Birthday girl thoughts

March 24, 2016 

Today was my 39th birthday, hard to believe another year has passed by. It was the perfect day on all accounts: woke up to birthday surprises and spent the morning with my two favorite men, Jim and Jacob. Got the kiddo off to school and spent the afternoon with Jim, taking a much needed nap then dinner with my best friends and my boys. Food was amazing as was the company so you would think that sleep would come to me easily, but my mind had other ideas. 

After laying awake for a few hours trying to quiet the hamster wheel in my head, I finally got up and thought it would be helpful to write down my thoughts. Maybe this is a good time for me to introduce a part of my past that is the reason I am in the mental place that I am....my life with Jake. In March of 2011 I experienced for the last time, the destruction and pain of Jake's anger and control just a few day after my birthday. It was to be a three day ordeal that began on March 24 and would end everything I had known with Jake on March 27. I vaguely recall celebrating my then 34th birthday with Jake at our apartment in Hawaii. I wore the camouflage spaghetti strap dress he had bought me along with his black fedora hat, both appropriate attire for the beautiful sunny weather and Hawaii climate. Jake had left early on the morning of the 24th on a mission to buy me a birthday present at the local flea market. He returned a few hours later with a cake and presents and seemed to be happier than usual. While most would accept the upbeat behavior I knew better, it had previously been the predecessor to violent fits of rage and physical beatings for me so I was careful not to get too carried away with my own happiness. 

He sang "Happy Birthday" to me while I made a wish and blew out the candles. I opened the gifts he had gotten that morning, a handbeaded black and white bracelet and purse to match. I remember vividly wishing for the same thing that I wished for every year on my birthday; I wished for the pain and violence in my life stop and that I could be with my son again living unafraid and peacefully. The rest of the day was uneventful and unusually quiet until later that evening after we had gone to bed. I have never spoken about Jake and I's night time rituals, I have never spoken about much of my private life with him to anyone but I feel like this is the right time to open up a little and share some of my life with him. Before he laid down each night I would lay out two bed pads and an adult diaper so that I could easily change Jake's bedding if he needed me too. He would wake me up and tell me he needed a change. He always slept on his stomach which made it easier for me to do a bed change in the middle of the night. He would hold himself up by his arms so that I could grab the soiled pads and slide them out from underneath him, then slide the clean dry ones back in their place and we were done. All of this took no more than one minute to do but for me, that one minute could turn into a night of no sleep if he decided he didn't like the way I changed his bedding or my attitude. 

That night he decided he did not like my attitude and from then until the sun rose he verbally and physically attacked me, making sure that I knew he was unhappy with me. Around 7 am our neighbor came over and shouted through the open bedroom window. "Hey! Jake! I have had enough of listening to your mouth for one night! You had better lay off of her or you are going to have a problem with me!" And as always, Jake mustered a forceful "yes mam" so she would leave him alone. For whatever reason she was effective in getting Jake to listen to her and stop at any time. She had become my savior since moving in next door to her and she would ultimately put her own life on the line to save mine just two days later. Doreen was a 70 year old hospice nurse who didn't take anyone's shit, not even Jake's and she is still my hero and always will be. 

Shortly after she had told him to lay off, Jake got up out of bed and instructed me to do the same. He wanted me to make him his breakfast and take his two service dogs out to use the bathroom. I let the girls outside and went back to the kitchen to start breakfast but never made it the 10 feet from the front door to the kitchen because Jake blindsided me in the face with one of the wicker chairs in the living room. I remember hearing the "crack" of the wicker as it broke across my cheekbone and temple before I ever saw him swing it at me. Knocked to the ground he came after me in his wheelchair, grabbing me by my hair with one hand while his other arm had me in a choke hold on my hands and knees. This wasn't the first time I had been in that position and I knew if I panicked, screamed or tried to get away from his grip that things would become worse in a hurry for me so I did nothing. Nothing but try to breath and stay conscious while the air was squeezed from my lungs. My face was on fire, I could see all the blood dripping down his arm to the floor in a puddle, my hair now a matted mess as I saw him pull chunks of it out while he tried to make his grip around my neck tighter. 

I don't know how long we were entwined that way, I had started to begin to lose consciousness and was seeing stars when I heard a mans voice coming from behind me telling Jake to let me go or force would be used on him. For the first time in the year that I lived in Hawaii, the police had shown up and arrested Jake for Domestic Violence and put a restraining order on him for me. They had been visitors to our apartment an average of 3 times a week for the year we lived there. All calls from my 70 year old neighbor Doreen and all calls asking for assistance on a domestic. Not once in that year had they ever arrested him when they showed up, not once in that year did they ever ask if i was alright or if there was anything they could do to help me. I was always told to leave and go sleep somewhere else for the night to let things cool down which ended up with me sleeping in my minivan somewhere on the island next to the ocean. But not today, today they stood by me and not him and they hauled his ass away to jail. I couldn't believe they actually did it, I recall the officer telling me as I watched them drive Jake away, that everything would be ok and that I could sleep that night without being in fear of my husband. 

Looking back on that moment I would have never trusted that Officer and his promise that nothing would happen and that they would protect me. Trusting him would almost cost me my life the next day but the rest of this story will continue on at a later time. I am finally tired enough to try and sleep once again. 

Good night