Till Death Do Us Part

A Memoir 0

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Introduction This memoir is a journey into my destructive, hopeless past. The years of abuse embedded fear in my soul, distorting the understanding of who God created me to be. It is the answers to all the questions my soul once searched for. Now, my life is no longer a riddle or puzzle in which I desperately try to fit the pieces of my shattered self.

It took thirteen years to put these thoughts down on paper. Today, my dreams, my goals, my life are no longer consumed by fear; so, it is now that I can tell my story. No longer enslaved to a destructive way of thinking or a negative life, I am no longer consumed by fear or anger. It is only now that I fill the pages that once were empty except for hope and faith. It is now that my life forms complete sentences on the page; as does my life. Grabbing hold of the truth, I am no longer in pursuit of someone to decipher my past, my present, or my future. It is my story; it is my testimony. Who I am, is a voice that is no longer silenced. I am only one voice among hundreds of thousands of 2

others that have been silenced by fear and hopelessness; standing firm, no longer a victim or survivor, but a victor joining the fight to end domestic violence.

I pray that this memoir will empower its readers to make a difference, to work towards ending this vicious circle and cycle. Please, choose to stand up against domestic violence, human trafficking, stalking, and bullying.

As I write this book, there are thousands of victims of domestic violence dying around the world. Rape, violence, and human trafficking - as well as bullying and stalking - are everyday incidences that are claiming lives. Through murder by the abuser or suicide in desperation as a way out by the victim, abuse does not discriminate by sex, gender, age, color, or socioeconomics.

Please open your eyes, ears, and be a voice for those who can’t speak up.

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Acknowledgements To God, for everything and in everything, I thank you. You are my all powerful. Thank you for your mercy and blessings.

Mama, just for being you, I thank you.

For giving me life, for not giving up on me and praying for me as I walked through the path that was laid before me, thank you. I am eternally grateful my “Lulu.” I love you.

To my “DAD,” thank you for your love, your support, and for the laughter. For the many years of holding my hand as I learned to trust, and finally letting go to fulfill my destiny; as God is now my strength.

To my sister, Adri, we have been through adversities and trials together.

You have lovingly stood by my side without judgement and in prayer; for which am eternally grateful.

For David and Michelle, they are an inspiration and a glance of God’s mercy and beauty.

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Andy - keep being beautiful.

To my brother, for your love, your encouragement, for Rome; I am forever grateful. God, through you, showed me dreams which can come true as I now crave and embrace my future. Thank you for being my brother.

To Nancy, thank you for the inspiration, the love, and for believing in me this project. You are a friend and a mentor; you will forever be in my heart.

For the individuals whom God placed in my path - those I have hurt as well as those who have hurt me – please, forgive me as I have forgiven you.

To Women’s Refuge, Vero Beach; your organization was the path to healing and restoration in my life. Paula, I am eternally grateful for making me understand who I am in God and to God. Silvia Medina, Niurka Barroso, Neli Santamarina, ACA at Raw Space; ladies thank you for guiding and believing in me, and for giving me the

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opportunity to work and learn from you.

It is healing through art.

Thank you, Ericka, from the Mental Health Association.

Pastor Randi Miller, thank you, for, in only a few sessions you have accomplished ten years of therapy.

Nancy B., thank you for the love and support when I needed it most.

Fatima Cรกnovas, Art Daily News International Magazine, your on-going support through your international platform is an invaluable asset to the project.

Ileana Collazo, globally recognized and exhibited Visual Artist/Poet/Art Philanthropist, your offer to partner with ACA and I by including your artwork and providing your Love of Philanthropy platform to manage the project adds an exponential value to our endeavor. As does your experience in the nonprofit and domestic violence victims support arenas.

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Amirii C.

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“Now, my cry is no longer silenced; my voice is no longer stifled; I am no longer a victim but a victor.�

--Amirii C Love...

Excruciating pain and the desire to die were the only things I felt in that moment. I no longer wanted to escape.

In my reality, there was no other way out. The love he showed me made every inch of my body and soul hopeless, and I craved death more than the air I breathed. Love, I feared. On that evening, it was death that I longed and prayed for. I hoped God would hear and answer me this time. Death was my only way out, every other way failed.

Death was the only alternative.

I was a victim of love. I belonged to a psychopath who proclaimed his undying love for me. It took hard work, years of scolding, beatings, and rape, but he was 10

able to mold me into the perfect woman.

I feared him; his mission was accomplished. I no longer believed I was human, my rights were taken away, and belonging to him was the beginning of the end for me.

That evening, I lay on the cold floor in a puddle of my own blood, praying that God somehow would reach down and have mercy, at least one time, and allow me to die. Then, and only then, my pain and torment would come to an end.

Even though I lived through this scenario countless times before, there was something different about this night.

There was a chill in the room that dreadfully heightened the macabre atmosphere, and the silence was eerie.

My body stretched-out on the floor, covered with blood and bruises. My eyes swollen shut; I had no strength to get up. God was deaf to my cries, to my prayers; my soul yearning to rest, but no way out. The many colors of love decorated my body; they covered my flesh as a mockery to the word, love.

Blood, scarlet red, a grim reminder of 11

the love he proclaimed, of the passion and hopelessness he had without me.

The bruises, all colors, shapes, sizes and, examples of his twisted love and dedication to me; his hands molded the perfect woman, like an artist who covers a canvas with paint to create his master piece. He sculpted my body with his hands, my mind with his words, and crushed my soul and spirit with his violence and rape.

My heart began to race as he inched closer to me, waiting for his next step.

Afraid of what more he could do, I became paralyzed with fear. At the sound of my name, I held my breath and anxiously waited for him to deliver the final blow.

My exasperated silent cries echoed the morbid melodies of my soul. In my uncertainty, in my fear and desperation, I cried out, “God help me!” I pleaded with God, “Please, just let me die!”

Standing over my body, he looked down at me, sarcastically cackling; his response to my cries and pleas was a 12

vicious kick to my ribs, as he shouted, “God? Not even God Himself could help you!” his voice proclaimed in mockery.

He wasn’t moved. Instead, he was amused by my desperation; by the blood dripping from my mouth and nose.

He yelled, “In fact, “I am God!” Suddenly, I heard his mother desperately calling out his name, knocking at the door, ordering him to open. Once again, she had come to my rescue; yes, my tragedy was not a secret for his family. Violently, he kicked me in the back of the head and walked away to open the door.

Abruptly, he turned and walked back towards me, to remind me of the promise of love. A promise made on a cold winter’s night as he wrote our names inside a heart in the snow. “I will love you until death do us part,” he lovingly whispered that night as he held me close to him.

But, as the years passed, he added a few extra words of insults and terror to that beautiful promise.

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“The only way you will ever leave me is in a body bag,” he laughed sarcastically.

I told you until death do us part.”

“You are mine, he said as he grabbed my neck, and squeezed it until I gasped for air. The desperation in my soul and the pain in my body had won over the desire to death. My desperate cries for mercy filtered outside the walls. It was confirmation that, for the first time, he had lost control, and it infuriated him.

But his mission that night was not to humiliate me or degrade me, or to take my body and sodomize it. It was not mock me as he raped and beat me, as he had done hundreds of times before.

That night his objective was to crush any part of me that believed or held onto faith or hope; it seemed as if that night he was going to finally be able to fulfill his promise to kill me.

“Until death do us part,” the words that once were beautiful, became a reminder of the level of wickedness I was dealing with.

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I laid on the floor thinking, “Love, love is patient, love is kind it does not dishonor.” [Corinthians 13-4-8] As a child, I learned that God loves me.

The verse above was rooted in my mind. But I could not understand how different the “love” I came to know was.

It was debasing and inhumane.

The love I had come to know was never kind, it was not patient, and it had always dishonored me. It was degrading and full deception and masochism. The love I gave him was unconditional, forgiving, and hopeful. I had forgiven this man so many times, I had lost count, I believed he could change; I was wrong.

My face was covered in blood, my eyes swollen shut, my body and face covered with bruises, and my spirit shattered to pieces. The man that proclaimed his love for me, had for three days, beaten me. For three consecutive days, he had tortured, sodomized, and beat me unconscious. Of course, rape was included as a token of his love for me. I

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belonged to him; my body was his; no longer mine.

He would often say while he beat me, “I now pursue your perfection.” In other words, he only beat me to correct me.

He enjoyed beating me until he had knocked me to the ground. There, in my shame, and in hopes that the beating and the pain would end, I crawled my way to him in repentance; asking for forgiveness, as he delighted in my cowering position and the acceptance of my guilt. How many times before had I begged and pleaded for mercy, begging for him to spare my life as a slave submitted to its master?

That night I begged him to kill me. He enjoyed the power he had over me, over my life and death.

As he yelled out “you belong to me, you die when I let you.”

Deprived of hope, or maybe faith - the faith I once had - I kept hoping and believing that my life would possibly end this way. That God would reach down

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and impart justice and make everything right.

But on that night, I had finally accepted the delusions that his mind had created; admitting my inadequacies and limitations to love him in the appropriate and acceptable manner. How many times had I asked for forgiveness and admitted that I was worthless. It was only my ignorance that prevented me from understanding him, which further enraged him.

How many times had I thrown myself at his feet asking for forgiveness, in hopes to have a minute, a second, to catch my breath?

For three days, in martyr-like endurance, I had survived his beatings and brutal narcissistic rapes. I had escaped death, oddly, what I craved the most at this moment. I endured his socalled love, which I had survived for five years - the rites of love and sodomy.

Each ritual empowered him, killing any hopes to escape or to be freed, and destroying a part of me every time.

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These rituals made me question the existence of God and the reason for my existence. I grieved over the day of my birth. I wondered if I was just a joker put on this earth to entertain some else’s narcissistic behavior.

The possibilities of my existence without him diminished daily. My strength to overcome the fear of his presence, the fear and the disgust of his touch, haunted me. I could no longer do it. I was trained to admit and accept my worthlessness; the unworthiness of having his love, the fact that I was nothing without him and that I could not live without him.

What seemed like hours, were only seconds; when I claim that my mind raced, it truly did. Thoughts and questions overwhelmed me. Was I unworthy of life? Did his love have the power to correct me; to change me? Did I need to be changed?

His only fault to me at that time was his attempt to make me suitable for him, and for society. He would mold me into the perfect woman. He would correct 18

my flaws. For a few seconds, random memories and thoughts came in and out of my mind, blended with the uncertainties of the how and the why I had ended up on that floor, loved by a psycho sociopath.

How did I get here? How was it that I ended up laying in my own blood wishing for my death? How did I go from childhood to this, wondering on a dayto-day basis if he would kill me and dispose of my body in a dumpster, a river, or even in a cemetery? Would my family ever find me? Why had someone not stopped him?

But those questions and concerns rapidly disappeared with another kick to my head, as his infuriating screams that he was not happy that his mother was at the door. Everything went dark as if I walked into a fog; complete darkness.

Go ahead, just let go. I heard a soft whisper in my ear: “Do not be afraid, just let go,” which I did.

“I love you. Why do you make me do this to you?” Those were the last words I heard before losing consciousness.

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Ironic, isn’t it? That was love, the love I had endured and come to know.

Life after death?

It was as if my spirit was snatched out of my body, floating to a bright light. The captivating beauty of this light rendered me speechless and thoughtless; without memories. Brusquely my body came to a halt, and my journey to the afterlife, or to wherever my destination was to be, came to a stop. I looked down, and as if someone had a movie of my life and they had pressed play.

It was me. I lay on the floor, my face covered with blood, motionless. The sight terrified me “This can’t be good.”

How? And why?” What happened to me?” I asked the same questions overand-over again. It was as if my memory was suddenly erased. Soon the answers to my questions would come. My life started to play for me. Bits and pieces of my life were presented before my eyes; the joyful moments and sad times which I had lived were replayed as in a movie.

There were so many memories of laughter with my sister, tender moments 20

with my brother and cousins; happy moments.

The few moments that played before me, childhood memories, time with family and friends, were all pleasant.

Moments at school, my first crush, events that brought joy to my life, the sight of an angel, as I laid on a metal gurney suffering from an asthma attack.

Suddenly, a presence, a bright light, and afterward a warm feeling, came over my body, and the healing from asthma after that day. Yes, God healed me; a miracle from God. God Loved me.

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Fatherly Love I found myself in a place I had tried to run away from my childhood. Lost, in a time and place I never imagined, or wanted to go back to.

Suddenly, fear once again came over me. There I was, standing naked, holding tightly to my sister standing in a shower. I could see the Christmas tree, the lights, the presents outside, bringing mockery to the meaning of Christmas Eve and the birth of Jesus. It was Christmas Eve, the Christmas Eve I had tried to bury deep in my soul.

He stood tall and strong; holding a leather belt tightly in his hand, mumbling the words, “this hurts me more than it hurts you. I am doing this because I love you.� He started to hit us; the leather belt hit our skins. It burned! Each lash not only burned my skin, but shattered my heart, my soul, it broke my spirit. Since the man I had tried to please since I was able to reason. He was the man I tried to make happy, the man that was father, my daddy, my love, and the one I looked up to. He was the 22

man I had forgiven many times before for beating me. I yearned for him to love me, but his only purpose was to break me down; to break us down.

His arms and hands were meant to embrace us as his children, to protect us. Instead, he used them to satisfy his thirst for control and power. That night he took our dignity. We stood naked, begging the man we called father to stop, to have mercy on us. The words, “I am only doing this to correct you,� added insult to situation.

It was then that I had learned to take the blame for others. I learned not to speak up. I learned unfairness. For years we were beaten, and we never knew the motive. It was then that I learned to hide my physical and emotional pain. It was normal in our house, and maybe our culture.

I refused to display any emotion, even though the pain I felt was excruciating, and my heart was breaking. He failed to see me weak and helpless, and this infuriated him. I refused to give him the satisfaction to see me cry my 23

indifference to his rituals, which fueled his rage even further. I was a scapegoat, the child who is blamed for everything. That was love, fatherly love.

It was then and there where I learned to be a victim. My father was my first teacher. But that Christmas eve, the pain was overwhelming. My sister was crying and screaming. He had broken us, I was helpless. He took our dignity.

He crushed us.

My sweet mother rushed into the bathroom, extending her arms in front of this man that was so full of rage. Bravely she screamed, “STOP! Stop hitting them!�

He stopped, standing quietly, as if in shock, he put his head down and walked away.

She quickly covered our bodies with towels, as a gesture for us to reclaim our dignity. In that moment, he lost control of my mom. He walked away, feeling defeated; or perhaps it was shame or guilt. He might have seen himself as we saw him.

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My mother promised it would be okay that he would never hit us again, as she lovingly took us to our room. My mother tucked us in with her loving words and prayers. Her tears rolled down her cheek. That was that. She kept her promise. There were no more beatings after that night. Whatever she did or said, it worked. But the turmoil she endured for us was great. I now know.

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Amirii C

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Love hurts In my journey to my childhood, I relived the night I was raped at the age of six.

The memories which I managed to bury deep within my soul were buried in a place deep enough where I could never find them.

But oddly enough, the night before I was raped, as I glanced at the back of our house and contemplated the beauty of the scenery and the sky, I saw an angel, my angel, which seemed to have no feet. It was about thirty feet tall as it stood next to a mango tree. It extended its arms as if it wanted me to come or to embrace me. I ran to the closet in disbelief, or maybe fear. Maybe he came to warn me or comfort me for what was to come.

The night I was raped, the night that would seal my fate as a rape and abuse victim, the night that I will carry until death do us part. The rapist was a gardener for our family, and he was someone I trusted. But on that night, he lured me into the warehouse, deceiving me, assuring me that my biological 28

father was calling for me. I knew from experience when he called, that you immediately answered. I was naïve and innocent, and I trusted him. He threw me down on the floor and raped me.

He had a repugnant smell; strong with body odor and sweat. He covered my mouth. I did not know I was being raped.

All I knew was that it hurt. I felt dirty and desperate. He whispered, “I love you, this is our little secret.” I tried to get him off me. But I was only six; I could not fight him off.

This man was in his eighties, a “Christian man,” so he said - a man trusted by my family. He raped me, took my innocence, and there was nothing I could do. I could not tell anyone. He threatened me as he said, “this is our secret. If you tell anyone, you will never see your mother again, and your father will beat you.” His threats confirmed that what he had done was not right.

To add to this experience, I had to be around him daily. So many times, I wanted to explain, to shout out what he had done to me, but fear reigned in my 29

young life. Would I be blamed for being raped? Would I be punished? Would I lose my mother? Of course, the mere thought of not seeing my mother terrified me. Images of this man, the rape, haunted my dreams and possessed my life. Anger and hate thrived; it was then and there that I learned what hate was.

Now that I was a victim, it was easier to be silent and accept it.

I started to put the pieces together; the questions I had been asking were being answered. My body raped and sodomized, abused by men who told me they loved me. I associated love with pain; love and degradation, pain and love, and abuse. Yes - I started to understand. That is how I learned to survive - holding everything in. I was learning to be a victim. I was angry at the fact that no one noticed what was done to me.

Quickly, images of the day my mother left my father, parental kidnapping, lies and deception, became normal. Lies were part of my father’s routine.

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Running, constant running, from state to state, country to country; we lived in so many houses that I lost count. The betrayal by the many that were entrusted with my care, running their hands over my body, was slowly killing me inside. I had to keep quiet. I was told my father would go to jail and be deported, and that they would take my brother away. Both ignorance and innocence played against me.

That was my childhood. We were not only ripped from my mother’s side, but we were fed endless lies. Unfortunately, the bond I once had with my mother had vanished. This still flashed before my eyes. I fought the horrific memories of seeing myself thrown against a table.

Once again, I was being beaten at the hands of my biological father.

His powerful hand smacked me across the room. I was fourteen years of age, when this happened, and that night in great desperation, I climbed out from the madness, that was my home. A window became a chance for freedom; hearing my brother’s pleas to take him with me, begging for me not to leave him. That 31

moment brought to my mind the painful reality of my inadequacy, and a failure too profound to reflect upon.

I had failed my brother, as many others had failed me. My biological father told me that my mother did not love me enough to stay with me, and how I disappointed him just like my mother disappointed him. He told me that I was just like her. I saw the many trials and adversities that I would have to overcome, and I felt my brother would be safer there.

I was running away to an unknown world, unprepared for what was to come.

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The beginning of the end The many struggles I had endured were nothing compared to what lay ahead; nothing could have prepared me for what was to come - leaving the delusional safety of my home.

My father never informed the police, and even though I was a minor, there were more legal consequences for him if he called the authorities. I felt as if I was not worthy and that’s what I understood.

My value had diminished, I was no good to anyone, and I thought no one cared.

Run, Mimi, run! It seemed that is all I ever did. Running did not change the fact that I had become a little girl on the run, looking for a savior and protector. I had to overcome many hardships. But I managed.

Then I saw the love of my life. Standing next to my body; he wasn’t broken or frantically trying to save my life. He was not screaming at the top of his lungs, asking God in anger who had brutalized me so severely.

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Instead, the man that I “loved,” my knight in shining armor, stood next to my body screaming wildly in rage, repeatedly kicking me, telling me to get up. My life with him started to unravel, the moments that had defined who I had become up to that point, my fears and my broken dreams and even the desperate attempt to suppress the pain, to survive, had failed.

The night I met him, I saw him as tall, dark, and handsome. To me, he was the prince I had always dreamed of. The butterflies I felt the first time he touched me, had me feeling protected from the world, and the feeling that there would be no more running. But as quickly as the butterflies came, they turned to moths devouring my soul, my dreams, and my life. And what seemed to me to be the end of a life of abuse, molestation, and rape, quickly turned from that to imprisonment, masochism, and sodomy.

Our love story only lasted a couple of weeks, and then jealousy reared its evil head. He was no longer the love of my life. He became my owner – my master.

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There were no more words of love, only words of ownership. Promises of love were replaced by words of torment. The caresses were replaced by open hands and fists until one day when, even the kicks were not enough; he had to strangle me to control me. Smashing my head against the wall was simply not enough. He had to show me who was in control as he violently drove my head through a wall. Many times, he raped me with a gun. Fracturing my jaw and my nose simply fueled his desire to slowly destroy me.

Fragments of four years of severe beatings followed. I had survived, but how much cruelty had I endured; and, why? He had tortured me since I was fifteen. His life, the occult, death, life, dominated his thoughts and actions.

Had I survived what I was not meant to?

Was I supposed to die?

Was his passion to love me, kill me, or destroy me; and why?

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Always destined to be a victim?

The night I trusted him with my life was when he whispered, “I love you.” I believed his words, and so-needed to be loved - to be accepted. The protection that I thought he could give me was what I thought I needed the most.

But instead, I entered a life of sodomy and abuse. Somewhere along the way, I had stopped believing in God. I understood what my father’s abuse had done to me. He made me into a victim; not only beating me, but by silencing my voice. He had crushed my dignity, my self-esteem. My young mind failed to create an alternate scenario.

Unfortunately, I found myself in the hands of someone so much more depraved and cold-blooded than my own father. I was at the mercy of someone who thought nothing of making me his possession. It was too late. My life was no longer mine, and I had become his possession.

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And finally, I was somehow pulled back into my body. Some of the questions I had asked were mercifully answered.

I could hear his voice, the voice I once longed to hear, and now dreaded.

“I love her.”

“Look at her, she’s dead, you killed her.

This time you have done it,” his mother screamed in anger and disbelief.

“Mom, I do love her,” he replied.

I kept hearing those words, “I love her.”

He knew nothing about love, neither did I, but I knew this kind of “love” wasn’t it.

I recall one time that he beat me so bad that I could not stand, and it took several hours to move my legs. As I opened my eyes, I could see his mother. She pounded on his chest crying, while she asked him why he had done that to me.

Maybe this was her feeble attempt to bring back her child, not the monster who stood before her - a wicked, sadistic man with no regard for human life.

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I lived through similar moments when he beat me to the ground and in all his glory would step on me, and kick me. I knew I had to get up. I knew his theatrics all too well. Once he found out I was not dead, his remorse would evaporate.

Knowing I needed to get up, I said to myself “open your eyes!” “Get up, you can do this.”

“You are not going to hit her again!!” she screamed. With my eyes barely open, I could see his sister-in-law rush into the apartment. As she threw her body in top of me, trying to protect me; her petite, fragile, and pregnant frame suddenly covered half of my body in faint protection.

I raised my hand, as a gesture to signal that I was alive, I was not dead, and as much as I appreciated her gesture, I needed her to get off my ribs, I was in pain. I was just thinking “everyone needed to calm down.” The voices confused me. Silently raving, I thought, I was a total mess; bloody, eyes barely opened, broken nose, but in my mind, I 38

had this. I had this situation under control.

Raising my hand, I gestured to his mother and sister-in-law to help me to stand up. But instead, he reached over and pushed them out of the way, pulling me up towards him. He put his arms around me and whispered, “The only way you are ever leaving me is in a body bag.” “I love you. “What in the world is wrong with this man, I thought?

He passed crazy a long time ago. I learned that one cannot negotiate with crazy.

He stood quietly looking at me. I translated the flickers of expressions on his face, and I knew what was about to happen. I had to move quickly, as he sarcastically said, “you see what you made me do?”

I did not answer. Only gibbering silently in my head, with a nonexistent escape plan and an overwhelming urge to just open the door and run.

Problem number one – running, problem number two - getting to the door; yet 39

those were not my biggest obstacles.

My biggest obstacle was getting around and past this big dictator blocking my path. Suddenly he screams, “She is going to leave me! I LOVE HER.” I said to myself, “God, I wanted Prince Charming, how did I ever end up with this crazy man? How did I not see him for what he really was?” Bottom line: I overlooked the signs, the red flags, and those key words in a conversation that could reveal how mentally unstable he was.

For years, I was forced to live with the windows nailed shut, he covered them with plastic to ensure I could not look out the window. Necessities such as eating, sleeping, and even speaking to another human being were privileges that he made me earn. He isolated me from my family. In his obsession, he was protecting and fearing that invisible, non-existent man that wanted to take me away from him; the one that would steal my love from him.

Suddenly, I screamed, “You are not going to kill me; I am going to kill 40

myself!” I was not going to let him take my life.

I don’t even know how I got up, but I managed to get by him. I stumbled into the kitchen and in the hallway mirror I saw my reflection. My face was disfigured from swelling and bruising. I could taste blood in my mouth and could feel the blood dripping down and out of my ears. My ears were ringing, and the pain in my face and my jaw felt as if it make my face was going to explode.

I ran into the kitchen. I opened a draw and grabbed a knife. I placed the blade on the side of my body, I screamed, “You are not going to kill me! I am going to kill myself!”

I had so many feelings, but rage seemed to overpower every other one.

As I stood in that kitchen and looked into his eyes, it was the first time I saw fear in his face. It took me back to an incident in which he had not fed me for two days. So, I humbly told him I was hungry and that I needed to eat. He quietly ordered a pizza. As he opened 41

the pizza box, he grabbed me by the neck and said, “Are you hungry? Eat.” As I started to eat, he punched me in the stomach, and he forced me to eat the whole pizza pie while he punched me. He kept mocking me.

“You hungry, you still hungry?” I was only sixteen years old when this happened, and until this day, I vividly remember it as if it was yesterday. After my stomach could not endure the strength of his punches, and the pain he was inflicting, I vomited all the food on the floor. Then he said, “Eat it.” He forced my head to the floor to eat my own vomit as he laughed, “Are you still hungry?” He pulled me up from the neck and said, “I tell you when to eat!”

I understood that my pain amused him; it gave him pleasure. As the memories of the many brutal rapes and attacks rushed my mind, I felt the knife penetrating my skin. I screamed, “You will not take my life, you will not kill me!”

But once again to prove my voice was not heard, and that I was invisible, and the only thing that mattered was his 42

wishes and his needs, he said, “I’m sorry, please don’t leave me. I don’t know why I do this! I don’t want to hurt you!”

After his confession of love and his pitiful repentance speech, he said “If I wanted to kill you, I would do it while you slept!”

In horror I looked at him, because now I knew he would also try to hurt me while I slept. I looked at his face and remembered the lives he had taken from me, through many miscarriages after his beatings.

God always has plans and purpose superior to the ones we have, and His perfection and His timing are as flawless as He is! God’s timing is perfect.

I quietly stared at him and vividly remembered the many times I tried to leave him, and the many tactics of intimidation inflicted on me. He always assured me that if I ever left him or tried leaving him, he would kill my mother and I knew for a fact he would.

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I flashed back to one Christmas in which he surprisingly had allowed me to see my family as his mother begged him to let me go, and he accepted. After a couple of hours, I opened-up about my situation to my mother and stepfather, I had it all planned for my escape.

He surprised all of us. He suddenly showed up at the door as I sat watching TV. He ordered me to get up, “We have to go,� he said. I told him I was staying, that I wanted to be with my family.

Quietly, he lifted his shirt and showed me his gun, the same gun he had put in my mouth many times. I knew he would kill my mother without incident. I said goodbye to my family, I kissed my mother and told her not to worry. I had tried to leave, to escape so many times, and all attempts had failed. I was hopeless. He had taken years from me.

He had taken my life and my dignity, and he had to be stopped.

As I came up with a plan, so did my body. Unfortunately, whatever feelings of rage and justice that had kept my body upright, and whatever survival mode my mind was in, it would all soon 44

cave in. After he brutally raped and beat me for three days, my adrenaline, rage and whatever else that kept me conscious, would soon dissolve.

Once again, I shouted to him, “You will not kill me; I will not give you the satisfaction.” As everyone screamed, “Stop, stop!” suddenly my mother’s face flashed in front of my eyes and I collapsed.

I opened my eyes to a blinding light. No, it was not God; it was the nurses at the Emergency Room. Doctors and nurses surrounded me. They could not believe that I had been found in the nick-of-time by my hero boyfriend who had rescued me just at the right moment.

I looked up, and I could see his face pressed against the glass door; a constant reminder of who was in control.

Due the nature and severity of the injuries, I had social workers, police officers, doctors and nurses bombarding me with questions.

“Do you know who did this? How many were there, do you know why?” I stood 45

quietly and nodded my head no.

According to him, he had found me in the park. He insisted it must have been a gang.

I was a minor. He made me lie about my age and my last name. I could be free, but he reminded me as he pressed his face against the glass and mouthed, “I will kill your mother.� I read his lips. I never answered. How many more days or hours would I have to endure his presence?

He convinced everyone that he had saved my life. I knew it was not going to be easy - to leave, to escape, and to prove his point, despite the doctor insisting I needed to stay over for a couple of days. He made me sign out against medical advice. Still there was only one police officer that was not buying his story, but he finally gave up.

After ten hours in the hospital, I signed myself out.

On the ride back to the apartment, I kept silent, unsure whether it was the painkillers or the realization that I was running out of time, and the stark reality 46

that I did not have a plan. I knew God had a will, a purpose, but I could not understand it. I never had the option to go back after running away; never any alternative options.

I sat in the car finding fault in everyone who surrounded me. I felt everyone who knew about the abuse was guilty.

They could have stopped him, called the police, or maybe they could have helped me escape. I needed, or wanted, someone to take accountability for his actions, for my life.

For the weeks that followed, there were promises of a better life, and his most acclaimed performance to date was that he would change, obtain counseling and psychological help. He went on and on about how it would help. But also, we would go to church to get help. Church, ha! He did not believed in God. He was very much into the occult, buried in the evil practice of Santeria. But church, as he put it, would help him stop being abusive. These were empty words, phrases and promises I heard innumerable times before. They meant 47

nothing to me, merely empty words. I did evaluate my situation.

I knew I had always needed my father’s love and his acceptance, which still to this day I don’t have, but what was it that I was looking for? And then I understood. I was looking for a protector, someone who would not allow me to get hurt or raped ever again.

How can a love story turn to this horrific life, a life where I was raped and sodomized and tortured for three days, and called a mistake?

There are men who call raping a woman a mistake in judgment, despite hearing the pleas of a woman while their cries are unheard. No, they are not mistakes they are criminal acts.

Even though I knew then, my main objective was to find a way out.

Was my search for my father’s approval and protection the cause of my situation? Or was it the fear of being beaten and raped, wanting someone to take care of me, protect me, and love me. It was this normal desire sought by 48

most women that had gotten me into this mess. Or perhaps it was my innocence, and, despite everything I went through, my innocence was still intact.

Being raised Christian had not stopped anyone from hurting me and it had not stopped me from wanting to die. It was difficult to understand. Love, and what it represented, was evidenced by the fact that Jesus loved me so much that He died for me.

Yet, here are these men that are supposed to love me and protect me.

But they did everything else but love me. I didn’t understand. The association between victims and love led to the sick creation of secrets I kept because of “love.” All I knew is that I had enough of this thing called love. We never told anyone about my father’s abuse.

I never told anyone about the day I was raped when I was six, or the identity of the rapist, because of the love I had for my mother, whom I wanted to protect.

Because the rapist told me if I told someone, my father would hit my 49

mother and I probably would never see her again.

My way to freedom was patience. I knew I had to leave, but I had to make sure he would never find me. Surely my chance would come after three weeks, after three long weeks as my body recovered, long days in which I had to let him hold me, and where the lips that once kissed me and made me quiver, now made me nauseous, and my body sick.

After guarding me for three weeks, he could not take more sobriety and he said he had to do an errand. He stepped out and said he would be back in an hour. By chance he was wearing the white shirt he used one day when he had attacked me and had beaten me unconscious, smashing my head against the dashboard of his car. This all occurred with a police car in front of us.

With full knowledge of the police car positioned just ten feet in front of us, this was his way of showing me that no one in the world could help me. Shortly afterwards, he dragged me unconscious 50

in the street as everyone watched but chose not to intervene.

I was forced to wash his white, bloodied trophy shirt, over and over to remove the stains of my own blood. That memory gave me courage, I said “okay”.

He said, “I will be back in an hour.” I knew where he was going. I knew I had about 30 minutes to escape. As soon as he left, I stood and waited for his car to turn on. I could hear it from the back room, and I lifted the plastic shade to make certain he left.

I knocked at the door of a neighbor I had never met before; barefoot and wearing only a hospital gown. My few clothes, and the only pair of shoes I had, were kept under lock, and he always carried the key. It was his way of making sure I did not go into the streets.

The neighbor opened the door. She was stunned to see my face swollen and full of bruises. I was not completely healed, but I guess every woman knows, so there was no need for an explanation about why I needed to leave. I did not have much time to 51

explain my situation, and I told her that my abuser would return shortly.

My neighbor asked, “how long do you have before he returns?” I said, “ten minutes.” She made a call to her friend, who said to wait five minutes and someone would arrive to help me.

“My friend will help; listen for the horn.”

The neighbor handed me a twenty-dollar bill and clothes and shoes to wear. She asked no questions. I went to the apartment, got dressed, opened the window, and waited. I knew that if I was caught, he would kill me.

I heard the horn, and once again I climbed out the window, running for my life as I had done when I was fourteen. I climbed into the stranger’s car and never looked back. There was so much pain and anger. Once again, I found myself running.

I soon changed the color of my hair, and I wore contacts, and even changed my name and my appearance. I never wanted him to find me. I wanted to move to a different city - to start from scratch.

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But I was always afraid, careful not to walk at night. God placed people in my path people who helped me along the way.

And then it happened…

One day as I walked to work, I saw him as he drove by me. A paralyzing fear came over me as he made a u-turn and quickly got out of the car. I thought of running. The years of torture had gotten to me, but God gave me strength and courage to face him. I stood tall, and said, “What? Are you here to finish what you could not do before?”

“What?” he answered.

He said, “You look good.” He came towards me and I rejected his open arms. I walked away. It felt good not to run. He walked away as well, and I never looked back. But those memories of the years of abuse, the years he took I will carry with me until death do us part.

I try not to think about him, I forgave him. I can’t erase the memories but I can forgive him. It was easier to live by 53

doing so. Unfortunately, the damage that he did lived on by the decisions I made next.

The Lord is close to the broken hearted.

Psalm 34:18

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Amirii C.

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Life goes on Life went on. All I knew is that I had to make money and educate myself. I had to bartend in a gentlemen’s club and go to business school. Every day I feared he would wait for me and kill me, but I was okay with that. All I knew is that I had to make a life without him.

Unconditional love…I never found it.

Life became painful. My friends never knew what I had gone through. The men who loved me never understood love. I finally met a man I thought could be my protector.

He was the perfect man when sober.

But when he drank, he would insult me insults he never remembered. I cared for him, but I had to let go of him, painfully. I moved on from someone who I thought was my best friend, through thick and thin.

I was not able to fall in love, I didn’t understand love, and I kept a pattern of destructive behaviors and relationships.

Maybe they didn’t understand that emotional and verbal abuse was still 58

abuse. There was abuse in my life in one way or another. I needed to be in control but accepted the patterns of destruction in my life. From friendships and love interests, it was always accepting behavior that was not healthy.

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Basic instincts The memories of traumatic events will be with you until the day you die. How you act or react to them is the most important thing to create a healthy outcome.

I eventually met a man who I could never love, but I married him. Neither love nor lust had anything to do with my marriage. There was no connection. I wanted stability and he sold me the perfect picture. He covered every circumstance. In the process of marriage, I learned that you can only give and offer what you have. Yet, sometimes what you run away from haunts you until it finds you.

Incredibly, what I ran away from had once again found me. Yes, the crazy, unstable sociopath had found me. My new husband, you see, the man I married lived in his own world; a world he had created to fit what he was comfortable with. Were there signs?

Yes, they were, but did I catch them?

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In his world, and in his mind, he fought in Vietnam, and when crawling into a fox hole, he almost became paralyzed and had damaged his leg when a mine exploded. In reality, he was only nine years old when the war in Vietnam was over. In actuality, he had polio, which he had overcome, but was too ashamed to admit it.

He told me his first wife had cheated on him. What he didn’t say was the part where he had accused her of cheating.

He constantly stalked her and only after many years of verbal and emotional abuse, along with physical abuse, she asked him to leave.

Point number one - his reality became mine. I was not in love and, to be truthful, I was not attracted to him. I caught him lying and this was my chance to correct the situation. He needed help, professional help, not mine.

Did I correct the situation and call for an intervention? No, I didn’t. I told him if I caught him in one more lie, I would divorce him. So many accusations, 61

jealousy, rage, and the inadequacy he felt as a man, kept escalating.

His solution to my demands for honesty was to drug me. His drug of choice was sleeping pills. How did I find out?

Suddenly I started oversleeping, and I was groggy all the time. I did not understand this until I cleaned the closet one day, and came across a half-empty commercial-sized bottle of sleeping pills.

Point number two. He saw me as weak, and viewed me as a possession, thinking I would never find out. He was raping me while under the effects of the pills, I profoundly slept. What allows a person to think that this behavior is okay? When I let him know that I was weak, that I had been abused since childhood, I decided to give the relationship a chance, but he saw my kindness as weakness. I stopped having sex with him. So many other women approached me and told me that he had made a pass at them in his prior job as a bail bondsman.

I called several acquaintances and they helped me leave him. A year later, I 62

took him back; I would not have my marriage fail. I failed my brother. I failed in my love story. I failed the first time I fell in so called love. I failed my family and now my marriage would also fail. I could not let that happen because I was a rescuer – a fixer.

I never understood why. Things just added up against him. I confronted him, and with the evidence at hand, he cried, apologized, and explained that he loved me and didn’t want to lose me. I still took him back, and I threw away the common sense and intelligence God gave me.

But he was crafty; his schemes were quite creative and effective. Permit me to explain. Obviously, I left him after that incident, but I did not divorce him.

He assured me he was getting help, and suddenly he stated that he had become a Christian.

I was ashamed of the decision to take him back and marrying him. I no longer wanted to live in his world.

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I filed for divorce and on February 15, 2006. He was served with divorce papers. I started packing. I once again was leaving and running away from the reality of confusion and pain. After everything he had done, he still felt he had a right to not only be forgiven, but to be given an opportunity to start a new life with me.

The next afternoon I decided to go to my parents’ home. I was driving my stepfather’s car, since mine was getting fixed. As I was getting in the car, my exhusband texted me and asked me to pass by the gas station where he worked; I said no. As I entered the highway, I noticed a silver Ram 150 truck parked on the shoulder of the highway with its emergency lights on. I did not think much of it.

Two miles later, on Interstate 77 north, the same truck struck me three times.

My car flipped over three times and fell into the canal.

God saved my life that day. I was pulled out of the car by a man wearing black jeans and a t-shirt. He had red hair and 64

a beard. He sat me on the side of the road and walked away. An elderly couple stopped and got out of their car to see if I was okay, I said, “Yes, the gentleman that pulled me out of the car is helping me!”

The lady said, “Honey, we are the first ones here, we saw everything. We have called the cops and rescue is on the way. Just don’t move.”

I said, “Ma’am, there was that man, and he helped me!” She insisted and repeated, “Honey, we are the first and the only ones that stopped.”

Jesus or an angel? I do not know who it was, but I was thankful. That is all I knew. It is another blessing and a gift.

Thank you, God! As I sat in the hospital room later that day, I analyzed the poor choices, the repetitive behavior, thinking of the years wasted - always running, always running in survival mode, never living. I was tired of dragging around a container filled with the past, full of bitterness, confusion, anger and pain where terror 65

still reigned. Even though in His mercy he had pulled me out of these situations, I seemed to attract these kinds of individuals.

A friend of his confessed to me that it was my ex-husband who paid someone to end my life; he did it because he could no longer maintain the friendship or keep the secret, it was too big a burden. The last time I heard about my ex-husband, he had been arrested for second degree rape, a second-degree sex offense, and kidnapping. After two years in prison, he was released because there was not enough evidence to convict him. I pray that somehow he finds his way, because if he does not, he will rape again. I’ve experienced, over and over, the reality that our choices either make us or break us.

My life seems to be out of the film vault of the Lifetime Movie Network, except that in the Lifetime movie, the feature ends. Mine seems to keep on going - it has not stopped. As I write this story in 2019, the saga continues. It just seems that I never learned my lessons, I never asked for help, and I never understood 66

that my first relationship, and its years of abuse, had taken their toll on me.

What was it? That I wanted to feel loved, needed, and accepted? These were the very things I never received as a child from my father. Or had I accepted as “normal” the very things I grew up with - abuse, molestation and rape. All I knew is that the words, “For richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part,” were the scariest words I had ever heard. “Until death do us part” are haunting words that to this day, make me uncomfortable.

Thankfully, once again, on the road from North Carolina back to New Jersey, my life seemed to be coming together. I had a best friend who was cheering me on.

After several relationships and friendships that, unfortunately, carried a lot of baggage, both emotional and psychological; plus several miscarriages, I had had enough.

But God once again reached down. I had an amazing job and I was getting on 67

with my life, but I was not satisfied. I picked up everything and moved to Florida, so in my immature mind, what God provided was not good enough.

God showed me who He was, once again showing me mercy.

When is enough, enough? Have I learned the lessons I needed to learn, or is the pain of my past too much? I see individuals in my past who were never made accountable for their crimes against me. But God never forgets.

I think of the people who called me friend. How many times was my heart going to be broken, how many lives would I hurt? How many more accusations would I have to endure?

Is love blind or does love blind you? Is it easier to think the worst of a person to the point of ending their life?

As I sit here, I ask God to help me become unbreakable and take offense at nothing. It’s hard, because of the accumulated years of abuse I experienced. No one in my life had ever

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been my protector or held up a mirror to show me that I was a victim.

That does not change the memories of abuse. The wonderful world of art has become an outlet for me; an expression of my pain and my love, my hope, and my dreams. It has become my voice.

As I end my story, I learned we seem only to remember what was done to us instead of considering what we have done - the crimes we have not paid for, the lives we have destroyed. And, then, I look back and see the same individuals that almost destroyed me buried in the same grave they dug for me.

It does not change the pain I feel, it doesn’t obviate my memories from triggering those moments when I feared for my life. However, what did change for me was my trust in God. I rediscovered love and family.

Being recently diagnosed with lupus in 2017, has allowed me to rediscover strength and discipline. The very things that were meant to break me, strengthen me.

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I might never know why I was abused, or why my father never loved or accepted neither me, nor what happened to him in his childhood. How a victim become an abuser.

All I know is that the same eagerness to be loved, wanted, and in control, caused me to make mistakes. Certainly, mending my own errors and taking responsibility for my mistakes, with the help of Almighty God, is a start.

Regardless, we need to stop and think; we need to reach out for help. We need to cry to let it out and change what we formerly accepted as the truth. Realizing who we truly are, and what each of us brings into our lives.

I was angry at God. How, how could He not stop the pain and abuse? Then I remembered this: “be still and know I am God.�

I understand that we are all going to be held accountable. I understood it was not just about me. As I matured, I understood that my life affects others.

My actions reflect who I am inside.

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Therefore, I must stop chasing after and worrying about those who hurt me in the past, and start thinking about those I hurt.

Maybe one day I will be blessed with falling love with someone who loves me in a God-ordained, healthy way. Maybe I would love another person as a friend.

Maybe I could trust again.

Overall, so many decisions I have made almost destroyed me, hurt my family, and made me lose my best friend.

Sabrina, my best friend has left a hole in my heart.

Now is the beginning of a new journey; one that is healthy - day by day, and month by month. Healing is the right choice. It is not easy, but there are warning signs. Beware of decisions you make that could cost you your life or the lives of others. Be wise - get help.

May your beauty and strength be accompanied by wisdom.

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The Butterfly Effect International Art Project: As I mentioned above, art is a powerful healing tool – for those who create it and those who are see, admire, and learn from its powerful wordless messages. This said, I am fortunate to have the opportunity to create, “The Butterfly Effect” Project in partnership with Silvia Medina ACA, Art Concept Alternative’s founder/director, and Visual Artist/Poet/Arts Philanthropist Ileana Collazo; who will help coordinate our efforts through her Love of Philanthropic platform with the support of Art Daily News International Magazine and Art Daily News International Magazine Special Editions.

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Amirii C.

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