Happy Sunday!

Today’s #SurvivorSunday feature comes by way of a young woman and mother who has overcome some of the most harrowing abuse shared with our viewers. Here, Christa Marie Ochs, shares with us her story of survival and how she has learned to find love in herself and in others.

Christa’s Story:

Hello, my name is Christa and I am 27 yrs old and a survivor of domestic abuse.

My story starts when I was just 18 yrs old. I got in a relationship with a guy who I thought was my “true love”. I had met him when I was 15 but officially started dating him when I was 18. I knew he wasn’t a good guy but at that time I didn’t care, I wanted a bad boy, and I thought I could change him. I was most certainly wrong.

I can’t really say when the first time he actually hit me was because it happened that much. Before the physical abuse it was the verbal abuse and I was too young and young minded to believe that it was actually verbal abuse he was doing.

For 8 years I worried every day that it would end up being my last day. I had my first child with him when I was 20. We didn’t live together while I was pregnant with her but right after she was born we moved in together. For 5 years I felt like I was in prison.

Nothing I did or said was ever good enough for him. I constantly had to watch what I was saying or doing or how I was cooking his meals. If I tried going through his phone, I would get beat. I knew he was constantly cheating on me but I never left him because I was too afraid he would treat the next girl better.  I was too scared for that. I never thought “I could do better” because he made me think that no man would ever want me because I not pretty and no man would want a female with a child.

I would be beaten weekly and verbally abused daily. Everyday I would pick him up  from work and the first thing he would say was “Hey bitch, drive.” He would punch me in my head, stomach, thighs–places where it wasn’t visible to the eye of someone
walking past me. My hair would be pulled while I was driving or he would slam my head into the steering wheel or car window.  He would trap me in the bedroom corner and hit me with belts and hangers. Every time I yelled in pain he would put his hand over my mouth and nose so I couldn’t breath.  He would do this long enough to make me feel like I was going to pass out or die. My daughter saw the abuse for 5 years. She saw him pick me up  and body slam me to the ground, breaking my collarbone.  This, because I had to go to the hospital to get my appendix taken out and he wanted my car. She was threatened to never tell anyone about the abuse or tell me about the women he would bring in our place or in my car. Otherwise, she would be in trouble. I was hit in the head with a night stick for not wanting to have anal sex. I would have to strip down naked, have dishsoap poured over me and hit with a belt. I’ve had all of my clothes thrown on the balcony in the middle of winter with bleach and laundry soap poured over it.

I ended up getting pregnant with our second child when I was 25. At that point, the first thing that came to my mind was “for the next 9 months I will be free from being abused” but that didn’t stop him. He would continue to punch me in the head and ,
thighs.  He would try and body slam me but I would always turn my way out of falling on my stomach so she wouldn’t be hurt. When we found out it was another girl he was furious! He told the doctor right then and there that there will be no baby and if I
cant go somewhere to abort it he will do it himself. I wouldn’t and didn’t allow that. My oldest daughter has seen everything that no child should ever see.  She even walked into the bathroom while I was 8 months pregnant and saw him holding a knife to my
throat. I truly believe if she wouldn’t have come in there my life would have been over.

The day my second daughter was born he was kicked out of the hospital.  He was furious with me because I wouldn’t leave to go to another hospital so he could be there and ended up destroying everything that I had gotten for the baby. The day I
was released from the hospital I never went home. I still don’t know to this day who called DHS but I am more thankful than ever that they did. My daughters and I are finally free from him. His parental rights have been completely terminated and my
children never have to see him again.  I have fallen in love with a man who has shown me what real love is, a man that puts the children and I first and has shown me how beautiful I really am as a person.

This is just a short version of what I went through.  If I were to write everything, my story with be a novel.  I am finally free from all hurt and pain and living the life I deserve. My children and I are survivors