Things are better these days

This morning as I was driving to take Doug’s things to him at the rest home I suddenly appreciated all that I have in my new life here. The car I was driving, the place I am living in, the job that I have, the new iPhone in my pocket playing the music I was listening to, all of it. I remembered the living hell I endured in my time in Alabama, the poverty, squalor, danger, fear, and hardship, and I felt an upwelling of gratitude to the Father in Heaven. I work long hard hours here and life is not perfect by any stretch, but I have a job, and a far better place to live.

I don’t have Baggett, my monster of a landlord harassing me anymore, pressing me to pay the rent with sex, beating on my door all the time and aggressively prying into my most personal business. Donna, the most vicious tyrant I've yet worked for, is far in the past and hundreds of miles away on her destroyed ranch reaping the fruits of her iniquity. I managed to escape from there not long before the F5 tornado destroyed everything that evil woman had.

I don’t have to precisely measure my coffee water for each cup to save propane for heating it, to have enough to cook with, and heat the place, or use Viva paper towels for coffee filters to save money on real ones. I don’t have to keep my food in a refrigerator that barely works and have most of it spoil on me. I don’t have to watch the roads constantly for the approach of evil men who were after me there, or draw the curtains and lock my door when they arrive to sexually harass me.

I don’t have rutting horny animal men threatening to rape me or sexually harassing me at work and where I live, I don’t live in that tiny broken down trailer, I can take a hot shower when I want now instead of having to heat water on the stove to clean myself in front of the sink, while worrying about running out of propane. I don’t have to carry a gun all the time here, and have not carried one since leaving Alabama. My .45 has been gathering dust on my nightstand for a long time now, and the .40 caliber SIG has been just sitting on my desk for months.

I don’t have to clean horse stalls 90 hours a week for less than a dollar an hour with a vicious screaming harpy in my face while wasting away into a skeleton. I have enough to eat now, I don’t have to go hungry or depend on the neighbors for food.

I knew a lot of evil people there, and society in rural Alabama was full of them. Here I have met some bad ones, but nothing like I had to deal with back there. Here I have a far better home to live in, and a man who does his best to treat me well. I have a great appreciation for Doug after all the evil and wicked people who have ripped me off and harassed me over the last 8 years.

As I drove along the palm tree lined streets of Southwestern Florida this morning the stark contrast of the life I now live against the horrific life I endured and escaped from in Alabama hit me like a wave, and I marveled that I ever got out of there, and over the last 18 months built up the life I have now.

I've thanked the Father in Heaven for the blessings he's bestowed upon me since I escaped the slavery and hardship I suffered back in Alabama. Perhaps in time I'll find that one true and close friend I've always yearned for, but for now I am just thankful I survived Alabama, and thankful for the life I have now.

Right now it really does seem that I am finally emerging from the worst period of my adult life. Things are far better for me these days, and while I’m older and not so strong as I was, I’m far better off.

Thank you Father in Heaven!

What caused you to move out of Alabama? Did you get a job in Florida, have family help you out, or just decided that enough was enough?

FreedomFromLiberty said:

What caused you to move out of Alabama? Did you get a job in Florida, have family help you out, or just decided that enough was enough?

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What caused me to move out of Alabama????

Good God! I was being kept a slave on a horse ranch where they had disabled my truck, to keep me there, then cut my pay to just enough to eat on, and treated me like a total slave every day! You can have no idea of the mental and emotional cruelty that was practiced on me, and they were close friends of the local police, so there was nothing I could say that would have been believed.

All I had was a cell phone that my brother was paying the bill on, and if not for that I'd never have gotten out of there. I had no TV, no internet, not even a radio.

My father who is retired in Mexico and my half-brother managed to send me a debit card for the fuel to get out of there. I intercepted the mail when it arrived and they never knew I'd got it, and I figured out how they disabled my truck and fixed it myself while they were away from the ranch. They had messed up the fuel injectors on the diesel engine at the fuel pump, putting water in them. The ranch owner had told me in a very determined way that she was going to keep me there.

Once I had that debit card all I had to do was wait until the owner was away from the ranch on a run to pick up a horse out of state, and only one other person was there. They knew I'd gotten my truck running, but thought I could not have enough money to go anywhere as they had cut my pay to just enough to eat on and very poorly at that. I could afford chicken and broccoli, sometimes potatoes. There were no other jobs anywhere in the area. They really thought they had me.

I had no job here in Florida, but I had been talking to an old high school buddy of my dad's on my cell phone, Doug, who I currently live with, and had an open invitation from him to come live here. He's 78 and in poor health, and very much needed someone to help him out here.

One morning I went into the barn to feed and water the horses, knowing it was the very last time because the owner was out of state, and her alcoholic buddy who was there was clueless. I'd already prepped the trailer for the road, having borrowed his compressor to pump up the tires giving him an excuse that I needed to level it. I finished my morning chores and left the barn.

Shortly after that I fired up my truck, hooked up to my trailer, and pulled out of there right past the owner's son's house, then out on to 77, driving out through Ohatchee, then into Lincoln, and onto I-20 headed east for the Georgia state line. I have never felt such exhilarating freedom, and I will never forget again how precious freedom is.

I had been so desperately poor for so long that I didn't have a valid driver's license, or registration, insurance, or valid plates. I was driving on 4 year old Texas plates on my truck and a 6 year old California plate on the trailer. I made it here despite all that. God was watching over me the whole way.

April 27th 2011 an F5 tornado destroyed the ranch and the entire neighborhood next to it. The tornado was at it's strongest, just as it hit the ranch, as though it had a conscious purpose right there. I have video of the approaching tornado as it crossed the Coosa river at 77, taken by the local police, and many pics of the devastation that followed.

No one can tell me that there is no justice in the world

I've seen justice.

TrailerTrish said:

My father who is retired in Mexico and my half-brother managed to send me a debit card for the fuel to get out of there.

[....]

I had no job here in Florida, but I had been talking to an old high school buddy of my dad's on my cell phone, Doug, who I currently live with, and had an open invitation from him to come live here. He's 78 and in poor health, and very much needed someone to help him out here.

[....]

No one can tell me that there is no justice in the world

I've seen justice.

Click to expand...

Okay, that's what I was getting at with my question. It's hard to change your life circumstances when you have nothing without the help of others.

2 years ago, I was in a unhappy situation and it had no end in sight. I was living with my can't-keep-a-job brother in a one-bedroom apartment near the bad parts of Detroit. Having just graduated from college, I was getting kicked around from job to job and on unemployment for a while. Probably not in as dire straits as yourself, but still no fun. I was fortunate enough to hired for a good-paying job in Chicago, and my life has been on the up and up since.

I'm so glad you got out of that, I was born in Michigan and spent 14 months there before going to Alabama. It was horrible! No jobs at all unless you consented to be treated like a turd and paid too little to live on. Detroit is a total pit these days, and shrinking into nothing.

Michigan was always horrible for me, and I would never have gone back there had not my brother invited me to come live with him, but it still turned out to be a horrid mistake. I'll never set foot in that state again, far too many bad memories. I grew up a battered child there, and socially ostracized because of it. Some here know how that works.

I'm so glad you are doing better now. I know how that feels. You are right, there is nothing you can do for yourself in such horrid situations without outside help, and that's all that saved me. I have no doubt that I would have been worked to death there, and not one of them would have cared in the very least. I know some will disagree, but I see the hand of God in what happened.

What part of Alabama do you suppose Lynyrd Skynyrd is singing about "Sweet Home Alabama".

That's great your life is looking up, i hope it continues.

Hi Trish, I'm happy for you that things are looking up for you and I hope it continues.

FreedomFromLiberty said:

What part of Alabama do you suppose Lynyrd Skynyrd is singing about "Sweet Home Alabama".

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I'm not sure, I always assumed it was the whole state, and I used to like that song, until I'd lived there. Don't care for it now.

TrailerTrish said:

What caused me to move out of Alabama????

Good God! I was being kept a slave on a horse ranch where they had disabled my truck, to keep me there, then cut my pay to just enough to eat on, and treated me like a total slave every day! You can have no idea of the mental and emotional cruelty that was practiced on me, and they were close friends of the local police, so there was nothing I could say that would have been believed.

All I had was a cell phone that my brother was paying the bill on, and if not for that I'd never have gotten out of there. I had no TV, no internet, not even a radio.

My father who is retired in Mexico and my half-brother managed to send me a debit card for the fuel to get out of there. I intercepted the mail when it arrived and they never knew I'd got it, and I figured out how they disabled my truck and fixed it myself while they were away from the ranch. They had messed up the fuel injectors on the diesel engine at the fuel pump, putting water in them. The ranch owner had told me in a very determined way that she was going to keep me there.

Once I had that debit card all I had to do was wait until the owner was away from the ranch on a run to pick up a horse out of state, and only one other person was there. They knew I'd gotten my truck running, but thought I could not have enough money to go anywhere as they had cut my pay to just enough to eat on and very poorly at that. I could afford chicken and broccoli, sometimes potatoes. There were no other jobs anywhere in the area. They really thought they had me.

Click to expand...

What the hell? That's just mindblowing, that people can act like that in this day and age...and actually get away with it!

I guess in England, the country is too small for such abuse of someone to so easily go unnoticed (though I'm sure it does go on here too).

It's incredible that not only did you manage to get away, but in a level-headed and responsible manner! In that situation, I'd probably be looking for a less-than-diplomatic form of escape.

I'm very pleased that your life has improved, well done. I can't really imagine what a struggle it must have been