It wasn't the first time he hit me that made me think I was being abused.

The picture I used as the cover photo is one of me, seemingly happy in Traverse City sipping wine on a hot July Afternoon. I am wearing long sleeves because there are bruises all up and down my arms and I did not want any of the others on the field trip to see them.

It wasn't the first time He hit me that made me think I was being abused.

It wasn't the second, third or fourth time.

It wasn't the insults, isolation, or manipulation.

There were red flags from the beginning. His friends warned me about him. About his temper. About his “moodiness” His own mother candidly told me that “His Dad beat me, his brother hits his wife. You be careful.”

It wasn't until I started to fix myself that I realized I wasn't the one with the problem.

Let's start at the beginning.

It's 2008. I'm 22, naive, and just out of my first serious relationship. I'm living by myself in a rented, run-down trailer on 10 acres in northern Michigan. There isn't any Internet where I live and my driveway is nearly inaccessible. This was supposed my personal haven where no one would interrupt my solitude. Where I can do what I want without judgment. I was more depressed than I wanted to admit and working a job I hated. I told everyone I was fine. They believed me. I started dating Him.

I'd known him and we'd been friends since winter of 2005. I'd played with his band on and off for the past two years. My Ex didn't want me in the band, and subsequently, I'd had to quit unwillingly. I joined back up when He and I started dating. They were working on their second album and I provided some backup vocals and help elsewhere.

On our first date, he only talked about how mean his ex-girlfriend was. How she'd treated him wrong. How all his ex-girlfriends had been wrong and bad people. I believed him. I wanted to believe him. I wanted his companionship. He was tall, dark and broody- that certain type of mysterious that kept drawing me in deeper. I wanted to help him. I thought he was just treated wrong.

He moved in with me three months after we'd started dating. He brought his dog, who was a joyous influence on me but was also the first red flag. “I had to beat her until her nose bled because she kept running away. After I got her fixed and after that one time she never ran away again.”

I rationalized that people train their dogs in different ways. It scared me a little, but I talked myself out of letting it bother me. This was just how he thought he should handle the animals.

We had our first fight a month after he moved in. He was working second shift. I wanted to surprise him with a home-cooked meal. So I stayed up until he got off work and had a meal ready, candles lit, and put on a nice dress and heels. He came in with a sack of Burger King, ignored me and the food, ate his burger and then went to sleep. I was crushed. He told me he was tired and that what I'd made he wouldn't like.

I confronted him the next day and he told me that I should have known better. When he gets home from work he's tired. He'd had a long day. I told him I just wanted to do something nice for him, have a romantic evening. He laughed at me, “oh God, you're not the romantic type. Don't lie to me.” I cried by myself afterward. He said I shouldn't take it so hard.

I can't remember everything that happened. I woke up with bruises all over my legs and back. He told me I probably fell.

We'd toured together before, seeing the inside of every shady bar in Michigan. It was fun to be a rockstar. It was different now though. Before it was okay if men talked to me, bought me drinks, tried to pick me up. Now it was an issue. He thought I'd cheat on him. He said I was acting like a slut. I wasn't allowed to talk to other guys at the bars unless they were his friends.

On Halloween, we'd dressed up as Roger and Jessica Rabbit. I was talking to a friend from another band about doing a show together when He came up to the bar and dumped my drink on me. He called me a drunk whore. Told me that I was flirting with the guy I was talking to. Told me I was too drunk. We left in separate vehicles. I got wasted that night to spite him and puked on the way home. When I got home I washed off and climbed into bed. He threw me out for the first time. We fought. I was near blackout drunk. I can't remember everything that happened. I woke up with bruises all over my legs and back. He told me I probably fell.

This would happen several more times over the course of eight years. Eventually, he had me convinced I was an alcoholic. He'd even managed to persuade some of my family into thinking the problem was me. I would drink to spite him because I knew he hated it. Then he'd use my drunkenness against me and blame me for making him mad.I hated how it made me feel. I hated the memory loss. I hated that even if I had one drink he'd claim I was “smashed” or say “You're not just going to have one. I know you. You're going to drink that whole bottle and pass out on the couch texting your other boyfriends.”

Our relationship continued.

He got into a fight with my brother at a party at my house. In front of my whole family, he embarrassed me, acted like a child, and had a near-physical altercation with my mother. He did it again at a family reunion where he tried to run over some of my cousins with his car because he was mad that they were “in his way in the driveway”

I brushed it off. Apologized on his behalf. Told everyone they were just being drunk idiots.

He never apologized, to me or to my family. He would tell me later that “I shouldn't have to apologize for anything,” in a long rant that would be the anthem of the next eight years we were together.

He never admitted fault. He never once made a sincere apology to me. I’d tell myself that I was the one who needed to change. That He was right. I was indeed the one who was wrong. He kept telling me I was the one who had the issues. I knew I'd had baggage. Depression is something I've dealt with since adolescence. It must have just been me acting needy or moody.

He kept saying nobody “Gets IT.” As though “it” was the mystery to life that only he'd figured out. IT didn't exist. IT never existed except for in his head. I thought I'd be the One to “get IT.” I was going to be the girl that understood him.

He complained constantly about his job.

How he hated most of his coworkers. How they all treated him like shit. How his bosses were always wrong. I'd ask if he wanted to go back to school, to finish the few credits he'd needed to graduate. I asked him if he wanted to start looking for other jobs. If he wanted to put in for management to fix the problems. He blamed me every time he failed to get a job or when he didn't get a promotion.

He was almost always late to work, but would never take time off for family or sickness. He'd rack up attendance points to the brink of being fired because he'd stay up too late playing video games or watching anime. When I would talk to him or confront him about it, he told me he “wasn't tired,” and that “You aren't my boss. I can handle it.”

When he worked 3rd shift at one job he'd come home and stay up until just before I'd get home from work. Then he'd go to sleep and I'd have to walk on eggshells when I got home so I didn't wake him. He'd wait until the last minute he had to wake up to emerge from the bedroom. For a long while, I tried to make sure he had dinner before he left for work. After years, he continued to snub the idea of a family meal together and would just sit on the couch before he had to go to work.

Then there was the first car accident.

He convinced me that we needed to cut down to using one car to save on gas money.

When we’d been together for a year, I was in the middle of my first of many fitness kicks where I'd work out six days a week for an hour or more at a time. I'd slimmed down for Him, so I could look good for Him. He'd been working out with me sometimes too. I liked the confidence it gave me. When the accident happened I was in the best shape I'd ever been in.

He had picked me up from work and we were driving home. A one-legged man who was high on opiate painkillers blew through a red light and t-boned the 1998 silver Ford Taurus we were driving. It crushed the driver's side doors, bent the car frame, and broke all the windows. The car was totaled. They took Him to the hospital in an ambulance. Our friend picked me up and took me to the hospital. I remember I couldn't get a hold of my Mom or Dad to help. Our dog was in the back seat of the car and I was on the roadside holding her and crying as they took Him away in an ambulance and the wreck away on a tow truck.

He had a bruised lung and bruised ribs but was otherwise okay. I had whiplash but he convinced me neither of us needed any more treatment. I had nightmares about the crash. He told me they were nothing. We were down to driving His shoddy, mid-90s, 4-cylinder Hyundai that had seen better days. He was on first shift now and I had been waking up 2 hours before my own shift started to drive him to work. He complained every day to me about having to wait until I was out of work to pick me up.

Three weeks after the first accident, there was the second accident.

This one was worse. This time I was driving, and a kid checking his text messages ran head-on into our car going 55 mph. I blacked out and don't remember a lot of the details. I remember it being very quiet. I remember going in the ambulance. I remember how much I hurt everywhere. I had bruised almost all of my insides and had severely injured my back and knee. He told me three days later when I still couldn't move that I was “faking it.”

I was off work for 18 months. During that time I was in physical therapy. I didn't drive much of anywhere and wasn't allowed to do much of anything. He constantly reminded me of what a burden I was. He told me to “get over it,” like I could fix my injuries and just go on. It took me six months to have enough confidence to drive myself again. Even then, if I had to take Him anywhere he'd berate me for waiting too long to turn, for going too slow, for stopping too early. He'd get mad at me for jumping if we got too close to another car.

We moved into a double-wide his Mom had bought him years ago.

It was even further away from town and isolated on 30 acres. His mom lived on one side and his sister lived on the other. I didn't have TV, only books, magazines, and some games. I was completely isolated.

After months of seclusion, I ran into an old neighbor from my youth who invited me to a poetry group. I'd always loved poetry so I joined.

I asked Him if he wanted to go and do this with me. He liked writing. He liked to write poetry. He didn't want to go with me. He never really did want to do anything together. The first few weeks of me going to the Poetry group went okay. We'd meet at a bar, I'd get a burger and a drink and talk with my new friends. Then one night he told me we couldn't afford to have me doing it anymore. It was too expensive. I had to quit going.

I had no outlet or friends around me.

Just Him. Always Him. I began to get really clingy. He was often the only person I'd see the entire day. I didn't have anyone else to talk to. He'd say “You're smothering me. Stop asking all these questions about my day. Nothing ever happens, so stop asking.” He began to push me away more.

Eventually, I got cleared by my doctors to return to work under some physical limitations. I got a job. I hated the job just like I'd hated the last one, but I did it because he convinced me I couldn't be anything more.

I eventually persuaded him that I should go back to school. I'd get grants and scholarships, but it would mean we'd have to move where there was Internet so I would be able to do my homework. We got a cute rental house in a small town outside of the small city where we lived. It was a nice change from living in trailers for the last few years. I felt like I had a home.

I started school.

In my first year, I won several awards for writing. I worked three jobs and went to school full time. He said we couldn't afford the house I liked so much. He said it wasn't practical. We moved back into a trailer that would eventually cost us more money than the house.

We fought more. Over everything. He said school was changing me. He told me I wasn't myself anymore. He said I was acting like a know-it-all. He said he worked harder than me. He told me we couldn't afford for me to quit even one of my jobs. He started hitting me more often when we fought. I'd yell at him and he'd smack me across the face. He'd grab me by the arms and shake me. He'd throw me across the room. He'd laugh at me when I'd cry. He told me he didn't love me. He told me he was never attracted to me. He told me I was a mistake. I told him any relationship worth keeping takes work. We just have to work harder at it.

I clung to him for help and support. I didn't believe I could be free of him.

He controlled all of our money. I didn't even know what was in our bank accounts. I had to hide any extra money I got.

My second year of school I decided that in order to get a better degree I needed to transfer schools. We got married that same year. On our wedding night, he was only interested in opening presents. We hadn't had sex in three months at that point. He was lazy about it. He told me he didn't want sex with me because I was too drunk, but he did it anyway because he loved me. I wasn't drunk at all, but I didn't want to fight.

Our honeymoon was in May. We took a cruise to the Bahamas and went to visit my brother in Charleston. We didn't have sex once on our honeymoon. He only left the cabin to eat or when I begged him to go ashore with me. He complained about everything and blamed me for “making us bankrupt.”

We moved to Kalamazoo that summer. He didn't have a job and I worked two jobs until he got one months later. He made a big show of having to sell some of his stuff to make rent. He convinced me to throw out most of my books and records before we moved. I was the farthest away from my family that I'd ever been. I told them everything was going great. I concentrated on good grades and building my resume.

The abuse continued.

I was further away from my family and my new friends had very little idea what my home life was like. Whenever they came over, he would be gone at work or sleeping. When he was around them he was often cold and quiet. When they left he would complain to me about how they were “idiots” or “annoying.” “I don't get why you'd want to be friends with them.”

The beatings got worse and more frequent.

He started to lash out more openly at my animals. One of the biggest fights we had was when he drop-kicked my elderly cat just for being near him. “I fucking hate cats.” was his only excuse. I continued to confront him, in my mind, it was more okay for him to hit me than it was for him to hit my cats. He ended up hitting me so hard he broke my lip open. I have a scar on the inside of my lip still to this day.

I stayed with him.

I started seeing a therapist when I could. I still thought it was all my fault. I went to my doctor because I couldn't lose weight even though I was working out and I constantly felt like I had a lump in my throat. I later found out that the incredible amount of stress I was under was causing severe heartburn. So bad that the acid reflux had in some cases made it into my sinus and was the cause of me having repeated sinus infections for the past few years. I began to take antidepressants and heartburn medication, still thinking it was my fault.

After a few months of therapy, my therapist confronted me and said “you often talk about your marriage more than you do your issues in college. That seems to me, to be something a marriage counselor might help with.”

I took the idea to Him and was shot down. It took another year of fighting, begging, pleading and being hit before he agreed. We began seeing a marriage counselor after I graduated college. I was working two jobs at the time. He still was on third shift. We never saw one another and he consistently avoided me claiming that “all you want to do is fight.”

The counselor gave us marriage homework. She asked us to spend time together. Connect. Be with one another. We hadn't had sex in over a year at this point, and any advances I made were seen as non-genuine or “smothering,” to him. I was rejected time and time again. I began to ask him about our homework, our counselor’s ideas, saving our marriage. We'd fight. I'd get hit. I'd apologize.

He told me we shouldn't tell our therapist about how much we'd been fighting.

I agreed because it embarrassed me. I hadn't even been able to tell my own family about the abuse, how am I supposed to tell a complete stranger?

Therapy ended abruptly one day when she confronted Him about his lack of involvement and participation in therapy. He stormed out of her office and left me there. She gave me her card and said to call her if I didn't feel safe. It was so hard to admit to myself that I hadn't been safe in years.

We bought a house together. I got a well-paying job. I thought things would get better.They did not. He didn't want my friends to come over. He cringed when I had friends and family over to help us move. I had a house but I was still alone. No one was allowed over.

My sister moved in during the summer after her own abusive relationship ended. We spent long days in the backyard painting and enjoying the sunshine. He stayed indoors, playing games. He didn't show up to my birthday party because he didn't take the time off off work.

The fighting got harder for him to hide with a roommate. He avoided me more and more. He got more quiet and withdrawn. He stopped trying to make an effort. I tried to schedule “us" time, by waking up three hours before my shift when he would be awake. I'd find him asleep on the couch and he would yell at me when I'd ask him to wake up.

I started sword fighting.

It was a fantastic release for me. I got to hit back when someone hit me. In this sport, I got to control and choose if I got bruises. I met new friends through a medieval re-enactment group. Friends who were caring and supportive. They gave me the confidence I needed to be able to say “enough.” I had done more mental growth in a few months than I had in eight years. I had the self-confidence I needed to break free.

It took me eight years to finally see that I was worthy, that I didn't deserve to be hit, that I could defend myself. Every practice I went to I learned more about myself. Who I really was. Every time I landed a blow on another opponent I felt a little better inside. I found a group of people who shared my interests and my passions. My "know-it-all-ness" wasn't something to be ashamed of. College hadn't changed me, it had only opened my passion for learning. They encouraged me to explore more, learn more, be more and become more.

I was free to be my own person and confident enough to know that I could live without him. I couldn't fix him, and this wasn't my problem any longer.

I confronted Him for the last time in October of 2016.

We had many more fights after that, but they were all through email. It still caused me panic attacks and a deep feeling of insecurity, but the pain was over. I began to see a therapist who was an abuse specialist. She made me analyze myself, my actions in the relationship and helped me grow and move on.

I am still healing. I am still insecure sometimes. But I am safe. Finally, after nearly a decade, I can say that I now know what true love, friendship, and family mean. I am surrounded by love and support daily, and it makes a world of difference.

Domestic violence goes unreported in more than half of all cases. Emotional and mental abuse is often not prosecutable but is frequently the catalyst for physical violence.

If you are being abused, you are not alone. Don't suffer in silence. There is no excuse for abuse.