I never really had an adult and meaningful relationship. I had the typical boyfriends in high school and we all know college boyfriends are pretty much none existent. So the summer I came home from Grambling State University, I engaged in the activities such as hanging out in my neighborhood with my friends. Out of spite for someone else, I began engaging in flirting conversations with a guy. I knew of this guy mainly in my childhood but never actually spoke words to or held a full conversation with. Anybody that knows me I'm a magnet towards the mysterious male gender. I am typically attracted to men that, until I meet them, no one pays them any attention. I find the littlest thing that ignites my fire to want to get to know them. For this guy bought something new to the table: a challenge. You see most guys I said I wanted I usually got with no chaser, and boom we were in a relationship. Not this man. From the moment we spoke, the chase began. For weeks on end, he would allow me into his life piece by piece. I had already had two small children by my "first love", who told me that no man was gonna want me now that I had two small children. For awhile, I held onto to that theory of his. This man I met, not only took me in, but encourage me to bring my children with me at all times whenever we hung out......STOP THE PRESSES!!! I know what you are thinking, "What man does that?" I tell you, this man did.....
As time went on the love between us grew and the isolation from my family and friends grew as well. There were no longer days that I hung out with my girlfriends, went out to a lounge or club. Every time I had was spent with him. Of course I felt like this must be love. We spend so much time together and actually get along. Until one night I we got into an argument and in his anger, he threw a Corona bottle at the wall but instead, the bottle hit me in the nose. It broke my nose and thus began the lies to cover over more "incidents". I told my family, friends and co-workers that we had gone paint-balling and I got hit in the nose. The ENT clinic better known as the Ears, Nose and Throat department at the University of Chicago Hospitals, knew better. The doctor carefully wrapped my nose up and prescribed meds for me and sent me on my way. There were a multitude of other "incidents" like that where I had black eyes and bruises and had to stay in the house to hide what was going on. To keep him looking like the good guy and to keep people out of our business. So many nights I cried on the floors of our apartments...yes of course we moved in together..... and so many pages I filled up with thoughts of suicide, ways to kill him, depression, anxiety attacks, crying at the altar every Sunday that my bruises allowed me to put make up on them and attend Sunday morning worship service. You see anywhere BUT my house was a safe haven. I was blamed for everything, disregarded as a woman because of my many sexual encounters in my past. My name was no longer Felicia, it was "bitch", "slut" and "hoe". I began to believe that the person I used to be was long gone. There were so many people praying for me and helping me escape and each time I escaped, I WENT BACK. I used to hide a "travel kit" outside in the backyard for whenever things got too heated at home and I needed to run away real quick. Inside of this Walmart plastic bag or my "travel kit", were the following items: a toothbrush, soap, deodorant, face towel, and bag with a few coins in it to use a pay phone. As Erykah Badu mentioned, you have to "pack light". There were plenty of times I left the house to walk barefoot in the middle of the night with my kids and had just enough money in my pockets to ride the bus or catch a cab to my parents house. I tell you this in rememberance of what I went through so that NO ONE else would.
People always ask me: "What made you finally leave?" Answer: I woke up with a black eye and looked in the mirror and said to myself, "This isn't me, this isn't the way I was brought up to be." With the clothes I had on my back, I ran out of the house. Thank God my children were already at my parents house. I called my mentor, stayed with her for a week and my family relocated me to live with relatives that I barely knew in Milwaukee, WI. Oh but this story doesn't end here........
Let's just say I didn't stay in Milwaukee too long. I came back tried several attempts to fix our marriage through counseling and much needed prayer. If you know anything about domestic violence, there's a cycle of abuse that happens: the tension building, the explosion and the honeymoon phase. Well people the honeymoon was over once I officially moved back to Chicago. On February 13, 2009, at 2:00 AM, my husband came home drunk and choked me after I hit him to get him out of my face. My father heard us in the basement and came to "break it up". I ran upstairs and called 911. My father kept encouraging him to leave the house and go cool off but I had already said to him after my last black eye, that if he ever put his hands on me, I don't care how small of a push it is.......I'm gone!!!!
That night ladies and gentlemen was the final straw. The cops came and arrested him. He had other issues that he was dealing with that kept him locked up for the past years. I told a few members at my church what was going on and they covered me and opened up the power of PRAYER into my life. You see that had helped me escape plenty of times, before and all I did was go back. I wanted to volunteer at a domestic violence shelter for women and their children, but first you had to go through a 40 hour training. Through that training, I was delivered from my marriage. That was the counseling and encouragement that helped me start my divorce process.
On May 5, 2010 my divorce was finalized and I was free to began "A NEW ME." I began doing that things and going places that I had always wanted to but couldn't. I accepted my past failures and began a journey towards a new one. Squashed old beefs with people from my past and started my life completely over.
TODAY I stand proud of my journey that I've been through and through writing my self published books and blogs, continuing my education, establishing a website, countless interviews, motivational speaking engagements and workshops done on domestic violence and healthy relationships. Through all of that, A NEW ME FOUNDATION was birthed this year May 2011 and God has blessed my footsteps ever since.
I've never written a blog this long before, but TODAY God whispered to me to tell my story for someone who needed to "read" it. Again I pray that this testimony has uplifted your life in some way it is NEVER intended to "bash" my ex-husband or to throw a pitty party for myself. This was for God's glory NOT mine.
Be blessed and continue to help me and A New Me Foundation, break the silence of domestic violence!
