The Pitbull

No this is not a dog, but a person. A person I don't speak of often because to speak of him is almost like giving him power over me. I was, in all honesty, almost prepared to never have to speak of him ever again, until I started to fear for a friend.

I started seeing the pattern, a pattern that some are not aware enough to notice and catch. This pattern is not easy to spot because the topic is hush hush, taboo almost. People don't talk about it, it is not "polite conversation." True as that may be, avoiding the topic does not just simply make the problem go away, if anything, it makes it worse. It makes the survivors feel alone, helpless. It makes future victims unaware of what is happening, they just simply don't see the signs in front of them. So, what exactly am I talking about? What is a Pitbull and who is a Pitbull? For these answers, I take you back in time.

I was seventeen, just a few short weeks away from my eighteenth birthday when I met him. We worked together and he was nice, funny, smart, and charming. We became friends and once I turned eighteen we started dating. It was not long before the flags should have started registering, but he was a nice guy and I, well, I was young and unaware. He helped care for his parents whom were deaf and had health problems, he couldn't be a bad guy. Little did I know I was about to find out just how dangerous he was. He was there to rescue me when home life was not a friendly place.

It started with a few arguments, typical for young couples. There was one that stands out the most. Had I known what I do now I would have listened...I would have let it all go. We spent the day bickering, I let it go. We had both been having a bad day. During a phone call, he even told me he was no good for me, that we should go our own ways, but I talked him out of it. Told him he could not be as bad as he was making himself out to be. Slowly afterward, I began to distance myself from all my friends and family. It was easier this way, the fighting was less due to his insecurities and jealous ways. Slowly, he became the only person I had close, the only person I felt I could depend on. No one else was around, because I had let them all fade away. I had given into what he was aiming for, getting me to need only him. After a few months we were living together and things started getting worse. He would go out all night and I was to stay home. He could frequent the bars and I was too young. He would be out all night and I had, well, no one. When this began to get to me I asked a friend to buy some alcohol and I attempted to get him to spend a night in with me. That was...well, not what he wanted, he wanted to be out. After some heavy arguing, he snapped and shoved me threw our kitchen table while storming out the door. He spent a couple days gone before I finally got a call. I later found out he had been hiding out at my mother's, a person he had driven me away from. I packed my things and I left. I left town, but that was not the end.

He found me and continued to keep trying to make contact. I refused his calls, avoided any contact. That was until one day he showed up where I was. He spent the next few days pleading with me. Telling me how sorry he was, that he loved and needed me. I bought it. Things turned bad once again shortly. Matter of fact, they got worse. Things progressed from him verbally attacking me and driving a wedge further between me and friends to tantrums where things would get thrown at me. Every episode was ended with him wrapping himself around me and weeping as he told me how sorry he was and that it was never going to happen. Each episode made me want to run, but I was trapped. I had nowhere to go, no one to go to. One night he returned from his weekly trip to the bar, finding me in bed sleeping, his idea of waking me up was to throw a glass ashtray at my head. The bedroom became a boxing ring, with me as the underdog with no chance of winning. The cycle continued. He would throw tantrums and I would get hit and verbally assaulted. Once he would run out of steam, he would become the most apologetic sensitive person. At least for a few months. Soon there were broken bones, black eyes, bruises, and all on me. The house had holes in the walls where either his fist or my head had gone through. Soon the apologies stopped and when he was done taking out whatever he wanted on me he would simply stop and walk away, even sometimes leaving the house for me to clean up the mess.

Friends and family started coming back around, I am sure it was to keep an eye on me as it had gotten way out of hand. The tantrums were almost a daily occurrence. Though they were there, though they tried to talk to me, it was too late. "They didn't know anything." "They didn't understand." "He loved me, just got angry sometimes because I didn't listen to what he wanted me to do. I needed to behave better and make him happier." By then, it was too late. I was too scared...I was too ashamed to take or ask for help. Things continued down this road. At one point, the place I was working at would not even allow him on the property; at least until I had to quit because he didn't like me working there anymore.

It took a long time and a major event for me to finally walk away. An event that almost killed me. During a camping trip, he snapped in our tent and I don't remember much more than clips and what others have told me. I know he pinned me down by kneeling on my chest. I know he used both his fists to hit me in the head over and over again. I know it took two guys from a neighboring campsite to pull him off me while another pulled me out of the tent. I also know that I was taken out of the campsite to a hospital by ambulance with a neck brace and a backboard. Once in the ambulance, my body just gave up and everything went dark until I got to the hospital. I was placed in my own private room, with armed police officers as The Pitbull had run and disappeared into the woods. I am not sure when they caught him, but I know they did. I also remember waking up, not able to talk or open my mouth as my jaw had been broken. I had two doctors and a few nurses standing around my bed. All of them looked at me as if I was some pathetic being and then they started talking. They told me that due to the injuries he had caused me I was basically in the same boat as some pro-boxers with major brain injuries. They told me that my number of concussions was numbered and that it could be one more or a handful before my spinal cord could possible internally decapitate me. They continued to tell me that if I ever let him lay a hand on me again, it could very well kill me. Later the police came in. they informed me that he had been found and arrested. They also informed me that they knew I was a strong enough woman to get away, because somehow in the chaos, somehow even with him on top of my chest like he was I had managed to break his nose. As I began to cry thinking I was going to jail, one of the officers wiped away my tears and told me to not worry. That it was over and that no charges would be brought against me as I was clearly defending myself. That day, I found myself and my strength again. I would get away from him. Upon returning home I packed only a small gym bag of clothes and walked out the door. For a few weeks, I was homeless and couch-surfed where and when I could. I didn't care, I was free.

I fought and I survived, or so I thought. I did, however, get a job, find a place to live, and start piecing my life together. He was in jail and I was safe, or so I thought. After about a year, I received notice from the court system that he was being released. I spent that moment forward always looking over my shoulder. I was terrified he would find me, and you know what... he did. It started with random roses being left on my car while it was parked in the college I was attending's student lot. I spoke with the school and they gave me the code to start parking in the faculty structure that was attached to the school. I even changed my class times in the middle of the semester to attend in the mornings instead of the evenings. Then the letters started coming in the mail. My sense of security was gone. Wherever I went I was watching for him, I was hiding behind as many locked doors as I could. It stopped for a while because I had left town, but when I returned it started all over again. At one point, I actually started going crazy and had to seek help. I had become afraid to even open the outside door to let the dogs out, I was avoiding windows in my home because he might see me. The therapist gave and explained the term The Pitbull to me. It is a person who, like a Pitbull, grabs a hold and never fully lets go. Almost like a locking jaw. He told me that this guy may never fully leave me alone, not until he gets bored with me. Not until he starts seeing that I am not afraid and looking over my shoulder all the time or.... he ends up in jail for good. He has also explained to me that I was smart for never going to get a restraining order, because with people like him.... they are nothing more than a challenge. A taunt to try and break it, to see if I would actually protect myself or if he could get around it.

I am safe and happy now. I am also proud to announce that this Pitbull no longer has me fearing and looking over my shoulder anymore. This whole thing could have been so much worse, but it also could have been avoided. All it takes to keep people safe is to start talking. Start telling your stories. Start letting people know what flags to look for. I say people because yes women are ten times more likely to be victims, but they can be abusers too. Abuse does not always start with hitting. It starts with grooming. It starts with the name-calling, the restricting of contacts, relationships, and self-esteem demolishing. Just because they don't hit you, does not mean it is not abuse. Just because they say they are sorry, love you, need you, and it will never happen again does not mean that it is over. The hitting starts when they have nothing left to take from you, when they know you feel you have nowhere else to go, and no one else to turn to. Watch for these red flags, listen to your gut instinct. Protect yourselves, because they are not going to and always know you are never alone.