The Life of an Abused Military Wife

To be in my shoes would drive many people crazy. I have survived way to much in my short life. I am only 24, but I am a divorced, single mother, of four children (I have a set of twins). If you were to look at my life from the outside five years ago you would think how great it looked, but this was only the image we showed the world. My husband was an American soldier, but he got wounded. His traumatic brain injury would change the course of all of our lives.  His brain injury made him start to be mean, and irrational. I watched the man that I fell in love with fade away before my eyes, and this evil thing take his place. He tried to kill me on several occasions, and put me in the hospital just as many. Our home was known by the police, and our neighbors thought I was crazy for staying. I held out with the hope that he would get better, and kept telling myself that I had to stay, that it was my duty as a military wife, and that deep down he still loved me. Later I found that none of these things were true, but as with most cases of domestic violence, it took a huge ordeal. The final straw was on December 23, 2011 after he was medically discharged from the military. He was intoxicated (prescription drugs, synthetic drugs, alcohol, and illegal drugs) as had become the normal day for him, and he began getting agitated with me because I could not do all of the things for him that he wanted. I had to have open back surgery the week before on the 15th to repair damage that he had done to my back, by slinging me around, and into things. My mother lived above us, and was watching all the children. He decided that he wanted to go up and "see" them, and I knew this was not normal, because he never wanted anything to do with our children. I mustered up the strength to ride up there. He lost his temper when he seen that the kids were going to bed. He snatched our middle son Emerich up out of bed, and took off walking down her driveway. I was terrified of what he was going to do, so I drove down after him (against doctors orders). Once I was back at home I followed him into the house, where my husband started screaming at me about how horrible of a mother I was for not taking care of them after my surgery, how fat I was (5'6" 155lbs honestly), and how much he hated me. I was trying to calm my son, because he was screaming. Then before I could blink he took off out the door with my son in his arms. He threw Emerich into the front seat of his car (the car had a busted window, Emerich was only three and a half, only had on pajamas, the car had no heat, and it was below freezing). I ran after them, and didn't feel the pain, because all I could think about was my son, and all I could hear was him screaming Mommy! I made it to the car as he started it, and his door was still open. I was standing in the door opening when my husband started to back up the car, and the door caught my body, and all I could do was hold on. He drove for two miles down the road with me on the door. My husband was screaming the whole time of how he was going to kill me and I would never see my son again, but the only thing I could focus on was the sound of my terrified son screaming for me. My husband went down the road and then came back to our house. The pain was so intense at this point, but he was not done. I was still on the door, because I could not move, but he decided to pull my limp body off the door and throw it down to the muddy half frozen ground. My mother heard me screaming and called the police. My husband then grabbed my son again and ran into the house. I could still hear him crying but could not move to get to him. After what seemed like an eternity the police and an ambulance arrived. One of the officers ran to me and covered me with a blanket, and kept telling me to try not to move. Another one of the officers ran to my son, and the others arrested my husband. The officer that went to my son, then wrapped him into a blanket, and brought him to see me. Emerich was crying uncontrollably, and screaming that "Daddy killed Mommy!". My poor son had wet himself (he had been accident free for over a year). The moment I seen my sons face, and how scared he was, I knew that I had to protect him at all costs. My mother came and got Emerich and the loaded me into the ambulance. That was the worst night of my life, but not because of my pain or anything, but because of what my baby had to go through. To this day he still has nightmares, and I blame myself, because I stayed as long as I did.