My Life...a dream or a nightmare?

Here are a few of my daughter's poems.

Broken Heart

As I sat in my chair and watch,

The bridge break

Watching the cars crashing

Chaos, confusion people crying.

Just thinking about you.

Feeling dead inside.

Frustration, depression, despair

Wondering what it would be like

If....

If only you were still with me....

I cry myself to sleep

Dreaming of You.

'Broken Heart' Copyright © Chancie Renee Phillips

M-O-T-H-E-R

I love You Mommy,

From the very beginning you held me in your heart,

all though we fight sometimes...

I know that you will always be there.

The trouble times that i had...

when i was sick or just sad

you were always there for me

the laughter,

the smiles,

never go away...

and no one could have a better mom then I do.

'M-O-T-H-E-R' Copyright © Chancie Renee Phillips

I wanted to share this story of what happened to my daughter because of who her father was. I thought this was so wrong and made him no better than the inmates he is over.

My daughter is 15 years old and she met this boy that lives in Lyon County, Kentucky and they started what they call dating. He asked if she could come over to his house on Saturday and I said I would have to talk to his parents. I talked to his dad and he said it was fine. I explained to him that I didn't want them left by their self or to be in his room with the door shut. He said that he didn't allow that either and I let her go.

Well she went there and had a good time, we picked her up a few hours later and everything seemed fine. A few days later I was outside with company and my daughter Chancie came outside crying and really upset. I took her back in the house and calmed her down and she told me what was wrong. This boys father is a case worker at the prison and asked him what Chancie's last name was and at the time it was still Anslyn and he told his dad and his dad went and looked up Chancie biological fathers information and found out he had been in prison and at that one and why he was there and came home and told his son that he could no longer see my daughter or talk to her and told him why her dad was in prison and personal things that went on when me and her biological father were married. We haven't been married for almost 10 years now.

I asked this boy if all this was true and he said yes and even went into detail about some of the stuff his father had told him about our life with ex husband. I was totally shocked, for one that he would even look up my ex's file for his own personal reasons, second that he would tell his son personal things that he learned from this file and third that he would hold any of this against my daughter or me. His son and my daughter was both really upset about this and both were crying to me, which in turn got me really upset. His son asked me if I would talk to his dad and tell him my side of the story to see if that would help so I told him yes to ask him to come to the phone but he wouldn't even come to the phone to talk to me and told his son if he bothered him again about talking to me then he would take his phone.

I told his son that I would wright a letter and explain things to him and I did. I wrote a letter to him explaining mine and my ex's whole relationship what happened and that I was no longer married to him and hadn't been in years and that we had nothing to do with him any more. That my husband now was in the process of adopting my kids. His son continued to call my daughter and my daughter did the same.

I thought about it for a few days and just didn't think this was right and thought he had broke the law by some of the things he did so I called the prison and put in a complaint against him. They said they were going to talk to him and obviously they did because one day the boy had called my daughter and she didn't get to the phone so she called him back and his dad answered the phone and got really smart with her and told her to never call his son again. My daughter got real upset again and came to me crying and told me what happened and I called his house phone and a man answered and I asked for this man and the man got real smart with me on the phone so I figured it was him and I told him that my daughter just came to me for the second time upset for the way he was talking and treating her and he said I can't help your daughters emotional state which really pissed me off and I really wanted to tell him off but I kept my cool and said you can if your the one doing the stuff to her making her upset and he hung up the phone on me.

A few days later I received a letter from Lyon county attorneys office saying he said I was harassing him and that they would not tolerate it that my family or me could not contact him or his WORK. I thought this was so stupid. He just did this because I called his work and turned him in for doing something illegal and was afraid he was going to get in trouble. This is a prison official that oversees inmates and he is breaking the law just as much as the inmates he is over.

So I called the governor's office and the Office of Corrections in Frankford KY and then back down to the prison and talked to them about it again. They turned it over to the department of internal affairs at the prison to do an investigation and I met with them to tell them what had happened and they were very nice about it. I still have not heard what they found out during the investigation or anything.

I think this is so sad that this caseworker would hold it against my daughter or me for the crimes that her biological father did. That he would even do half the things that he did. I mean if he didn't want his son and my daughter seeing each other all he had to do was say that instead of going about it the way he did. Not only that but if he would have been a decent person and apologized for what he had done I wouldn't even had called his work and made a complaint. I still wonder what the hell he was thinking.

I have heeled from the wounds of my past and wanted to share it with others in the hopes that it could help others in the same situation and maybe even save someone's life in the process.

I met my ex-husband when I was 15 through a friend of his. He was older than me and was a bit on the wild side. I never really went for guys like him but his life style at the time was exciting to me. He worked on the boat and made really good money. I came from a family with very little money. He took me on vacations and bought me things all the time. He showed me a life I had never known. I soon fell madly in love with him. I was still in high school and he would come pick me up from school and to a 15-year-old girl this was really exciting because no one else had a boyfriend that done these things for her.

We dated for about six months with him treating me like a queen, or so I thought at the time. Now that I think back on it there was a lot of signs even at the beginning that I should have picked up on. Like he was taking me farther and farther away from my friends and he got really jealous a lot. One time he started screaming and yelling at me and made me leave his friends house cause he thought a guy that showed up there was looking at me. But at the time I thought all this was proof he really loved me, lol I was very wrong and really stupid.

He told me he wanted to get me pregnant and took my birth control pills away from me (after him telling me to get on them two months earlier). He said he loved me and wanted us to get married and how we was going to live such a wonderful life and how he was going to be a wonderful father. I got pregnant and we moved out together (not married like he had said). I didn't know how to cook or anything. Everything was so new to me. He quit the boat and went to the tugs so he could be home with me everyday (or that's what he said). He went to work one day and I wanted to have everything perfect for him when he came home. I cleaned the house really good and got supper done before he got home and even had his bath water ready for him when he got home. But like I said I couldn't cook and I burnt the food and he got really mad and started yelling and threw the plate against the wall. He had never acted like this before and I was shocked. He walked out and when he came back he had cooled off. He said he was sorry and that he had a bad day at work.

One of his friends dog had puppies and asked if he wanted one and he brought it home and gave it to me. One day I was playing with the puppy and he asked me to come over and sit by him. He was laying on the couch so I set at the edge of it in front of him. I was playing with the puppy and he got mad at me and started kicking me in the back. I got up and started to cry and he started yelling at me more calling me a little baby. I was really worried because I was pregnant and that night I started spotting a little. I went to the doctor and everything was ok with the baby. He said he was sorry and that he would never do it again.

A month went by with everything going good between us and then one day he woke up in a bad mood and started yelling at me and getting up in my face. I had no idea what he was mad at me for and still don't. He spit in my face and kept putting his finger in my face and telling me what he was going to do to me. I told him I was going to leave and started packing my stuff. He got really mad and took my unicorns that I had been collecting since I was little and put them in a trash bag and headed out the door with them I ran after him begging for him to give them back so he took the bag and smashed them up against a stop sign. I was really upset and walked back to our apartment. I called my mom and had her to come and get me. I had to listen to him put me down the whole time until my mom got there.

I left with my mom and he called me from a friend's house that lived a few houses down from my moms and asked me to come over and talk to him and I agreed to. My mom and dad tried to talk me out of it but I did it anyway. I got into his car and was sitting there talking to him when he became angry again and took off with me in the car. He was driving all crazy and fast and yelling at me at the same time. He was going over a bridge and said he was going to drive off the side of the bridge and kill us both. I tried to reason with him telling him that he was scaring me to please slow down but he wouldn't. I tried using the baby to make him but that didn't help either. He finally calmed down as we got to the very edge of the bridge before heading off into the water and said he was sorry and that He just does this because he loves me so much and doesn't want to loose me. He asked me to come back to the apartment with him and I did. I moved my stuff back in the next day and everything was fine for a little while.

He lost his job and things got much worse. He started drinking and doing drugs more. He stayed gone most of the time but I was not allowed to go anywhere. It wasn't like I had a way anyway I didn't even have a drivers license or a car. When he was home all he did was yell at me and tell me how fat I had gotten, hello I was pregnant.

I got up to go to work at my first job and he had already left even though he was suppose to take me to work. I called around trying to find a way to work but couldn't find one. I walked to my parent's house to try and get a ride to work and cried the whole way there. By the time I got there I was hurting pretty bad but I had to go to work. My mom was home and took me to work. I was hurting really bad when I got off and was suppose to go to my second job right afterwords but called in because I felt so bad. Oh forgot to mention this was Valentines Day. Well I got home and of course he still wasn't home so I fixed me something to eat and watched some TV. He came home and started yelling at me because I didn't clean the house. I tried to tell him that I was hurting pretty bad but he didn't care. I just sit there crying while he yelled at me and called me everything in the book. He finally got over that and we went to bed. I woke up and my water had broken. This wasn't good because I still had two months left.

I was rushed to Evansville, Indiana to have the baby because it was early. I had a beautiful baby boy. He stayed with me at the hospital the whole time and was really good and loving. It was like we had grown closer through this.

After we got to bring our baby home everything went back to the way it was. He was doing more drugs and staying gone a lot. The beatings got worse. He went out on me several times. I would threaten to leave every time but he would always beat me and then say he was sorry and would never do it again.

We were watching TV one night and he backhanded me in the face breaking my nose. I was dizzy, couldn't see very well and couldn't breathe that good. He tried to help saying he was sorry that he was just playing around (oh yea that was really funny right). Well I got it all cleaned up and he stuck to me like glue saying how sorry he was and that he loved me.

A few weeks later he was in one of those moods again and started yelling at me again and took his stereo and threw it at me hitting me in the arm and pinning it between the closet door. He then picked the stereo up and started hitting me with it. I got out and walked to a friend of mine that was going through the same thing and asked her if she would go to the hospital with me. We went to the hospital and I told them that I got up in the middle of the night and tripped over the baby's walker and fell and got hurt. I don't know why I lied to them maybe from shame or maybe I was afraid of what would happen if I told. When I got back home he wanted to do everything for me and was being so sweet. He said he was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again.

My little brother was sick one day and couldn't go to school and mom asked me if he could stay with me and I said yes. Well he was laying on the couch and my ex came home and seen him and got mad and started yelling at me and took the chili I had made and threw it all over me and the walls and floor and then started fighting with my brother I pushed him back and held him there long enough for my brother to get away. He started hitting me and pulling my hair. My ex was really mad that I tried to fight him back and started pounding on me. I had never seen him look like that before and I was terrified. He finally calmed down and said he was sorry.

A few weeks went by and then he got in another one of his moods and started hitting on me again. My lip was busted, both my eyes started swelling and my head had knots all over it where he repeatedly hit me. I went and set on the couch and started crying and he came over pointing his finger in my face and yelling at me. The look in his eyes was a look of the devil I really thought he was going to kill me and I didn't know what to do so I put my feet together and kicked him as hard as I could and he went flying over the coffee table. It felt so good to do that I was shocked and scared all at the same time. You could tell by his face he was shocked too but that didn't last long he got up and came after me and was stronger than he was before. He started hitting me again and Slung me across the room. I opened the front door and ran as fast as I could to the neighbors and called a mutual friend to come get me. I went back to our house because I had to get my son. He was in the bathroom and I snuck in and took my son and put him in our car so that I could easily get him when my ride came. I went back in the house to get some of our stuff and he was at the door and grabbed me by the hair and threw me across the room. He locked the front door and came at me slamming into me knocking me to the floor and started punching my head against the floor. Our friend came up and begged him to open the door but he wouldn't. He then bit my face right beside my eye and took a big chunk out of it and there was blood going everywhere. Our friend asked why our son was in the car and he rushed out the door to get him I took off and got in her car real quick and they took off but he jumped on the car and started pounding the windows but we slung him off. I didn't want to leave my son but didn't know what to do. I called his mom to see if she would go get my son for me but she called the police. Before the police arrived at my friend's house he pulled up and ran in and chased me through the house but I locked myself in their bedroom. He tried to get in but my friend told him she called the police and he ran out. A few minutes later the police came and took my statement. They said that I didn't have to press charges because the state of Kentucky was. They told me that I couldn't get my son back until I went to the hospital and then came down to the police station and did a formal complaint. They took pictures of me and then took me to the hospital. I got my son back and they charged him with domestic violence and he got seven days in jail. I asked for the Protective order to be dropped and it was.

After that everything went well for a while. I found out I was pregnant again. He got into trouble and had to go to rehab. While he was in there he asked me if I would marry him and I said yes and he said to plan it for the week he gets out. A few days after he got out of rehab a man that new most of my family that lived with his parents across the street came over and asked for my dad. I told him they didn't live there that they just helped me move in. My ex new him and invited him in for a drink (yea right after getting out of rehab he had really changed). He asked me to go and get him a beer so I did but he followed me into the kitchen and was accusing me of having an affair with this man that showed up at our door. I tried to tell him that I didn't even know this man but he wouldn't listen and started choking me. I was scared to death. I just knew he was going to kill me, and all I could think about was my baby in the other room and the one I was pregnant with. He let go right before I blacked out because the guy walked in the room and saw him. The guy didn't even try to help he just said man I am leaving and left. He finally stopped hitting and choking me, but continue to call me a whore and slut. I tried to explain it to him but he didn't believe me. He finally did say he was sorry and that he wouldn't do it again. We married the very next day.

I had our little girl a few months later. I was so embarrassed he was higher than a kite and slid down the wall at my hospital room. He left that night and never came back to the hospital to see us. When I got home it wasn't any better. He went out on me all the time. Beatings came almost daily and by then he figured out that if he hit me where it couldn't be seen then the state wouldn't press charges on him and he could scare me enough that I wouldn't.

I found him with another women in my house and when I confronted him with it he started beating me again and then when he was done beating on me he held me down on the bed and started ripping my clothes off. I told him he was hurting me to stop but he wouldn't and he raped me. He was so brutal. He said maybe that would teach me to keep my mouth shut when I had no business opening it. I lay awake for hours until I cried myself to sleep. He had took me so violently that I had bruises all over my legs and arms and I was in a lot of pain for days but I still stayed.

For years after that he continue to beat me and rape me when he felt that he was loosing his control over me. Every time I thought I had the courage to leave he would do this to me and I would be to scared to leave. He would tell me how ugly I was and how fat I was and how no one would want me after having his two kids and I just believed him and took everything he did and grew into a more depressed state.

He hadn't came home one night and I was very angry because of it and poured all his alcohol out and when he came home and seen what I had done he was so mad at me and started yelling and beating me again. He told me to get the kids and to get in the car that he was taking me to my moms. So I did and after getting in the car he started going in the opposite directions than my mom's so I asked where are you going and he said you will see. We went to the end of our road where the road ended at a boat ramp and he stopped and looked at me and said bitch today is the day you will die. I pleaded with him. Told him to think about the kids that were in the back seat. But he didn't care he just laughed and said Bitch we are all going to die. We are a family and before I let you take that away from me I will kill us all. I was so scared. I thought maybe if I talked nicely to him and told him how much I loved him maybe he would stop. But that didn't help he took off in the car really fast headed straight for the water. I cried and screamed for him to stop the kids were hysterical but he didn't or not until the car was partly in the water. It was still on the boat dock but there was water under the car and he slammed on the breaks and threw it in park he turned and looked at me and grabbed me by my hair and got up in my face and laughed and said Bitch don't ever think about leaving me because I will find you and when I do they will find your body at the bottom of this lake. He started to bang my head against the dash and I felt dizzy and felt the blood running down my forehead. I told him to please stop that I would never leave him that I loved him and that we would always be a family. He finally stopped and looked at me and said do you mean that and I said yes I love you with all my heart. He then hugged me and kissed me and said he loved me and couldn't bare it if he lost me. He asked for me to please forgive him that he was sorry and that it wouldn't happen again. He said I just make him crazy and make him do things like that. I told him I forgive him and asked if I could calm the kids down and could we go home. He drove us home in silence and we never spoke about it again.

A few weeks later He was in a bad mood again and started pulling my hair and shoving me around. Our son needed to use the bathroom and came in the living room with him doing this and my son started crying and yelling at him to stop hurting his mommy. This really made him mad and he started yelling at him. I didn't want him to hurt my son so I pulled his attention away from him and then asked if I could take our son to the bathroom because he needed to go and he agreed to let me I took my daughter in there too to make sure she would be ok. He thought we were taking to long so he started yelling again which made the kids start crying and then made him more upset. He locked us in the bathroom (doors were old doors that had the key wholes in them that locked from both sides). He was ranting and raving about how he knew I was planning on leaving him that he could tell by the way I was acting. I told him that I wasn't and he just got more pissed and started screaming that he was going to kill us. That he was going to catch the house on fire right by the bathroom door so we couldn't get out and we would burn up. I pleaded with him to open the door and for us to talk but he wouldn't and I searched frantically for something in the bathroom that would open the doors, but there was nothing. It got real quiet in the house and I heard him leave. I sank against the bathroom door and started to cry. My son came and hugged me and said, mommy, don't cry everything's going to be ok. I just looked at him here he was just a little kid and he was telling me everything was going to be ok. I knew some how I had to find a way to leave him and get my kids to safety but I knew I would have to plan it so that he wouldn't find out. He came back and let us out a few hours later and said he was sorry.

I got a job at a factory making good money and had my mom watching the kids and knew this was my chance to get out. So I planned out all the details. I had planned on leaving right after Christmas. I had it planned that on the day that I went back to work after Christmas break I would take the kids to mom and dads and then when I got off of work I would go there too and never return home.

Well on Christmas Eve he threw a big fit saying I spent too much on the kids for Christmas and started banging my head against the door. The kids started screaming and our son even hit him with his toy. That pissed him off more and he drug me to our bedroom and locked the door were he continued to punch me and then he raped me again. I just laid there. I felt nothing. No anger, no pain, no love I felt absolutely nothing. It was like I was numb, like an out of body experience. When he was done He rolled over and laid his head on me and said he loved me. I told him I loved him too and got up to check on the kids. The next morning we opened Christmas gifts and later that day went to my families for a dinner. When we arrived back home I knew there was something wrong because he was too quiet. We went to bed and the next morning I woke up to him hitting me in the head. He was mad because I didn't wake up early and fix him some breakfast. I got up and fixed breakfast and got the kids dressed. We were setting and watching barney with the kids and he swung around and hit me in the jaw. He grabbed me up by my hair and started banging my head against the wall and then slung me back on the couch nearly knocking our little girl off of it. He started yelling about how I was spoiling the kids and that I spent to much money on them for Christmas and how I didn't pay him any attention at my families house the day before. The kids started crying and he grabbed me up by my hair again and started pounding my head against the wall and the door and anything else that was around. I got my courage up and tried to fight back but it was no use he was a lot stronger than me. He ripped my shirt and then knocked the Christmas tree over and slung all the decorations off of it. The kids were hysterical by this time and I ran to the phone and called 911. I told him I did and he ran from the house. I hung the phone up and the 911 operator called me back and asked if everything was ok and I said yes that I accidentally called them. When we hung up I called my mom to come and get us. I packed some of our stuff and waited on my mom.

Right when my mom got there he came back into the house and went to the bathroom. I took the kids out to the car and put them in it and went back for our stuff. While I was in there he asked me to please not leave and I looked him straight in the eye and said I am sorry but I am leaving. I grabbed my bags and headed for the door. He grabbed on to my legs and wouldn't let go and said please Cindy don't leave me I love you and the kids. I just kept on trying to get to the door dragging him along with me as he kept pleading and I opened the door and said get off me I am leaving. He finally let go because at this point my mother could see him and I got in the car and never looked back.

He tried to get to me through the kids but I just stopped being there when he came to see them. We also caught him looking through the living room window one day. He took a piece off of my car one day so I couldn't get it started and go to work. We also had two vehicles that were set on fire beside the house. He swore he didn't do it and there wasn't any evidence to prove he did but I still believe he did it. It took me forever to get him to sign the divorce papers even though he was seeing someone else. He said he wasn't going to give me a divorce.

We got divorce and I remarried (to a wonderful man by the way that would never treat me like that). A few years latter he remarried and did the same thing to her and ended up going to prison. He got 9 years but only served 4 1/2. He told us how much he had changed while he was in there, that he found GOD and how much of a good father he was going to be when he got out. Well to make a long story short he got out and did well for a few weeks. Our daughter asked me if he could go to her modeling class with us and after a little bit I agreed that he could go. That was a mistake. While we were in the modeling place he sat in the car and got drunk and on the way home he kept putting his hands in front of my face while I was driving and laughing about it. Sometime while he was doing that he reached in the back and slapped our daughter. I didn't see him do this but my daughter told me about it a few weeks later. I was furious when I found out about it but by the time I found out about it he had gotten into trouble by drinking and breaking his parole and was sent to rehab for 28 days. I went and tried to get a protective order on behalf of the kids and we went to court and the judge did not order it. He had been calling me asking me to let him sign his rights to the kids away because he said he couldn't pay all that back child support. After the judge not doing the protective order I agreed with it. My husband now said he would adopt the kids so we went and had the papers drawled up. He signed them and my husband now is the father of our two children. I gave up $15,000 in back child support and $386 a month but I gained a life without him and that was worth so much more than the money. I still have nightmares about the past and I often get frightened that he is watching or that he's going to come and do something to us but I am getting a lot better. I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome and had a lot of anger to deal with. I still get depressed sometimes but I know I will make it. Looking back I don't think I would have made it through it if it hadn't been for my two-beatiful children. They gave me hope to go on. They were my light in all the darkness and terror that was going on in my life. Without them I was nothing and would have given up. They are my life, my everything. There was only one other person that helped me get through it all. I will call her JT. She was going through the same thing I was and when I would get down were I didn't think I could go on she would pick me back up and remind me that I had to go on for my kids sake. I thank God for giving me my kids and her at the time I needed them the most, just when he knew I was ready to give up. GOD has truly blessed me.

People told me for years to leave. That if they were me, they do this and that. But the truth is you don't know what you would do until you're in that situation and I really hated it when people would tell me what they would do. They just didn't know how it truly was to go through it. They might have looked at me as a weak person but now I know I wasn't. I was and still am a very strong person. I was just in a very bad situation. I have came along way even if I still have problems with the past I know I have made it through it and that I didn't deserve to go through any of it.

My new husband has had to put up with all the nightmares and in a way pay for some of the things my ex did to me but he has stood by my side and been nothing but loving and supportive. I never thought I would be able to love again or that anyone would love me but I was wrong because I truly love him with all my heart and soul. He's a wonderful man that makes me feel safe and worthy of his love. I am so happy.

This is not my whole story. Believe me I would be typing forever if I put the whole thing but this is a good amount and I hope that just maybe someone that is in this situation will read it and it will help him or her to get out. If you are in a violent relationship please get your self to safety. Don't stay with the abuser. It will not get better and you cannot change them no matter how much you try. If you need help just contact me and I will help you in any way I can.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story.

GOD BLESS YOU!!!

Cindy