Marijka Dekkers
I was in an extremely abusive relationship for 4 years.
During these 4 years, I was not allowed to be anywhere around my
family. He was an alcoholic and used marijuana as well. We had 2
daughters together before he became insanely abusive. It started when
we moved out of a hotel and into an apartment. He started out being
more verbal every day and physically abusive about 1-2 times a week. He
built up to physically abusive almost daily. He involved my oldest
daughter when she was 5. He blamed me for everything that went wrong
and attacked me when I was holding youngest at the time.
He
said if we moved out of Kansas and to California thongs would get
better. I believed him and we left the apartment (which was a complete
disaster zone from all the damage he did when he attacked me). When we
got to California, we had a motel room until we could afford a place to
live. He continued drinking and being abusive.
On
May 9, 2015 we had another argument while he was driving. We stopped in
a parking lot and I took my 20 month old daughter out of her car seat
to try to calm her down. It was at that point he reached back and tried
to drag me into the front seat. He twisted my daughters leg badly and
rammed it into my stomach hard. For the next 2 days I had severe
stomach pain and felt miserable. He, of course, did not care at all.
Then on that Sunday, Mother's Day, I woke up to extreme cramping and
tons of blood. I panicked- it looked like a crime scene. I was crying
and figured out that I must have been pregnant and was having a
miscarriage from what happened.
We went to the ER
where I was told that yes, I was 6 weeks pregnant with twins. They
wanted to run some tests to see what was going on, but said that it
looked like I was having a miscarriage. I honestly didn't even know I
was pregnant - I had a pregnancy test a few weeks earlier and it was
negative. I wasn't even allowed to tell my family what happened - I was
forced to act like it never happened.
The
miscarriage completed after about a week, and during that time my ex
didn't even ask once how I was doing or take the blame for what he did.
He blamed me!!!
He became even more violent and
trashed the hotel room all the time. He beat my oldest daughter and me
in front of my youngest daughter and completely traumatized her.
I
got pregnant again in October 2015 and was told by his mother that he
would calm down and stop the abuse once he found out I was pregnant
again... He beat me and gave me a black eye 3 days later. Throughout
the whole pregnancy, he abused me and kicked me in the stomach several
times, pushed me down on my stomach and laid on top of me pushing my
stomach into the corner of the bed. To be honest, I'm surprised he
didn't cause another miscarriage.
To this day - I
still believe her angel brother and sister watched over he and protected
her from him. They didn't want her to suffer the same fate they did at
the hands of their abusive father. My 22 month old daughter Natalie
has 2 amazing guardian angels watching over her. I miss who they would
have been and become.
May 10 is rough for me,
Mother's Day is specifically hard for me because that was the day I
miscarried 3 years ago. It was supposed to be a happy day to celebrate
being a mom, but now it's a day I mourn the loss of my twins who were
taken away too soon.
I hope this helps people
with their losses as well as those who may be in an abusive
relationship. Please think about your children if you have them. Keep
them safe and love them with all your heart. Please never take any
moment for granted- you never know how fast something may happen that
will change your life forever.
