The beginning of “the end”

Hello beautiful souls! I am going to start off this journey by telling you how it all began…

There I was, at 22 years old. I was just about to graduate college from Michigan State University, and had just gotten married over the summer. As a young woman, I thought this had to be the dream. I had spent the last 4 years driving 3 hours away from home, working 2-3 part time jobs at a time, and of course partying like every other person around me. I was so happy to be finishing up my degree that I thought I needed to have to be successful in life, and go down to just working 1 full-time job in my hometown instead of driving back and forth and basically living out of my car. This is what the dream was right? I finish up school, am married, and now I can move on to the “rest of my life,” being a wife, mother, and having a fulfilling career. My time had finally come to show everyone that I had made it, despite my parents divorce and all the other challenges that young adulthood brought. I could now show them all how much of a “good girl” I was by ticking off all the boxes and being "successful." 

I thought I was on top of the world and had it all, the job, the guy, the house — I was living the American dream! 

The next thing that happened really threw a wrench into my so-called dream life when I found myself in a downward spiraling marriage by the time I was 23. My husband began becoming more and more controlling and on edge, which then led to me finding myself standing in my driveway in the middle of the night and him being taken away by the police. I remember saying to the cops as well as thinking over and over to myself, “how could this happen to me? I did everything right! How could someone do this to me? Why is this happening!?” 

What had happened was we were out drinking at one of our friends' houses, he had to work at 4:00am the next morning and had just drank an entire fifth of rum. It was about midnight when we were arriving back to our house. He was just about to pass out on the couch when I tried to help him find his phone to set an alarm so he could get up in just 3 more hours. This quickly turned into him becoming very angry with me due to the alcohol and beginning to become physically violent with me to the point I wasn’t sure if I would be able to get away from him. When I did thankfully, I was able to lock myself in one of our vehicles and I called one of my friends for help. At this point, I don’t remember if myself or my friend called the police, but they were on their way. The next 40 minutes I spent locked in the vehicle while waiting for the cops. I was scared to death as he kept grabbing his firearm, threatening to kill himself right in front of me, and driving our other vehicle in and out of the garage psychotically. Surprisingly, he was good enough driving to where he didn’t slam into the garage or house itself. This entire time I am just praying I don’t have to witness him killing himself or me if the thought came to his mind, but thankfully nothing else happened and the cops showed up.

That evening he was taken away to jail and the horror unfolded in my reality. I was so shook up and had to go to both my jobs the next day after bailing him out of jail. I had bailed him out because after all he was my husband, and it was probably just the alcohol talking anyway, right? So, I went to both my jobs in and out of bawling my eyes out. Both of my bosses were coming out and covering for me in between crying sessions. I could not believe this had happened. How could I get myself into a marriage where I made this person so unhappy that they chose to become physically abusive? That wasn’t something that could happen to me, not Amber, the people pleaser. 

From this point on the process began of having a no-contact order in place, and one of his family members threatening me. My husband began stalking me from afar during our separation to the point that I was so scared I developed extreme anxiety. I chose to move back in with my dad who had raised me, and dealt with the stalking, mental abuse, and all the anxiety and suicidal thoughts that came with it from there. Every time I turned around, he was either following me, calling me to harass me, or I was having “friends” or others in my life tell him what I was doing so he could make it even more of a living hell. I chose to deal with this by drinking a lot, and most days I would stay the night at my friends or cousin's house in order to avoid him finding me. I would go home, do what I needed to do, and then at 10:30pm when I was ready to go to bed, I would drive to someone’s house and sleep there, then to work in the morning.

All of this drama and harassment led me to reach the lowest point I have ever reached in my entire life. There I was, going through the worst period of my entire life. I was divorced by age 25, and was questioning everything. The people in town who I thought I could trust were saying bad things about me on top of all the horror that was upon my life already. I just couldn’t picture a worse, more gut wrenching scenario. I was supposed to be living a happily married life and having the children I had always dreamed of. Instead here I am, broke, living at my dads, divorced, having extreme anxiety/depression, and am the talk of the town on top of it. Talk about life throwing curveballs at you. 

About 4 months after this all happened and we had tried to go to counselling, I had met with my pastor and we determined this was not a marriage that was going to be able to be saved. This kind of abuse was not something I could go back to, especially with wanting to add children to the picture. So, I filed the papers.

At this point I was open to the idea of dating again. Was I ready? Ehh… probably not, although I thought I was. I wanted to move on with my life and find the happiness I was seeking. I wanted a family more than anything! So, into the unknown I went.