Hello, my name is Debra. I want to share my story with you. At a very early age I experienced incest. The perpetrator would tell me how special I was and how much he loved me. After hearing these words from him I really believed him. I never told anyone what he had done because he said he loved me. I protected him by keeping silent until the age of 16. My understanding of love was warped because of him and it left me vulnerable to being repeatedly abused and disrespected by men. My excuse for allowing the abuse to continue to happen was he would tell me he loved me.
At the age of 15 I had a boyfriend. A few months into our relationship he and I were arguing and he took me on a dirt road and beat me up. Before he took me home he made up with me and told me how much he loved me. I forgave him and protected him. He and I ended up getting married and while we were married he would repeatedly jump on me. Because he would tell me how much he loved me I would protect him and not say a word. After a year of being married I wanted to have a baby but he said no. Well I became pregnant and he was very angry because of the pregnancy. He made his words very clear that if I had the baby I had to leave. Due to the history of physical abuse and wanting to be with my husband I aborted the baby. Nobody told me don't do it. Nobody told me that the feeling of loss, emptiness and guilt would follow me for years. A few months later I left him and divorced him.
After leaving my husband I met an older man who to me seemed to know how to treat a woman. He would tell me how special I was and how much he loved me. He began to separate me from my friends and family. Once he had captured my heart he began talking about us leaving town and starting a new life together. I said yes.
As it sit here typing my testimony, I think about what I put my mother and father through and tears are rolling down my face. My heart is broken as I think back and remember seeing my mother's face...tears rolling down her face, because she didn't want me to leave with him.
He took me out of town and beat me so badly that you would not have know who I was. He pistol-whipped me, raped me repeatedly, tied my feet to the bumper of a van and pulled me through a field with rocks and stickers. He put a bullet in the chamber of his gun and I clearing remember hearing the clicking sound of the trigger being pulled as he played Russian Roulette with the gun to my head. As he had my face in the dirt I then said, "God help me!" Something happened to him because the rage he was exhibiting stopped suddenly. He did so many horrible things to me that night. The next day he dropped me off at the hospital and because I was afraid of him I protected him and didn't say a word about what had happened. I told the people in the hospital that I had fallen off of a motorcycle. I couldn't understand why a person would do something like this to me. I did nothing to deserve that type of treatment. When I came back home I stayed with my mother and father. Mentally I felt as if I was losing my mind. The pain I went through in that one night kept playing over and over in my mind and his words, "I am going to mess you up so bad that nobody will ever want you!" I told my mother that I felt I needed to see a psychiatrist.
A few weeks after being back home in San Antonio I had two other encounters with him. Understand these encounters were voluntary. You may be asking yourselves "what was she thinking to see him again." My answer is "he told me he loved me". Well one night I was asleepin in my apartment and he broke in. I was awakened by being pulled out of the apartment by my hair. I ended up jumping out of a car going 60 miles per hour and then jumping off of an overpass onto an expressway trying to save my life. I broke my ankle. In my last encounter with him, he beat me, tried to re-break my ankle with a tire jack, and then he hit me in the head with it. As time went on I wanted to go to sleep and he wouldn't let me so he then injected drugs into my veins to keep me awake. I believe that if I had gone to sleep I may not have woken up.
Please understand I had not yet turned 20 years old. I was a sheltered child. I didn't know that people could be so hurtful. After going through these experiences I became a drunk. Drinking and smoking numbed the pain that life had inflicted. From the age of 20 to 32 I had a child, experienced date rate, got married again and divorced 5 months later because of physical abuse. I also found myself dating any kind of man looking for the man who who love me and take care of me. I encountered the true lover of my soul when one night I could see no more hope for my son and me. I found myself disgusted with who I had become...opening myself to any man. I found myself lying on my bed, crying out loud to Jesus. I'm telling you the truth, He did answer me. Be the age of 33 I made up in my mind that I was going to live for God and give him my all.
I put this together to let you know that I understand the pain and anguish you are having. Now it's time for you to ask Jesus to come into your life and heart so that he can heal you of your past. Know that God is our healer and the perpetrators of your past have made you spiritually diseased (ill). The Bible says that God alone can cure the disease of sin, but you must be willing to let him do so.
