My Story | Part 2

The story starts with a breath you can hear, then a truth that’s hard to hold. 

Heather invites us into the second chapter of her journey. There are chapters in our lives that don’t unfold quietly. They crack open. The years where survival became my language. Where motherhood, marriage, betrayal, fear, and impossible decisions all collided at once. 

This is a story about leaving when staying would have cost everything. About naming violence without letting it define her.

Heather’s voice doesn’t ask for pity; it asks for company on a road where truth becomes leverage and freedom is reclaimed inch by inch. If you’ve ever felt trapped, ashamed, or unseen, this story offers a hand and a map: trust your body’s alarms, take the smallest safe step, and keep your name on your own life.

If this moved you, share it with someone who needs proof that survival is possible. Subscribe for part three, and leave a review to help others find these stories. Your words might be the sign someone is waiting for.

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Transcript

New Season Vision

Heather 0:02

Hello friends and welcome back to the Free Advantage. I'm your host, Heather Davis, and I want to invite you into a new season of real stories, real recovery, and real freedom. This show has always been about self-discovery, authenticity, and recovering a life of freedom. And this year, we are taking that journey together in a deeper way. You're gonna hear raw, honest conversations with people walking this path in real time. Stories of growth, healing, purpose, and becoming whole. You'll also hear from me as I reflect on these themes that rise from the stories, answer your questions, and offer small, meaningful takeaways that you can carry back into your week. This is not just a podcast you listen to, it's a place you belong where you are part of the conversation. Welcome back, everybody. I'm your host, Heather Davis. Oh, I'm so glad you guys are with me this week. We are jumping into part two of my story. Um, if you joined in last week, you got a whole lot of information. And if you didn't catch it and you want to kind of catch up to where we are right now, you can go back and listen. Um, it's out there on YouTube, or you can find it on anywhere you listen to your podcasts. But um I got a lot of information to share, so I'm just gonna jump right in as normal. So, like I said last week, pull up a seat, get yourself something to drink, and get comfortable. I did want to let anybody know that um trigger warning for anybody who is listening, I'm gonna be discussing a lot of things that um are potentially triggering for a lot of people, um, especially more so than I did last week. Um, some of it has to do with domestic violence um and uh adoption trauma and things like that. So if any of that's triggering, please do note before you start listening. But um anyway, thank you for joining and listening. So last week, last week, um, I left off right after I had had my first son, Austin. Um how it was just such a transformative experience, like immediately. Um, I had definitely been in through a very traumatic experience with his birth. And I was in the hospital for a while. I um because of the kind of surgery I had ended up ha ended up having, can't talk, that I had ended up having, I had to stay a lot longer. I was there probably a week and a half um just through the kind of like surgical recovery I needed to be in. But once I went home, you know, life felt pretty great. I had just had my first son, he was amazing. I was married to what I thought was this wonderful guy at the time. And um, you know, um, but there was still was that same thing. I still felt a little bit like I'm really young. I just barely turned 18 at that point. And I'm getting used to being a first-time mom. I mean, lots of lots of trial and error there, learning how to, you know, raise a kid, be with a kid, being utterly exhausted all the time. And my husband at the time was definitely not super hands-on. I mean, he worked his job and he came home and I was trying to be what I would call the perfect wife, you know, kind of lending to some of the things that I had kind of been raised with, like I clean the house all the time, I take care of the kids, I cook the dinner and making sure that everything was provided for him. And uh it lasted for a little while. And if we fast forward, like I think Austin was eight months old by the time that it had really just was over. And it was really, at that time, it was unbeknownst to me. So what happened? And I had found out probably six months after my son was born that his father had been having an affair with a woman that he worked with. And uh I I don't know how I really handled it at the time. I was just kind of one of those weird things. I was still very young. So it wasn't something that I like caught him in. It was kind of something that like he slowly over time was kind of confessing, like, oh, he was kind of using it as one of those um like sexual kink things or sexual fetishes about like he would like to talk about these women at work, or he would bring up, like, oh, I like her, I'm trying to talk to her. And he it was it was something he was trying to like kind of groom me into. Um, and he was real he was really into pornography and stuff at the time. And and really this had been my first real relationship. So I I started to kind of think, well, this is normal, this is how this is how men are, this is how relationships are. And so I kind of was like, all right, well, I mean, if this is what you want, if this is what makes you happy. He had even talked um a lot about maybe bringing her home and it being type of a threesome thing. And I just, it wasn't really something I was into, but I was definitely, I was in a place where I was entertaining his conversations because I I one, I didn't want him to leave and I had no idea what that would even look like, all whilst trying to recover from major surgery and learning how to raise a newborn. So it was kind of a very weird situation for me. But in January, um, Austin had been born in May. So rolling around to January, I had been at home one day, one afternoon, I had was had been cleaning house and I got a phone call. And it was somebody from his work, but they were from another state, and they had called to let me know. Um, and to let him know things worked so differently back then. I think now, like, I probably never would know that now. I mean, it would be very easy to hide it, but then it was a lot different. Um, they called his house and to let us know that his work transfer had gone through and to let him know that everything was set and ready to go. And I was like, okay, I really appreciate that. Thank you. And I want to I remember hanging up the phone and just being like in in complete shock, like, what work transfer? This is the first I've even heard anything about that. So I realized, I'm like, oh, he's leaving. He's leaving, and he's not even telling me. So I I remember I got all dressed up, I cooked a really nice meal, I had it all set on the table, and when he got home, he was like, Oh, wow, like everything's so nice and dinner's nice. And I said, Yeah, have a seat and let's eat. And so we sat down and we were eating dinner, and in the middle of dinner I kind of looked over at him and I said, So I said, uh, your work called and let me know that your work transfer went through and you should be good to go. And he just looked at me and he was like, Oh, thanks. And I was like, So when were you gonna tell me that you were leaving? And he looked at me and he was like, I wasn't. And so I was I i it it turned into an argument, of course. Um, things did not go well from there. And we're within from that phone call within the week, he was gone. He packed his stuff up and he left. He um moved back to where he came from, he moved back to Oklahoma um and he went to work there, and uh it was just that was the end. There he there was probably a few conversations where he was trying to get me to like maybe come back to Tulsa. I don't know if maybe that his idea was like, if I leave, maybe I can convince her to come there, but he wasn't having anything to do with me. He wasn't having anything to do with our son, and he just picked up and left me there. I had no money, I had no job, I had no way of taking care of myself. The apartment we had been in at the time, he had already like gone down and dealt with that. He had like already put in the notice and the apartment was pretty much gone, and they they notified me that I had like 30 days to get out. And so I was like, I don't he took nothing. I mean, he packed up his clothes and his personal like little belongings and he put them in his car and he left. And so I'm I'm here with a whole entire home full of stuff. I have no idea what to do. I had no idea what to do. And uh within that like 30 days, I had slowly started moving some of my stuff over to my mom's house. She, her and I had an apartment like right next door to each other, and uh I had started moving some of my things there, and and then the rest of it. I honestly at this point, I can't even remember where it went. I don't maybe it was in maybe we put it in storage. Um, but it's so long ago now, I don't I don't even remember much of that. It's very possible I did, but I don't know how I did or how I was paying for it at the time. So Austin and I basically moved in with my mom in her little apartment there. And I remember it wasn't, it wasn't what she wanted for sure. She was not looking at moving me and my newborn son in and taking care of us for sure. She's living a life of her own. She's trying to rebuild her own life after my mom and dad's divorce. And I was kind of a little bit of a hindrance to that lifestyle. And I was not going through a good time. I was becoming severely unhealthy. I wasn't eating anymore. I think I was literally living on packs of cigarettes, Dr. Pepper, and every once in a while, Jack in the Box tacos. That's as much as I can muster for myself. And it started to get really unwell. I was losing a lot of weight. Um, I was sleeping all the time, and it was becoming more difficult for me to take care of Austin just because I was I was so depressed. And in between this, like I've lost all contact with his father. Like, we're not divorced, we're not anything. He just left. He just like picked up and left. And I was just pretty much abandoned by that. And I remember my mom calling my dad and saying, You have to come deal with her. Like, come get her because she's a problem right now. I can't deal with her, she can't deal with herself. Somebody needs to do something. And I remember my dad coming, he drove, I remember he drove to Dallas, and that's where his um girlfriend or his wife at the time had his her family was, and he and she was like, Come get her. And so I remember driving uh Austin and I to Dallas to meet my dad, and then we made the trip over um to Georgia because now by this time my dad had been living in Tulsa and he had um gotten with this other lady, and they had ended up moving across the country to Georgia by this time. So there's lots of moves going on, even like it wasn't really affecting me as much because I wasn't living with him, but him and my brother had moved um with his wife at the time to Georgia, and because my dad has family in Georgia, so that's kind of where he ended up. And I didn't want to move to Georgia. I didn't really, I don't know, I didn't know anything about it. Like Texas is my home, so I wasn't really looking forward to that, but that's where I ended up. I uh my dad came and got us, and we drove, we drove to Georgia, and that's where I was. And it it it really just was like one, it felt just like one bad environment to the next. I I I'm getting abandoned here, my moving into the apartment with my mom, and I'm cramping her single lifestyle. And then I end up with my dad, and and a few months into me even being there, him and his wife at the time are really at odds with each other and in the middle of a divorce. And so it was I can't even remember, maybe three months, maybe three months. I'm not even sure if it was that long before his wife at the time left and moved out. And then I was there with him and my brother. So now it's just the three of us again, like it was before when my mom had left and then Austin. And what was so crazy is that I'll I'll never forget being in that house because it was this huge home. And when his wife moved out, there was nothing left. Like what we owned in our bedroom was it. The the house was completely empty. There was no furniture. We had like this little TV that like sat on the floor in the corner of the living room, and that was it. Like we used to just go lay on the floor and watch TV, and we had one little table that sat in this big, huge dining room space, and that was all there was our beds and like our personal effects, and that was it. I'm we had had Austin's first birthday there, and I got pictures of it, and it's just this table and nothing else. It I just remember it being such a weird thing, and um, but the time leading up to even to that, to the Austin's first birthday, uh, I had gotten a phone call from his father, and he's wanting to apologize to me, and he's wanting to come see Austin on his first birthday, and he was begging to like be a part and like how he'd made all of these mistakes. And of course, I was like, Oh my goodness, like I need to forgive him. Like, this is his this is Austin's father, you know. Um, I need to do what I need to do to make this right because this is this is my family, right? And I mean, we're not divorced, we're still married, I'm still his wife. And so he convinced me to let him come and visit for Austin's birthday, and he flew in. I remember going picking him up at the airport and the night before his birthday. And I was working, um, I was being I was a hostess at a restaurant in town, and I remember the night before Austin's birthday when I picked him up. I had worked and came back, and then we had the whole birthday party that next day. And that night I had work again, and so he's there with Austin and my dad and my brother. So I was like, okay, I felt pretty comfortable they're all there. And so they got they all got along well and everything went fine. But when I came home from work, I worked till about midnight, and then I went out with some friends to go eat dinner after work. And when I got home, it was probably like two o'clock in the morning. And when I did, I remember he was asleep on the floor in the living room, and I went upstairs and I went to bed. And then I got up around 10 o'clock the next day, and I went downstairs to see him, and he wasn't there. And I was like looking all around and I was like, oh my gosh, you know, and I ran back upstairs, I was making sure Austin was still in his bed and he was sound asleep in there. And I'm like, okay, Austin's here. Like, I was like, what's going on? And I went back downstairs. And when I came back downstairs, I saw a bunch of stuff sitting by the front door, and it I didn't notice it when I had first went down there the first time. And I remember when I came back down, I saw it, and then it was just like it wasn't computing in my brain that I was looking at like stuff from my car. I there my car seat was in there, there was like some CDs and like just some stuff that had been in my vehicle, and I was like, oh, oh my gosh. And I run to the door, open it, and I look out, and my car's gone. And I literally freaked out. I immediately started screaming and crying, and oh my god, he's he stole my car. He took my car. And now this was in the days before cell phones. This was in the days before any of those kinds of things. So, like, there's nothing I can do. I can't call him, I can't get a hold of him, I don't know what to do. I remember calling his phone that I did have, his phone number wherever it was that he lived, and leaving messages over and over and over again, like leaving a lot of messages and a lot of ugly messages and waiting. Like, I remember counting the hours, like, how long does it take him to get back to Oklahoma from here in a car? And I I I I was just devastated. And eventually I did hear from him. I remember when he did call, I was like, I was livid. And of course, I was I was lit. When I was younger, I was wild as far as my anger and my temper were concerned. Like it was not something that anybody wanted to like get involved with. Um, so I mean, I when we had that phone call, I was I was irate and and and hurt and in shock. There was just like so many things that I couldn't understand about what was going on. And I and I'm young. I'm like by this time I had just turned 19 and uh or I had been 19 and turned 19 that year. And so I I'm young, I'm a kid. I'm not thinking, oh, this car is in both of our names. And so when I finally ended up having this conversation with him, he was like, look, I had to do what I had to do. He did not want to see me, he did not want to see Austin, he didn't want to be a part of this birthday. It was all this ruse for him, for me to be able to get him here so he could take the car. He had been in an accident and had wrecked the other vehicle that we had had. And so he was like, Well, I have another car, I just need to go get it. And that's exactly what he did. He convinced me that he wanted to get back together and he wanted to try to make things work, and then he kind of got his way in to wherever I was located because he didn't know at the time, and I let him. I let him come. I believed him, I trusted him, and he came and he literally had a one-way ticket. He it was completely planned. He had a one-way ticket to Georgia, and as soon as I fell asleep after Austin's party, he grabbed the keys, pulled everything, he stole the keys from my bedroom while I was sleeping out of my purse, and then he took all of my stuff out of the car and just threw it in the house, and then he just hightailed it out of there. And I think I spoke to him again after that. He called me one more time after that, and it was after he had wrecked that car. He was notorious for um drinking and driving or falling asleep at the wheel. So he had wrecked several vehicles. And so, I mean, I don't even know. He hadn't had the car, but maybe a couple of months before he wrecked the one that he took from me. And so there I was, I'm there with Austin, I'm a single parent, I am trying to work and trying to figure out my life. And the only vehicle I had at the time, he took, he took from us. And it was, I think it was really at that point, I was like, I can't trust men at all. I just can't trust men at all. And uh the fact that I fell for it, I was like, I will never happen again. That will never happen again. And there really set in my um my fortitude when it came to men that I was not gonna be used or taken advantage of again by another man. And uh there's it's easier said, right? It's easier said than actually done because also at the same time I it sent me on this whole other path of trying to do my best to find the right man who was gonna love me and take care of me, now be a father to my other son and and try to to create this family life that I obviously had, but then had just lost. So it wasn't a uh it wasn't a a good situation for me that that led me on a path that I would have really preferred, I guess. Like, you know, thinking about it now, I'm just it's you know, I know my story, I've lived my life, but even talking about it over again, you just think, man, what what was I doing? What was I doing? But that was the last time I spoke to him, and we were not divorced, we didn't get divorced for a very long time, and that you'll hear about how that situation all came about in the future, but um that was it. That's the last time I spoke to him again until like 2001. So I worked, you know, I at that point it was all I could do, you know. I I was also feeling a lot of pressure from my dad at the time, like the dis you know, the choices I'm making bad choices, then I'm not doing the right things for my life and for my kids' life, and and there was no real you know, guidance at all during that time. It was a lot of like, well, you shouldn't be doing this and you shouldn't be doing that, and you know, you've made bad choices. But I was again still at that point, even though I'm 19 and I'm, you know, I have a baby and I've been married and you know, I mean, left. I I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to work, I didn't know how to get a job, I didn't know how to support myself. So I'm just out there just living life the best that I know and understand how as a teenager. And um, I was working, and so I got involved with another guy. Um, and he was my boyfriend for a while, and that, you know, it lasted for a little bit. Um, nothing special there. It's just was another boyfriend that I had. And, you know, he's he was 22 at the time, and he was like, I I really like you, and I want to be with you, but at the same time, like none of these kids that I'm seeing, I'm a kid, I'm dating other kids. They're not ready for a child to enter into their life, they're not ready to be a parent on their own, especially for for a child that doesn't belong to them. So it was difficult. Um, I found it very difficult in my position, for sure. And um, you know, fast forward about a year ahead of that, we had moved out of the house with my dad and into another apartment. Um, I had gotten a job at a law firm. Um, I I don't even know how it happened. Happen. I just happened upon this law firm and I applied for the job. And they loved me and they hired me and they were willing to put me through paralegal school and I was making really good money. And I was still working at the restaurant. So I was, I had a day job, I had a night job, and I was making a decent money. So I was allowed to at least cover my car because I had to buy another car. I was allowed to cover my rent and things like that. So in between that, I had gotten a phone call from another guy. Um, if you haven't noticed, a lot of guys are going to be thematic in my life, um, for sure. It's just, it just led from one bad relationship to the next. But he was a childhood friend. And he had been like, oh, I've haven't missed y'all, haven't seen y'all in a long time. And he uh lives in South Georgia that I didn't, I didn't even know. And he had contacted up my grandmother and had had a conversation with her, and then she had given him my number and had reached out to me. And he wanted to come and visit and see us. And I was like, sure, absolutely. And then of course he comes and um we spend, he spent like the he spent a couple of days on and off. Like he had drove up and drove home and came back over the over a weekend. And my my uh my parents were actually both there. My mom had had uh finally made her way over to Georgia to live with me in my apartment, and that probably lasted about three months, too. So um things were just wild. I think there's there was no real rhyme or reason to any of the things that were really happening. It's just kind of things were you know happening at the time. My mom was living in um in San Antonio, and then her the relationship she was in didn't work out, and so she came and said, Oh, well, let me come and live with you because now I'm in my own apartment. And then um that didn't last, and she ended up moving back. But during this time, when my childhood friend had showed up, she was she was there with me, and he really, really liked me and he really wanted to like be my boyfriend and you know, you know, how pretty I am now that we're all grown up and just all these things. And and of course, I'm just like, yeah, like again, I think back to the original story, like I I get swept up. I get swept up in this idea that somebody loves me, that somebody likes me, that somebody wants to be with me. And and being in a situation where I was finding it very difficult to have friends, I was finding it difficult to have a to keep and maintain a boyfriend and things like that because of my position of being a very young mother. I'm like, you you don't hear people just wanting to to hang out with you even very often. So um, I I, you know, I fell really prey to that, the idea that, okay, maybe this could be something. And my parents were very, you know, yes, let's, they were very encouraging of the situation. So um, there were definitely things that I did not feel comfortable about. There, I wasn't really sure. I didn't really want to say yes to be his girlfriend, or in his mind, like, I'm gonna be his girlfriend, and he's trying to move me out to where he lives. Like, you need to come live with me. And um I was feeling very uncomfortable about a lot of that. But when my mom moved out again, out of my apartment, I've I felt like I didn't have a choice. Um my rent wasn't as easy to pay because I had lost, I didn't lose, but I had quit the job at the restaurant. So I just had the one job. But and he had convinced me it's like, so it's so much easier if we're just together and then, you know, y'all can stay there and then you don't have to worry about working and all of these things. And of course, all of the stuff that led up to it, it all made sense to me at the time, right? It's it felt like more of a this survival instinct was kind of taking over that this seems like the best choice for me at the time. But, you know, hindsight's 2020. But um, so yeah, I did. I moved. I ended up moving, I ended up losing my or quitting my job, I keep saying losing, but I quit my job um at the uh law firm and I packed my stuff up and I moved to South Georgia. And it was then that everything really started to unravel before me. And I got myself into a place where I realized just how scary and bad things can be. And for me, I have never lived, I've never lived in a space where I really experienced domestic violence or where I saw that kind of thing happening. My parents were never like that. They barely even argued in front of us. And in a way, I was very sheltered in life. You know, my mom never let us as kids. Like I didn't stay the night at other people's houses. She was very um, very vigilant on protecting us and keeping us safe from certain kinds of things happening to us. And so um, when I got into this relationship and he got me out there, so we I was far away when I got into this town. There's nobody lives there. There's like nobody in town. It's a very, very like podunk country town where there's nothing, there's not a store. There's like a little bank and there's like a little, like a corner store, and then you have to drive far away to get to the grocery store. I'm in the middle of the woods, in the middle of nowhere. And this this part of the story is going to lead into where there's um definitely some trigger warnings because it's gonna talk about some, it's gonna talk about a lot of threatening um domestic violence. So if anybody doesn't want to hear it, please skip ahead. But we were living in this, he had like finagled this little house that he knew these people had, and um, we weren't even paying rent there. And I don't really think they wanted us to be living there, but they let us stay there for a little while. And I had moved all of the stuff that I did have in my apartment at the time into that home. And it was sh now, mind you, there's no phones. We had no phone at the house at all. There was no phone, there was, I didn't have TV, um, I didn't have anything, no cell phone, none of that. And I didn't have a car. I think that's right. I think I said before that I had had to get a new car, but I didn't have a vehicle then. I think I was taking my dad's car back and forth that he had let me have until it like I ran it into the ground. Basically, it was an old car, and I basically had that. So when I moved, I didn't have a vehicle at all. That's right, because I didn't get my new car until after the fact. But it's hard, like all the little details of the story, you know, when you go back and you think about it. But so I didn't have a car there. So it was just his car, and that was it. And then when he would go to work during the day, I didn't have a vehicle at all. I was just kind of stuck in this house. I um Austin was young at the time. He was one, he hadn't even turned two yet. And a lot had happened that first year. Um, Austin was still young, he was still one year old. And I remember one day I had been so cooped up because I there's nothing. I have nobody to talk to, I have nowhere to go, I'm not seeing people anymore. I don't have television to watch. So it was just kind of me stuck in this house. And one night he had come home from work and I was like, I just want to get out of the house. Like, can we just go drive or do something? So he was like, Yeah, sure. And so Austin and I, because he had a truck, so we're in the like all in the front bed of this truck, and we were driving, and I had had, I had stopped and got something to drink at the corner store, and we were just driving and listening to music. And I remember we had we're coming back and we were in a really remote place because I don't know anywhere of where we were at. Like I just not a place or an area that I knew at all, and I wasn't driving, so I didn't know my way around it at all. But we were driving and it was really it felt late, but it was really dark. And I was like, oh man, I need to go to the bathroom. And there was nowhere to stop and go to the bathroom. So I was like, I was kind of like, okay, we need to go home because like I need to go to the bathroom. And so he was like, okay, yeah, sure. So like you remember he had turned around and we were driving back, and there was this road that goes up over this bridge, and we had pulled down off to the side of the road there, and there's like this bridge, and there's like this little like brook river type thing under there. And he pulled right down up to it, and he turns the car off, and it's real quiet, and now there's me, I'm sitting in the middle, Austin's over to my right by the door, and he's there in the driver's seat, and nobody says anything, and I'm like thinking, what are we doing here? And he goes, um he leans over the steering wheel and he goes, he's just he doesn't look at me, and he just real quietly, and he goes, you know, he goes, I could kill you and throw you in that river, and nobody would ever find you. And I was like, in my head, I'm going, what is happening? And immediately I'm like, I'm terrified, I'm stricken with fear, and I don't say a word. I I didn't, I I I don't know, like when I was with him, there were things that would happen and things that he would say and do that when it would happen, like I said nothing. Like I just felt like you need to be silent. And so I didn't say anything at the time. And then he after it what felt like forever, he he finally said, he goes, Why don't you get out and go pee? And I was like, Oh, I'm not getting out of this truck. There is no way I'm getting out of this truck. And I remember going, I I laughed. I started laughing, and I said, Oh, there's no way I'm getting out of here and going peeing in the dark. Man, there's a snake or something's gonna get me or whatever. I'm like, let's just go and I can hold it till we get home. And I was so nervous because I was like, oh my God, he's gonna kill me. And up to this point, I had not really had an experience with him that had led me to believe that this was even a possibility. I was in complete shock. Nothing like this has ever happened to me. I've never been threatened like that or in a situation with with anybody ever. And up to this point, nothing with him either. So I was just like, I I don't know what is going on. And after a while, he finally just sat back and he likes heavily sighed, and then he just started the truck, and then we left and we went home. And I was like, oh my gosh. The sigh of relief. And after that, we went home and it was just like nothing happened. I had sat on the edge of the bed one night, it was late, it was really late, and he s he had his head hanging low, and I had said something to him, and when he spoke to me, he spoke to me in a different voice, and it was not like anything I had ever heard before. Um, and I was like, What are you saying? And he then tried to like, I mean, this and this is gonna sound weird to some people, I'm sure. I mean, it sounded weird to me, but he was telling me that his name was different and that he was basically that he was possessed, is basically what he told me. That and he was like speaking from this person who was possessed, um, and that this is his name and this is who he is, and he had a completely different voice, nothing like I'd ever heard. And he was just like looking down at the floor and he never looked up at me one time while he was saying all this stuff. And then he was like, Did you do these things? Is these things true? Or are you are you trying to leave me and all of this stuff? And I'm just like, I I don't know what's happening. And I just kept trying to ignore what he was asking and saying me and trying to like get him to like snap out of it. And um eventually I I am like full of anxiety. I didn't even know what anxiety was up until that point, I don't think. I had never like physically felt panic like that. Um, like just completely come over my body and like on my insides are shaking. And I am like trying to, I'm like, hello, hello, like what is going on? Are you okay? And then he finally just he kind of snaps out of it. I remember he just looks straight up and he's literally just blank and he looks at me, and he stands up, and so I stand up because we were sitting on the side of the bed, and then he walks over to the closet door, excuse me, and I'm like, and I said, What are you doing? And he opens the door, he reaches in, he gets out his nine millimeter and he loads it, and I start walking, so like the Austin's bedroom was right next to ours, and the door was shut, and I am wal and I as soon as I see him get a gun out, I start walking across the room, and as I do, he turns around and he meets me there in the middle of the room, and I turn around, I look at him, and he puts that gun to my forehead, and basically we're just staring at each other. I'm just staring at him, he's staring at me, he's got a gun to my head, he says nothing, and I just sit there. And my brain is like going 90 miles an hour, and I don't know what to do. And the first thing that I I did, I was, and then it like the first thing that came out of my mouth, and I was like, Hey, I said, Austin's awake, I need to go check on him. And he and when I did, he started blinking, and he looked at me, and he's blinking, and I said, Okay, I'm gonna go check on him. And he just kind of like cocked his head almost like a dog, and he looked at me, and uh he didn't say anything, and I remember I just turned around and started walking to the door, and I was like, Oh, please God, don't shoot me, because I I didn't know what was gonna happen at that point. I'm like, I'm gonna I'm gonna walk away, he's gonna shoot me, and that's gonna be the end. But at that moment I felt like getting out of that room and going in there was the only hope I had to getting away, and I remember turning around and just walking, and I remember making it to the door, making it to the other side, and shutting the door, and then I collapsed on the floor. I don't know how long I stood there or I fell there, laid there on the floor, but it was a long time. Austin was sound asleep, he had never made a sound. Through the whole thing, he had stayed completely asleep. And I remember just laying on that floor in tears and not knowing what to do. I started going, like, can I can I can I jump out the window? Can I grab Austin? Can we both make it out the window? If I do, where do I run? Where do I go? I'm miles away from anybody. Uh, I don't know how to get there. I don't know what I'm doing. There's no phone. And all I kept thinking was like, You're fixing to go back to Atlanta, you're fixing to go back to Atlanta. And I was just like, I'm not gonna make it through the night. I mean, he's gonna kill me. And I don't know what's going on. I don't know, I don't hear anything on the other side of the door, but I was like, I'm not coming out of this room. And I was like, I am not coming out of this room. And I must have stayed in there until the sun came up. And I remember coming out, there's a door on the other side of Austin's room, like they went into the bathroom, and it kind of made a circle around the house. So I went out into the bathroom and I came around to see what was like peeking around to see where he was, and he was in the bed asleep. And so I remember sitting on the couch and just waiting. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything. And that next morning was when we were supposed to be leaving for Atlanta. So when he woke up, it was like nothing had ever happened. He was completely fine, he was completely normal, and I was terrified. I packed as much stuff as I could like in our bags, like clothes and everything that I could. And um, when we got in the car, I was like, I'm not going back. And we made it to Georgia, and I finally had when as soon as I got to my dad's house, I mean the relief that took over me, that when we really pulled into the driveway at his apartment, and I'm thinking, oh I'm here. I'm safe. I felt oh like, oh my gosh, I'm safe. Oh my gosh. And then like I remember jumping out of the car and I grabbed Austin and I run into the car, or I run out of the car and I run into the apartment, and my brother's there, and I'm like, I give him Austin, and when I see my dad, I was like immediately like, I need to talk to you. I need to talk to you. And that was pretty much the end of that. Um, you know, I walked away from everything that I owned, everything that was sentimental and important to me that I had was in that home there, and I left it all. It was just gone. A lot of stuff of Austin's was gone, and it was a very, very traumatic time for me. After that, I think my brain just kind of checked out for a long time about what one, what men were capable of, because I wasn't really privy to those kinds of things growing up and being so young and naive and sheltered, you know. I mean, the things that I know now that people are capable of and the things that happened to other to other people, I can't, I can't fathom it. I can't fathom it. Even knowing the things that I've I've gone through, I can't imagine some of the the horrific things that people have had to endure in their life. But you know, I I did get out of it. I I got out of it in one piece and safe, and so did Austin. As far as physically, I think the mental and emotional toll it took on me was great. It was it was definitely was uh was uh it took a big toll on me for sure. And you know, in uh what I call true Heather fashion, um, I took that and I doubled down. I doubled down and it became more imperative for me to find somebody that I could be with that would protect me and that I could trust. And, you know, I went back to work. I, you know, my dad bought me a car. That's when he bought me a car. He helped me get another car and that helped me get back and forth to work, and I worked at restaurants a lot, hostessing, and and I did that for a long time, um, just kind of trying to make it along. And um about a year later, I um was at a party with my my best friend at the time. She was having a party at her house and she had invited tons of people there, and she was like, You gotta meet this guy, you gotta meet this guy. And I was like, Okay. And it had been a little while um since I had, you know, dated anybody after that last incident. And so I was like, okay, I can't wait to meet him. And when he came in, he knew he he knew he was there to meet me, and I knew that I I was there to meet him. And so when he came in, I was like, oh, I said hi, and I gave him a hug. I'm Heather. And um, and we we dated on and off for about four months, not on and off, but we dated for about four months, and we really liked each other. He was a good guy. You know, he he had his own apartment with his roommate, and he had a good job, and he loved Austin to death. And um, he eventually asked me to move in with him after about four months, and I did. I moved in and he was helping me pay for diapers, he was help feeding me, he was um help taking care of me um outside of what I couldn't afford with just my job. And so, you know, things were really good. I um we had a lot of fun together, he had a lot of fun friends, and uh, you know, it was good. But the only caveat with him was is that, you know, he smoked a lot of weed, and I had not really been around a lot of drugs before. So, or hadn't been around drugs at all, really, outside of like alcohol. So it was a it was a different experience to be with people who smoked a lot. And um I had at that point had decided to um, you know, I would try it because I'm around it, but it did not go well for me. I'm I'm not a person who does well when on substances of any sort, my body is extremely sensitive. It doesn't like it. Um, I don't like it. I don't like to feel different. I don't like to feel weird. I don't like to feel inebriated at all. So it just didn't really work out for me that way. And somewhere in between, like, I think like the sixth or seventh month mark, um, I ended up pregnant. And uh this was with baby number two. And I remember finding out that I was pregnant and then coming and telling him, and he was just like over the moon. He was over the moon, excited that I was pregnant. And I was once again completely terrified. I'm thinking, we're not married. I'm barely surviving and making it with Austin, and um, I don't know how I'm gonna do this again. And I think mixed with just my hormones and the trauma that I have already endured and the fear of having another baby and what that looked like, because the last time I did it, it did not look good for me. It didn't go well for me. Um, the the birth process was really difficult and scary and life-challenging. And so, let alone the situation with his father. So I was having a lot of anxiety about the upcoming situation. And as the pregnancy progressed, I think I was probably about five months pregnant before he left. He left me. Um, he started getting to where he's like, You're acting all crazy, you're super hormone. He didn't even know call it hormonal. I was hormonal, but he didn't know what it was. He just said, like, you just got pregnant and went crazy. And he just didn't want anything to do with that. Like the idea of a kid was really awesome, but he didn't want to have to deal with me and any of the things that come with pregnancy whatsoever. So he left. And my dad at the time was getting remarried to his third wife at the time. And I it was they were having a wedding and I was due there, and they were going to be leaving for their honeymoon. And I, of course, I have perfect timing in case anybody wants to know. I have perfect timing with the most traumatic news. Either I'm getting married or divorced or getting pregnant or something terrible is happening in my life. And so I'm always in the middle, you know, ruining people's important times. And this was no different. I remember going to the wedding that day and having to tell my dad, the day of his wedding, that um my boyfriend had basically left and kicked me out, and I didn't have anywhere to go, or I was going to be completely alone during this pregnancy. So again, he was not happy about that situation, but he did offer to let me stay while they were on uh their honeymoon in the house and that we would just figure it out when he got back. So um I moved out and I moved into his house, and that's where I stayed until I ended up having giving birth. Um I had uh his, you know, the baby's dad at the time just it he left. He left me and never heard from him again until like right before right before I gave birth. Um, I had the baby in February, and it was like right, I think a month or so before I had the baby, he had contacted me. Um and I hadn't heard him from him at all. And he had contacted me and he was like, so when's the baby due? Um, you know, I'm gonna have my family, you know, come in for this. And I'm thinking, uh, no, no, no, we're not doing that. I'm not doing this. Like I had had other plans. Like I had been left in abandon again. I'm pregnant and I was sick for a lot of my pregnancy with this one towards the end. And uh I had been working at a daycare during that time, and there I had met a woman there who was another teacher, and she could not have children, and they had adopted her first son. And I had eventually come to them and asked them if they wanted to adopt my baby and that we could do an open adoption. And so we got a lawyer and we had a lot of conversations. I just knew that this was going to be the right choice for me and for Austin and for the baby. I'm already in a situation where I, you know, I know that living with my dad was a temporary one. Um, I don't know how to take care of myself. I am barely being able to survive at all. And not being able to basically take care of myself or hardly Austin, let alone another child, like I wasn't going to be doing any of us any favors at all. And I thought if I could find him a home, if I could find somebody who could love him and take care of him, and that and and I could have it an open adoption that it would provide me a way to still be able to be in his life. And so for months, uh, the last few months of my pregnancy, that's what I did. I got to know these people and um and we had everything set up. So when I went to go give birth, they were there with me at the hospital. And, you know, it's it's weird because back then things were things were so different. I I remember I remember being in the hospital. Like I, so I had, and of course I have surgery because I had emergency surgery last time I had to have another planned cesarean this time because the kind of surgery I had originally would not let me um, they would not let me try to even have him V back because of the danger to my body. So, and to the baby. So I remember we had our scheduled cesarean and we went in, then the adoptive couple was there with me. Um, but they couldn't go into surgery with me. So my dad was with me, but I remember going in to surgery that day, and it was not anything, it was not anything like I had ever imagined in my life. I was having trouble with the anesthetic, and they had given me the epidural for the cesarean, and I remember being in there on the table, and my dad was laying or sitting next to me, and I remember they went to literally go like starts the surgery and like cut me open. And I remember yelling, I'm like, hey, I'm like, and I was like, ouch. And he was like, What? And I'm like, you're cutting me. And he's like, you can feel that. And I was like, Yes, I can feel that. And they were like, Oh, and they were really concerned. So they started doing all these tests to see what I could feel and what I couldn't feel. And and I'm like, no, and then my dad kind of laughed and he was like, Man, I guess both of my kids are anesthetic resistant. And then the anesthesiologist was like, Well, that would have been nice to know. And I'm like, I didn't know that until now. And so, I mean, the the previous surgery I had been completely under general anesthetics, so I had no idea. And so they we had to wait, and they gave me something else um to try to numb me, and it just was not working really well at all. I remember I was barely numb from like where they could just do the surgery, but I could still feel my legs and everything. And I remember when they go to do the surgery and he starts cutting me open. I could feel every single thing that was happening. Like they talked to you about feeling the pressure, like you're gonna feel pressure, but it literally was so painful. I remember just screaming and crying and laying there, and it literally felt like somebody had stuck their hands up inside my body and grabbed a hold of my rib cage and was just pulling it out of me. And they were just like, just bear with me. We're almost done, we're almost done, it's almost over. And it was I'll never forget it. It was, I'll never forget that feeling. And once it was all over, you know, I knew that I knew that my son wasn't going home with me. And, you know, I I was in this place where I'm like, I didn't want to see the baby. I didn't, I didn't want to have anything to do with it because I knew that the second I did that it was over, I was like, I wouldn't be able to follow through with it. And so they remember they took me out and they took me into recovery. And then we went and I finally got into my room, and my friends, the adoptive couple was in there, and they the hospital at the time, so they there was this weird thing about adoption. They didn't want me having an adoption, they weren't like real friendly with the adoptive couple, and they didn't want anybody to know. So there the nurses were like, you don't tell anybody that it's just the way it has to be, because it wasn't completely finalized until after he was born. So because we also went through a lawyer, we didn't go through an agency, and so they made the the the nurses and the doctors made me do everything while I was in there. I still had to take care of the baby, I had to nurse the I didn't, I don't know that I nursed him, but I they made me had to feed him, had to do all of those things. And I was really hoping that that's why the adoptive couple was there so they could do that. And she was able to do some of that when like there we didn't have doctors in the room and things like that. But um, you know, it was it was a it was a really rough time. I was heavily sedated um and medicated from the surgery, um, but I remember just really feeling empty and feeling like I didn't want to leave the hospital because I knew that once I did that the all of this was over and that it was real at that point. And but the days were like clocking down, and I think I left like four days after I'd had surgery. And when the day finally came, when the day finally came, you know, when we had to leave, they were like, okay, so the adoptive couple couldn't take the baby. I had to be willed out with the baby. And as we get down to the outside, I'm already just in tears because I don't know how I'm gonna handle this situation. Like, I'm basically gonna just like just trade off my son in the parking lot to these people that I don't know, and then I'm just gonna go home. And I had just been had come through all of this traumatic stuff in my life up to this point, and just feeling like I'm nothing but just a problem. Um, everybody's ashamed of me. The the people in my family were not um, they were not supportive in the right ways. You know, they did with the bare minimum of what they had to do to physically take care of me, but there was zero emotional support whatsoever. Um, you know, it was more of like a blaming situation. So I, you know, this is your your choice is your fault, basically. I'm sorry, I keep messing with my headphones, but I have these clips in and it keeps really hurting my head a lot. Um But there was it, there was just none of that. I had family members come to the hospital and be like, we want to help you, we want to help take care of you. So if you would just sign the baby over to us and then we could raise him and we could do all these things, and I'll just, you know, I I think you know, you mean well. They mean well when they say things like that. They meant well when they were trying to do it, you know, at least I think they did. Um, I want to believe that they did. But to me, it just is like, oh I'm not worth you helping. Right? You can you can take my baby from me, but you you're not willing to help me keep my baby. Right. And I know I'm not stupid. I know that my choices aren't yours, my mistakes aren't your mistakes to fix. And I I didn't expect anybody to. But I think that I really did expect people to be more emotionally supportive of where I was and the things that I was enduring and the reasons and why and how I got here, and it just wasn't happening. It just wasn't happening. My uh stepmother at the time, I was coming home. I I had been sick during the end of my pregnancy. I had lost a lot of blood during surgery, so I was I was at transfusion level. And they tried to give me a transfusion in the hospital and I rejected it. I did not want that, and I said no. And when they sent me home, I was on this regiment of stuff to help my iron and my blood flow and things like that. And and I had had surgery, I couldn't get around. And, you know, when I left the hospital, I left with my dad. And when I had transferred the baby over to this couple, I remember I remember getting in the car and we were just driving home, and I was just thinking, I'm so sick. I physically am super weak. I've just had surgery. I need a transfusion. I'm not well. But I remember just staring out the window thinking, I just don't want to be here anymore. I just didn't want to I just I just wanted to just disappear. I just wanted my body to just evaporate. I just wanted to evaporate. They're you know, in the hospital they when they f didn't know that I was ha giving him up for adoption, they sent in bereavement people to come and talk to me. Um, letting me know that giving a baby up for adoption um uh r at this stage is like I'm grieving him as if he has died. And um, you know, I was like, I don't need any of that. And you know, nobody was it was just kind of like, oh no, she's good, I'm good, you know, I'm gonna I'm fine. But I was I was far from fine. I was far from fine. And uh going home to a place where my stepmother d went on vacation, so she didn't have to be there with me during this time. My dad really not knowing what to do or how to take care of me, and I was left there to help to take care of myself and to take care of Austin. Just having had surgery, just having gone through a very traumatic experience and not knowing really what was ever going to come of me after this because I really didn't feel like a human anymore. It was one of the most tumultuous times of my life and one in which I did not recover for from for the next 20 years. And uh I think that's where I'm gonna stop there. I'm gonna stop there. The uh if you come back and you join me for part three next week, um, you'll be able to walk into the next few parts of what happened and and how I got to where I am today. Thank you so much for joining me and listening in. I know that this one is a harder one to listen to. It's a harder one for me to get out. Um, I may have rambled, I may have been a kind of all over the place, I think. I I feel that way anyway, especially when I'm being vulnerable and sharing things that are really difficult in my life. It's um, you know, knowing exactly how to say and what to say in the right way. But um, but thank you for coming and thank you for letting me share and being here. Um, I hope you come back next week and uh you join me in. And I want to remind everybody out there that no matter what you've been through, no matter what you've walked through and what you've experienced, no matter how hard life has been and what you may have seen, that freedom is the advantage that you already own. I'll see you guys next week.