hi guys I’m new i just joined today. I still fresh out of a 13 year domestic violence relationship. If you would have asked me 2 years ago if i would be talking about my problems in a support group, i may have looked at you crazy. But what happened to me 2 years ago changed my life forever. I never thought it would have impacted my life the way it did but my life will never be the same. I was with my ex husband for 13 years. I got with him really young i was 13/14 years old when i met him and started dating him. And on some days i wish i hadnt. The longer i stayed with him the more i felt like my life was a lifetime movie, it’s cute n sweet n the beginning and things are so perfect and too good to be true and a little more time passes and then the monster comes out. He did any and everything to end me. To demoralize me. To break me. We have four beautiful little girls together 8,7,5&4. Such a shame he abused them too! I experienced so much abuse on so many levels i began to tell myself it was normal and maybe i was the reason, maybe something was wrong with me. 2 years ago, i had a nice 3 bedroom home, a nice car, my daughters. It wasn’t bad at that moment. Then i got a phone call at work from child protective services said they had got a call about domestic violence was going on in the home and my husband was being neglegent to my daughters and there was drug use going on in the home. At the time i worked two full time jobs, and was in college full time. My husband didn’t work he stayed at home with the girls, at that point i never even thought he would be abusing my babies too. My first thought when i got the call was finally my way out, and then oh no what the hell is going on. I of course cooperated with the investigator i had nothing to hide, i mean i wanted out. The lady first came to my job and met with me, i was completely honest, yes there was domestic violence and i had been trying to get away for years, every time i would leave he would find me and if i didn’t come back right away he would lock me out of the house and keep the kids hostage inside. I had no family and no friends that would help me that were in state. I told the lady i worked two jobs all day and all night and i couldn’t confirm what was going on at my home when i wasn’t there but i never seen him do anything to my girls to harm them, and as far as any drugs i didn’t know. She tried to talk to my husband but he refused which led me to believe he was guilty of something. They interviewed the kids, i told them it was okay that they could tell the truth. And what came out of their mouths was so mind blowing and baffling I was about to kill my husband. At night he hadn’t been doing what he was supposed to. My daughters would sometimes go hungry, he would keep them locked up in their rooms until they fell asleep, that he used to have a lot of people over and he would ignore them. I bout lost it right then. They gave me a drug test and i passed, they gave him one and he did not. Apparently he had been smoking meth. So right then and there they took the girls from me and i was so upset. Luckily i had become friends with one of the ladies at the daycare that my kids attended and she agreeed to keep my girls until i could get away from him and get back on my feet. At this point this man cost me my house, ruined my vehicle and cost me my girls. I’m furious! I ended up staying in a motel and he had people watching me and he found me. He decided to hold me hostage against my will in this hotel room. He had men sitting outside the room in cars with guns pointed at the door, instructed to shoot if i attempted to come out. He left me there for 3 days, no food no nothing, finally i called him crying and mad. So in turn he came to the hotel room, kicked the door in, walked right up to me and pointed a gun to my forehead and one of his friends pointed a gun to the back of my head. I’m praying and crying at this point scared because all i wanted was for him to let me go. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next, my husband pulled the trigger of the gun, and i know god was on my side that day because somehow the gun jammed and no bullet came out. He jetted off and i didn’t see him for a while after that. I called my mom and cried told her my husband had gone crazy and he tried to kill me and to please come get me. And for the last two years everything about PTSD has been more than real. I’m scared to do anything, in fear he will spot me and find me, i am not really sleeping and haven’t in a long time, not eating, anxiety is out of control, paranoid all the time, flashback and nightmares when i do manage to sleep more than an hour and then wake up in trembles and shakes and disarray. I’m on all these medicines and it doesn’t make it any easier.... i wish someone could help me get passed this!