My ex boyfriend and I were together for four years before he choked me out for the first time. I justified it to myself because we had both been fighting and drinking that night, I was nagging him and being a bitch so somehow that seemed to minimize the totality of the situation, until it happened again. Around the end of November of this year, my ex and I were at a bar when he started yelling at me because I wouldn’t give him more money to drink, I knew we had both had enough. He started yelling at me about how I consistently get what I want and do nothing for him, so I left the bar and headed home. We were living together, so as I was on my way home he bombarded me with texts about how I should leave my door unlocked unless I wanted it to get kicked in so I did. I was hoping he would come home and sleep it off but that’s not what happened. When he got in, I was angry at him for screaming at me at the bar and the situation escalated. He started chasing me around my apartment, kicking my body with his shoes on until I calasped on the floor, when he continued to kick me in the back. When he stopped, I was pissed so I went up to him and smack him across the face. I think that this provoked him to get up from the futon and rip my clothes off of my body. I remember I was wearing a pair of jeans and he ripped each of the belt hooks slowly to torture me, as I was on the floor begging him not to rape me. He pulled the front of my jeans so hard they ripped at the seams. I was wearing a long sweater, that he also ripped off me. He got on top of me and as I thought he was going to rape me he stopped, looked down at me and laughed. He then chocked me unconscious. When I came to, I realized that he had taken my phone so I pleaded with him to give it back so that I could leave and go to a friends house (it was almost 3am). Sometime during our argument the neighbour called the police and it was around this time they started knocking on my front door. I was terrified to say anything to the police because my ex and I both smoked recreational marijuana which is not legal in my province and I work with the vulnerable sector. I was scared that I could loose everything. I told the police it was a verbal altercation and they escorted me to my friend’s residence on campus where I stayed the night. When I went in to talk to student services to talk about an assignment I had due that day they called a women in crisis centre because of how badly I was beaten. I stayed there for the night until I was confident that he had moved out. When I came home he was gone, I thought everything would end there.
About a month later I went to a laundromat to do some laundry before going away for the holidays. I was continuous hit on by the laundry attendant, a man old enough to be my father and viciously rejected his advances. It didn’t matter. When I went back to get my last load of laundry we were alone. He offered me a joint, which I accepted and we started smoking outside, until he said he saw a cop car and headed back into the laundromat. He pinned me up against a kitchen vanity and started rubbing and groping me. I kept telling him how I had to go home and he kept telling me yeah yeah just a second. When I realized I wasn’t going home until he got what he wanted I asked him to use a condom and he just put himself in telling me he was going to fuck me proper. I have never had such unwanted, painful sex. I just wanted to go home.
Anonymous