Entering the darkness
It was the summer of 2005 when I had graduated high school and life as I knew it had changed. Learning life without school for everyone is strange. I was still working at the doctors office and in this new relationship.
It wasn’t long before I believed I knew better than my parents and packed up my things and moved out. Into a crappy bachelor cabin…yes cabin this should have been my first red flag. It was a worn down cabin on a property with about 10 other cabins. We had a kitchen, bathroom with just a toilet, the shower did not work. The rest of the open area barely fit our bed, couch and tv. He covered the windows with sheets and called this “home”. (Yes this is a real photo of it, that years later I went back to take)
I worked everyday, he would drop me off and pick me up in my truck and go back to the shack. It wasn’t long before I truly realized he wasn’t just smoking weed, he was selling it. This wasn’t the life I had set up for myself. I was not involved in that lifestyle ever, nor was I willing to start. I stayed quiet as I had already seen the dark side of this man. I guess I hoped this wasn’t going to be real and the fun parts of our relationship would outweigh the bad.
We discovered the lady who owned the property would go into our cabin on occasion as if she was allowed. Which she wasn’t, it was illegal, well she was creepy to say the least. One day in end of summer I returned home from work with a girlfriend of mine. To my surprise, he asked me to marry him, still in the honeymoon phase I said yes. Just like that I had graduated high school, moved into a shack and now engaged.
That same night he had left to go do something and returned home furious. I was taken back by the quick change. All of a sudden in a blink of an eye I had a gun pointed at me. I was being accused of sleeping with someone I hadn’t seen since elementary school. He was yelling at me, a way I’ve never been yelled at in my life. I stood there scared, fearing for my life and crying. I was so confused as to where this accusation even came from when I was proposed to earlier in the day. I defended myself and after a while the gun was lowered. The night however didn’t end. I had to work in the morning I was so scared from this whole event. He had music blaring all night long. I tried so hard to get sleep, he just kept drinking and smoking weed with his buddy. I got up and went to work now fearing what he would truly do to me, I remained quiet and felt beyond trapped. All I kept thinking at work was “what the hell just happened? Am I going to die?”
This is when I became silent, this is when I hid what truly happens behind closed doors, to everyone.
A few weeks later we packed up and midnight moved into his friends basement to get away from the creepy lady who owned the property. Yet it wasn’t long until my life took another huge turn, I was pregnant. Again scared, how was I to bring a baby into this life? How was I going to raise a baby with this man?
I found the strength to continue working, a few months went by and my baby was the only thing keeping me going. I received a gold necklace as a gift from him which was rare for him to give me anything.
Until one day at work I left to take my lunch break to return to the office. My manager, who was a friend of mine pulled me aside. Informed me there was a girl who showed up looking for me and this necklace. He apparently owed her money for it. This girl was well known in the city, she didn’t get the nickname psycho for being a nice person.
My manager informed me that this girl would be waiting for me in the parking lot after work. I went home early scared of what was going to happen and if she would harm my baby. It all made sense now, why recently I had noticed people following my truck.
I had a very noticeable truck a black gmc step side with huge mud tires on it and of course full of decals. It was not hard to find in my small home town.
When I returned home I confronted him and gave the necklace back, just to be told even worse news. He was caught selling fake Percocets to many people on the streets. Clueless to this world I had no idea what this meant for me and our world. My truck was being followed, I was being followed and they were on a mission to send him a message. He owed thousands and thousands of dollars to some very powerful people in the drug world.
I had to hide my truck 4 hours out of the city, I moved out of that basement and I went back to live with my parents. My dad drove me to and from work and met me on lunch breaks. I was so stressed, so scared and had no idea how my life went from so simple to complete darkness, in what felt like a blink of an eye.
I wish I could tell you when I left I was free from this man forever but I wasn’t. Like many abusive relationships the average person goes back 7 times.
It was about a week later my phone rang while having dinner with my parents, it was his mom on the phone. She asked me if I could go over to their house and I needed to be there. My parents wanted me to stay as far away as I could but, I didn’t. I went to their house and sat down to hear words I never thought I’d hear from a parent. “We are paying off his drug debt.”
I was in shock I thought to myself why? I’m not sure if I was shocked at the statement or the look on their faces, as if they had done this before. They handed him the cash and that was that. They begged me to come live with them, as I had their grandchild. He promised me things would change and he was done with that life. I completely fell for it. I moved in with them.
Yet it wasn’t long before I realized the apple doesn’t fall from the tree. Within weeks I was told I was getting married on Sept 16th, 2006 at their family church. That in no way were we having this child out of wedlock. As if my world wasn’t spinning faster than a top already. I pretended that this was all okay as I wasn’t truly sure what was right anymore, what life I had woken up in because this was far from what I ever imagined for myself.
The only thing I truly got to decide on for myself for my own wedding was my dress and after standing our ground, hand made invitations. That’s it the hall, church, meals, my own guest list and bridal party all picked by them or my fiancé. My best friend who was there the night the gun was drawn wasn’t allowed to be invited. This was not the fairy tale I dreamed of, now after years I call it my first funeral because I died a little inside that day. I will never get that first walk down the aisle back, or that first I do back.
I remember standing in our apartment a few days later, newly wed, about 2 months pregnant and I prayed the darkness would disappear. If I only knew this was just the beginning to my own real life horror movie. There was no honeymoon we skipped right back to the darkness.
On March 1st, 2007 I went into labour. I told him it was time to go to the hospital and I didn’t feel good. He told me to hold on so he could smoke a joint first. I remember walking up and down our hallway in pain. Something wasn’t right. We got to the hospital I was admitted right away, the doctor came in checked my vitals and my water broke. Everything after that was black. I woke up to 2 doctors and a nurse I think and my “husband” holding my hand. My mom was standing on the other side of the room. I hear the doctors tell them both to get out, that they needed to get the baby out. My heartbeat was dropping and the baby’s was rising. I seen the forceps to get the baby out, then everything went black again. I don’t know how long it was but I woke up in a pitch dark room, hearing my dad telling the nurse to let him in to see me. I was so scared, what had happened? Everything was black.
They let my dad in but I seen the fear on his face, instantly got scared, my heart raced and they took him back out. I became septic during labor and was the highest risk of seizures they had ever seen. I sat in this dark room for 3 or 4 days before they finally let me into a normal room. Days past until I finally held my baby for the first time. My Miracle boy Kayden was 7lbs 3oz and I knew right then it was him and I against it all. 
He was the best thing to happen to me in a long time and he was my reason to keep going. To keep being strong and I knew I would do whatever I could to protect him, but could I ? Who would have known dark could get darker?