his mom so the courts felt it was safe. Later on this agreement would change.

    Come back next week to read about how co-parenting went!

  • I Married a Monster Part 3

    I Married a Monster Part 3

    I thought being a bartender would be a perfect job. I would get to interact with other people and have tips in my pocket every time I worked so that I could get diapers, formula, etc. However, that’s not how it worked. Instead, he would steal it out of my purse at night while I was sleeping and go buy drugs and alcohol. Many times I had to count on my mom and dad to buy diapers and formula for my two sweet babies.

    Now that I was a bartender, he started coming into the bar to drink. And I would serve him because I had no choice. Either serve him, know what kind of mood he was in, go home and get beat or don’t serve him, piss him off, he goes somewhere else and gets drunk, he picks me up, we go home and he still beats me. Better the monster you know and can see at that point. At least that was what I thought at the time.

    At this time he had had one DUI, driving home for Q Masters with me in the car also drunk. At that point, I drank to dull the pain when he would hit me. I myself, at that time, became an alcoholic. I wasn’t proud of it by any means, in fact it’s embarrassing to admit, but I said at the very beginning that I would tell you the good, bad, and ugly, and here is one of those things.

    The plus to working at the bar was that I met this nice, attractive man (who was also married) who played pool and darts. We didn’t talk unless he was asking me for a Coke but we did play pool against each other every now and then in our pool league. He was so nice that it made me wonder what it would be like to be married to someone like that. I want to be VERY clear that we never even conversed, other than asking for a Coke, but spoiler alert, this guy was Aaron.

    But back to the beginning of Part 1 where I had a concussion and I was looking at my children wondering how the hell I got to where I was. That, my friends, that night was my catalyst.

    That night we had been at the bar where I worked. I had worked the day shift and he had come to pick me up and, or course, we drank for awhile.

    Eventually we left and he was driving. We didn’t even get through the strip mall that the bar was in before we started fighting. He pulled over and immediately started punching me in the back of the head.

    Luckily, two Navy guys that I had served earlier walked by while he was doing it. They stopped and called the police. They told him what they had done in an attempt to stop him from punching me but it didn’t help. They did stay there until the police came and they talked to them. At some point, he threw the keys to the truck out in the parking lot. (Side note: I never found them. I think they fell in a drain.)

    A big group of older teenage boys also stopped when they saw what he was doing and they got him to start paying attention to them (he was mouthing off to them) and he stopped punching me in the back of the head. The police came and arrested him (he got his second DUI that night) and I’ll never forget what one of the police officers said to me. He said, “A buddy of mine was at your house last week when he threw you into the entertainment center. Once they start this, they don’t stop. It only gets worse.”

    I was so embarrassed. Embarrassed that I had been the talk of police officers and embarrassed that I had let it happen again.

    But I still didn’t leave… although, unknowingly, it put me closer to cutting ties.

    Stayed tuned for Part 4 next week!

  • I Married a Monster Part 2

    I Married a Monster Part 2

    Not surprisingly, the drinking and smoking weed continued. And, in fact, he was also doing cocaine, something I wouldn’t find out until after we divorced. Every time he got drunk he would hit me, throw stuff at me, or shove me. Then he’d say sorry and I would forgive him. One big circle of dysfunction.

    And then I had my first beautiful baby boy. I was enamored! The birth was easy, peasy, lemon squeezy. He came into the world less than 5 pounds with his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. They got it off and hit him with the oxygen twice and he pinked right up. My first amazing baby boy was here and I couldn’t be happier.

    During the time in the hospital, he was still smoking weed and drinking. He wasn’t much help at all but I didn’t care. As a first-time mom I wanted to do all the things.

    When Kavin and I came home, he was going through 40 ounce beers like crazy and smoking a ridiculous amount of weed. I ignored it all and put all my attention on my new baby boy, which he didn’t like very much.

    I couldn’t get the hang of breastfeeding with Kavin so we bottle fed him. That took a lot of stress off me because anyone could feed him which would help me get a little time to do the things I needed to do like shower and such.

    So “Dad”, and I use this term VERY loosely, would sometimes feed Kavin at night. That should be great, right? But unfortunately it wasn’t. I would wake up to Kavin crying, and I would go to the bassinet to get him, but he wouldn’t be there. He was definitely in the room, but “Dad” was nowhere to be seen. Many times I would find Kavin on the floor on “Dad’s” side of the bed or in the rocking chair in our room. To say the least, it scared the crap out of me.

    Then a couple of months later, I found out I was pregnant again. The night I told him, he pinned me under our queen mattress because he got mad at something. What a great way to celebrate such a joyous occassion.

    There was another time when I was pregnant that he was giving Kavin a bath in the bathroom at the top of the stairs. He had walked away from the bath tub, turning his back on it and I said something to him about not doing that. He got angry and the look in his eyes told me that he was thinking about pushing me down the stairs. Thank goodness he didn’t. At the time I was 6 months pregnant.

    But, exactly one year and fifteen days later, after Kavin was born, another little boy stole a piece of my heart. In the midst of the abuse, I gave birth to my second son, Logan. His birth was not as easy as Kavin’s, but my second little bundle of joy came into the world again, weighing less than 5 pounds. We’re talking teenie tiny babies, that even preemie clothes swallowed up. I breastfed for awhile making me the only one that could feed him. Therefore I knew he was safe at night, because I was the one taking him out of the bassinet and putting him in it.

    But the beatings still continued.

    It was shortly after Logan was born that he began to complain that I wasn’t working and contributing to our family. Not like taking care of two kids under the age of two was not a job in itself. But alas, I looked around and they were looking for a bartender at the bar we frequented, which was right around the corner from the house. I applied and got the job.

    Stay tuned for Part 3 next week!

  • I Married A Monster Part 1

    I Married A Monster Part 1

    I lay on the couch, my head pounding and my neck so stiff I can barely move it from the concussion I sustained the night before, starting at my two little boys wondering how the hell I got to this point in my life at such a young age. At twenty-two, I was the mom of two boys under the age of two and married to a man (I use that term loosely) who physically, mentally, and emotionally abused me every chance he got. Every minute of every hour of every day, I was walking on eggshells, hoping not to trigger another episode.

    I met him in an AOL chat room, back when that was a thing. He sent me pictures and I figured “What the hell, I’ll meet up with him.” Of course now, I’ve watched enough ID TV to know how stupid this was but I was eighteen-years-old and I did some dumb stuff (haven’t we all).

    He was twenty-three years old when we met and he had no driver’s license. I drove over to his house and picked him up. We hug out all night into the morning talking. The only thing he told me that I thought was negative was that he got high. But so what, right? So I started hanging out with him daily. Now I see it as clingy, but at that time I saw it as he really liked me.

    Stupid, stupid, stupid me didn’t see the red flags then. If I had, I would have high-tailed it in the opposite direction. But I didn’t and so it didn’t take long for the two of us to get married and for me to get pregnant. This is a way better marriage than the pyromaniac, right? Nope! Wrong yet again, Niki!

    I remember the first huge issue we ever had. It wasn’t a physical altercation, but it was a catalyst for what was to come.

    His dad got minor league baseball tickets from his work and asked us if we’d like to go. I was pregnant and stuck in the house all day so I was like “Heck yeah, let’s go! It’ll be fun.” But it ended up NOT being fun AT ALL!

    My ex drank a lot by that time (something he neglected to tell me at the beginning of things), and this night was no different. Since I was pregnant, and underage, I was the designated driver. During the ride home, he threw up in my car because he was so drunk. I was LIVID! I told him that I thought it was ridiculous that he was that drunk and how I didn’t think it was fair that I would have to clean it when we got home.

    I don’t remember everything he said to me that night but that was the first time he told me I was worthless. That I was lucky to be with him because no other man would deal with a nag like me. That I- yes, I- was the reason that he drank so much.

    I couldn’t believe it! Who the hell tells someone that they supposedly love, and who’s pregnant with their child all of this. Plus, I couldn’t figure out for the life of me what I had done so wrong to make him drink the way he did. I cried all the way home. Once we arrived at the house, I cleaned the car with the help of my mom and hurried to bed.

    The next morning he woke me up.

    “Good morning,” he said with a smile on his face.

    “Good morning,” I said rather shortly.

    “What’s wrong?” he asked.

    “Don’t you remember last night?”

    “Not really,” he said.

    So I told him all about how he got wasted, threw up in the car, told me I was worthless, and then how I had to clean the car.

    “I’m so, so, so, sorry,” he said. “It will never happen again.”

    And I believed it. I accepted his apology. I chalked it up as a big mistake, one that wouldn’t happen again.

    But boy was I wrong, and boy did it get much, much worse…

    Stay tuned for Part 2 next week