My Story

Please read this special story from one of our residents who chose to share about her experience before coming to Stepping Stones, as well as her time with our advocates.
If you or someone you know needs support because of domestic violence or other forms of abuse, please call our 24/7/365 helpline at 928-445-4673.

My Story

“I want to go home.” Honestly, I don’t know the number of times I’ve cried out these words to the wind. There’s no way of telling, for I have genuinely lost count. I’ve screamed to the universe, begging until my voice creaked. Please, hear my plea, are they not desperate enough, are they not loud enough? “I want to go home.” The story fastened to my name isn’t something forgotten in the past. The shadows are silently lingering, the memories are still fresh and rough in my mind. A lot like a bruise that has started to fade although the pain is deep in the tissue. The hurt is underneath, haunting my bones and muscles making my soul so tired. Identical to an old movie, the tapes play repeatedly. However, no matter how many times I visit the past. I always discover something new. Something I missed. Something I overlooked. Those tapes continuously show me a ghost that once felt normal.

I always wanted to find beauty in the ghostly life I was living. No matter how spooky or sad the movie was, I would always crave and scan for the shimmer. Even if it wasn’t shiny at all, just a tat-less dual. The haunting images of my movie play on like an ancient cassette tape, it skips and flutters. Dirty hands and mechanical issues made the tape fall out of alignment. A neglected tape, one played too much and left to collect dust outside of its case. Never properly cared for or stored right. Hence, the pictures and sound don’t always play like it should. Sometimes it’s the worst parts that play the loudest, a crystal-clear image, other times those pictures don’t come in at all, and the only parts that perform are trivial with no real depth. For there is no plot within those scenes. No real, truth to be seen, those parts feel like they could be cut from the movie, and the story wouldn’t even be lost.

Writing these words brings fresh tears for I can hear and see my film replaying. I see myself crumbling to the ground in front of a devil crying those very words. “I want to go home.” I see the image of him, with his slanted smirk creeping across his face. Simply a hint higher on the right side. All the while standing there watching me shatter into a million pieces. Not once, not twice. Once again too many times did I witness a look in his piercing eyes that these events pleased him. Without a doubt, his preference was the scenes, which were the ones where I would be weeping. The occurrences where I became bewildered by my grief and misery. Perhaps to witness my howling for home was his way of reassuring himself, that he was more powerful than me. Nevertheless, what is a devil who’s only skilled at destruction? My soul may have become tired but it was never sold or destroyed. He failed in his mission of convincing me that I wanted to leave this beautiful life of mine.

“I want to go home.” The words are always relaying in my mind. Even today saying those words take me right back to that reality. Every single time I sobbed to him, those phrases would leave my lips. They would tumble out as I was sinking, drowning in the chaos he masterminded. His carefully crafted creation of unpredictability. I was trapped in his invention of confusion. My body and inner self were lost in his chaotic regime. That power he thought he had over me has vanished. While I have separated myself from him, the flicker of his memory follows me around like a phantom and I am his haunting grounds. I am frequently visited by the agony attached to those replaying recordings. As comparable to clockwork, those occurrences are scheduled to perform, like a carnivorous parasite eating at me from time to time. No matter how hard I try, to bury them where they lie, they always seem to arise. 

Thinking of him, I can still feel his hands around my neck. I always, questioned if they would come as a gentle caress or commence as a tight embrace. One meant to steal the breath. Let me say, let me put it into contents. Why I would beg a devil with words of home. In times of silence and neglect my twisted mind felt secure and would call him my home. I didn’t understand during my time with him. I was too close to the screen, unable to see the whole image in front of me. It was imaginary, all the ‘good moments,’ were just tiny pieces of breadcrumbs to keep me satisfied. Oh, how those rose-colored glasses had me blind. For I didn’t see these moments for what they truly were. Opportunities to watch me and how I loved him, he was surveilling me. These times he was watching me the most, as the attention was meant to discover new ways to destroy me. Which was never a challenging feat for him as I have forever worn my heart on my sleeve. As I was permanently naive to his praise and kindness. For I would have forgiven him for each of his transgressions against me. As for other moments, it was the complete opposite of his other phase, which was the lack of interest in me, his focus was somewhere else. He was concentrating on another prey, using my words of affection, and my character traits to ensnare another. The personality qualities he proclaimed to hate in me, he was secretly stealing and using them to gain an advantage over others.

I didn’t see it fully when I was living in his presence not entirely to the intent as I see the truth now. Truly his power over my mind was knotted and overwhelming. The Wizard of Oz, I had started calling him towards the end of my era with him. As I unfortunately discovered this year there was always someone behind that screen of his. Apparently it was never only him and I, as I found out he had countless affairs, hookups, playdates, and whatever other name one can give to sneaking around and cheating. Nevertheless, I was always the one he came home to and that alone was his proclamation of love. Thinking back on my rerunning tapes I wish he just wouldn’t come back. Wish he would have stayed gone. Because, ‘I want to go home,’ but oh how I wish he would have just stayed away from me.

For I see it now, I see it for what it is. I have been away from him and his hold long enough that I see the creature he is underneath. I had dubbed him as my silver tongue devil long ago. For he had me seeing what he wanted me to see, and always knew the right words to ensnare me. Entrapping my thoughts and essence. Since the very beginning of our relationship 13 years ago. I should actually, be more specific call it a transaction-ship as his so-called love was entirely transactional. Why I had tried to love him to the best of my ability he was never satisfied, and I could never be up to par. Aw, me who was “never happy,” the “fun-sucker” of every event and occasion, ‘perfect little Heather.” Truly, how forgiving I can be for I can love the ugly parts of someone perfectly as well. ‘I want to go home.’ But the man I felt was my home was a ruiner of hell.

I have a hard time writing these words how do I explain my abuse fit the whole wheel? I was oblivious to the truth, I was being told he was mean but at the same time, everyone was telling me I was too sensitive and took everything personally. Years ago, when I first heard of narcissistic abuse, I merely thought I would only fall into emotional, and verbal for the longest time. But this year I have learned a lot, this year I have experienced wickedness, for I had seen behind the veil. My abuse was more than mean words. For no one knew what was happening to me behind that bedroom door. It wasn’t just hurtful phrases. I didn’t realize that what he was doing to me was sexual abuse and that what he was doing to my body and mind during those moments wasn’t typical. The fear I would feel when the need to voice that he was hurting me, that his words made me sick, that I didn’t like what he was doing would dig a pit in my stomach. As I was told that when I spoke out against him and his behavior, I was being selfish, making everything about me.

I am not a doll. But He would set me up like a mannequin moving me this way and that way. I can still feel him pulling and pushing me where he wants me to be, I was meant to be displayed exactly how he’d like. He was always giving me the vibe that something wasn’t right when were being intimate. I’ll never forget the night two weeks after I shared with him that I had been sexually assaulted eight years before. I thought when I shared that with him he would be understanding instead we spent the entire time fighting. Until one night he took his place within the story I shared with him. But this felt worse because it was him, who I never thought would hurt me in that way. He threw me around on the floor, pushing me down and lying on top of me. He was tugging and ripping at my clothes, I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t believe what he was doing to me. I am ashamed to say I was lying there for so long just watching him in disbelief. I couldn’t process that he was the one doing that, that no matter how long I stared at him there was his face there was not another man it was him. I shared with him a horrible experience and he put me through it again. It wasn’t until he said that my lying there meant I liked it. I started pushing and hitting his arms and chest trying to wiggle away, but even then, I knew that if I hit him too hard it would be over for me.

I used to think he wouldn’t hurt me with his hands until he did. I have to start first a conversation between him and a prostitute on his phone. I don’t know what possessed me that night, but I was so angry that I wouldn’t let him have his phone back. I kept showing him the messages saying, “Look at what you doing, it’s disgusting, you’re disgusting, look at what you’re doing to us.” He got so angry he pushed me over a chair onto the kitchen’s tile floor. I wasn’t aware at the time, but our daughter had seen him hurt me. However, I’m so grateful she didn’t see the rest of it. I was walking away with his phone when he came up behind me and put me into a headlock, even as I watched my vision begin to close in. Observing the darkness starting on the outside of my vision to the point I wasn’t even aware that I was on the ground with him above me. I was blacking out and I truly thought he was going to kill me in the kitchen with my daughter sleeping on the couch. I couldn’t believe even with his arm squeezing my neck that it was him, who had me on the kitchen floor. I couldn’t believe that no one in that house was coming to help me. Even though they could all hear it and I had been begging everybody to help me no one was coming.

‘I want to go home.’ I am sad to say that I didn’t leave after this or any of the other times. It just got worse and worse. He was trying to convince me that I wanted to die and should do it myself. He made it clear he wanted me to disappear from his and my children’s lives. It’s taken me since July to get here my doctor gave me the number to Stepping Stones, and my father gave me the number as well, it took me numerous phone calls to here, even coming here and meeting an advocate and starting the paperwork still that wasn’t enough. Until November 16th when I saw my opportunity while he was at work, I packed up my son and under the pretense of picking up my daughter from school I never went back. It’s here with my children that I discovered that they are my home, that I, myself, am my home. It is here that I found that during those times sobbing out for my home, I was looking for me. I have found my soul family here at Stepping Stones, and it is through their love and support I am learning to pick up the pieces of myself and love them. I am learning that I am not crazy and that what I went through was abuse. While I am not ready to share the entirety of my story I can sit here and write about the parts where I am ready not to carry with me anymore. My heart is no longer open to hold his demons. I am becoming more free every day. It’s just like magic.