Any stories to share?

Question

I just got to level 4 and feel generous, tell me a story about your sucessful love life or about your day, or funny story, embarassing moments...etc, anything you like to share, best story will get 10 points.

Answer 1

It was December 9th of 1997; the restaurant that I worked for was having a Christmas party for all the employees.

I took my mom, everyone brought someone to the party even Lynda, a waitress that was very good to me, she brought her son.

James Lewis Graham, He took up with me right off, we danced a little but talked a lot, he told me he was a recovered alcoholic.

Sober for going on two years. Of course I was young, so I thought nothing of his past. Things went well with him and me.

Moving in with him didn't seem to bother my parents. Two months after I moved there I developed an eye infection.

He was the one that noticed the redness of my eyes first; he said that he could not do anything about it and that it would go away by the next day. The next day came and went. On the third day my mother came over to see me and have coffee.

My mother took one look and asked me if I was taking meds for the problem, my answer was no. She packed me up and took me to the hospital; she also paid the bill for it. The doctor had explained that the eye infection could cause serious problems for me later down the road. My vision is now impaired, not very badly. After this I moved back home with my parents.



In 1998 I found out I was pregnant. He told me to get an abortion, I fought with him over that.........I didn't want to be a murder. I wanted to do the right thing; if I was going to have sex then I had no other choice but to take care of the end result. Things were good for a while I did my regular exams with the doctor, took my vitamins and ate the proper things for the baby. Jim went back to drinking, I was four months pregnant. He and his mother still blame my mother to this day as I write this. After two solid months of this I got mad. I told Jim he needed to quit drinking and that he needed help. He said" I promise I will quit when the baby comes". I had a heck of a time with him. I couldn’t stand him. One night he took me out to a bar. I was allowed in but could not have alcohol, I was not of age (I was 20). That night was the beginning of my journey into HELL. He met up with his drunk friend Mark and took me for the worst ride, He took me four wheeling at one o'clock in the morning. I told him I wanted to go home and go to bed, He took me home but never let me in he had the key and his mom was in bed. I sat outside from 1:30am till 6am in the cool night air. Everyday Jim was drunk never a day sober. Of course as with most alcoholics they have to have something to say whether it's true or false or weather it made sense or not, so he had his turn, his was calling me names and making fun of me. His favorite saying was “You’re dumber then a box of rocks". His favorite names for me were, dummy, stupid, loser, and about every name you could think of in the bad word category. To top all this off I was never really confident of my self I never cared if I was or wasn’t stupid or even pretty. I guess I let it all get into my system and soon thought I needed to improve myself to make people like me. I started wearing fake nails, tons of make up and big t-shirts and very tight jeans.



March 12th 1999 I went into labor. Jim was drunk, His mother at the bar. He drove to the bar to get his mom and then to the clinic. We got there and Jim was so drunk that he fell asleep on the couch they had in my room.

March 13th Katrina-Lou Graham was finally brought into the world. Of course I didn't pick the whole name, Jim and his mother said to name the baby Katrina if it was a girl, no one thought of a middle name so I went ahead and added Lou to her first name. She, like my self has no middle name. I went home the next day. Lynda took my baby from me and put her in her room. Katrina was crying. I went to go get her and was stopped by Lynda. She pushed me against the wall. I got so angry; all that I could do was try to push past her to get to my baby. Jim caught me up by my neck and threw me down to the floor and made an attempt to strangle me, while his mother stood yelling “Kill her, Kill her now!!” After 15 minutes I got back up and tried to get to my baby. I was made to sit down and keep quiet. I didn't know what I had gotten into. From this point on life was dangerous, I never knew what to expect day to day.

From March 1999 to May 1999, it was strangling, slapping, Name calling and of course keeping me from my family. In mid May we went to Aurora Colorado to join Jim's other friend Mark on the lake. We had fun that day. We got to Mark's I ran to the camper (we lived in it with the baby) to get changed out of my wet bathing suit. I locked the door, Jim knocked and wanted in. I told him to please wait, He did, and then when I opened up the door he jumped in and kissed me. We went off to the house, when we got to the kitchen he then grabbed me and threw me to the floor and stomped on my face and neck. I blacked out and was brought to by Mark. Marks brother in law helped me up off the floor and into the bathroom. He got out a clean washcloth and wet it with cold water; He cleaned up my bloody face so he could see where the blood was coming from, just to find I had a bloody nose. He checked my face and told me that many of the bones were broke and that I would suffer from TMJ syndrome. I am very lucky to be alive. I left Jim and went home to mom and dad with my baby girl and filed for child support and got a restraining order that later was canceled. Jim’s mother made me change my mind after 6 months. At that time it wasn’t hard to get me to do whatever it was that anyone wanted me to do.

In February I found out that I was pregnant again. This time Jim didn’t try to talk me into an abortion, He just said” Like we need another kid” I had reminded him that I was not the only one involved. He always acted as though I had all to do with it. He was the one that said” I hate condoms and won’t use them, It’s just not real that way” Hahaha, If only he knew just what a condom could do. For a brief time we lived with Mark, Or at least until Holly Nicole was born.

On November 12th 2000 Holly Nicole Graham was born, this time Jim was sober for her birth, I didn’t give him time to get a beer into him. It was going good because of Mark’s involvement in our lives.

About January 2001, I had just made a pizza for Mark’s son, Christopher. His older brother, Josh, was not happy with that at all. He yelled at me and said it was not done right. I got up from feeding Holly and explained it was done and that if it was not Christopher would have said so. He argued with me, I pointed a spoon at him and told him to knock off the attitude. As I said this, Jim came down the stairs and grabbed me by my hair and threw me to the floor in a corner of the cabinets. He started jumping on my face and my neck. I didn’t black out this time and thank god for that. Of course the one who started the whole thing ran to hide when this attack started. Josh was 14 years old and Christopher was 8 years old. Christopher yelled at Jim “Stop Jim your going to kill her!!” “Jim please stop”. Josh stayed hidden; I never did ask him why. I got up from the floor and ran outside in my bare feet in the snow; I walked around the block in my night robe. Mark had gotten back home with his wife Monica. Mark wanted to know why I was out in my bare feet, I told him what happened. He then went in the house and gave Jim a warning, if I had so much as a bruise; Jim was to leave and never to return. The next morning I got up from bed and went downstairs to join Monica in a morning coffee talk. She took one look at me and started to cry. I asked her what was wrong. She said it was my face “It’s so swollen, why did he do it??” I told her I had no idea. I had looked at my face myself and really wanted to take a pin to it to see if it would deflate. It hurt to talk, move even to look at my face hurt. The abuse had escalated. It went in this order as does all abuse: Control, Emotional, Mental, Physical and Sexual (new to me then). I was not aware of the forms of abuse at the time, No one taught me the signs, and I had to learn the hard way. Every night he was drunk and he would come into bed, roll me over have his way and roll me back over again. If I had said no he would force himself on me. In one instance I tried to move from his grasp, He yanked me back, grabbed me in a neck lock and forced his intentions whether I wanted him to or not. He used me over and over. I thought I had to give him what he wanted, I never liked it. Jim always told me I was his property and that if I ever left him no man would ever want me because I had children. I finally left for the 6th time. I got my mom and dads house and then let Jim in to stay, big mistake. June 28th 2001, Jim came back drunk with his drunken friend Mark. (There were two Marks, one was drunk all the time like Jim, The other was smart, had a family and he was mostly a sober guy that Jim used) He grabbed Katrina and drunk Mark grabbed Holly, They put the girls in Jim’s car. I got mad; I asked what they thought they were doing. I was told that Jim’s mother wanted the girls for a few days. I said” If she wants them she can come pick them up”. Jim got mad, but I was madder. I took both the girls from the car and took them back inside the house, I had to do this three times, and finally I got even madder. I had walked up the stairs with Katrina in my arms and stopped directly in front of Mark and pointed a finger in his face and said “Leave your dirty hands off my children.” Jim then grabbed me by my hair and drug me to the floor and pinned me and Katrina. He started to pin his weight down on my neck. I tried to let go of Katrina but he had her pinned almost under me. After about 30 minutes of struggling to loosen his grip on us, I was finally up and telling them to leave. They didn’t leave. I went on to putting my girls to bed.



June 29th 2001-- I told Lisa Joyce (a social worker with the department of social services of El Paso County) about what had happened at 9pm the night before.

July 1st 2001 I went to go to see Lynda and pick the girls up to take them home. When I had arrived to the trailer park where Jim worked and Lynda lived, Jim came walking over to me. He said “You look to happy” I looked at him and said “Well, Yea, I came to get my girls and go home.” He had said “Oh God”. He walked to his mother’s trailer with me and told me that something happened and I may not be going home that night. I worried I had thought one of my babies got hurt and was in the hospital. I walked in and the first thing said by Lynda was “I am so sorry, I couldn’t stop them”. “Who?” I asked, she told me the girls were taken. I spent the next three days crying nonstop. Finally, Lynda was so tiered of my crying and not sleeping she gave me half of an alpraisealem and told me to go sleep. The next day I woke up, I told Lynda that there was something I wanted to go get from the dollar store, I wanted a book that I could write in, one my daughters could look at later in life and see the love I always had for them. We left to go shop; she dropped me back home afterwards. I walked in and saw the toy mess in the girl’s room. I cleaned their room and as I did I cried.



August 26th 2001, we had to move out of the house on Marlow circle. We lived in Jim’s car. Three weeks later I could not move at all, when I did it hurt so badly all over. I was stuck in a bent position all day long, I had to go see Jim’s mom, I needed help and Jim didn’t care to help me. Lynda helped me unkink, she popped my back and my neck for me so I might be able to stand, and she gave me some pain relievers. Jim and I lived in the car for three months, until the day he was arrested. Jim’s brother had us doing a job with him, one night Jim and I went to go get something to eat and when we arrived to the place we were working on the police followed us. Jim was arrested. His brother then told Jim he would look out for me till I had a place to stay. Jim and his mother wanted me to stay in an RV park by myself in the car. Jim’s brother wouldn’t have it; he knew the dangers as well as I did. Preston (Jim’s brother) let me work with him and then I got paid for it. Preston then helped me pack my stuff in his car and he drove me to Cripple Creek to be with my mom and dad. I thank Preston for making sure I was safe. I guess peace and quiet made me restless; I went back to Jim when he got out of jail. I moved to Colorado Springs, The Westside. We got a small apartment. I got a job as a housekeeper at a local motel and I paid the rent just barely. I had a hard time doing it because my job was not all that great, the highest pay check I got was for $ 125.45. Most was like maybe $50. If I was lucky I would be able to go to the store and buy something to eat. Jim’s mom was trying to help me take care of her son. She would buy us some food and bring it to us. She told me one day that Jim had told her that it was my turn to take care of him, and o0f course I did just make sure I would be alive the very next day, He enjoyed it too. He never took care of me or even his own daughters, I had to be on assistance from the state, and I pawned and sold what I could to keep us above water. I was not happy with that statement so both her and I talked to people to see if they would offer him a job out of the blue. Well, the manager of the apartments said” He can work for part of the rent.” He also told me that I should really leave Jim and go home to mom and dad, He helped me leave, and He kept Jim busy so I could make the plans with my mom. After I left, Jim called my mom’s work and talked to me and let me know he knew where I was and that he would find me alone and kill me. He made this threat for the second time. I then moved to Cripple Creek were I stayed. I was happy to be free physically, but, I was not really free. All the damage from the relationship hurt me and left me scared of any man. I still have a hard time trusting anyone. I have been working hard on not running to hide when I sense someone is angry. My senses are so sensitive now that the slightest bit of anger is sensed. I know that this damage will still be with me for as long as I live. I only hope to god and the remaining council that the damage done to me will not be done to his children or to another woman. I know that I am probably too late for that. I apologize for my stupidity.



I have not seen Jim in about 4 years. I am happy and feel freer then I have ever felt in my life. I look back on it all and realize it was all for nothing. I know why I kept going back but at the time I was too blind to see all the things that were wrong. Now I can see. I see that I made the wrong choices and I see the thoughts that ran through my mind. My first one was” He won’t do it again”, Then it went to “I deserved it”, and of course “I’m his property”, and the other one that makes me cringe “He’ll kill me if……….” I also had this thought in my mind “What will he do if I leave???” After 4 years I still have to deal with some of the fears, I also deal with the damage done to my face, during a cold front I am always in pain. It always reminds me of the mistakes I have made and reminds me that there are others probably feeling the same pain and fear as I do. We all have a hell and some of us can run from it, others can’t without a helping hand.

I have made it a habit to help women that are in the same Hell I was in. I have helped three women so far and I plan to help many more in the future. Abuse is very life damaging and it causes the worst scares, it only feels like it won’t ever go away, I know, I have been there so many times. You have to think about the future, make your life better by being positive and by changing it and try to focus on your inner strength, the strength to live, to stand up and say “No, I won’t go back to that old life”. Be strong and positive.

It feels wonderful to feel free. Just remember two things, One: Be strong and walk away. Two: Be positive and move on to bigger and better things. I did…………

Answer 2

Heres the story of how me and my Buddy's got kicked out of a grocery store...
It all happened about a month and a half ago.My friend and I were heading over to the local grocery store: "harris teeter"
As we entered we were immedietly under scrutiny from some of the more nosey customers because of our apearance( black clothes for the most part)So we casually entered the produce section( where the free samples are)and began sampling the free samples, aparently we overstepped our limit on how much free fruit we could consume and one of aformentioned nosey customers came up to my friend and me and said: HEY! those are for everybody!,not just YOU, And then he proceded to stare us down and get all up in our faces and breath his anus breath in our faces.we just walked off when he was still fuming at us for eating to much free food, so we left,but as we left he kept on following us through the produce section until we left.
now for the fun part...
At that time more people that we knew showed up and we re-entered the store with more people like us ,and it must have been frighting toall the judgemental ignorent patrons of the store stared us down even harder.so the 2 other guys decided to actually be paying customers and buy a couple of huge dill pickles.As they were waiting to be checked out foir they'er pickles the manager comes up and said this: I'm gonna have to ask you boys to leave and don't come back,my friend:but we havent even payed for our pickles yet,Manager: just take your pickles and leave,My friend: why?,manager: WE've had some customer complaints about you particular group of gentleman and i would prefer if you would just leave.
That is the story.(If any one has questions my AIM screen name is PsyKo0016)

Answer 3

I think onesong deserves the 10 points, she went all out haha.. she must have been typing for 15 minutes.. she has earned those points.

Answer 4

daim i tooklke 3o mins rreading hte story the song deserves the 10 points..nt even she deserves to be happy and to try hard kuz she seems like a strong woman...i loved her story ..

Answer 5

with all efforts, i reached to level5. hearty well come to you.