Fighting domestic violence is not through denial nor fear.

I got married at the age of 23 after being pregnant to my firstborn, and ever since the emotional, mental and physical violence escalated to the point of me having to run for my life this March. That day after I returned from work, with no trigger whatsoever my ex husband started beating me and tried to rape me, all in front of the eyes of our two young kids aged 9 and 5. He took my shoes and keys locking me in the house so I would not be able to escape. I somehow managed to grab a second set of keys, opened the door and started running wearing just a pair of summer shoes I had left the other day by the door while I was tidying up closets. I had no money and no where to go and I was in complete terror of what might happen to me and for leaving my two kids behind. They were after all the reason I returned home each day, survived each day, just one day in a time. Even if he never had touched them and I thought that I was protecting them for staying, leaving them behind was my worse terror. But I think at that moment, for a fraction of a second that I looked at them in the eyes, my older holding my younger trying to cover her eyes so she wouldn't watch what was happening and my younger pushing her away saying "I want to see. You must see too", something crashed within me and thought "I am their destruction, my fear is their destruction, my weakness is their destruction". I mumbled "enough", opened the door and starting running. For your information I am highly educated and people who knew nothing -and nobody knew nothing- would never imagine what happens behind closed doors and that white collar men are also animals. So stop looking around you for what you've been adviced to protect yourself from and realize that this is a fucking violent, aggressive and dangerous world and most wolves appear in a sheep's clothing. For your information I am a mental health professional. I've been trained and dealt with criminals, the ones that are "stupid" enough to end behind bars or dismissed from society but know that the real monsters live and thrive and suck your life without you having a clue until it's too late. And for your information not you, or you, or you are safe. Domestic violence doesn't separate and doesn't choose the weak. If you're telling your self that "this would never happen to me, I'm smart, I don't put up with this shit" know that you've just been lucky because it's just a matter of chance and yes, you could be next. Even if I've been working all my life, I had no access to my money, he took it all by force or by triggering fear in me, I was completely isolated by everyone I used to know and had nowhere to turn to. Through the decade of that marriage, the incidents of physical violence kept getting worse. He has beaten me to the point I couldn't walk for a week, punched, kicked, hit my head on the floor and on walls, grabbed hair that it kept falling off my head, suffocated me, brutally raped me repeatedly, threatened to deform my face with a hot iron so I wouldn't be able to go out in public and to kill my parents if I talked. Twisted my words around, denied my sense of reality, blamed me for everything, I was constantly in a state of panic, I learned I was a thing and how to live to predict the unpredictable and it was never enough. How can you protect if you can't predict. You learn to behave like a well trained dog, until you freeze knowing that every movement will cause a shock. This is how you turn into a furniture. Or distract. To keep some sense of a self. Some sense of choice. Some sense of dignity. And you split. So no one knows. Know that shame is paralyzing. Know that fear is paralyzing. Know that is almost a folie a deux. Until you remove your self away. Until that day. I spent the night in a hotel with the last money I had and went to the police. I asked from a colleague if she could let me stay at her place for a couple of days, during when I went to a lawyer still in terror. The morning after I left I actually "kidnapped" my older daughter from school and took her to my parents. To my terror he had kept my younger at his sister's house. I went there, I saw my girl in the back of his car and when he saw me he started it and tried to drive away. I literally grabbed from the half open window while he accelerated the car and if passing cars didn't stop his way I'd be dead. But there was no way I would let him take my baby away. Long story short ever since that day it started a long long court procedure with custody battles (which he claimed and lost, by false accusations of my being incompetent as a mother), child support (which he doesn't pay), constant bullying and threats against me (with lawsuits pending), restriction measures etc etc etc. As expected though the court granted him visitation time (for the "best interest of the children" even if one parent is deadly dangerous for the wellbeing of his kids) and now a new horror story started. After him vanishing from their lives for 4 months (other than going to schools causing scenes making my kids cry and be terrified and ashamed) now that he got visitation he is using them to get to me. I have no access to them when they are with him, I don't know where they are and if they are ok. And of course all the court procedures continue non stop something that has left me emotional and financially drained. I have bank loans that I got especially for this, the money of them being spent on lawyers and trials that are non stop and right now I'm in a place that I'm not allowed for a new loan, my work income is not enough to both raise my kids and common living expenses and also continue with the courts.Know that this isn't a hobby, going to trial after trial as a "friend" said, it's fighting for my life and my kids safety. Know that this isn't revenge or being stubborn as a "well meant" judge and several "well meant police officers" stated "why don't you two highly educated people find a way to solve your differences?" The answer is simple: He is a psychopath. I was his asset. Our kids are his assets. And if I could talk through it I'd be still married to him. He has money, and that was his aim, to make me reach the point that I can't go on financially to fight for my kids safety and mine. I feel ashamed to not be able to provide and protect my kids. But I feel proud of being able after all to care, protect and provide for my kids and be fully functional even if I'm in pieces inside. I feel ashamed to ask for money. But I feel proud for giving money and everything I could to people around me in need and I knew then that there was nothing they should be ashamed of. I feel ashamed for having to "buy" my freedom as if I was a bought slave (something he always said to me, "I bought you, you had no money, you belong to me and I will do whatever I want to you" even if there wasn't one day that I didn't work even when I was 9 months pregnant, yet in the twisted version of reality he induced in my head I believed him, I had no money available to use unless I asked him to give me money -my own money he was taking away- therefore I should shut up and accept everything). But I feel proud of fighting for my freedom even if I have to buy me back from slavery. I don't know where else to turn at this point, my parents can hardly survive themselves and even ask me for money sometimes, I have no brothers or sisters and no one else around that I can ask for a personal loan, I can't even repay the bank loans or personal loans or continue paying for the trials pending. And I'm terrified again that all I managed so far will be all lost and I'm despaired. But not always despaired. So I choose to change this from a personal thing to something different instead, I don't think I will even need all of this money I added on the goal to be raised but some of you would too. So forget about supporting me. Think about supporting women (or men) in similar or worse situations. I choose to fight instead of defend. Thanks for reading . Wish you all health and happiness, and do not take for granted anything you have. Thank you again. Stay safe. Stay strong. Know your story. And use it wisely. And then nobody will be able to deprive you from oftenly overlooked human rights. And remember. You are beautiful.