Cn: domestic violence, descriptions of abuse

This was the day I left Jose for good. I was feeling good. I looked cute, it was TJ’s first Thanksgiving and I was going to spend it with chosen family.

It was such a great day….until I came back home. I was living with mami at the time. Jekyll was upset I left the house. He left the weekly can of formula (his only contribution by the way) on the doorstep and walked away angry.

I went after him asking if he was going to see the baby. He said I was a slut. He was always accusing me of cheating.

I don’t know what happened but I got so fed up. He kept walking away and ignoring me. All the abuse came rushing back into my mind and I grabbed the can of formula and threw it at him. It hit him right in the back of the head.

He turned around and I knew I was in trouble. He came back and grabbed me. He said he’d killed me. He was always saying that but I knew this time was it.

If I didn’t fight him I would never come back home. He dragged me to the entrance of a park. He was always threatening me to kill me in a park.

I fought him as hard as I could. Finally he knocked me down and I was dazed from him hitting me on the head.

I guess he thought I was passed out or maybe even dead because he ran off. Once I got my bearings I walked back home.

My coat was wrinkled, my hair was messy and had leaves in it. My face hurt.

I looked into the crib and TJ was smiling. They were barely a month old.
I walked to the mirror. I saw the damage. A busted lip, ringing in my ear, cuts on my face. I decided I was done.

So the next day I broke up with him.

It’s been 10 years.

The recent 2009 vs 2019 meme has made me reflect back on the last decade. Leaving him triggered a lot of bullshit that TJ and I are still dealing with.

But we are alive and doing well. We have our special chosen family. In December it’ll be a year since I got engaged to a wonderful human who has shown me that romantic love is real and it doesn’t hurt.

I grew so much this last decade. I will never stop being thankful to my chosen family for keeping me alive and relatively safe while I was with Jekyll. Without them I wouldn’t have had the strength to finally leave.

It’s been real, y’all.