Ever since being involved with someone violent I always get a chill and an unsettled feeling when I see someone in the media who has performed an act of violence. Now I know how easy it is to come into contact with someone violent, and I always remember that he was likely capable of killing me if I had stuck around. Of course it is not nearly as disturbing now, as it was when I was sitting right beside him or waiting for him to come home. Thank God. But I will never forget that feeling of being in the presence of someone I knew in my heart was capable of killing me.

It happens every day. Every single day women are killed by men. It is so sad. I was just talking about memoirs I have read and another really good one is called: If I am missing or dead which was written by the sister of a women that was found dead by her BF. When they searched her desk drawer at work, there was an enevelope that is: if I am ever missing or dead, open this.

So she knew this monster was capable of causing her great harm, yet this smart women with a great job felt incapable of leaving him. It is chilling how psychologically taxing these relationships can be.

It is hard to fathom, before I was in the relationship I never could have dreamed it possible, and now that I am coming out of it is getting hard to believe again. But while I was there, what in the world was I thinking/doing/pretending to make myself put up with it?
I remember one of his favorite threats was that he should break all of my teeth out. Somehow that one was worse than his threats to kill me, I guess because it seemed more likely to happen and I would wonder what in the world I would do for the rest of my life with all of my front teeth gone.

I didn't come from a violent family, I had never experienced any form of physical violence before I met him, we didn't even have spankings in my house, and I am a fairly strong woman, who never accpeted physical intimidation from anyone... anyone but him. I don't know if I will ever really understand it.