I Still Have Nightmares

I was going to try and do each event in order of them happening. I have decided to write about the one giving me the nightmares that day. I have had an amazing week!! Sadly, even on vacay I am still haunted. I woke up in the middle of the night this morning and couldn’t really sleep after. Not unusual for me when I do have them. This nightmare was of one of the last times he put hands on me. He had been sober, so it was NOT alcohol induced! Something he tries to use as an excuse! It is also one that I have so much anger from still. Mostly because his young niece was in the house and heard everything. Thank goodness she was in a bedroom, but unfortunately she heard it and saw the aftermath. For that, I blame myself for not grabbing her when his mood started to change and leaving the house before it got to the point it did. He had been pretty short tempered for a week at that point. More than usual. We started arguing about dumb stuff. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I remember it really wasn’t that important. He was on the couch and I was cleaning up the kitchen from lunch. I had sent his niece up to watch TV and have rest time in one of the bedrooms. He was saying snide comments for me to hear. I remember saying, “why are you so angry?” Oh boy, that set him off saying he wasn’t and I was a lazy piece of shit and the name calling just got worse from there. I just ignored him for 20 min or so and kept on finishing cleaning up. He just got more angry saying, “you have nothing to say dumb ass?” I remember walking into living room and giving him an “are you serious“ look. I went to walk away and he threw the tv remote at me hitting my upper thigh. He stood up as I was picking it up from the floor. It was broken. He said’ “that’s what your bitch ass gets for staring at me.” I went to walk away and made the mistake of saying, “you are fucking nuts.” I knew better than to say anything!! It just came out. I had turned to head upstairs to check on his niece. He grabbed my arm pulling me around and when he let go of my arm, I fell backwards onto the stairs bc I was pulling away from him. I kicked him away as he came towards me bc he had that look in his eye. His eyes had turned black and I knew I needed to get away. He grabbed me by my shoulders banging my head onto the stairs over and over. Now, I do not know his intent on why he grabbed my arm to begin with. Just to be clear...I can not speak for what he was thinking or why he did anything I have and will state. When he stopped banging my head, his face looked panicked & he screamed “Dina you are bleeding!” He grabbed something...I can’t remember what..and came towards me like he was gonna try and wipe the blood. I panicked and turned around crawling up the stairs telling him to “stay the fuck away!” I got to top of stairs and turned back to see blood on the wall and stairs. I grabbed my phone from my bedroom and went into my bathroom. I had blood everywhere. My face was covered, hair soaked with blood, my shirt & hands had it all over. I grabbed a towel and put pressure on back of my head. I called his sister and told her to get home and take me to ER ASAP. I think I may have passed out because I don’t remember sitting there and waiting. I just remember his sister in my face telling me let’s go. I didn’t want his niece to go to ER because I was so mad she already heard it and saw me full of blood. I had his sister drop me at my friends house. This friend wasn’t aware of the physical abuse and stepped up like a champ. Asked questions later not in the moment. His sister was so worried she followed us to ER and insisted she be there. I had 1 big cut on back of my head. They gave me a huge painful shot in my head. Then cleaned it. They wanted to do staples or a few stitches and I refused when one option was a little adhesive and laying down for a week. I promised I would not do anything and just lay if I didn’t have to get anything in my head. I lied to the ER staff who asked numerous times how it happened. I said I fell. The worst part for me was my niece was there and heard me lie. Something I do not want her to do for any man!!! His sister asked if I wanted a hotel for the night. I just wanted to go home. I was more worried about HIM than myself. I didn’t want him to go do something dumb if we didn’t come home or hurt himself. I just asked her to keep him away from me. We went home and he was sleeping in bed. I slept on couch with my head propped up and pads ER gave me to put under my head, so I didn’t get blood on anything. For the next week I slept on that couch. Lived on that couch. I could smell only blood for weeks. It was permanently in my hair no matter how many times I washed it after the cut was healing. I ended up having a severe concussion for a few months. I couldn’t work for a few weeks. I had to get glasses bc my vision was messed up for those months. I hid it from everyone. Told family and friends my clumsy self fell. It was in February, so we weren’t going many places and no softball. It was easy to hide from friends. He couldn’t look at me for days. Usually didn’t after a big event. He said he couldn’t look at me bc he was so ashamed. He did take care of me after a few days of me ignoring him laying on the couch. He did “act” like he was remorseful. I’ve learned it was an act bc it would not have kept happening if he truly was remorseful. You don’t make the same mistakes over and over if you truly were sorry. The real disgusting thing about this is when talking about it, he said I need to just leave him be when he gets in his moods. I need to ignore him when he starts saying mean things. I need to stop poking the bear. Something his mom had said to me too...”try not to poke the bear.” I took her advice many times. I sadly still got abused when ignoring or going upstairs to bed to get away from him. There really wasn’t anything to do when he got into a mood except leave him. I just couldn’t leave my abuser. As crazy as it sounds...I couldn’t. I did believe each time was the last. I did believe he loved me as much as I loved him. I hope letting go of this event will take it out of my nightmare playlist. If I can make 1 nightmare disappear at a time, I’m winning!