He would time me when I went to the store. He knew how long it should take me to drive there, get the groceries and the alcohol and drive back. I was always so scared of being late. Sometimes traffic was bad and I knew that if I came home later than I should he would get mad.

One day he was drinking a lot and it was like something slipped in his head. He started accusing me of sleeping around with his friends. I couldn't understand why he would accuse me of something like that, I hardly left the house. He wouldn't listen though. He told me he was going to kill me. He pulled one on the knifes from the kitchen and tried to slash my throat. Luckily (for me) he was so drunk that he tripped over his own feet and missed my throat. He did cut me on the chest but at least my throat was Ok. After that he suddenly calmed down and that was it.

He liked playing with cigarette butts...he would use them to burn me sometimes. Sometimes I would wake up by the pain from it, he liked to wake me up by putting out his cigarette on me. Other times he would kick me out of bed, he would throw things at me, you name it.

It never ever occurred to me to just pick up and leave. I had no self esteem left. He had succeeded to take away all my pride and dignity. I truly believed him when he told me that I was so fat and ugly and stupid that I should be happy that I had him to take care of me.

My life was hell but I thought I deserved it. I was living in such constant fear that I didn't even reflect over who I had become.

I had to get up at half past four every morning to get things ready for him. I had to cook a hot breakfast, make sure his clothes were laid out for him to get dressed, I had to get the car warmed up and ready for him to go to work. After he left for work I would walk around like in a daze just being scared of what would happen when he came home from work. In the beginning of October that year we were very far behind with all our bills again. They were going to disconnect hydro, heat and the phone the following week due to the unpaid bills. The weekend before all this I tried to talk to him one final time. He went wild, totally insane. He started chasing me around the year and the house with an ax. If it hadn't been for the neighbor coming by I would have been dead.

The morning after I made up my mind to finally leave. I called my sister. I didn't have to explain much; I suppose she sort of knew what things were like. I was going to escape the next day. She would come and pick me up. I got up early as usual and try to act as if nothing was going on. After he left for work I couldn't do anything out of fear that he would come back home. Finally my sister and a friend arrived. We quickly packed some of my personal things and left. I cried the whole drive down to my sister's house (3 hours away). I felt so small and so scared. What followed was also a nightmare. I was living in constant fear of him finding me. I didn't dare stay with my sister since he had her address. He was calling her all of the time demanding to find out where I was. I traveled around, spending a couple of nights here and there.

To make a long story short I ran out of hiding places. I was so scared. I didn't know what to do. So one day I decided to flee my country. I picked up and atlas and just opened a page. Whichever country came up I decided to go to.

I am currently trying to write the rest of my story. Please check back in a little while! Thank you for reading this far!!!