Kat

Hi all, I'm Ashlee, and thanks for letting me join.  I am 17 years old and 30 weeks pregnant with a baby girl.  I hope that I have finally gotten her father out of my life for good, and if I am going to be any kind of mom then its time to start healing the damage he did.

 

Its hard for me not to get emotional these days.  I am so tired from work and so ready for this baby to come out.  Since I'll probably end up getting myself upset anyway, I may as well tell the basics now and start the waterworks.  Part of healing, right?  My mother was (and probably still is) a meth addict.  I don't know much about my father, only that he got deported to mexico when I was 2.  I am trying to find out where he is now but haven't had much luck.  I also have one older half-brother who I have just started to get close to again recently.  My story is long, but I'll keep it as short as I can remember to.  Maybe someday I'll tell the whole tale.

 

 

When I was 13, I saw my moms boyfriend, Stan, beat her nearly to death.  A few days later, I saw her sitting on the couch, battered and bruised, smoking foils with Stan.  I knew that if I didn't want to end up like her, I had to leave for good.  With time I came to live with a guy who I had considered a good friend.  Though he was 17, he acted like a brother to me.  He worked a full time job and had a place of his own, which he invited me to live in.  I was always blown away by how kind Travis was to me.  I didn't know anyone could be so nice.  After I turned 14, however, he began acting sexual towards me.  He would come up behind me and grab me, or kiss me, despite my protests.  It was Stan, all over again, and I was scared that he wouldn't listen.  I continuously told him no and tried to avoid him as best as I could, but eventually he told me that if I didn't stop, he would put me out on the street.  I would think that I should have been relieved by this, but I thought of my mom and I was even more afraid.  After that, I allowed him to abuse me, except for actual sex.  For every awful thing he did to me, I told myself that sex was the one thing he could never make me do.  One night, I told him no and he lost it.  He beat me so severely that I couldn't fight him.  After that night, he became progressively violent, and soon I was too terrified to resist him in anything.  For almost a year I allowed him to abuse and rape me, for simple fear of more abuse if I didn't.  When I found out I was pregnant in 2006, I was devastated.  Travis, however, was ecstatic - he was going to be a daddy.  Everything would change.  We would have a family together and things would be great, he said.

 

Pretty soon I figured out that he wouldn't hurt me now that I was pregnant.  Slowly, I used the baby to loosen his grip on me.  Just after my 16th birthday, I started making plans to go to the closest madonna house to get away from him.  I packed my bags, and was just a few short steps from the door when he woke up.  Travis hurt me so badly that night that I layed on the floor for hours, waiting for the pain to stop.  It was then that he came out and noticed I was bleeding and soaked.  He drove me to the hospital, where they told me the babys placenta was ruptured.  I was only six months along, but they said that I needed to have her then or she wouldn't have a chance.  At 3:45am she was born, and six hours later she passed away.  Later I found out that to explain my injuries he told the doctor that I was jumped by a group of men and assaulted.  Why they never called the cops or even asked me, I don't know.  Travis took me back to his house and kept me under lock and key.  The only times I had to be alone, he locked me in the bathroom until he got back.  I didn't really care, though.  Without my baby, I had nothing left to live for.  Things went back to the way they had been before, and I lay down and took it.  Everyday I told myself I deserved it, that her death was on my hands.  In July 2007, I found out that I was pregnant again.  I knew I had to try everything I could to get away from him.  He became so paranoid and suspicious that I could never find a free moment.  It took him nearly killing me to save both our lives.  It has been almost four months, now, and I am living life one day at a time.  The road to healing is going to be long, but right now I'm glad that I can even think of it.  I am trying to focus on being a good mother, and not taking my freedom for granted, but the pain stabs at me every day.  The nightmares and the constant fear follow me everywhere.  So, I guess I'm looking for a place where I can be accepted and begin to fix myself.  I do hope that I have found that place.  Thank you for taking the time to read this.