How many of you struggle with the "blank page”?

I feel like I’m looking at an opponent who’s challenging me, sword extended. My enemy beckons me to find the right words, to somehow manage to pen them in such a way that they make at least some sense, having at minimum a modicum of entertainment value. I accept that invitation to fight every day. Writing’s a part of me, and as much as I’d like to forget about it, and deny it, I can’t get away from it.

Writing is like a lover you can never leave, but get rebuffed from time to time. There’s always something in the back of your mind that tugs at you, trying to force you back into old habits, to keep trying, to never give up, with a feeling never tires or ages.

Maybe my mind’s just too chaotic to try and make sense of what I’m trying to say, because I called writing an “enemy," but now I am going to say it is also my friend. When I have too much to say, and don’t feel like socializing, I have the comfort of the blank page, where I can say whatever I want.

There is a level of acceptance in solitude that I haven’t been able to find anywhere else, where thoughts in my head are like forces of nature, only they are locked away in my head, begging to be released. I am the keeper of the blank page, the place where all these thoughts and words want to be.

Writing is not a person and will never be worth more than one, but the craft is a passion of mine, and I know I can never be happy without it. I believe in a divine hand that is guiding me towards fulfillment, even if I am at a point in life where I feel like either everybody’s laughing at me, or they are ignoring me altogether.

Welcome to my mind, a place full of contradictions and abstract metaphors. One idea jumps right to the next, but for me, for some reason, it all makes perfect, ordered sense.

Imagine a seed, then sticking it in the dirt. At first there’s nothing to be seen . . . then growth appears. That’s what I want. I want to be better. I want to know I’ve improved!

My quality of life is enriched by my goals and desires, both characterized by relentless persistence, all tools I have laid out before the austere deity presiding over the written word, and how its nature is never satisfied, yet is also a gift brimming with love and encouragement.

When the time comes that I breathe my last, I hope I will feel peaceful knowing I spent my time doing things that helped augment me as a person, dismissing any superficial endeavors I abandoned once I knew they’d only come to naught.

Bring it on, blank page. We’re not through just yet.

Note: The following is based off true events.

I was married to a sociopath, and I was stupid for it. Even though I made a very unwise choice, I did learn a lot. It’s also incredible that my mind and body are still intact. Being subjected to the whims of my husband’s sexual fantasies, I quickly learned that in order to survive, I was going to have to try to anticipate everything that had to do with him. I got pretty good at predicting him, but there was no way to completely know how he would act, so sometimes I was punished, not knowing what I’d done wrong.

From the beginning, I knew there was a problem. We’d purchased a vehicle with my name, and he was driving when he started calling me the worst names imaginable, out of nowhere. While I was being verbally abused, my fiancé -that’s what he was at the time- sexually touched my breast, almost like he owned me. I looked at him in disgust, triggering more hurtful uncalled for name-calling. At that moment, I had the distinct impression this man was going to rape me. My first thought was to try and escape. After braking at a stoplight, I ran over to some cops who were stopped on the side of the road, telling them I struggled with suicidal ideations, which was no lie.

The cops transported me to a nearby hospital where I’d wait for a bed to free up at the Las Vegas Mental Hospital (LVMH), also called Rawson-Neal, then I’d be transported via ambulance to receive in-patient treatment. My fiancé had found the hospital I was at and left his phone number, which I didn’t know off the top of my head. The members of the staff added the yellow sticky note, with his number scribbled on it in large, red ink in my personal file.

Laying in my bed for hours was mind-numbing. Since I had my fiancé’s number, I could call him, but not before I and a few other patients would be transported to a room that was much quieter than the busy reception area for the Emergency Room (ER).

After we arrived in the new room, one of the other patients acted out, seeking attention heavily. I’d seen her from when we were at LVMH at the same time, in the past.

We didn’t talk much then, and there wasn’t anything to talk about at the moment, either. She was much too busy acting out anyway, the staff trying to figure out how to keep the difficult patient in bed, quiet, and out of trouble. All I could do was lay in my bed while those who looked after us changed shifts. I felt like that’s what we were to them: A shift, and that's it.

I felt like I was in hell. I approached a staff member on duty and was able to retrieve my fiancé’s phone number from my file, and I called him.

There was an automatic difference in how I was treated by the medical personnel once they knew I had a fiancé. Having a support system outside the hospital was vital because it offered the employees the chance to recognize that somebody outside of those walls cared about me. As a result, I was treated more like I existed versus the other patients. Support systems are so important when it comes to dealing with the mental health care system in any state, because you very well stand the chance of losing your mind if you don’t have one.

I have witnessed the breakdown patients can have as a product of these systems, but that doesn’t mean these institutions aren’t well-intentioned, and for a decent number of patients passing through, good things come of it.

At first my fiancé was kind to me on the phone. He let me know he loved me, asked how I was doing, and most important, wanted to know when I would get out. I was thinking to myself how much I hated having to call this man. My feeling about him raping me had not gone away. After he raised some hell (I’d imagine), I was moved fairly quickly through the system, being discharged from LVMH only two days after I was admitted.

The last two times I’d been there, my first stay had been for three weeks, and the second time had been for five weeks. This third time was different than the past because more patients were allowed access to other mental hospitals through Nevada's version of Medicaid, which was Amerigroup.

I took to my bedroom quickly, which I luckily had to myself. The other patients were mostly young men, and I didn’t want to get involved in any games if I didn’t have to, so I stayed in my room as much as I could handle it, even if it meant staying isolated.

When I got out of the mental hospital, my fiancé presented me with flowers and a teddy bear with a big heart that said: “I love you.” I was flattered, until I found out later he’d used my financial backing to make the purchases. Again, at my expense, we rented one of the nicest rooms in one of the hotels in Vegas, where we both were living at the time. The room was huge. (I could only imagine how much it cost!) That night, with the large bouquet of flowers sitting on a table not far from us, my fiancé raped me.

Coming straight out of a psychiatric institution, I was vulnerable, but he didn’t care.

I was subjected to different forms of humiliation, and even torture, doing things that degraded me. This was not done in fun because I didn’t want any pain, and I didn’t want to be tied up just because that’s what he wanted, like I’d been kidnapped. For two or three hours I was treated like I was worth less than an animal, all the while thinking that I couldn’t defend myself because I was a woman, and he was a man. After mumbling a prayer, the cosmos freed me from the excruciating pain, and the psychological trauma, by mysteriously making him stop in the middle of administrating his sadistic tendencies.

I started thinking about the possibility of me being able to defend myself, a mindset I would end up needing later on for no other reason than self-defense. I would find out that I, as a woman, would be able to identify factors, given any fight, that could help me gain an advantage over my opponent and emerge victorious.

After my fiancé had sufficiently indulged himself in his hurtful behaviors, he asked if I still wanted to marry him. I thought about what had happened, and had detached to the point where I felt like my body was existing outside of myself, watching everything that was going on. I felt like I’d been studying the situation, and it felt natural to see where things would go, and with that, I told him that I would. I was also afraid what would happen if I said “no.” The rest of the night was spent with me trying to process all the trauma I’d gone through, but he didn’t care, so it was I that consoled myself.

Sociopaths are similar to psychopaths in that they can’t empathize with others. All my fiancé had thought of was himself, and since he was able to hurt me so badly, then marry me, he figured he could have it all, no matter what I would have to go through to remain resolutely by his side, for better or for worse, until death would we part, or at least until I couldn’t take it anymore, then hopefully would have the luck to successfully get away from his deranged fantasies.

The darkest sky was like a blanket thrown over me.

I’d count the tiny stars, admiring their twinkling.

There was a creature moving in the woods that night.

The noise woke me up, giving me quite the fright.

I peeked outside my tent to see what made the sound,

What I saw were two red eyes, peering beside a dirt mound.

“There’s no need to panic,” I said to myself.

Even if I screamed, nobody was there to help.

A deep rumble escaped the throat of the beast.

I was wide awake now, no need for sleep.

I tried to calm my nerves, because I’m sure I was too tense,

but I had to focus, preparing myself for self-defense.

I waited about ten minutes, as quiet as I could be,

hoping the strange creature would decide to leave me.

Checking outside, I didn’t see a thing,

as if the entire thing had been a dream.

My heart was still pounding, my face covered in sweat,

then it became to rain, and my tent got soaking wet.

I decided to chance it, packing up in the middle of the storm,

so I could return home, where I could be safe and warm.

It was a difficult night, and I’m still not sure what it was,

but that’s okay, I don’t need to find out “just because.”

The darkest sky was like a blanket thrown over me.

I'd count the tiny stars, admiring their twinkling.

There was a creature moving in the woods that night.

The noise woke me up, giving me quite the fright.

I peeked outside my tent to see what made the sound,

What I saw were two red eyes, peering beside a dirt mound.

"There's no need to panic," I said to myself.

Even if I screamed, nobody was there to help.

A deep rumble escaped the throat of the beast.

I was wide awake now, no need for sleep.

I tried to calm my nerves, because I'm sure I was too tense,

but I had to focus, preparing myself for self-defense.

I waited about ten minutes, as quiet as I could be,

hoping the strange creature would decide to leave me.

Checking outside, I didn't see a thing,

as if the entire thing had been a dream.

My heart was still pounding, my face covered in sweat,

then it became to rain, and my tent got soaking wet.

I decided to chance it, packing up in the middle of the storm,

so I could return home, where I could be safe and warm.

It was a difficult night, and I'm still not sure what it was,

but that's okay, I don't need to find out "just because."

Note: The following is based off true events.

I was married to a sociopath, and I was stupid for it. Even though I made a very unwise choice, I did learn a lot. It’s also incredible that my mind and body are still intact. Being subjected to the whims of my husband’s sexual fantasies, I quickly learned that in order to survive, I was going to have to try to anticipate everything that had to do with him. I got pretty good at predicting him, but there was no way to completely know how he would act, so sometimes I was punished, not knowing what I’d done wrong.

From the beginning, I knew there was a problem. We’d purchased a vehicle with my name, and he was driving when he started calling me the worst names imaginable, out of nowhere. While I was being verbally abused, my fiancé -that’s what he was at the time- sexually touched my breast, almost like he owned me. I looked at him in disgust, triggering more hurtful uncalled for name-calling. At that moment, I had the distinct impression this man was going to rape me. My first thought was to try and escape. After braking at a stoplight, I ran over to some cops who were stopped on the side of the road, telling them I struggled with suicidal ideations, which was no lie.

The cops transported me to a nearby hospital where I’d wait for a bed to free up at the Las Vegas Mental Hospital (LVMH), also called Rawson-Neal, then I’d be transported via ambulance to receive in-patient treatment. My fiancé had found the hospital I was at and left his phone number, which I didn’t know off the top of my head. The members of the staff added the yellow sticky note, with his number scribbled on it in large, red ink in my personal file.

Laying in my bed for hours was mind-numbing. Since I had my fiancé’s number, I could call him, but not before I and a few other patients would be transported to a room that was much quieter than the busy reception area for the Emergency Room (ER).

After we arrived in the new room, one of the other patients acted out, seeking attention heavily. I’d seen her from when we were at LVMH at the same time, in the past. We didn’t talk much then, and there wasn’t anything to talk about at the moment, either. She was much too busy acting out anyway, the staff trying to figure out how to keep the difficult patient in bed, quiet, and out of trouble. All I could do was lay in my bed while those who looked after us changed shifts. I felt like that’s what we were to them: A shift, and that's it.

I felt like I was in hell. I approached a staff member on duty and was able to retrieve my fiancé’s phone number from my file, and I called him.

There was an automatic difference in how I was treated by the medical personnel once they knew I had a fiancé. Having a support system outside the hospital was vital because it offered the employees the chance to recognize that somebody outside of those walls cared about me. As a result, I was treated more like I existed versus the other patients. Support systems are so important when it comes to dealing with the mental health care system in any state, because you very well stand the chance of losing your mind if you don’t have one.

I have witnessed the breakdown patients can have as a product of these systems, but that doesn’t mean these institutions aren’t well-intentioned, and for a decent number of patients passing through, good things come of it.

At first my fiancé was kind to me on the phone. He let me know he loved me, asked how I was doing, and most important, wanted to know when I would get out. I was thinking to myself how much I hated having to call this man. My feeling about him raping me had not gone away. After he raised some hell (I’d imagine), I was moved fairly quickly through the system, being discharged from LVMH only two days after I was admitted. The last two times I’d been there, my first stay had been for three weeks, and the second time had been for five weeks. This third time was different than the past because more patients were allowed access to other mental hospitals through Nevada's version of Medicaid, which was Amerigroup.

I took to my bedroom quickly, which I luckily had to myself. The other patients were mostly young men, and I didn’t want to get involved in any games if I didn’t have to, so I stayed in my room as much as I could handle it, even if it meant staying isolated.

When I got out of the mental hospital, my fiancé presented me with flowers and a teddy bear with a big heart that said: “I love you.” I was flattered, until I found out later he’d used my financial backing to make the purchases. Again, at my expense, we rented one of the nicest rooms in one of the hotels in Vegas, where we both were living at the time. The room was huge. (I could only imagine how much it cost!) That night, with the large bouquet of flowers sitting on a table not far from us, my fiancé raped me.

Coming straight out of a psychiatric institution, I was vulnerable, but he didn’t care.

I was subjected to different forms of humiliation, and even torture, doing things that degraded me. This was not done in fun because I didn’t want any pain, and I didn’t want to be tied up just because that’s what he wanted, like I’d been kidnapped. For two or three hours I was treated like I was worth less than an animal, all the while thinking that I couldn’t defend myself because I was a woman, and he was a man. After mumbling a prayer, the cosmos freed me from the excruciating pain, and the psychological trauma, by mysteriously making him stop in the middle of administrating his sadistic tendencies.

I started thinking about the possibility of me being able to defend myself, a mindset I would end up needing later on for no other reason than self-defense. I would find out that I, as a woman, would be able to identify factors, given any fight, that could help me gain an advantage over my opponent and emerge victorious.

After my fiancé had sufficiently indulged himself in his hurtful behaviors, he asked if I still wanted to marry him. I thought about what had happened, and had detached to the point where I felt like my body was existing outside of myself, watching everything that was going on. I felt like I’d been studying the situation, and it felt natural to see where things would go, and with that, I told him that I would. I was also afraid what would happen if I said “no.” The rest of the night was spent with me trying to process all the trauma I’d gone through, but he didn’t care, so it was I that consoled myself.

Sociopaths are similar to psychopaths in that they can’t empathize with others. All my fiancé had thought of was himself, and since he was able to hurt me so badly, then marry me, he figured he could have it all, no matter what I would have to go through to remain resolutely by his side, for better or for worse, until death would we part, or at least until I couldn’t take it anymore, then hopefully would have the luck to successfully get away from his deranged fantasies.

Maybe I’m a little “off,” but that should be expected for someone like me, who’s gone through what I have. I could imagine a therapist now, looking at me sideways as I tell her what I’ve gone through. She’d never believe that I’d gone through what I had. Precisely, I was too normal. There was something odd about the way I came off and what invisible baggage burdened me. I was wounded no doubt, but the power of will ought not to ever be underestimated.

I have been to twelve mental institutions, and have been diagnosed with nine mental disorders. I used to be in a really abusive relationship with a past husband of mine, but it didn’t help that he wanted to live on the road continuously. As a result of his insistence that we incessantly travel, I ended up being a patient in psychiatric institutions across six states. Maybe the really crazy thing I did was marry a monster. I’d dealt with monsters before, so how was this one any different? I guess it took me a long time to graduate from the School of Hard Knocks for this one, because I believed, foolishly, that love could conquer all. Maybe it can. It’s a possibility I’m starting to believe in, with true love, that is.

Maybe I am insane, and that’s what makes me beautiful.

When people see me, they don’t see the warrior underneath the surface. It’s one thing to get bullied by people at school, which happened when I was younger, but it was something completely different to get hurt by those who you loved, who you thought loved you. Maybe the real definition of insane, when it comes to love, is loving someone who can never truly love you back. I’m convinced you could waste years -no, decades- on someone, and they could still never change if they didn’t want to.

Perhaps I am too off-kilter, having loved so much without reciprocity. I’ve got to remember the cosmos, though, because I do believe there are forces out there I can’t fathom, whose powers are beyond what I could ever imagine, deigning to try and uplift my sorrowful gaze. We all have choices, and I chose to love the impossible, and that’s what really hurt me, making my life unbearable for long stretches of time in my past. It can be argued, equally, that there is no way to force true love, and I think that’s where true insanity comes into play.

I’m not a controlling person. Far from it, actually. If I had no notion of what love was, though, I could see myself spiraling downwards into a hapless existence, trying to convince somebody else to love me, when I’d never even learned to love myself in any way first. I firmly believe that a controlling temperament is the opposite of love, even if it might come across as a good front for confidence and being self-assured. I remember that day when I made myself this promise: I would never force a man to be in a relationship with me. Ever, and I’ve kept to that promise.

Being insane, in its clearest sense, then, is to use controlling behavior to force someone to believe something they wouldn’t otherwise, normally. If that person is constantly subjected to brainwashing, who’s the one that’s insane, now? Is the deceived, misplaced lover insane, for believing in something that is, at its core, unalterably true? Or, is the perpetrator insane? Both must be insane, but one is more so than the other. True insanity is going to stupid lengths to try and usurp control over another person, love being the most disastrous, when it’s used as a weapon.

I’m not controlling, and I’ll never force anyone to be in a relationship with me, but I do have what my paperwork says, which is that I have a history of being a patient at many mental hospitals, where I’ve received my diagnoses of those nine mental disorders. I see things that aren’t there, I dissociate when things get bad enough, I’ll start to fall prey to disorganized thinking, propelling me to see things in only black-and-white terms at times, but does that make me insane?

Is a person bound to a wheelchair insane? I am disabled as well, just in a different way, so should that merit me being called “insane,” when others with my same diagnoses do things I’d never dream of doing, ever?

My heart beats for the heart that beats in turn for me. I have no desire to establish dominance over somebody else. Dominating another person should be entirely obsolete at this point, but sadly, just looking at the world, it’s not that way. Based off this judgment, it’s likelier safer to say that the world is insane than I am, and that I’m just doing my best to not leave a legacy of similar mistakes of intolerance, injustice, and domineering attitudes.

In my own little world, I’m my own ruler, and that means I’m going to keep moving forward as much as possible, no matter the decisions of others unfamiliar or uniformed about the chaos that is my own burden to bear. It’s my practice sword session before I’m called out to battle, the endless rehearsals before performing in a play for the viewing pleasure of royalty, the constant search of the diligent scientist who finds another way to assuage the medical ailments of the world at large; my mind challenges me to remain dignified and practical, every day being my stage to prove, mostly to myself, that I have done all I can to prepare to handle what difficulties may stand before me now, in the future, and forever.

I’m not insane, but I am an insane fighter when it comes to not being overcome by life’s difficulties.

How about you?

What side of the line do you toe?

The road trip seemed to never end. In a way it never would’ve ended had I not discovered a way to get out of the relationship. I was invited to stay with family until I could get on my feet again, but the story that led up to this moment is important. We were in Florida, exactly where my husband said God told him to go to, and he just hadn’t listened. We were working another flea market, and someone overheard us talking about how we were living out of our vehicle. This sympathy would save me from the pain of the extremely dysfunctional relationship I was in, signifying that the cosmos had seen to it that I had learned what I needed to, and that now was the time to move forward.

One of the most difficult things in dealing with my husband was when he drove me to get locked up in mental hospitals again. Even though I was able to get stable on some medication for my mental disorders, it was quite the ordeal handling the mental hospital experience. I’m convinced the cosmos didn’t want me to find any reason whatsoever to return to a mental hospital, or feel inclined to stay with the man who was my spouse, by making memories that were so painful, I’d naturally be deterred from getting stuck cyclically. It would go like this: I would get mistreated for a long enough period of time, I would get locked up in a psychiatric institution again, I’d get out, then it would happen all over again.

I remember I was at a mental hospital in Oklahoma where I was brought to tears talking to my husband on the phone. He’d told me he’d had “enough of my games,” having to deal with mental hospitals and the like, and that he wanted a divorce because of it. I was crushed. Sure, I probably knew on some level we wouldn’t be together for too long, not with the way things were going, but a part of me must’ve cared about him, or the support he could offer me in those conditions, because my heart broke, and I cried. I was lucky I was put on medication that made me sleep a lot in that particular mental hospital, because the anxiety would’ve made me pace in a small unit that would’ve inevitably caused problems. In places like that, the consequences could translate into really being locked up, complete with an escort from the authorities.

Even with luck and the cosmos on my side, it was still very difficult to -ironically- mentally survive in a psychiatric institution. Being in a relationship with my husband had driven me to these places, and I’m sorry, but they are scary! Sometimes you get attacked by another patient. Screaming matches ensue occasionally ensue for no reason whatsoever. Part of surviving being with someone like my past spouse involved dealing with the consequences of the very essence of being with him, causing me to have to do many others would think, that of keeping my sanity intact after being in so many mental institutions. On one occasion, I was randomly attacked by another patient, and with all I’d gone through, it was still one of the most jarring attacks I’ve ever experienced.

Words can’t fully describe how tortuous the anxiety was. I feel like I’ve probably only met one person who understands what this kind of horrible anxiety was like to endure. The only other time I had this pressing problem was when I was married to my first husband. That marriage had issues all on its own, but nothing like my second marriage. My free will was temporarily frozen by this anxiety. One morning, when my body woke me up at six, I had to start pacing. One of the nicer staff members out in the common area made the comment to the effect of the following: “I’m sorry you have to pace. I know it’s something that you know you just have to do, not because you want to.”

I was very touched by this woman’s empathy. Good people like that were lifesavers, giving me that speck of hope that would be enough to keep me going.

Sometimes my husband would come and visit me in the hospital. There was one time he was trying to get in my head, an I ended the visitation after no more than ten minutes, and he was the only lifeline I had most of the time. There would be times when I would be remembered by another family member of mine, which was extremely kind of her, and those visits helped me survive the conditions of mental hospitals, too. The pacing was so horrific, I was lucky if I could sustain a visitation for more than just ten minutes. However, if I really focused, I could last the whole hour, but sometimes things were just too much to bear, and I sorrowfully had to drag my feet and go back to pacing.

The anxiety served to irritate me because I had no choice but to be in constant motion. The cosmos (or “God”) I believe was definitely with me, because my pacing didn’t cause anybody to get nervous, which can often be the case when a nearby person is unable to stop pacing. I was very blessed to be able to not get into any more trouble with other patients than I had to. There were homeless people that were patients as well, and sometimes you’d get overwhelmed with sadness at what they had to go through. Even though a mental hospital is not the place for me, the experiences were never wasted, even if they would prove themselves to be formidable challenges to psychologically triumph over.

There was a young man who was genuinely nice to me. Since people caring about you is so rare for patients in mental hospitals (there are staff who are exceptions, but I’m mostly referring to patients), I decided to try and be his friend. Even though he was genuinely kind, he was deeply troubled. I never got to know his whole story, but this young man had my sympathies because he was so young -he couldn’t have been over twenty-one- and he was homeless. He had a scraggly beard with very long, untrimmed nails. There was vacant look in his eyes most of the time, and he would talk to himself, or to whatever he was seeing that was not really there. Experiences like this would made me wonder what was going to happen to me. This dose of reality was sobering, as was my entire experience at mental hospitals, reinforcing lessons of gratitude, especially for those who actually do care and aren’t faking it.

Some time after being discharged, I was abandoned by my husband because I refused to leave with him when he wanted to up and hit the road again. There was a moment, when I was looking at him, that I knew what he was doing. Somehow, I knew that this man I called “husband” was extremely controlling, and that he needed to feed off the misery of others to feel like he was alive in some way. When I realized this, I held back, and I didn’t leave with him, and that’s the last I ever saw of him, and now I’m stuck with the aftermath of these memories he’d left with me.

My first marriage ended because of another woman. This marriage was ending because my husband was an abusive maniac. There was still hope, and I kept running after it, breathless, resolute, afflicted but not undeterred.

(Based off real events.)

There was no stability in living anymore, just living out of our sturdy vehicle. Sometimes I’d feel for our vehicle, because of how hard we were pushing her. A few months had passed since the rape, and I’d become more confident in myself, but this didn’t mean things were easy between me and my husband, because nothing could’ve been further from the truth. The insults continued and were getting worse. I guess since my husband didn’t want to treat me as badly as he had in the hotel room, before our wedding, he had to make up for it through insults, and it really hurt.

Never had I been called some of the names that he called me. He and I managed to get into an apartment, and one night he had a severe, wild psychotic break. I was attacked, scared, tripped, and bit -yes, bit. I couldn’t understand why my husband was being so hurtful. What had I done to him? I was guilty of looking for love and a lasting relationship, and I was paying for it. We were finally in one place, and for me, that brought me relief. This façade of stability couldn’t last, though, not when the one you’re with is violent and insane. Still, I believed in my heart we could work through any obstacle together, emerging all the better for it in the end. At this time, it was too much to hope for.

I was leaving the kitchen, and when I was in the middle of the living room, my husband grabbed my leg and I fell onto the floor. My husband jumped on top of me like a rapid animal, snapping his jaws at me. I forced him off, abruptly asking him to stop in the process. Instead, I was attacked again. I was able to give him a moderate kick that knocked him off of me. I had managed to remain calm and told him he had to stop what he was doing because it wasn’t acceptable behavior. In a way I felt like I was trying to teach a kid a basic life skill: Don’t hit! Remaining calm only served to make him even more angry, and he managed to bite my leg.

Now that hurt, but not for too long, thankfully. Later, after the ordeal was over, I would show him the colorful bruise he left me, which was about a grapefruit in size. This particular fight, that I didn’t want to have happen, wouldn’t end for another few hours. Even with obvious bruising, the insults didn’t stop, and his aggression got worse. I decided I was going to raise my voice to try and get him out of the apartment. Basically I yelled at him, and it was enough to get him to leave.

Always, when my husband was acting in such a childish manner, I found a way to get him out of the picture so I could have some time to clear my mind. This was very much a short-term solution to the problem because I was still reeling from the extremes of whatever fight it was that we were in. I tried to sit down, calm down, and enjoy the peace and quiet, but it was impossible. I couldn’t fully rid my mind of images of his violent insanity. My heart was breaking, too because I had chosen to marry him. I loved him. We were in this together . . . weren’t we?

But how much can I take? I’d think to myself.

I wanted to get away, but I had nowhere to go. I ended up bumping into a guy I didn’t know, and I tried living with him for a while, and it was an unwise choice, because I had no idea who this guy was. He ended up being part of a heavy metal band, and for a very short time I was a part of it, doing vocals and playing piano. It was, musically, one of the coolest things I’d done in my life. What was not cool, though, was how he and the drummer got into it over me. I’d been reduced to an object, competition getting at the guy I was staying with, so he started being abusive to me.

Once again, I did what I’d done with my husband, and I got out of his car at a stoplight. That guy would return to a gas station I’d walk to, so he could give me some of my stuff, then he left, and I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go back to my apartment because that wouldn’t help the situation. I was in the process of going insane myself, and needed some stability in my life, especially because of my mental disorders. Part of me wished I could make a life for myself in that apartment we’d had, but the truth was I couldn’t afford rent without my husband’s help, as much as I hated to admit it.

There was another guy I bumped into who tried to sell me into human trafficking, but I managed to escape at the last second. I knew my luck would run out eventually, because I was barely getting out of these dangerous situations intact. Having a support system for me was a must, and I ended up contacting my husband, again. Nothing had changed. It wasn’t long until I started going back to mental hospitals the situation was so severe. I met a lot of people, both staff and patients, and will always remember this lesson: Suicide is never ever worth it, not only because you’d be prematurely ending your life, missing out on valuable experiences you would have had otherwise, but also because not all attempts are successful, and what’s left over is often not very pretty, and not something you want to have happen.

Back in the beginning, when my husband and I were on our way out of town to go on our road trip, the verbal abuse wouldn’t stop. Our transmission started acting up once we were headed to Boulder City, outside Vegas, and our vehicle was having problems handling the hills, so we and had to stop by a dealership to service our vehicle. We were lucky that there was an extended warranty, so we ended up getting a brand new transmission, free of charge. I saw this as a favorable stroke of good luck, while he only took it for granted, continuing to treat me like dirt, despite our good fortune. The way I saw it, he was taking advantage of a perfectly good vehicle, too.

We had to stay in a hotel for the night while the dealership worked on our vehicle. I was coerced to do some sexual activity, but for once, I was successful in asserting myself against him, and I didn’t have to do all of what he said. This was a big step forward for me, because I was learning to be strong for myself, not waiting on some other person to save me, or magically becoming this impossible person that would succeed in convincing my spouse that his behavior was childish and needed to stop.

The next day our vehicle was ready to go, and all things considered, we’d had a decent night, so we went on our not-so-merry way. First, we drove all the way to Florida from Vegas. My husband said God had told him he needed to go to Florida. Key West was our first destination, then we made our way northwards. We were doing flea markets, so we went to a few of the many that were in Florida, not finding what we were looking for, or what he was looking for, whatever it was. He described his goal to me like this during what would become a 50,000 mile road trip: “I’m looking for my ‘golden egg,’ if that makes sense.” Truer words were never spoken from the lips of a previous gambling addict. To me it sounded like he wanted to live on handouts.

Florida would end up having special meaning in my life, but with him, it wasn’t the time nor the place to have it happen. The frustration my husband felt he’d always take out on me, and there were psychological consequences. Dissociative episodes are where a person goes into an “autopilot” of sorts, and another personality -also called an “alter ego,” by some- would surface for the purpose of protecting what integrity still existed in my mindset. The past several onslaughts of both mental and emotional violence had taken their toll. A part of me, that I didn’t know was within me, had been developing in the midst of all of this, and that process had started in Las Vegas when I decided I was going to try and experiment with self-defense because what I was going through was absolutely nuts.

Violence is a waste of time unless it’s absolutely necessary, and I really believe that.

My alter ego was able to protect me on several instances, and even though I don’t remember a lot of what happened, he did, and something about the whole scenario scared him, and I’d never laid a hand on him in violence that wasn’t self-defense. There were times when he would abandon me, and when he would return, which was was usually the case, we’d reunite later on. As time went on, my alter ego learned that abuse was sometimes the only thing that would distract him from being abusive. I was continuously bottling up my feelings because I didn’t want to do anything that would hurt him, even with all he’d done and was doing to me.

I may not have been extremely reluctant to be physically aggressive, but this darker side, the side that remembered the rape and the pain of it all too quickly, was.

I used words and the tone of my voice to freak out my husband when he’d get into one of his “moods,” and this did win some of his respect, not that I really wanted or valued it at that point. When I was in that “mode,” with my dark side surfacing, I had one objective, and that was to prevent this monster from destroying who I was. I knew I had never done anything to merit being abused, making me an innocent party in all of this. This “alter ego” was still me, just a side of me that I kept hidden because I didn’t want to hurt anybody, even if it was just to say something that had an unintentional side effect of hurting someone’s feelings.

There were other ways, though, that my husband would try to get under my skin, but this time, I was not scared. This time I had the psychological backing to call on that part of myself that was willing to see if self-defense was possible. I wasn’t through learning from these experiences with him just yet, and I was determined to emerge with flying colors. Before I managed to kick my husband out of the apartment, I had a moment where he was being verbally abusive again, and I looked in his eyes, hard, and said: “If you don’t stop what you’re doing, one day I’m going to not be in your life anymore, and you will never see me again.” It’s been a full nine months since I’ve seen or heard from him. If I have my way about it, we never will ever see each other again.

Back to the story, though: This was just the beginning. It was war in a case for self-defense against an arrogant maniac, but I was ready. I was going to learn whatever there was for me to learn from this experience, and if he wasn’t going to change and emerge the better person for it, I sure was. I never gave up, and it ended up saving my life, as well as my precious sanity. I also know I’m a heck of a lot stronger than I thought I was.

Note: The following is based off true events.

I was married to a sociopath, and I was stupid for it. Even though I made a very unwise choice, I did learn a lot. It’s also incredible that my mind and body are still intact. Being subjected to the whims of my husband’s sexual fantasies, I quickly learned that in order to survive, I was going to have to try to anticipate everything that had to do with him. I got pretty good at predicting him, but there was no way to completely know how he would act, so sometimes I was punished, not knowing what I’d done wrong.

From the beginning, I knew there was a problem. We’d purchased a vehicle with my name, and he was driving when he started calling me the worst names imaginable, out of nowhere. While I was being verbally abused, my fiancé -that’s what he was at the time- sexually touched my breast, almost like he owned me. I looked at him in disgust, triggering more hurtful uncalled for name-calling. At that moment, I had the distinct impression this man was going to rape me. My first thought was to try and escape. After braking at a stoplight, I ran over to some cops who were stopped on the side of the road, telling them I struggled with suicidal ideations, which was no lie.

The cops transported me to a nearby hospital where I’d wait for a bed to free up at the Las Vegas Mental Hospital (LVMH), also called Rawson-Neal, then I’d be transported via ambulance to receive in-patient treatment. My fiancé had found the hospital I was at and left his phone number, which I didn’t know off the top of my head. The members of the staff added the yellow sticky note, with his number scribbled on it in large, red ink in my personal file.

Laying in my bed for hours was mind-numbing. Since I had my fiancé’s number, I could call him, but not before I and a few other patients would be transported to a room that was much quieter than the busy reception area for the Emergency Room (ER).

After we arrived in the new room, one of the other patients acted out, seeking attention heavily. I’d seen her from when we were at LVMH at the same time, in the past. We didn’t talk much then, and there wasn’t anything to talk about at the moment, either. She was much too busy acting out anyway, the staff trying to figure out how to keep the difficult patient in bed, quiet, and out of trouble. All I could do was lay in my bed while those who looked after us changed shifts. I felt like that’s what we were to them: A shift, and that’s it.

I felt like I was in hell. I approached a staff member on duty and was able to retrieve my fiancé’s phone number from my file, and I called him.

There was an automatic difference in how I was treated by the medical personnel once they knew I had a fiancé. Having a support system outside the hospital was vital because it offered the employees the chance to recognize that somebody outside of those walls cared about me. As a result, I was treated more like I existed versus the other patients. Support systems are so important when it comes to dealing with the mental health care system in any state, because you very well stand the chance of losing your mind if you don’t have one.

I have witnessed the breakdown patients can have as a product of these systems, but that doesn’t mean these institutions aren’t well-intentioned, and for a decent number of patients passing through, good things come of it.

At first my fiancé was kind to me on the phone. He let me know he loved me, asked how I was doing, and most important, wanted to know when I would get out. I was thinking to myself how much I hated having to call this man. My feeling about him raping me had not gone away. After he raised some hell (I’d imagine), I was moved fairly quickly through the system, being discharged from LVMH only two days after I was admitted. The last two times I’d been there, my first stay had been for three weeks, and the second time had been for five weeks. This third time was different than the past because more patients were allowed access to other mental hospitals through Nevada’s version of Medicaid, which was Amerigroup.

I took to my bedroom quickly, which I luckily had to myself. The other patients were mostly young men, and I didn’t want to get involved in any games if I didn’t have to, so I stayed in my room as much as I could handle it, even if it meant staying isolated.

When I got out of the mental hospital, my fiancé presented me with flowers and a teddy bear with a big heart that said: “I love you.” I was flattered, until I found out later he’d used my financial backing to make the purchases. Again, at my expense, we rented one of the nicest rooms in one of the hotels in Vegas, where we both were living at the time. The room was huge. (I could only imagine how much it cost!) That night, with the large bouquet of flowers sitting on a table not far from us, my fiancé raped me.

Coming straight out of a psychiatric institution, I was vulnerable, but he didn’t care.

I was subjected to different forms of humiliation, and even torture, doing things that degraded me. This was not done in fun because I didn’t want any pain, and I didn’t want to be tied up just because that’s what he wanted, like I’d been kidnapped. For two or three hours I was treated like I was worth less than an animal, all the while thinking that I couldn’t defend myself because I was a woman, and he was a man. After mumbling a prayer, the cosmos freed me from the excruciating pain, and the psychological trauma, by mysteriously making him stop in the middle of administrating his sadistic tendencies.

I started thinking about the possibility of me being able to defend myself, a mindset I would end up needing later on for no other reason than self-defense. I would find out that I, as a woman, would be able to identify factors, given any fight, that could help me gain an advantage over my opponent and emerge victorious.

After my fiancé had sufficiently indulged himself in his hurtful behaviors, he asked if I still wanted to marry him. I thought about what had happened, and had detached to the point where I felt like my body was existing outside of myself, watching everything that was going on. I felt like I’d been studying the situation, and it felt natural to see where things would go, and with that, I told him that I would. I was also afraid what would happen if I said “no.” The rest of the night was spent with me trying to process all the trauma I’d gone through, but he didn’t care, so it was I that consoled myself.

Sociopaths are similar to psychopaths in that they can’t empathize with others. All my fiancé had thought of was himself, and since he was able to hurt me so badly, then marry me, he figured he could have it all, no matter what I would have to go through to remain resolutely by his side, for better or for worse, until death would we part, or at least until I couldn’t take it anymore, then hopefully would have the luck to successfully get away from his deranged fantasies.

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