Annus Horribilis & Annus Mirabilis
We are one year into exploring our new keys, one year into our founder’s survival, and one year into a lifelong commitment to Be The Last! Thank you for being part of our new journey, and partner with us as we continue this important work. We are just getting started!
Website Stats:
2K Page Visits
1.1K Unique Visitors
4.2K Pageviews
30 Countries
Top Fans:
Huntington, WV is the top identifiable city with 154 visits, edging out Perrysburg, OH who had 120 visits.
Blog Reach:
“I laughed and sang a new song…” is our most read blog post to date with 122 views, and a great place to start if you’re new around here.
“Choking Hazard” is our runner up with 114 views, and full of lifesaving information you can share with anyone.
From Our Founder:
I have survived what I hope has been the most dangerous year of my life. It has also been the most important and miraculous year of my life. Women who have been strangled by an intimate partner are 750% more likely to be murdered by that person within the next year than a person who has never been strangled by an intimate partner. In my situation, the stakes are even higher…
I spent the first six months post-attack trying to hold my life together as I was stalked, threatened, and systemically broken. I have never been so scared, so alone, or so silenced. I had to make a choice - end my life, or tell my story. I chose to live. I chose to ask for even more help. I chose to return to court, represent myself, and listen as perjury was committed over and over again. When I lost the last facade of protection, an EPO that the local police refused to enforce again and again, my children and I entered a shelter.
Domestic violence is the only crime that requires the victim(s) to relocate. While a dangerous man walks free, we stepped into a cage. We spent four months behind double locked doors, on camera, sleeping on plastic mattresses in a room smaller than my college dorms, and sharing showers and toilets with many other families. It was wonderful in ways and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
But I can, and I will, do hard things. I will continue to choose life. I have been given a gift that I do not take lightly, even when the darkness creeps in. I have flashbacks from my attack every single day. I can see myself stumbling into the police department, the prosecutor’s office, and emergency rooms. I can remember the way my brain would form the words but my mouth couldn’t. I can remember the night I learned why they really wanted me to die. I can remember sleeping with a baseball bat and praying that if he broke in, the end would be quick.
I can remember believing that it was love, and that I should stay, and that he was different. I can remember staring at my feet, uncrossing my arms, making myself as small and quiet and non-threatening as I could while his rage swelled and his voice roared. I can remember every dead-end excuse, every farce of a solution, every weaponized event and person and phrase.
I can remember, but I try not to dwell. I try to look up. To feel the sun on my skin. To take steps forward without staring at my feet. To take up space in my own life. To say yes when I want and no when I want. My life is sliced in half - before the attack, and after. I have lost so much, suffered so much, and changed so much. So have my children. More than you can fathom. More than I am willing to share. But we are alive, and while we may still be in danger, we are not in captivity.
If I die now, I die free - even if they bash my skull in behind closed doors.