To get away from all the drama associated with my existence I decided to get away and my sister offered for me to stay with her and her family at her apartment in Boise, Idaho. So, I flew out to Boise with a backpack, and my skyrocketing mental health and substance abuse issues in hopes that I’d stay sober and retrieve some help.

My sister had just given birth to her first and only son, Axle and was married to a lovely man from California named Shane. Their son was one of the most beautiful babies I had ever seen before, with his gorgeous big blue eyes. He was about 8 months old when I arrived and helped me mourn the loss of my son.

I suffered through my mental health the entire time I was in Boise. I still talked to Chris on the phone but my heart was so broken. An insomniac suffering through the loss of custody of my son, an adoption and whatever postpartum crap our bodies have to go through after birth.

I was smoking copious amounts of THC wax concentrate that our dad was mailing Camille from Colorado all day and throughout the night while everyone was sleeping. I was so manic some nights that I’d just stay up all night making lame and depressing GIFs for my Tumblr account. One night I got drunk, sending drunken videos to my friend Nessa and tattooing myself all over, I was not okay.

After a month in that same old manic loop, with my crazed insomnia, I decided to check myself into a mental hospital for a nice 72 hour hold in what happened to be the nicest mental health facility I could’ve ever imagined. They were the most polite and respectful patients. I even had a schizophrenic apologizing for talking to himself. I was able to get on some medication and participated in the groups.

After I was discharged my sister and I would frequently take off on these long, scenic drives. We’d drive deep into the mountains to see the waterways, waterfalls and gorges. Idaho was, hands down, the most gorgeous state I’ve ever seen. There was something new and phenomenally beautiful to see not 20 minutes from the next. It’s like I let my exploration badge out of storage and I was finally able to appreciate the views.

Sometime during my stay I met an internet friend, he went by the name Jukka but his real name was Joe. He lived back in Florida and he was just really easy to talk to. We hit it off, despite me still talking to Chris and after sharing many sad baths over the phone, he offered to buy my plane ticket back to Florida just so he could meet me.

So, I hopped on a plane back to Tampa and shortly after he picked me up and took me out on dates. We’d lay down in my driveway and stare up at the sky and check for meteor showers. I’d spend the night over his house and I absolutely adored his children. He had a good job, was in a band, owned a truck and held an addiction to Dunkin Donuts coffee and 305 menthol cigarettes.

There was a point in time when I decided to stay with Nessa and her family. I had the time of my life while I was living with her. She had Loki, her son and Acacia which was her baby daughter and I was Titi to them. I love

Unfortunately, right after meeting Joe I reconnected with one of my old crust punk friends, Jarin. He was a drug addict and not before long I was shooting up heroin and smoking meth with him.

I hated myself and I was miserable in my own skin. I was grieving hard over the loss of my 3 children, still. I was medically crazy and I had no coping mechanisms. I’d use all day with Jarin and have Joe pick me up to snuggle and have sex with afterwards. I had Chris, Jarin and Joe – one foot in the door of a potentially fun and adoring man that allowed me to enter the lives of his children, another in a relationship with a drug addicted and lost man while the rest of me was gripping tightly to Chris in hopes to marry him one day. I was honest with Joe when I told him I planned to get with him as soon as he got released from prison.

I’ve always been a deceitful, manipulating bitch that doesn’t have personal boundaries. I was so selfish to try juggling 3 men, I told Chris and Jarin everything they wanted to hear but I also genuinely liked all 3 men. I was getting myself into a bigger pickle than I bargained for.

My behavior was completely out of control. I was sneaking off in the middle of the night, I was sneaking people over to sell me drugs while my mom was sleeping and staying up for days at a time all high on meth. One night my mom and I got in an argument and Jarin picked me up with his mom.

In retaliation, my mom called 911 to have me Baker Acted. It was January 3rd, 2020 and Chris’ release date was January 16th. I was working at Big Lots in Tarpon Springs saving up money so that when Chris got out of prison we’d immediately take a bus up to Maryland.

Jarin’s mom got pulled over just a few short blocks away from my mom’s house with expired tags. I was taken in for a Baker Act, their car was impounded while I was sent to Trinity Hospital and then to the local mental hospital for a 72 hour hold.

While waiting for a bed to open up for me at the mental hospital, I fell asleep. At around 4am a nurse shook me awake and informed me that I was pregnant.

“Shut the fuck up!”, I exclaimed. At that point in my life, after all the bullshit I’ve endured, for that nurse to wake me up and inform me of my condition. It took all of me not to break out into hysterics. What the fuck, really?! God must really hate me and at that point I wasn’t sure how I felt about him either.

Only having had sex with Jarin once or twice and Joe so much more, I was still very unsure of who the father was. Chris was getting out of jail in a little over a week. What the hell was I going to do? FUCK! And now I have the next 3 days stuck not being able to do anything in a fucking mental hospital.

As soon as I got out I told Joe I was pregnant and I made an appointment at an abortion clinic. I brought all the money I had saved up to get to Maryland and it still wasn’t enough for the procedure. Time had run out and I didn’t have a way to fix the problem, so I made a plan to abort the baby before Chris could find out once I got to Maryland.

On the night of January 16th 2020, I borrowed my mom’s car and drove to the Tampa bus station to pick up Chris. I dressed up all saucy and took Chewie with me for a full on family reunion. I was beyond excited. After I picked him up I drove him to the Champion Inn in Holiday and we spent the entire night loving each other and shooting heroin. It was magical.

Then I woke up, Chris was standing over me with my phone in his hands. He had gone through my phone, my texts and God knows what else. He knew everything before I even had the chance to come clean about it. Not only did I lie about being with anyone else while he was in prison, but I was pregnant with another man’s baby.

I had to figure out how to convince him to stay with me as well as figure out what to do about this pregnancy. Chris was so calm about it all that it was almost eerie. He overall just wished I had been honest for once.

So we sat and we talked it out and I told him all about Joe and Jarin. He wanted to be with me, but ultimately he didn’t want me to continue my pregnancy if I could help it.

Before I was able to get into a hotel, my mom dropped me off at my friend Vanessa (Nessa) Marbrey’s house, just to get me out of Moon Lake and I stayed with her for a few days.

Because Zeke was born so early, and because I was pregnant with twins I had to go to an at risk obgyn and the only one in the area was at St. Pete baby place. The adoption agency found me accommodations in Pinellas Park, right down the road from where my mom was living at the time.

My bills were all paid, my room and did were taken care of as well as I had a weekly stipend that the couple i chose to adopt the twins took care of. I found a lovely couple that lived out in Georgia the mother was a ballerina that worked at a daycare and the father was a firefighter and they looked so happy and in love – almost perfect.

Thanks to the adoption agency and their quick response, getting me into the hotel in perfect timing, I was able to stop using meth cold turkey. I was even catching myself becoming happy and as soon as I got out of Moon Lake and developed a relationship back with my mother then I was able to have visitation with Zeke again

I immediately cut off all communication with Chris the moment he got locked up, but according to the charges things weren’t looking too good for him. He called my phone every single day, sometimes a few times. Eventually, a weight started growing as my conscience and by the time I was about 7 months along I finally decided it was time to open up communication with him again.

How could I throw out all the reasoning I’ve been telling myself for the previous months without him after the first phone call. How is it that he always had this uncanny ability to make me fall deeply and madly in love with him from just hearing the sound of his voice and what came out of his mouth.

Just knowing that he’s called me multiple times a day trying to get my attention made me feel special. I literally went on a website and loaded money into his account in order to talk to him, and quickly started video chatting with him.

His words, his super sexy and sultry voice and using all the right words and before I knew it I was back under his spell

The calls came more frequently, and I was video chatting with him everyday. I took the bus to the police station and the court house in an attempt to drop his chargers but since I had already gone to them and given them a complete statement there was nothing I could do and the state was going to pursue it. I even started a direct line of communication with Chris’ lawyer.

Then Minda De Jesus came into the picture. Minda was Chris’ cousin from Maryland who discovered that we lost custody of our son and wanted to adopt him. She took me out to dinner to meet her family and she and her family seemed very sweet. Later, we agreed to meet at a bouncy house business and she interacted with Zeke very well but, I did not want a stranger adopting my son.

With my mom fighting for custody and me being sober, I was helping her in any way I could to achieve our goal. Minda and I opened a line of communication and we’d talk a lot and with Chris wanting his cousin to adopt Zeke over my mom, I wasn’t sure what I wanted – all I knew is that I wanted to be an active part in my son’s life and that was guaranteed if my mom got custody however Chris wouldn’t have been as fortunate.

Not only that but because of the somewhat unreasonable behaviors that my mom has exhibited to us kids growing up and how parenting never really came naturally for my mom, I was starting to have mixed feelings. That and Chris’ opinion mattered to me and he wanted me to trust him by letting Minda take custody.

So, at Zeke’s custody hearing I was asked who I wanted to take custody of Zeke and I said my mom but I also voiced my concerns for if she did get custody. My lawyer and CPS case worker brought me into a back room and I was told that my mom would get custody of Zeke but I had to sign away my parental rights. I froze because I knew I made my mother look really bad and I was skeptical that things would actually work out. So I signed away my rights that day.

I went to my 36 week appointment only to discover that I was 7cm dilated. I didn’t feel like it was in labor, I was in no pain whatsoever and they instructed me to go across the street to the hospital and check myself in so I could deliver.

Expecting to deliver my twins that day – I was surely mistaken. They wanted me to stay pregnant for as long as my body would hold them but would induce me once I got to 38 weeks. But, they also couldn’t send me home because I was too high risk and pregnant with twins. I got sent to antepartum, where the ladies that were not quite ready to deliver go and where I’d stay for the next two weeks.

I got to 37 weeks and 6 days, they wheeled me into the delivery prep room which took all morning only for them to change their mind and wait til the following day until I was officially 38 weeks along. I was livid.

Nessa, my best friend whom I stayed with before I got checked into the hotel, met with me at the hospital. She stayed with me for about an hour while I was in labor and delivery prepping to get wheeled into the OR. She was able to stay long enough for me to get a seemingly mandatory epidural that was urged onto me despite me informing them that it would not work.

After Nessa left, they started the pitocin and within moments I was fully effaced and crowned. I was ready to push! They wheeled me into OR and I had a full team of people and the NICU nurses in the room.

I had the nurses holding onto my legs as I started pushing out the first baby. I almost gave up after experiencing the sheer pain of her head trying to squeeze a head out of my tiny vagina. But, after some rough encouragement from my delivery nurse, I was able to push her out.

Luna Charlotte Willey was born at 10:21 am. After delivering her, there was an observing doctor who was there specifically to move the baby from the transverse position into a delivering position. He took his arm and inserted it, elbow deep into my vagina. Feeling the pain of his arm, I jolted into a thrust but as soon as he removed his arm from inside of me I was able to easily push out the next baby.

Just 8 minutes later I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and I named him Elijah Abel Willey. I invited the supportive parents, Jenny and David in to take the babies and met them after I was transferred back into the labor suite. While they were bonding with the twins I was working on delivering my placenta, but with mild complications and some not so serious hemorrhaging. I was experiencing an insane amount of pain every time the doctor would press into my pelvis.

Something was wrong with me after I gave birth. The pain in my pelvis brought me to tears, I was screaming in agony while delivering my placenta. The nurses and doctors were very dismissive about the pain that I was in. I tried my best to ignore the pain that I was in for the duration of my hospital stay

I was able to breast feed both of my beautiful babies the first night but the next day Elijah, who was renamed Welles, had low blood sugar the next morning and was sent to the NICU unit for insulin and monitoring. During that time I spent some quality time with Luna, who was renamed Lena. I changed her diapers, sang to her and stared at her with awe of her beauty – trying to memorize every tiny detail.

I couldn’t walk so I wheeled up to the NICU and repeated the same behavior, singing and memorizing every little thing on Welles’ tiny body. Lena was 7lb 11ozb and Welles was 5lb 13oz and so she was a solid 2lb heavier than he was, the fragile little guy. She must have been sucking down all the nutrients from him.

Jenny and David were an absolute dream when it came to giving me the proper space I require to say goodbye to my dear, sweet babies. We did a photoshoot together before I was discharged which was absolutely beautiful and before it was time to leave I sobbed like a baby watching the little humans I just spent the past 9 months growing inside of me. David told me I was a superhero as we passed each other in the lobby before getting in the car and I let my tears roll down my cheeks.

Immediately after leaving the St Pete baby place, because of the amount of immense pain I was in, my mother drove me to Trinity hospital. I had a hairline fracture in the side of my pelvis bone and in the center of my pelvis, where most pregnant women only have separate 2-4mm I had a 13mm gap in the anteroposterior compression (ACP) type one. This is what was causing me to be in so much pain, it was called pubic symphysis diastasis. It must have happened during childbirth, I’m assuming from when I jolted and thrusted upwards when the doctor had to reposition baby Welles. They gave me a prescription of Vicodin and I found a walker on the marketplace.

After finishing up all of the adoption paperwork, I got a check for the amount of $3,000, maybe a few dollars more. I used that money to pay for the first, last and security on a nice 3 bedroom house in Holiday. It was just the type of house I’d have wanted Zeke living in once my mom got custody.

My mom and I had Zeke over every weekend, I was actually able to put my baby boy to sleep at night, sing to him, teach him and fall madly in love with him – it was a dream come true! I video chatted with him and Chris and becoming a family one day seemed possible. My mom and I got a probono lawyer to help us process the paperwork needed for her to get custody and everything seemed perfect.

Zeke’s foster mom met up with my mom for one final visit and my mom was given the papers that granted her temporary custody, making her a foster parent. The very next day CPS came by and took Zeke away for good. He was flown up to Maryland to be with Minda and her family.

I don’t know what happened, perhaps it was what I said about her in the courts or maybe Minda silly had a better lawyer than us. I truly have no idea but their decision broke my fucking heart. As soon as she got custody of Zeke all communication was cut off except for a Facebook page she made to post updates.

The last time I saw Zeke was at the beginning of July in 2019, at a local library. That was the last time I’d hold him in my arms. Having him just dissolve from my life during that time after spending all that time together. After going to all those parks, museums, and swimming adventures and being able to sing him a lullaby and sleep in my arms.

He was gone and I was all alone with my mom in Holiday. It was like all the pain of losing custody happened all over again and it was only a matter of time before I relapsed.

I walked into the back yard first, in order to do some reconciliation. As soon as I turned the corner I saw all of my clothes and personal items scattered all over the lawn. He tossed my shit… okay, no problem. I can handle that.

I didn’t want to go inside without a plan, so I just started picking up my clothes. I went deep in thought about what my next move would be and that’s when he turned the corner into the backyard. I made a run towards the door, got inside and locked it. There were multiple busted windows in the house. One was in the kitchen, uncovered and the other in the back room on the back side of the house. He went to the dining room. I took a kitchen knife and as he was trying to come in through the window I took the knife stabbing it in his direction.

At that moment I felt like I had the upper hand. He backed away from the window and I spotted the machete leaning against the wall in the living room. Before he found another way inside I grabbed the machete and he managed to get himself in the master bedroom from the front of the house.

I took the machete and stood outside the master bedroom’s door. I have gone mad at this point, just waiting for him to show himself so I could slash him up.

After I fell silent long enough he took his cellphone, using it as a mirror and pointed in the direction I was in. I was machete ready and wacked at the air missing him by mere centimeters. “You crazy fucking bitch!”, he screamed.

And I was being a crazy fucking bitch, but he made me this way.

He makes a run for it and grabs a metal broomstick for protection against me and my lethal machete. I ran at him, slashing at the air chaotically, aiming at his abdomen. I was ready to end his life. I slashed a hole in his shirt and made contact with the meat of his stomach.

Just as I thought I was about to finish him, he rammed the metal broomstick hard into my hand, knocking the machete out of my grasp. He stood in shock and I bolted to the backdoor and made my way into the back yard.

Out back the tweaker couple, Erica and Donald, that lived out in the back trailer were just pulling up. Grabbing my hand I ran up to them. My hand was already twice the size as before, swollen and throbbing in pain. “CALL 911! I THINK HE BROKE MY FUCKING HAND!!”

Chris stood in the back doorway for a few moments. The look on his face as he looked at my hand was full of horror, he was filled with regret and fear for what may happen to him. He took off into the house and grabbed his backpack and cellphone and took off down the road.

Erica helped me after I called the police, she grabbed me tissues to wipe my tears and sat with me while I waited for the cops and the ambulance to arrive. I had Erica promise me to find Chewie and bring him over to Erick and Ruthie’s house.

Once the police arrived they took my statement. Admittedly, I told the story of what happened and made it out to sound like Chris did way more damage than he actually did. Then I got in the ambulance and they brought me to Trinity hospital – the deputy following close behind. At the hospital I was taken in for X-rays and I signed a waiver to release my medical information to the police.

Erick and Ruth arrived at the hospital right before I was discharged and brought me back to their house, making the couch up for me.

Later that night, Chris came knocking on their door looking for me. When they asked through the door who it was he replied, “neighbors” and Erick quickly went for his gun and loaded it but by the time he got outside he was already gone. I phoned the police via their instructions and they found him down at the soup kitchen shortly after.

I left their house to watch as the police handcuffed him and put him in the back of the cop car.

I was pissed off. I felt entitled, like a victim that finally stood up for herself – empowered even. That Christmas Eve in 2018 Chris was arrested for and eventually charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, serious injuries on a known pregnant woman.

Maybe a week after he was arrested I called and scheduled to meet up with the Gift Of Life Adoption agency, out of Pinellas Park. I had no idea how far along I was or what I was having. I had yet gone to an OBGYN to get assessed and I was still shooting up meth on a regular basis

I met up with two case workers from the adoption agency and after we met and I filled out all of the paperwork one of the case workers accompanied me to Trinity Hospital’s emergency room to check on the baby. It turns out that I was around 20-22 weeks along and on top of that there were two! They wouldn’t know how far along I actually was until I made an appointment with an OBGYN. But, at least for now I could get the benefits from the adoption agency and get out of Moon Lake where all the meth riddled, black mold infected and rat infested shit hole of a trailer I was living in and into a nice, clean hotel

After inhaling all of those pills, it still took Chris a while to actually believe I did and by that time it was too late, there was nothing he could have done about it. I highly doubt him making me vomit some of them back up would have made much of a difference.

Before long my body started to loosen and expel all unnecessary fluids from it. I was projectile vomiting the brightest blue stomach bile and shitting myself so intense that there were actual feces on the ceiling.

The last thing I remember was laying down at the bottom of the shower sobbing silently and coming to terms with knowing I would take my last breath. I made peace with never waking up while holding onto the little bit of life I had left in me.

At some point Chris finally decided to call an ambulance. Passed out in the shower, he cleaned the vomit and poop off of my body and dressed me so I was decent for the paramedics arrival.

Looking back on it, it was incredibly selfish to attempt to end my life in any way but unfortunately that day I just was not okay that day and when people are not okay like I was that day then something as drastic as suicide seems like the only logical way out.

I cannot fathom what the next few days were like for Chris. He wasn’t related to me so when he called the hospital they wouldn’t disclose any information about my condition and my mother sure as hell wasn’t letting him know how I was. Fortunately, once I finally woke up my sister did text him a picture of me with my eyes open. I’m sure knowing I was alive was a huge weight off of his shoulders.

I suffered a complete organ failure after my overdose. I’d look at my medical records from the incident after the fact and I’m stunned that those records actually came from me. It was 3 days and 4 nights that I stayed in the hospital when it was unclear whether or not I’d wake up to some serious brain damage from being clinically dead for so long. They had to make a small incision in my neck in order to intubate me so I could breathe.

Sometimes I go back and look at my medical records just to remind myself how close to death I really was. It was definitely no joke.

While in my coma, I had this dream that played out on a reoccurring loop. I was holding Zeke on my hip and we were joyously walking around a gorgeous, brightly lit botanical garden. Not a care in sight, nothing but bright big and genuine smiles. It’s what I was longing for the most in my afterlife, just a happily ever after with me and my boy.

I woke up suddenly, like I was in shock. Confused, and looking around I found myself stark naked and laying down inside some sort of tarp and I was wet. Two nurses stood on either side of me, bathing me. As soon as the nurses saw I was awake they vaguely explained to me that I was in the hospital and didn’t want me to panic. It took me a moment to realize what exactly I was waking up from and where I was, I could barely speak from the tubes placed in my throat

It didn’t take long and they transferred me from ICU and into a normal hospital room, with a suicide watch babysitter. Tiffany and Cassie came to visit me, it was the first time I’ve seen her since she visited me at the hospital before I had Zeke. I was morbidly embarrassed to see her and tried my darndest to hide all my pain that I tried so desperately to end just a few short days ago. She saw past my happy facade and in her eyes was worried.

In her eyes the answer was easy. Everyone that ever cared about me thought the answer was easy. Leave Chris and be happy. Like, if I just left Chris then I’d magically be able to get my son back and be cured of all my addiction issues. No one quite understood that despite the hardships I’ve been through in my relationship (the abuse, my cheating, Chris’ delusions and my suicide attempts), there was just no living if without Chris. I knew Chris better than he knew himself and the Chris he presented to me after Zeke was removed from our custody wasn’t the real Chris. I broke him.

I summoned up the courage to call Chris. I needed to check up on him and I never thought I’d hear him so honestly relieved and happy to hear my voice. He was happy, he was crying even. I was alive and that was all that mattered.

After 3 days of eating some of the best hospital food I’ve ever eaten I was taken off to Trinity West in New Port Richey for a mandatory 72 hour psychiatric evaluation, and an additional 24 hours I decided to stay voluntarily. Upon discharge I was put on lithium and a few other psychiatric drugs, I enrolled back into the drug classes and color code drugs tests at Baycare. I resumed my visitation with Zeke whenever possible, riding the bus for 6 hours one way on visits that Chris never went to.

Chris and I started individual and couples therapy with our case worker, Kelly. We wanted more than anything to make it out alive from all of this.

Our case worker was great to talk to. She’d drive the company car all the way to our house for sessions. We started to gain a little bit of hops in the idea that maybe we could be parents again, even though we were still peeing dirty every drug test.

Months went by, I stopped cheating on Chris and we were fighting a lot less and then Chris started to develop meth induced delusions. He became obsessed with thinking that I was tampering with his phone. And if it wasn’t me, he thought, then it had to be Zack and I was probably helping him. I did my best not to give into his accusations and ignore them but I won’t lie it kind of stung to have him think I’d do some crazy shit to his phone.

At this point, we met a tweaker named Erica. She was homeless so she and her boyfriend were given the back trailer to rent. They paid me $50 once and from there I never was able to get rid of them.

Not before long I started noticing some changes going on with my body and I voiced my concerns to our therapist and she brought over a pregnancy test. Sure enough, it was positive. I was pregnant again. There was something different about this pregnancy though. But, I kept holding off on going to the doctors to get checked out.

Very soon after we stopped participating in therapy, groups or urine tests.

Chris’ birthday, the day after Thanksgiving on the 23rd, he had a mental breakdown. He laid down on the couch in the living room and just let all his feelings spill out. He told me how it felt to go to jail and have me cheat on him the whole time he was away, how it felt to see another man wearing his clothes. How he felt like I didn’t love him but only used him because I had no other options. How he was so fucking scared that I was going to die for days not knowing how I was doing.

Somehow, I managed to be oblivious to all the damage I was causing because I was too focused on the pain I was feeling.

Then he told me he downed two bottles of Tylenol when I wasn’t looking. My sweet baby angel Christopher was trying to end his life, and on his birthday.

Luckily for him, I saw that he needed me that day and I spent the entire day doing whatever I could to make him feel better. I rubbed his back, just like old times. I patted his back and stood by his side with water and a towel for what seemed like forever while he puked in the trashcan. Luckily, that’s all he experienced and I didn’t have to call for an ambulance.

We were both our worst enemies and we’ve made each other so angry and so happy.

I shot up meth for an embarrassingly long time before I was able to put it down during this pregnancy. Chris was, too. And for the next few weeks following his suicide attempt I watched him lose every bit of his sanity. His paranoia was at an all time high and by the time Christmas time came along he was convinced that drones and helicopters were following him and that I was in the FBI sent to be undercover with him.

On December 23, 2018 Chris lost it. He seemed absolutely disgusted by my presence. The day started off by him just talking ugly to me, then cussing me out under his breath and then a quick escalation to tossing heavy objects across the room at me. Hitting me in the face, chest, stomach or anywhere he saw an opening. It only hurt a little but I was becoming scared and concerned for my safety.

I dared not make any eye contact, didn’t speak a word so not to agitate or give him more reason to hurt me. My attention was directed straight ahead and my body still. This reaction from me wasn’t the one that he was attempting to arise out of me. He wanted anger out of me. He wanted me to try and attack him back, to put myself in danger.

At one point, after pacing back and forth in the living room with a machete he got so irritated at my lack of response that he lunged himself at me. He pushed me down on the pulled out futon in the living room where I slept. I put my legs up to try and kick him off of me and protect my belly but it backfired as he took my legs, crossing them over my stomach and applied pressure at what I could only see as an attempt to end my pregnancy. I was able to kick him off of me with the force of a mother protecting her baby.

Angry at his failed attempt, he picked back up his machete and paced the room again. Stopping ever so often to try and flip the futon I was on. After what seemed like an eternity he finally went into the master bedroom where he slept to do another shot of meth.

It had been night time by then, and I had no cell phone. In only a nightgown, I grabbed my shoes as fast and quietly as I could, I grabbed Chewie and put him on his leash and I darted for the back door.

I went straight to Eric and Ruthie’s house just two doors down but they were sleeping too hard to hear me knocking. I went around to their backyard and hid in their laundry room. After maybe an hour, I got fearful that Chris might find me so I took Chewie and started walking.

I made it to the soup kitchen and around the back to the shortcut to Loy Street and found a yard with a bunch of abandoned vehicles on it. There I found a vintage fire truck and it was unlocked. I crawled inside and immediately started to sob. I had so many emotions.

At that point, I was absolutely terrified of the man I just ran away from. The father of my children, my soulmate. He turned into an empty, dark man that I no longer recognized. When I looked into his eyes that night, I saw no sign of the man I fell in love with. He was gone.

Sitting in that old abandoned fire truck I, too, became someone I hardly recognized. The longer I sat there and was in my own head the angrier I became. That fear that resonated inside of me quickly became deep, raw anger. Who the fuck did Chris think he was coming at me and trying to inflict serious pain on me. How dare he lay a fucking hand on me.

I was mad because we weren’t a good couple anymore. I hated Chris for ever introducing me to drugs and glorified getting high. I was mad for Chris becoming mentally and physically abusive and always hitting me when I was already down. But, most importantly, I hated what Chris just spent the past day doing to me.

For making me as uncomfortable as he could in my childhood home. For making me think, even for a second, that he was capable of trying to end my pregnancy and hurt me like that.

I didn’t take accountability for any of my personal issues relating to all of it. All I felt was this red, hot anger bubble I was in. Why?!? Because he was the man in the relationship and before I met him I was pure, kind and contagiously happy all the time and he took that away from me.

So, around 9 or 10 in the morning on Christmas Eve I marched my ass home — a woman on a mission! I practically marched back to the trailer, and I had a pep in my step. I had it in my mind I wasn’t going to take his shit any longer.

I was going to fucking kill Chris Willey that night. I was done being a victim, and this night I’d make sure I never was again.

On April 13, 2018 Chris was arrested for and charged with tampering with a witness with intimidation or threat, which essentially meant that he tried to prevent me from calling the police.

Chris’ mom and I borrowed my mom’s car and drove up to the bail bonds man that was located outside of the Land O Lakes jail and I bailed Chris out of jail.

On April 16, 2018 he was arrested again for violating a no contact order that the judge automatically gives victims in an arrest. They also charged him with possession of a non narcotic medication without a prescription because they found one of my lone Lithium pills in his belongings.

During this time in our relationship we were not getting along very well and I was being emotionally, mentally and occasionally physically abusive and it’s right around this time I started cheating on Chris with our drug dealer, Zack.

On April 21, 2018 Chris lost his marbles. I didn’t realize the extent of damage that would be caused by my infidelity. I didn’t realize that Chris viewed my body as a sort of temple that belonged to him because I had carried and birthed his child. I just used cheating as a way to retaliate against him for putting me in so much pain.

So on April 21 he left our house and went to head over Zack’s. He had been gone a while before I saw Zack riding his bike towards our house. He rides up to me and says, “You gotta get your boyfriend” and so I proceed to follow him back to his house.

It appeared to me that Chris had been at Zack’s house hanging out and then he snapped. He removed all his personal clothes, including his boxers and put on an outfit he had found at their house. He then told them his name was something farfetched like Eduardo and they were all in his house and he wanted them to leave.

I pull up to the scene and I try and talk some sense into him and he looks me dead in the face and says, “I don’t know you, lady!” and repeats the same thing to his mother after she tries to talk him down.

I was at a loss for words, I didn’t know what we could have possibly done differently to have it so the police didn’t have to be called but I looked at Zack and shrugged and said, “Looks like we’re going to have to call the cops” and he agreed, calling the police.

Not only did the police show up but the crew to Live PD also decided to make an appearance. New Port Richey’s swat team assembles at the front door. I was standing outside but I could hear everything going on inside as they used a door ram to open the bedroom door that Chris tried to barricade shut. Tazing him, and screaming at him to stop resisting they were able to detain him and escort him to the back of a police vehicle.

He was arrested for trespassing and non violent resisting arrest.

Malinda and I bonded him out of jail again and after returning home my mother discovered he was home and violating his no contact order so she called it in to the police.

The police actually sent out helicopters searching for him in the nearby woods and swamps of Moon Lake. They weren’t able to locate him for hours. He made his way to the mall in that time, to a smoke shop where he purchased himself some vape juice and kratom and they finally caught him as he got off the bus a street over.

He was charged with violation of pretrial release. This time I went to the domestic abuse classes that were held at the salvation army so that his no contact order would be dropped and he’d be able to return home.

The cheating I was doing didn’t stop. In fact, while he was locked up I made friends with a few tweakers from the neighborhood so once he got out of jail and made his way home there was a house full of people. One of them, Jeremy, was head to toe wearing nothing but Chris’ clothes because I let him borrow an outfit from his things not knowing when Chris would be released and sent home.

Boy, was Chris mad and granted, he had every right to be.

At that point, despite the abuse I was dealing with from Chris I was unknowingly at the time completely destroying Chris’ life and all because I didn’t like the way I was being treated.

Chris very quickly put two and two together and approached me about his theory that I was sleeping around and I lied to his face about it, making him feel like a fool when he was anything but

I not only slept with Zack, but I had also slept with this Jeremy fellow and in our bed. I was acting real fucking grimey. I was unhinged and lacking any self esteem or self worth. I felt useless, pathetic and like a huge cry baby. After enduring so much abuse from Chris, I felt like he deserved to be cheated on by me. That’s until I realized how much damage I had caused and how badly it would have affected him.

When he got out of jail this time I felt myself fighting my own demons. I absolutely hated who I had become. That contagiously happy girl who used to be kind, sweet, loyal and genuinely happy about life was gone. I lost that warm loving feeling I once shared with Chris. That feeling good feeling he always encapsulated me with was gone.

I was so very slowly breaking him that I didn’t even realize I was also breaking myself, until it was too late. All hopes of regaining custody of my son were rapidly fading away. That’s when I decided to take my life.

I took the blocks of rat poison, walked outside and climbed through the back yard fence and posted up behind our garage. I sat back there slowly nibbling away at the poison as I wrote my suicide note. I could hear Chris frantically searching for me while scribbling down the last words I wanted anyone to read from me. He was texting me and calling me and I just ignored everything.

Slicing away at my thigh I received a message from my best friend, Nessa Marbrey. Chris had reached out to her about my current state of mind and because he couldn’t find me and he hoped she’d somehow talk me off the latter. But, I didn’t want to hear anything from anyone.

At this time, it was just Chris and I. Malinda had moved back to Islamorada once she thought we’d lost Zeke for good. Our dysfunction was too much for her, as well.

Eventually, I finished my note and climbed out of my hiding spot making my way back inside the house to find Chris in a state of pure panic. We spent the remainder of the day arguing and laying it on each other. I tried my very best to explain to Chris that this was not my normal everyday depression that I truly wanted to die that day.

But, every time I opened my mouth the information wasn’t coming out as well as it was coming out in my own head. Finally, I had enough and went into the kitchen and grabbed a Tupperware container and went to the cooler in the back of the house where we stored all my grandmother’s cancer medications and I proceeded to dump them into the Tupperware. Adding a few bottles of Tylenol and ibuprofen I grabbed the box and brought it into our bedroom, laying in bed with it all.

I pondered for a long while if I should take them or not. Overwhelmed doesn’t begin to cover how I felt that night.

Then, my decision was made for me. Chris came in the room and saw the bin of pills next to me and like a reoccurring nightmare I can still hear his voice say to me “Go ahead and kill yourself, you fucking bitch” then he left the room.

He told me to do it. I had already spent the entire day planning on doing it, but it’s an entirely different state of mind to be in to actually take the plunge and try. But I did. I started scooping handfuls of pills down my throat.

Tears stung my eyes as big blots of salty liquid poured down streaming down my cheeks.

Goodbye cruel world

Chris’ mom came to stay with us a few weeks after Zeke came home from the hospital.

We were absolutely amazing as a family for quite some time, at first. We’d spend so much time just falling in love with our son together, it was such a beautiful time in our relationship. There were no drugs diverting our attention away from what was most important. We’d go on family outings into town, we’d take family stroller rides to the local corner store, and spend our weekends snuggling in bed watching movies like Jackie Brown and Horton Hears a Who.

Everything was perfectly fine until after we received our tax return and thought it’d be a good idea just to buy a little meth. A little meth turned into a lot of meth and before we knew it we had spent over a thousand dollars in one month and with that our relationship started becoming rocky.

Coming down is always the worst once you get to the 3rd day since last used. For some reason that’s when I notoriously become very suicidal. It was late February in 2018 that I downed an entire bottle marked Sleep Aid which turned out to just be Benadryl.

Funny thing about Benadryl is if you take it in a large quantity then chances are you will experience a very bad, very uncomfortable hulucingenic trip that you wish you could shake yourself out of. I was not okay that night.

Memories of that night come in waves. I must have run into Zeke’s crib over a dozen times, I couldn’t even see a foot in front of my face, the entire room was pitched black. Chris was desperate to take care of me that night, he kept handing me shirts as I ripped them off screaming about how hot or cold I was. Finally, he was able to get me to lie down and brought the baby out to his mom to watch while he rubbed my back trying to soothe me and calm me down.

I had a complete and total meltdown.

The very next day I slashed my wrist and Chris called my mother, begging her to take me to the hospital because I was requiring more treatment. This day was one of the days that would break Chris’ trust in my mother for good. She had lied about taking me to the hospital for whatever reason and brought me back home.

We fought a lot after that day. I tried to see nothing but a picture of a perfect family, along with pictures to post bragging to the world about how happy I was. Truth was my life was crumbling all around me.

The verbal and mental abuse I endured from Chris was overwhelming. We fought every day until I couldn’t take it anymore. I was done being called a dumb cry baby bitch. I was done being accused of lying or doing off the wall shady shit behind his back.

One night the fight went too far and I punched Chris in the face. Afterwards, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to phone the police and tell them that Chris punched me in the face.

The police came and assessed the situation noticing the obvious discoloration on Chris’ face and my knuckles and they had me hand Zeke off to Ruth and Erick and then placed me in handcuffs. I was going to jail for a domestic battery.

Luckily, I got to see the judge the very next morning and I was released on my own recognicence and released from jail at 1130 at night. Luckily for me my mom ordered me a cab home.

I lasted maybe a few more weeks before things started getting out of hand between us again. He’d say some really hurtful, degrading things to me and I’d cry about it while he calls me a little cry baby.

Enough was enough of that kind of abuse so I called my mom one day after a bad fight and had her come and get me and Zeke for the day. After listening to me vent about the way I was being treated by Chris my mom quickly convinced me to seek out revenge, as is a common thing she’d do.

First, I called Withalacoochie River Electric and had the electricity turned off to the trailer because fuck Chris and his mom. My mom invited me to stay with her at Rosie’s and if I wasn’t going to stay there then they didn’t need my electric. Then, I called up our cell phone provider and had his cell phone turned off, too. I allowed myself to listen to the influence of my mother with her poor decisions and put myself into quite the pickle.

Now, that night after I placed Zeke in his pack n play for the night I went on my mom’s laptop and googled CPS. Their homepage had a little form to fill out so you could ask for anonymous help or send in for a tip and so I decided to type something into the box. I vented to that little box about the light amount of abuse in the household, the untreated mental illness and substance abuse that we were struggling with and requested resources to help guide us in the right direction in order to fix these issues we have. I mentioned having a son that was born prematurely and the struggles I faced being a mother in poverty dealing with his issues.

I was basically begging for help.

The very next day a social worker came knocking on Rosie’s door looking for me. I guess they had tracked down the anonymous tip with the IP address and found out the address I was at, because I didn’t put that kind of information on the tip line.

They proceeded to question me about the allocations I confessed to in the report, which I wasn’t even aware was a report until they showed up. On top of it all, like a moron, I willingly submitted to a drug screening.

They left but I had a breakdown after they did and felt this deep seeded amount of regret for how I handled the entire situation starting with me getting on that fucking computer and filling in that little box. Somehow, I knew I’d messed everything up.

Calling Chris, he confirmed that a CPS case worker had also showed up to our house to question him. He did not submit to a drug test and the CPS case worker did a walk around the house deeming it fit for a child to live there.

On March 25, 3018, the day before my son’s 1st birthday my mother decides she doesn’t like the way I’m responding to this CPS case so she calls the police on me for my mental health and I was taken away to a mental health facility and put on a 72 hour hold. His 1st birthday was the first amongst many birthdays that I would be missing out on.

I was fuming mad. I may have made some rather dramatic comments about not wanting to live in this world if it meant not having Chris by my side, but regardless I had my son with me and there was never anything I’d have ever done to jeopardize his livelihood. But, it was all so far out of my control so I was taken via police car to the Operation Par mental health facility in Pinellas Park.

My mom and I submitted to drug screenings the night that CPS came to our door and the results showed me being positive for marijuana and methamphetamines and my mom was positive for marijuana and Benzos. So the day after Zeke’s first birthday while I was away in a mental hospital the CPS case worker came by and removed Zeke from my mother’s custody.

I’ll never forget the last day I spent with Zeke as his legal guardian. I set up Rosie’s wagon so that he had a nice comfy seat and propped an umbrella up so his eyes weren’t blinded by the light and we took a nice leisurely stroll to the CVS to get some cream for a little rash he had. I try and remember the good over the bad, any day.

I lost custody of my son and I allowed it to destroy me. The moment I put that anonymous fucking tip into that website I mind as well have just signed all my rights away then. I fucked myself.

Chris never really forgave me for what I did, either. I had his son completely removed from his life and for what?! Because I didn’t like the way my boyfriend spoke to me, because we got into little arguments over drugs and money?! Those things shouldn’t have been a priority in our life anymore because we had a fragile, little boy to take care of.

It wasn’t long after Zeke was taken that the abuse got worse. We tried to stay together in hopes that we’d also get Zeke back together. We worked as a team and got signed up for all the services expected of us to regain custody. We went to every visit, every color code drug test, drug classes, everything!

We were confident in ourselves that we’d have Zeke back in our custody in no time at all. Until we didn’t.

Due to Zeke’s special needs he had to get transferred to a new foster home that was more equipped to handle a baby born as a micro preemie with cerebral palsy. Unfortunately, the only foster parent in the area equipped to handle Zeke lived all the way in St Pete.

Zeke’s foster mother, Cindy was absolutely wonderful with him. It’s just that visitation with Zeke became all the more difficult with him being so far away without owning transportation. If we were lucky, Cindy would drive Zeke all the way out to New Port Richey’s Sims Park for visitation. Otherwise, it’d take me about 6 hours one way just to make it to the St Pete mall for visits.

Around July and August things were beginning to look rather glum for us getting Zeke back in a timely manner. And that shred of hope was holding our relationship together.

With our lack of faith came depression and right after that drug use. We were attending our local church’s Celebrate Recovery which is basically a faith based 12 step program for addictions and trauma. The pastor and his wife took really good care of Chris and I. They would pay our electric bill, donate appliances or just hang me cash every time I looked like I needed it. They really took care of me.

One lovely evening as I lay sleeping in bed I get woken up very abruptly from my slumber only to be greeted with the sounds of Chris cussing me out and hocking big spit balls in my direction. I remember thinking, “Fuck, this is going to end badly!”

When I looked up at Chris it’s like he wasn’t behind the eyes staring back at me. He was empty. I was honestly afraid for my safety. This was a side to Chris that I wasn’t all too familiar with and so I decided my best course of action would be to call the police and have him removed from the home so I could get my sense of security back.

I grabbed my phone and attempted to call 911. Chris grabbed me while it was ringing and tried to retrieve the phone from me. They answered and heard us struggling over the phone. Scrambling to my feet I dart out the front door and slide my body underneath the house.

I stayed on the phone with the police operator as Chris went searching for me outside. Eventually the cops showed up and took him away.

And this would be the start of very many arrests that Chris would have to endure that year.

My sister drove from Florida to Maryland to come rescue us.

We drove back to Florida in record timing, only stopping in South Carolina so we could rest at a rest stop. We pitched our tent in the woods while.my sister spread all out in her car.

TJ had been staying at the Moon Lake house the entire time we were gone. He made himself a room where my brother used to sleep. Camille had moved into the master bedroom and Chris and I turned Camille’s old room into our own.

In October of 2016 I experienced yet another life changing moment. It was maybe a month after arriving in Florida again. I was about a month behind on my period so while at the local Dollar Tree I picked up a pregnancy test.

I peed in a cup, sucked the urine into the syringe tube and dropped a few drops onto the target area on the test. Almost instantly there were two little pink lines and I screamed at the very top of my lungs.

I was pregnant. Chris and I were going to be parents.

Ever since I was a little girl, it was my greatest ambition to be a mother. It was an overwhelming deep necessity within me to bear a child. I took all the classes in high school to make my dreams a reality (parenting, sewing, home economics) any and all courses to make my dreams become reality and further prepare myself to be the best mother I could be.

So, when I saw those two very definite lines show up, the confirmation that I would finally become a mother sent trillions of emotions spreading over me like a waterfall.

Chris, hearing me scream, came running in my sister’s room where I sat clutching the test and my chest simultaneously as if letting go of either one would be the death of me. And as if he had some inside knowledge, he knew as soon as he locked eyes with me. I screamed, “IM PREGNANT!” at him with slight hysterics backing it up.

They say you always get pregnant once you sober up

I was glowing from head to toe, if that’s even a real thing. I was in my happy place. I was able to finally see a glimpse of a better life with Chris and our unborn baby. Together, as parents there would be no room for an ending that wasn’t happy.

I was crazy, hormonal and bitchy though. Chris got a job at Dial America and Camille let me use the spare car to get him to and from work. She moved into Carlton Arms Apartments because my hormones proved too much for her to handle and TJ decided to take his adventures elsewhere and met a guy in the panhandle who had a sailboat that he hired TJ to fix up for him.

We had our own place, a decent little car, we were off drugs and we had little baby Willey on the way.

Everything was going well until Zack Samion came into the picture. We were walking home from the corner store when he comes out of the path riding his bicycle and waving a big ‘ol bag of meth and saying, “Shards for sale!”

That’s how methamphetamine got reintroduced into our lives

Chris would use meth for the duration of my pregnancy, and he’d also buy morphine pills from our neighbor every few days, shooting up the poison on a daily basis. I’d spend most of my time over Ruthie and Eric’s house, they were our neighbors but became more like family to us.

If that addictive behavior with the meth and morphine wasn’t enough Chris met a heroin dealer at work that lived in Spring Hill

morphonemorphine wasn’t enough Chris met

One day Chris was super high and not acting himself, calling me really awful names and just belittling me. I don’t remember exactly what our fight was about but I was 22 weeks pregnant when we started having it out with each other, and it wasn’t settling down. We called each other some pretty awful names and I’m sure it ended with me calling him a junkie. He absolutely hated it when I called him that.

He shoved me, ripped my shirt and scratched my arm as I fell belly first onto the bed. Instead of continuing this futile fight we were having I called up my childhood best friend, Tiffany. She dropped everything, grabbed her best friend Cassie and came to get me.

Bringing me to her mother’s house, I was 5 months pregnant with blood trickling down my arm. I felt like a victim of domestic violence. I felt like I was less than I ever should have felt about myself.

But, I wanted that picture perfect family. I wanted my son to have both his mother and his father together and married and no one was going to get in the way of that. But, after I got home from Brenda and Jerry’s house the next day I started bleeding so I had my sister bring me to the emergency room.

The emergency room checked the baby’s heart rate, which was fine and sent me on my way. The next day the bleeding didn’t stop so I went back to the emergency room. Again, they checked his heartbeat and sent me home. On the 3rd day, the bleeding was becoming worse and clots were coming out so I went to the hospital one last time and demanded they take an ultrasound.

My baby was sitting in his amniotic fluid with a completely busted placenta, his birth bag bulging into my vagina with his foot sticking out. He was going to be born soon.

Camille went and picked up Chris and brought him to the hospital where we were met with a specialist from Bayfront Baby Place and Tampa General Hospital. The specialists for micro premature births gave us the statistics.

Our baby boy had a 7% chance of survival, with a 75% chance of those babies being born with severe cerebral palsy. I was being told that my son would almost definitely not make it through child birth and if he did that his chances at holding down a decent life were slim to none.

I didn’t know what to do with that information. Everyone all around us kept pressuring me to make a decision but the only thing I could do was decide to be Bay flighted to Tampa General Hospital via helicopter so that there would be a well equipped NICU team ready to take care of my baby as soon as he was born. I also opted out of a C-section despite it being recommended. I believed that if my baby were to live that it would be because God intended it to be so, and me getting cut open wouldn’t be much of a difference.

The helicopter ride was nerve wracking, to say the least. The attendant advised me not to move and to stay as relaxed as possible because if my water broke there would be nothing he could do about it in the air.

After arriving, I sat in the hospital for days. Tiffany and Cassie came to visit me once. Camille and Chris came and stayed the night with me and visited every so often. The longer I stayed with child, the more hopeful I became. They had me lying diagonal with my feet up in the air and my head down low and shortly after being admitted my little baby’s foot with his bulging back was sticking right out of me. If I reached down I could feel his little foot kick my fingers.

Then it happened. I got that overwhelming feeling that I had to poop. We all have heard the stories, pregnant women in labor have to poop and BAM! baby is here. But, I knew that was going to happen and felt so much pressure not to because any amount of pushing meant giving birth.

I held it in as long as I could, then I had them wheel over a portable toilet to my bed and with Chris snapping away taking pictures I took a dump. Even though I knew I’d be giving birth any moment later Chris decided it would be best to go home for the night.

The next day, around noon I knew it was time. I made it to 24 weeks on the nose, which meant his survival rate went up a few. I remember arguing with Chris to get into the Uber that Donna had sent for him and him yelling at me that he wasn’t fucking ready yet.

The entire emergency NICU team was setting up in my room. There weren’t any friends or family with me on the scariest days of my life. I remember being so stinking scared. Doctors and nurses were all around me as they prepared me for the birth of my son.

The last thing they told me is they hope he’s born in his birth bag, because chances of his survival would be so much better with that type of cushion.

One big push and out comes my entire embiotic sac with the tiniest fragile lifeless body inside. It was 1:36pm when they cut open the water bag, the amniotic fluid spilling out. They carried his lifeless body onto the small little operation table made specifically for little newborns and they performed CPR, they covered him in an aluminum blanket to preserve his warmth

My heart was at a standstill. It was as if the earth stopped turning, that everything froze except for the room I was in. Everyone is moving fast, moving delicately working hard to save the life of this precious baby boy.

Finally, I snapped out of it and a nurse wheeled Ezekiel over to me so I could have a quick glance at the miracle I just gave birth to. I could breathe again.

Being born in his water bag saved him from having a very serious brain injury, but he was still born with a level 4 brain bleed on the left side of his brain. He was born 1lb 7.3oz and was 11 inches long, which was the length of a barbie doll.

Ezekiel Thelonius Willey, we named him. Ezekiel because it was the name Chris’ father wanted to give him when he was born and Thelonius after the social worker we had in Salisbury that tried to help us get our life on track.

Chris showed up to the hospital a good 20 minutes after my delivery, right after I delivered my abrupted placenta. Both of us are determined to see our son, so I propped myself up against the back of a wheelchair and walked my broken, aching, bleeding body down the hall with the help of Chris and into the NICU.

He was so small. His skin was practically transparent. His tiny little eyes were still fused shut needing a few more weeks until they were mature enough to open. But, he was here! Alive!

Hooked up to all the different machines and wires, everything had a very important job to keep our baby alive.

Alexis, the NICU nurse, was an absolute dream and she very much took a liking to Zeke, requesting him as her patient every shift she took.

They don’t tell you this but after you give birth to your baby, the baby will actually drop in weight after drying out from all the amniotic fluid. So when Zeke’s weight dropped I damn near had a heart attack.

Slowly but surely my little man began gaining weight. He was drinking nothing but the best in donated breast milk until he got strong enough for formula because I wasn’t producing any.

His NICU stay wasn’t easy. The faint of heart may not have been able to make it to the other side. He had multiple surgeries and the doctors called me in to say goodbye on more than one occasion. He had retinopathy of prematurity, he was under the bilirubin lights for his jaundice, he had a hernia and feeding issues from the start. It was a whirlwind of a journey

One night, after coming home from the hospital after seeing Zeke and saying goodbye to him, not thinking he’d make it til the morning. I stripped out of my clothes and God into the shower. I cried out to God with every fiber of my being and begged him to save my son’s life. Begged and promised that if he spared my son’s life that id do ANYTHING and EVERYTHING in my power to protect him and give him the life he deserves.

And in that moment, I fell to my knees in the shower. I was struck down with something that I can only describe to you as the Holy Spirit. I burst into tears, yet felt overwhelmed by joy. I knew that day, at that moment that my son was going to be alright.

On September 15, 2017 we were able to bring our baby boy home. He came equipped with oxygen tanks, O2 sensors and a few other little gadgets. I had weeks and weeks of doctors appointments all lined up, relying solely on medical transportation to bring me to them, but I did it.

Jesse lived with cousin Ashlyn and while we were staying with them they moved from an apartment to a nice big house on Strawberry Lane where we were offered to rent out a room. Right when we moved in Ashlyn’s pit bull gave birth to a litter of puppies.

Chris was able to get some work from his grandfather country club doing landscaping and I resorted back to panhandling and modeling.

We were trying to be happy again, without all the distractions from life getting in our way. But, then my mom offered to let me come visit her and I jumped at the opportunity.

I left for maybe 3 weeks. He started using it as soon as I left and I wasted no time finding my own connection through the Internet. But, in order to afford my and Chris’ habit I had to find an income and fast. So, I set up a profile on Backpage for happy endings and modeled a little on the side.

I was making quite the cash load until one afternoon I was picked up by a man driving a white with black trimmed Yukon SUV with eerie tinted windows. He didn’t speak much and neither did I. I was nervous. He drove up and down, curved here and there and it wasn’t before long that I was totally lost. I was oblivious to the fact that it was his intention to get me lost. We pulled into a long gravel driveway in front of a gorgeous mountain view home with a gorgeous 200k RV parked outside.

I got out of the SUV and was guided into the RV where, upon entering, a man threw himself on me and pulled a black sack over my head.

Sometimes, looking back at it, it was like eternity passed through but other times it comes in flashes like merely moments went by and I never really experienced it at all.

Bend over a tub of water, struggling to breathe as I’m being dunked in and out of the water. These men degraded me, they defiled my body. It wasn’t the rape that got me that day. It was the horrifying realization that I could have died right then. I thought I was going to die right there.

They didn’t kill me though. They used me up completely, left me black and blue. They raged a war within themselves and used my body as a target.

I was tossed out of the SUV on the side of the road, somewhere I recognized. The first thing I did was call Chris. My sweet Chris would make this all better. He would say the right thing. He would lift me up.

I was badly bruised, a cut lip from being smacked and hit in the same spot. I didn’t allow myself to process what had happened. I cried, yelled at myself but quickly regained my composure.

I called Chris but my words and my mouth weren’t cooperating with each other and I got frantic and his first reaction was to not believe me at all.

I spent the rest of my night on the phone with him begging, pleading for him to believe me. His disbelief in my pain hurt a million times worse than the rape.

But, I do understand why he wouldn’t believe me.

I covered up my bruises with makeup and told my mom I was ready to return home.

“Get a greyhound bus to Richmond and me and Jesse will pick from there” is what Chris told me to do. So, I had my mom drive me to Charlotte, NC where I got onto a bus to Richmond, with Chewie.

Guess who wasn’t there when I got there? He hadn’t even figured out the details of how he was going to get me from the bus station even though I totally could have just got on a bus straight to Salisbury. I sent money to Chris to be able to get me from Richmond but he spent all the cash buying himself heroin thinking he’d be able to replenish the funds by the time rn had to come get me.

I was stranded at the Greyhound station in the ghetto of Richmond, VA and was b myself on what I should do. I had Chewie, my bags and not a dime to my name. So, I grabbed Chewie and started walking the interstate towards Salisbury. I actually made it a few miles before getting stopped by a local police officer. Apparently, it’s actually against the law to walk the interstate, who knew?

That cop was sent from heaven for me that night. He let me ride in the front seat of the cop car and let me choose where I got dropped off at, which I chose the brightly lit and safe Wawa gas station exit before the Greyhound station.

I told him all about my adventures traveling and about how my father was a pot growing marijuana advocate in Colorado. He shared with me that it’s been a dream of his to be able to quit his job at the police station to move to Colorado and sell marijuana.

After he left I spent the night outside of Wawa until morning and once the sun came up I posted up at the exit with a sign thinking maybe I could panhandle myself enough money to purchase a ticket home.

Thanks to the help of good ‘ol Buzz Carragher, Chris’ grandfather, I was rescued from the streets of Richmond. He has purchased the ticket for me and I’d be on my way home. I was absolutely livid about the entire experience.

Chris was working for his grandfather. Sometimes at the Salisbury Cycle bike shop and sometimes at the Golf and Country Club doing landscaping. Right before I returned home Chris had got in an accident with the hedge trimmers and cut his arm open right by his Wu-Tang tattoo and had to get stitches to patch it up.

We continued to volunteer at the Country Club a lot once I got back. They had the best sauces for the best chicken tenders that money could buy but they were of no cost to us and occasionally Buzz would let us stay in the spare house he had on the property. We had a great time working for Buzz. We weren’t using that often, we had money and we were in love what more could have mattered?

I continued to do some nude modeling on the side for cash and whatever else could bring in money. I would sometimes still even panhandle if I was just bored. But, the longer we stayed in Salisbury the more our drug habit progressed. The best thing about back then was how much of a team we were. We’d both hustle all day and we’d both contribute and there was little to no time for arguing.

Before we were told to move out of Jesse’s cousin’s house we got involved with Thelonius from the coalition for the homeless type of thing that Saliabury had going. Thelonius was a young, bright and caring kid passionate about helping the lives of homeless people. He was incredible. He’d pick me and Chris up to help us get our birth certificates, socials and eventually an ID so that we could get a job and get off the streets.

Thelonius really made a positive impact on our lives in ways that words don’t have. He used his personal vehicle and showed up off the clock to meet our needs and eventually I was able to get a job at Ollie’s.

We steadily stayed high and while we were high we were on top of a cloud filled with love for one another. He always made me feel like the most beautiful and important woman he’d ever seen and made sure to constantly remind me and shower me with love and affection, no matter who was around. I was overflowing with love for him, his body, face, eyes, soul and personality were everything I ever wanted.

We found a really nice, really secluded wooded area behind my job at Ollie’s and we pitched our tent there. Buzz took Chewie for us so he wasn’t in the smoldering heat of the summer.

I was doing really well up until the day I just wasn’t

It was right around my sister’s birthday in 2016 and on that day I had enough. I think I had the day off or at least I wasn’t at work. Chris’ family couldn’t have us come over to take a shower in a few weeks and we both smelled so bad and we had a few bucks extra so we got a hotel for the night at Salisbury’s Economy Inn

While Chris left to go cop the dope I called my sister. I told her about the condition I was in giving only small details to the extent of it all. It was enough to talk her into buying us a pizza to share for the night. I thought maybe my mind wouldn’t fuck with me so badly if I was full. But, the suicidal thoughts started raging through my brain. I took a shower. By the time Chris came home I was practically hysterical.

He got me to eat some pizza and to shoot some dope but it didn’t help. I wanted to die and I saw life for what it was and I hated everything I saw. I wanted no part in this Allie I had become. A sleasy, skinny, heroin junkie living in a tent without any friends or family in sight. I realized I was an addict. I realized a lot of things that night and I fucking hated what I saw.

Barefoot I started talking and shouting at myself and walking the streets. Chris was walking around like his dick was in his hands not even sure what to do because I had quite literally gone mad. I tried to walk into traffic but then turned my attention to the water tower.

I lost myself, utterly and completely. I was going to jump off the top of the water tower. I don’t really know how to relay the emotions I was feeling that night but I had every intention of ending my life that evening. Chris called the police and followed close behind me. I was so unpredictable in that moment he didn’t know what I was going to do next.

I just walked right up to the tower and grabbed onto the latter and started climbing and before I knew it I must have been a little over halfway up the thing before I snapped back into reality and my fear of heights brought me to my senses. I immediately was filled with so many regrets. An ambulance arrived and rescued me from me a bit more than I could chew.

Needless to say, I was brought to a hospital and was put on a 72 hour psychiatric hold at the local PRMC hospital downtown.

I never imagined I had a mental illness. I mean, I was quirky and everything but not mentally ill but after the me inside of me that showed itself that night I was open to opinions. They diagnosed me with Bipolar 1, OCD, and PTSD. I was given some pills to take and they were supposed to make my moods better. I was confused because this is the first time I ever had a “mood”.

I called my sister while in the hospital and told her I was using and I needed to get away from Salisbury but I wasn’t leaving without Chris and Chewie and in efforts to save the life I had she agreed to come up to Maryland to get us.

On the following Saturday Chris came to visit me in the hospital toting some Taco Bell for my pleasure but he had shot up some heroin probably right outside the hall before coming in. It was painfully obvious. He told me how beautiful I was and how much he loved me and I told him that it was time we were leaving and I’m sick of being on drugs and I’m changing my life around and bringing him with me whether he likes it or not.

The missions group from the church in Colorado Springs bought me a ticket to New Jersey where the carnival was and the owner, Morris bought Chris a ticket under the stipulation that he’d work off the debt.

Our bus broke down before we were able to even leave the state, at a truck stop. Any hopes into hiding Chewie from the bus driver went right out the window. Hours went by before Greyhound was able to send another bus driver for us. That bus took us to Amarillo, TX. I will always remember Amarillo as being the worst town I’ve ever visited in America. The people running the bus station were anything but hospitable. All together our layover between our bus breakdown and our stay in Amarillo ended up being a 9 hour additional layover because the ticket desk messed up our tickets. After a great deal of complaining, we were finally rewarded with two complimentary meal tickets for our inconvenience. Afterwards, Chris lost his wallet with his drugs inside and took it up with management to try to locate it and instead of offering us assistance he threatened to kick me off of the bus for having a fake service animal with me. The entire ordeal was unforgettable, to say the least.

When we finally did board our bus the route we had to take took us all the way through throughout Texas instead of heading north East towards New Jersey like our original itinerary had planned. The entire bus incident made our already long 56 hour bus ride into 156 hours of bus riding and layovers but we both just appreciated not having to experience withdrawal this bus ride. We had to appreciate the little things in life.

We arrived in Camden, NJ but, unlike the year before there was no heavy set lady putting Percocets in my apron. The carnival was a nice break from living the life of a drug addict but, before I knew it mine and Chris’ behavior was getting out of hand. It started with Chris acting out because he didn’t like the opinions my mother had about him so he lashed out and said some things to her and me that I found to be incredibly unacceptable and immature and I used his behavior to justify me flirting with guys I worked with on the show.

Our behavior towards each other and the arguing we started with each other is why we ended up leaving the carnival early. We had just left Asbury Park for Eatontown. We did set up for the rides and games and the first night on the show we got in an argument. I took my tent and pitched it under Red’s 5th wheel, walked to 711 and got a slurpee and filled it with half vodka. I was drinking so I didn’t have to focus on the reality that was my life at that moment. The next day I tried to patch it up but ended up sleeping in the back of Keith and Mary’s Jeep Cherokee and that next day the rumors flooded in to Chris about what drugs I was supposedly doing and with who I was doing them with.

Evidentially, yes I can’t have any space to yourself while working for a carnival because God forbid anyone sees you strike up a conversation with a person of the opposite sex. Apparently I was having sex with Keith and Mary’s son and snorting cocaine all night and when word of that got back to Chris he took it up with the main office and then they wanted to drug test me. Of which, I refused just because of the principles behind it all.

We argued all day until the show started and that’s when Chris decided to quit. He packed up all his things and took off leaving me and Chewie behind. I saw him leaving and I took my apron off and handed it to Rob with all my cash in it and I took after him. Packing up my stuff in record time and chasing him down.

Morris refused to pay us for the week even though it was the last day of the show so we had no money to our name, but that’s never scared it’s in the past and we were always able to make due. We hitched a ride back to Asbury Park, getting dropped off at the train station where they were doing a “Make Food Not Bombs” and after we ate a nice man allowed us to stay the night, and also helped us score some dope. We got high then formulated a plan to get us back to Salisbury.

Walking down the streets of Asbury Park, panhandling and eating some of the best pizza money could buy, at just $1 a slice. We got a phone call from Chris’ mom, who wasn’t doing okay. She had been up for a few days after ingesting some of what she thought was MDMA but was quite obviously methamphetamine. She was having a lot of the same side effects I was showing back in Colorado. Her mental status was being seriously affected. Tears welled up in my eyes as I could hear the fear and uncertainty in her voice as she cried out to Chris on the phone.

We ended up taking a train south to Cape May and once again, after panhandling a few bucks for our tickets, we boarded the Cape May Lewes Ferry to Delaware. From Lewes DE we walked a few miles until one of Chris’ friends, Jesse picked us up off the side of the road. We stayed at Jesse’s house for a few da

It was sometime in May out in Colorado, we were very high into the mountains where it still snows way into April, sometimes even May we would wake up to frost covered lawns.

We had very little money, one shitty government cell phone, no tent and everyone around us was a stranger.

After crying my little eyes out and exposing his friend Tom from helping us get badly addicted to meth and without even a seemingly worried response he dropped us off in downtown Pueblo. It hurts when you have “it” so bad that not even your father has any remorse or I’ll will about leaving his youngest daughter without any means of shelter or food, and none in the foreseeable future.

I’m not going to lie, those first few days out there were rough. That first night we spent wandering the streets searching for somewhere to lay our heads and we ended up in the middle of a tall grassed field spooning ever so close together in any attempts to keep warm. We had no blankets or anything so we bundled in our hoodies as best as we could. There was frost on the ground, we could see our breath and I could feel Chewie’s tiny body shivering against my bare belly.

The following morning we took an Uber from Pueblo to Colorado Springs, where the temperature was slightly warmer. We used what money we had left to purchase some food, a tent and a sleeping bag.

Outside of the Walmart pulls up a white Ford Bronco with a busted out rear passenger window. The driver, a man, asks us if we need a ride and after our miserable night we accept just to be somewhere safe and warm for a little bit. With no destination in mind we just said we needed to get Memorial Park.

After a few minutes it became no surprise to my own discovering this man also happened to be a meth addict. We ended up in that SUV, stuck with the man, for 4 whole days. I remember him pulling over on mother’s day and I called my mother to wish her a happy day and when I hung up he was juggling around knives and guns and all sorts of weapons. Whenever we went to suggest leaving he’d make a point to flash one of his guns or knives at us to make sure we knew we weren’t in control.

He had us driving all around town looking for some more meth to buy. I sold one of my cellphones at the eco kiosk at Walmart. One night he managed to convince Chris to have him pull over at a Dunkin Donuts parking while the two of them broke into a lot full of 18 wheelers to attempt to steal one of the batteries from the truck. After realizing how next to impossible it would have been to successfully grab a battery and make it back to the SUV without drawing attention to themselves, they returned back to the SUV.

After we were able to acquire some more meth the man became really scary. He started accusing us of stealing his weapons that were on his person the whole time. He’d pull over abruptly to do inventory after inventory of said weapons. He was just doing very unnecessary things to see if he could get a reaction out of Chris but he was definitely getting one out of me.

I started thinking of ways to escape because I was starting to lose faith that Chris ever was. We tried to leave a few times because we were tired and hungry, not to mention uncomfortable, but he wasn’t having it.

Finally his eyelids got heavy and he pulled over so we could all take a small nap. I was in the back seat with Chewie quietly gathering our belongings and getting ready to make our getaway.

I tapped Chris’ shoulder and made a motion towards the door to indicate that I was going to make a run for it and before I did I grabbed my knife and I slammed it inches deep in the meat of the man’s upper arm. Before he could properly react we opened our doors, grabbed as much as I could took chewie and made a run for it.

That first night on the streets of Colorado Springs all hopped up on meth and terrified for our well-being we found a ditch behind a bunch of department stores and we pitched our tent.

The next week after that was spent religiously panhandling near Memorial Park by 25. We’d make enough to eat and buy some meth. We had to keep a lookout to make sure the guy in the white Ford Bronco doesn’t find us.

The only plan we made was a mutual agreement to get back to the East Coast, nowhere in particular but I had to be within 300 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. We swore we were getting followed. How many people drive around in a white Ford Bronco with a back window busted out?

Just to make sure it wasn’t the guy we would go way way out of the way to find tent spots so secluded that you’d have to climb a small mountain at night to get to us. Somewhere we’d be able to hear someone coming from miles.

Finally, one day we got approached by a man who volunteered with a church ministry helping homeless youths and young adults get off the streets. This man really wanted to help but they were only able to buy me a bus ticket because I was a female I held top priority in their minds. Chris, having to find his own way made contact with Amusements of America and then we were heading to New Jersey to work the next carnival season.