In that moment I woke up.
This dream went on for months. The same dream, the same chanting, the same figures, the same high pitched frequency. I woke up at the same time, every time.
Six months later, I reached a huge goal in physio therapy. Finally walking unassisted, and able to stand for more than 10 minutes, I had another crisis. My boyfriend at the time, was an alcoholic, and an abusive one at that. The truth is, I had no business being with this guy. I knew he was trouble. We had had our first physical altercation the day before I found out I was pregnant. We decided that was our wake up call and that we had to put the past behind us, to start new and be better for our child.
To say that he was supportive of me during my trauma would be a lie. He spent the time I was in surgery drinking in the parkade, he was talking to other women and inviting them over to my house while I was still in the hospital, and he beat me down emotionally for "Not being able to provide him with children." "What's wrong with you? he'd say. Thirteen year old girls get pregnant and have babies the first time they have sex. What's your excuse?"
That kind of mental and emotional abuse is never okay, but when someone is already at their very lowest, that kind of talk can be deadly. Not in a position to fight, argue, or defend myself, I just took it. I just took whatever crap he threw my way and internalized it.
That night, on the day I reached my physio goal, he was drinking and became very dangerous. I had asked him to leave many times, but we both knew he wasn't going anywhere. At the end of my rope, I grabbed the phone and hid it under my blanket. I hit redial knowing he had talked to his parents earlier on that evening. Trembling, I held the phone still allowing them to hear the shitshow that was taking place in my living room. After a few minutes, when I felt they had heard enough, I hung up the phone. They immediately called back, and when he answered he played it cool like all was well in the world.
As I watched his face, I knew they were confronting him about all they had just witnessed. His eyes glazed over in blackness and he threw the phone at the wall smashing it in a million pieces. He threw is lit cigarette on my carpeted floor, dumped his beer over me before throwing it threw my window and came at me as I was sitting on the couch. "RUN!" The voices in my head screamed at me, "RUN! RUN! RUN!"
That was the first time in my life I had been thrown across the room like a rag doll. What seemed to be the longest minutes I had ever lived turned into a nightmare that even I couldn't wake up from. I crawled over the floor trying to reach my cell phone to call the cops. Just as the operator answered he grabbed the phone from me smashing that too. He had spent time in jail as a young defender and was terrified to go back as an adult.
"RUN!" They screamed, "RUN!" I got up an ran to the kitchen. He was screaming at me that he was going to kill me and I believed him.
Just as I reached my butchers block of kitchen knives, he came from behind and attacked me, trying to get the knife from my hands. He threw me against the cupboards and stood over me as I was screaming on the top of my lungs for help. In that moment I knew there wasn't a chance in hell that my neighbour was going to hear me screaming and that I was going to die in my own kitchen.
Suddenly I was looking over my body, again. I was up in the corner of the ceiling looking down on all that was taking place. I kept telling myself that it was okay, help was coming and that I was going to be alright. My physical self kept kicking and screaming and trying to get him off of me, to get his hands away from my throat. My spirit self was screaming at my body from up in the corner of the ceiling, trying to cheer me on and keep fighting.
Just as I thought I was living my last minutes of life, my spirit self, hoovering above me and him on the floor, seen his parents running down the hall. His father grabbed him off me and rushed him to get out of there before the cops came. His mother kneeled down beside me and when I took my first breath free of his hands my spirit self jumped back into my body.
With the boyfriend now gone, and me in utter distress, his mother picked me up off the floor and got me settled on the couch. I was covered in beer, spit, blood, and tears. My house was totally destroyed. Broken windows, smashed tv, broken phones, curtains hanging off the wall, the fridge and its contents tipped over. His mother cried with me as she cleaned me up.
The police arrived and walked threw the hanging screen door that he ripped off on his way out. And when the cop entered my home he was just about as impressed as I was.
I lied. I lied to the cop. I made up some bullshit story about what had happened, and brushed it off even though his mother begged for me to tell the truth. I couldn't do it. It wasn't because I loved him, or wanted to protect him, it was because I loved his parents and his family so much, that I couldn't bear to be the reason of why their son would be in jail.
Against the cop's and his mother's advice, I stood my ground and stuck with my story and let him get away "Scott-free".
I laid in bed all night without closing my eyes for one second. I was waiting for the sun to come up so I could go to my father's house when we woke up. Beaten and bruised, I showed up on his door step and that was the last time I ever stayed in my own house.
I was struggling both mentally and emotionally with all that had just took place. I was getting ready to take a shower to wash the night off of me and I broke down in tears.
In my head, I asked for God or whoever was listening, to give me a sign. Give me a sign that things will be okay, that I did the right thing, and that I'm safe. Not sure, what I was actually expecting, I took off my clothes to get in the shower, and as I stood there, looking at myself in the mirror, tears running down my face, I got my sign.
On my chest was a bruise in the shape of an angel. He had forcefully pushed me against the wall with such power, that his handprints were embossed in my skin.
The angels were with me. The angels were in me. I was finally safe.