FROM VICTIM TO VICTOR

I am going through something very serious and traumatizing. For those of you that read my blog, it is my hope that you will pass this along. Talk to others about it. If you know someone that might be going through this, share it. If you know someone that has become victorious over it PLEASE SEND THEM MY WAY. I wish I could say I am over it, but ashamedly I am not. I have not gotten to the place of acceptance or forgiveness and I am beseeching all of you to reach out to this war weary siesta! I want to be a VICTIM NO MORE!

This is the story of abuse, it may get graphic, I don't know, depends on what I am led to write. There are real people, men and women, that have spouses or are in relationships with people that suffer from this devastating illness. It is called paranoid delusional jealousy disorder or "Othello Syndrome". There is not much I can find written about it, but I am a victim of one such person. He will not get help. He is free today to walk the streets and potentially harm someone else. I pray and ask you all to lift fervent prayers for this man! He needs a great move of God. My safety may depend on it and most definitely his next relationship's safety will depend on it.

This story is painful to tell but 100% true. I am asking God to be with me as I type this. I am doing this to reach out to others that may have suffered or be suffering. In order to move on...sometimes you just gotta release it all and leave it at the cross. I have never really told anyone the whole story as I am about to because, well, its pretty frightening and in some cases embarrassing.

I have spent most of my life in the pit of victimization. Emotional abuse, physical abuse, mental cruelty. Along with that comes the guilt, self-loathing, mental anguish, depression, etc. I cried and cried and turned to many avenues for comfort, food, drugs, alcohol, sex and over spending. I wound up emotionally and physically bankrupt. BROKEN! BROKEN! BROKEN!

Broken finds broken and most of the relationships of my life, both male and female were broken and unhealthy. I was used and couldn't figure out what on earth I was doing to cause people to treat me that way. This is still a huge issue for me. I try and be as kind and giving and loving as I can. What is my problem?

The worst of the worst took place Thanksgiving of 2006. I was stuck in one of the many evil pits of my life and miserable. In yet another ridiculous relationship with a man that only used me for the money I had and the partying life I could provide. Along came JR. I am not using names but for expediency initials will do. (JR is really fitting too! for those of you that ever watched Dallas).

JR was just about the best looking thing I had ever laid eyes on. He was smooth, won me instantly with romantic, mushy stuff that I so love. 3 weeks later... the first scare. We were at the house of a friend of his (admittedly we both had serious drug issues and partied). JR was leaning up against me and I was in heaven... totally adored this man. The man who owned the house was sitting in a chair in front of where JR and I were sitting he turned around and just smiled at us and turned back to face the TV. JR hopped up and stared at me in the most awful, frightening way and said what are you 2 talking about? He was furious. Insisting that this man that I barely knew was whispering to me and I was whispering back. I was stunned speechless. I had never spoken a single word. I had not opened my mouth, not once. I assumed it was the partying and insisted he was mistaken and let it go. I was unnerved but still totally in "love".

Some time went by that we were completely alone and did not go anywhere so I didn't realize this was not a one time deal! A month later he introduced me to another friend of his. This time we were all at a motel. Partying. Everything was amicable just a couple of sick people chatting and hanging out. I went to the bathroom. I come out and JR wants to know why I didn't close the door when I went. (I most certainly had closed the door.) I told him he was mistaken. No he insists that I opened the door and then closed it and then opened it. On and on it went. He told me that my eyes better not leave his. I was not to speak to that man or look him in the eyes again. I was miserable and frightened. I had not done anything. Kept my eyes glued to JR the remainder of th evening and felt a fool because the other man had no idea what was going on and couldn't figure out why I wouldn't answer him when he spoke....it was not the first time this would happen. (It was however the incident that led him to constantly belittle me, call me a liar, a cheater, a slut and everything else he could think of and used this non-existent instance to base all other non-existent instances.)

I went through many, many episodes like this. It got to the point where I was afraid to go anywhere but if I didn't go with him, he would accuse me of having men at the house while he was gone. It got so bad at one point that he insisted people were living in the ceiling of my house tormenting him. (He ripped the ceiling down and barracaded the doors and windows) He really believed someone was watching us and living in a drop ceiling. He kept digital camera memory cards in his pocket at all times insisting they were full of pictures that were supposedly of me doing "bad things" but the photos were of shadows, corners of rooms or nothing. He frequently (and I believe on purpose) misplaced these chips and then accused me of erasing what was on them. He would insist people were writing messages to me on mirrors of the car, hotel room mirrors, bathroom mirrors. I was terrified, trapped and helpless. Who would believe this stuff? I was beaten up for imagined things, constantly accused of immorality, disgusting things that I would never conceive of doing. If the phone rang and it was a wrong number, he was certain it was lover calling for a tryst. I dreaded the phone ringing. If a car pulled in the driveway to turn around, it was someone there to pick me up. I rode in a taxi once to the hospital for my son and when I returned he accused me of being with the taxi driver (who was the most disfigured person I had ever seen). On and on and on it went. Months and months of being trapped. I was totally demoralized and I had become scared of EVERYTHING. At one point he held me hostage in a hotel room watching a microwave oven insisting that people were projecting pornographic images of me into the screen from the walls. This is not a joke! This was my reality and it was beyond comprehension! I didn't know how to escape. JR had me convinced there was nowhere to go or hide and he would never let me go.

THE MOVE (I now call God's Answer to Prayer) He brought me to his home town. I guess he figured there would be no escape for me. God had other plans, thank you Abba Father. I found the Most High through my terror and brokeness. He heard my cries of anguish and fear. I met a wonderful lady (the realtor that now is my friend and boss) and she and one of her sisters saw to it that I got to church! Things began to happen. I was getting hurt more and more. He was getting drunk daily. He went after me one night and choked me for something he imagined and I got away and fled the house in my nightgown. I didn't know what to do. I knew noone. I called his mother and told her I had to call the police. She told me to "stay in the woods that night" and when he sobers up and leaves in the morning for work...get my stuff and move back to Birmingham. He had the vehicle and all the money so that was not possible. I was trapped. He would threaten to hurt me, have me disappear if I left him and believed him. He claimed his family owned the town and everyone would think I was crazy.

On and on it went. I was dragged across the yard of one home we rented. I was choked, slapped, hair pulled, thrown to the floor, into doors, head banged against walls and floors. The worst was the accusations! Mental torment is far worse.

The final straw came when I was just on the verge of getting my children home. I was with a member of my church picking up my children in Birmingham for an unsupervised visit. We get home with the kids and the house was empty, my vehicle gone. Later that evening JR shows up at the house on foot and bleeding from my mouth, saying my car was on fire... it wasn't i found out later, that was just to get me to open the door. I did, called the police to notify that my vehicle was on fire (I didn't know it was a lie at the time)... During the hour and half wait for the police and ambulance he attacked me, choked me, accused me of being in orgies, smashed my furniture, threw things through windows, glass shattering, hair pulled out in chunks and beaten with a metal rod from a shoe rack over something I did not do. Turns out in a violent rage he destroyed my vehicle and managed to calm himself before he arrived at my door. My home was destroyed and I was almost choked to death in a rage over another imagined relationship. I finally had enough God given strength to say NO MORE. God saved me. My daughter slept through the whole thing mercifully and my son although awake and screaming, was unharmed... ANGELS must have been everywhere in that house!!!! God thank you so much for saving me.

I had him arrested. 4 months went by we finally went to court and he denied the whole thing. I had pictures of me, bruised. My car, totaled. My house, ransacked. He said he didn't do it. I did! He claims I was having an affair and I did all that when I got caught!!! It still hurts me to know that he to this day blames me for everything. He can't acknowledge that he is sick and worse his family is funding him.

I lost everything again. Home destroyed, vehicle totaled. 2 children to support. The judge slapped him on the wrist. Gave him time served (3 months) for nearly killing me. Ordered an anger management course and probation. A fine of $571.00 to be paid by June for nearly $5,000.00 in damages. AND HE APPEALED IT! His family paid for an appeal rather than pay for what he had done.

This is where my frustration and disbelief is focused right now!!! How do I even begin to get over this? How can I move on when it continually is forced into my view. How do you go on knowing people believe untruths about you? Now with an appeal I have to go to court again! If I don't, he has won and everyone will believe him and that just makes me sick to my stomach! How can I walk away and let this happen? Is that what God wants? I am sick to death of this insanity and don't know what to do.

The world has not been supportive, but then again the world is for Satan anyway. There is hope in our Heavenly Father. I am searching for a way to overcome. Can you help me or can I help you???? I hope together we can come to a way to become VICTORS not VICTIMS!!!!!

Please feel free to write. Ask questions, make comments or advice always welcomed. AND THANK YOU FOR LISTENING AND READING!!!