Chapter 2: X: The Upside Down

Chapter 2 of a 4-Part Survival Series

Krystal with a K returns—and this is where the horror sets in.

What looked like love in the beginning starts to twist into something darker. In Chapter 2, Krystal pulls back the curtain on the Devaluation phase—the slow, psychological unraveling where affection turns inconsistent, criticism hides as concern, and reality itself begins to feel… off.

Welcome to the upside down.

Here, lies are constant, gaslighting is subtle but relentless, and the longer she stays, the less she trusts her own instincts. What once felt real begins to distort—and inside X’s world, truth becomes whatever he says it is.

Then comes reactive abuse.

Pushed, cornered, and manipulated past her limits, Krystal reacts—and that reaction becomes the story. In the upside down, she is no longer the victim… she is painted as the monster.

This chapter begins with a terrifying moment—a threat involving a gun—and follows the continued breakdown of a marriage rooted in control, coercion, and fear. The cycle tightens. The confusion deepens. And as she’s repeatedly destabilized and made to feel disposable, one thing becomes clear:

She’s reaching her breaking point.

She’s ready to leave.

But in this story… leaving is where the real nightmare begins.

⚠️ Trigger warning: This content is for 18+ audiences and includes discussions of mental and physical abuse, sexual coercion, trauma bonding, and suicide.

Please visit our BLOG for national resources for domestic violence, abuse cycles and suicide prevention. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS NEVER OKAY!

 https://www.plottwiststillalive.com/post/plot-twist-still-alive-survival-guide-x

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Last twist. Still alive! Chapter 2 X The Upside Down. Before we go any further, if you haven't listened to Chapter 1 of X, The Perfect Stranger, go do that first. You wouldn't start a horror franchise in the middle and expect it to make sense. This isn't Scream 5 energy. You need the origin story. Chapter 1 builds the illusion. This chapter is where it starts to rot. And we're beginning right at the moment it turns. The moment fear walks in and doesn't leave. Welcome to the Upside Down. This episode focuses on the devaluation phase, the shift. The part where things don't explode, they distort. Here are some terms you need to understand it. Devaluation. Affection turns hot and cold. Criticism shows up disguised as concern. It's subtle, but constant enough that you start adjusting yourself, trying to get back to before. Gaslighting. It's like living in a false reality. Your memories get questioned, feelings get minimized, the lies are small but repeated until you stop trusting your own thoughts. Reactive abuse. You're pushed and cornered until you react. Then your reaction becomes the problem. And suddenly you're the villain. You're the monster. Discard. Coldness. Distance. Silence. Moments that make you feel replaceable. Like you never even mattered in the first place. Control, threats, and coercion. You're pressured into proving love in ways that cross your own boundaries, even sexually. It doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like survival. This chapter is psychological horror. Quiet, creeping, and disorienting. And yes, dark humor is still included for free 99 because trauma apparently comes with a side of sarcasm. Trigger warning for warning. This content is for 18 and up audiences only and includes discussions of mental and physical abuse, sexual coercion, trauma bonding, and suicidal ideation. Welcome to chapter two of X: The Upside Down. He wish he wasn't alive. Those things kind of continued to happen, and he kept saying things similar to that. But this was the first time that he actually grabbed a gun and he walked to like back of the house, and I just got up and I was like, no, no, no, please don't, please don't, please don't. And I'm running after him. And he puts the gun up to his head in front of me. And I I'm just like sobbing. I'm like, please don't do that. Please don't do that. And it's weird because he didn't put his finger, he had it in the trigger wall, but he didn't put it on the trigger and he didn't pull it or anything. But then when I'm sobbing and begging him, like grabbing his arm with the gun, I'm just like, please don't do that. Please don't, please. I love you. Please. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He pulled it down and he realized the gun was loaded and the safety wasn't on. And I saw him turn white. Like he got scared. What's I wasn't even scared at that point because again, my fight or flight's broken. But when I saw him turn white, I turned white. But it also clicked this thought in my head like, if you weren't gonna just do that, then why were you scared? You know what I mean? You thought that immediately? Yeah. I remember thinking, why did that frighten you so much? It was just something I thought in passing, though. Also, in fairness, I've never had a person hold a gun to their head before in front of me. And I had a lot of guilt with that because he was telling me that it was me that I was the problem that I pushed him to that. Yeah. And that that really made me feel like that I was the problem. I I thought that. And uh this was only about two and a half years into our relationship. We did get married, but um there wasn't a time in our relationship where there wasn't fighting and click, click, click, booms to the top. This was going on on and off for about four years. It would get really bad. Honestly, it it blurred together, and I can't say there weren't good times because why the fuck would you stay in a relationship if there weren't? But I would cut my family off on and off, and I had a lot of issues with friends. Like he we would have mutual friends, and then the relationship would just be problematic, or he would tell me these people thought this about me, and I would distance myself because I felt they're talking shit about me. Why would I want to be around them? And there was even a couple times where I was finding things in his phone, he would be messaging uh a girl that he was in the military with prior, and he had told me that they had actually messed around, and then I was like, okay, well, that's fine. You know, fast forward a couple years, and we actually were visiting you guys, and there was a fight again that night. And this is just to paint a picture of how out there this got. He got mad at me. He was just mad at me about a lot of things, everything, a break, a breathe wrong, whatever. We were sleeping in y'all's house, and he started picking a fight in in the bed. And I remember that's the first night he called me a cunt. He called me a fucking cunt, which I had never ever been called. And out of reaction, because he was like very close to me when he was saying it, I slapped him in the belly. I just like belly slap and I was like, Don't ever fucking talk to me like that. And he pulls his phone out and he's like, I'm calling 911 right now. You just assaulted me. He walks into the living room, like he's walking away from me. I'm trying to be quiet because we're in your house, and I'm like, my God, he's calling the cops, like, I'm gonna get arrested. He's like, You assaulted me, and I I'm crying. I'm like, please just stop. And so he eventually is like, No, there's no problem. I accidentally called. He's like, Don't you ever fucking touch me.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

He's painting a picture in your mind, even. Yeah, I'm violent. Painting a narrative.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Yeah, and I'm like, holy shit, I could have just gone to jail. That was what I was thinking, and I don't understand how this got so extreme. There was a lot of things like that where he would impede on my personal space and I would push him away from me or push him off of me. Even at one point I was pregnant with my second child and he was shoving me and I pushed him off of me. So there wasn't ever like punching or anything, but there was a lot of getting in each other's spaces or things being thrown, or in that scenario, he had invaded my space and called me names and gotten in my face. And so the next morning we were leaving and I was really upset. And again, our kid was a couple years old sitting in the backseat, and X is driving, and I'm in this side, and it's a five and a half hour drive home from West Texas, and we stopped and got food. We have two drinks in the center console, and he's just fucking going off on me. And I don't remember what I said. I'm a witty bitch, okay? So I can say some fucking mean things, and I can't remember what I said exactly. But you're definitely not ginger spice. No, I was the opposite of ginger spice, which I think is why this relationship lasted so much longer, is it probably gave him a lot more fuel. So you would say you were Sporty Spice. I was definitely Sporty Spice. Maybe mix was scary, but he got pissed off at me, and he took all of the food that was in my lap and he threw it all over the car, and the baby is in the backseat, and then he grabbed um drink, and it was one of it was like a large fountain drink, and he threw it right at my face. I mean, he's driving, it's right there, and the console's the only thing between us, threw it at me, it bursts, I'm fucking soaked, and it's all over the car. And he just screamed, just screamed at me and pulled over. And I got out and walked briefly, and that wasn't the first time or the last time I did that either. And then I just said, I want to go back. I don't want to go home with you. I want to go back, take me back. Like I would I refused to get in the car until he took me and my child back to y'all. And again, I think you guys had seen enough of us fighting that it was just like, here they go again.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, it definitely was. I remember this and the mess that was in the car. We were just kind of like, Well, this is just them, you know. They're just typical. Yeah. Typical day, they'll get better.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

And I came to y'all and I think he left for a bit, but then I eventually went home with him. And this this part is really hard for me because again, this is where the judgment of myself comes in, going against my own feelings on things. I'm gonna preface this by saying I think however you want to have sex with whoever you want to have sex with, or however many people, as long as it's not a fucking minor or hurting somebody, it's fine. But that's not my thing. I'm not into that. Out of nowhere, we've been married, we've been together almost three years. Out of nowhere, he starts bringing up group sex, specifically me being with a man, another man, while he's with me. I guess the cool kids call it cuck, a cucking. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 8:47

I've never heard of that term.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

Yeah. Well, he started bringing that up, and I was just like, I'm not interested in that. I don't feel right about that. We're married.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Start asking a lot of questions, like why? And do you were you insecure? Like after that question, because I know I would be.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

I would be like I kind of felt like it was out of left field, to be honest. Yeah. But then I do kind of vaguely remember me, him telling me, Oh, ginger spice was into that. And so, yes, he started bringing that up.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

So this is the first time you're hearing ginger spice was into that. Yes. Did it make you question at that time?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Like, well, you literally divorced her for this. For this. Yes. That's when the wheels were really starting. Wheel drinking already? Yeah. I mean, that's when the wheels started turning, right? So they were like, hold on a minute. This is Is this the beginning of your wheels turning at this point? No. I think that I mean, he held the gun to his head. He threw fucking soda on me.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

And so you were still kind of like, I love this man and we're just gonna get through all of this?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

I didn't want to get divorced again. That was a huge thing. I didn't want to split time with my child. I thought I could help him. A lot of this was put on PTSD.

SPEAKER_01 9:58

Did you think that things were getting better and that there were progress, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 10:03

There were ebbs and flows. There were times when it would be really great and he would be so loving and we'd have chemistry as the rel as the relationship got longer, got further and farther between. So like we would go with longer bouts of really fucked up and then just a sprinkle of great and then really fucked up.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

And that would kind of like trump all the effed up stuff.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Yeah. And I started seeking out just that good. I was just like, if I can just hold out, it'll get good again. It'll get good again. I would be like telling myself that. So when this all got brought up, I was at a place where, of course, I felt insecure. That starts getting my wills going, and it's brought up a lot. And this was when he was still living in Oklahoma, right before we moved back to Texas.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Do you think he was starting to bring that up more because you were maybe showing signs of like maybe I could do this?

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Well, I had already started taking some distance because in Oklahoma, that's when the gun thing happened and we couldn't afford things. And I again I'm independent, and I've said this before my children will never struggle. I don't give a shit if I have to sell everything that I own and put my feet on OnlyFans. Like I will do whatever it takes. There wasn't an OnlyFans then either, but I will do whatever it takes to make sure that my family's taken care of. So we were struggling a lot, and I decided to come back to Texas for a little bit and work at the bar to make some extra money over the summer. And he was traveling all the time anyway for work, still not making enough money, having a bunch of problems at work. So I think it was like I was taking space and those group scenarios were being discussed in Oklahoma. I don't know if it was because I was just more isolated and so I had less people to talk to. He had pissed off a lot of people in my life. I wasn't gonna tell my friends about it because the minute I said that's not what I'm into, he made me told me that I was sex shaming him and making him feel disgusting. And if I didn't accept this about him, I don't love him.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

This isn't this is essentially new news to you.

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Yeah, it felt new, felt very new. It then it didn't stop being brought up. And it was almost like whatever sex we had, it wasn't gonna be enough because that's what he actually wanted. And for me, I didn't understand why he would want to share me. That bothered me.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

We end up going on like a trip, a weekend with no kid. We go out that night and all that, and he's bringing it up, bringing it up, and I'm I'm like, I don't know. Like I I finally I do love you, and I can try and see, but it felt wrong. And so that whole night I'm drinking nonstop because I I don't think I would have I I could have done that sober and it like that wasn't gonna happen. So you're saying you eventually agreed and that you guys would try to suit her out or something. I would try to do it, yeah. So I kept drinking, kept drinking, literally had like a bottle of vodka at our at our room and drank a a lot um because we ended up meeting somebody and he basically asked him. It was so weird how he was comfortable asking this person.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

I know be afraid.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

Yeah, it it was I was scared for a lot of reasons. Long story short, I'm not gonna go into graphic detail about that because quite frankly, like it was just uh It's a rough time for you to do it. It's weird because I agreed. So like it's consent, but I felt like I was coerced into it. And the one thing you know about me is this bitch is always gonna say how she feels, no matter what. And I mean right after it was done, right after this person left immediately, and I was like, I can never I can never do that that again. This it's your one in not it. Uh I said I feel dirty, I feel disgusting. I feel like I basically almost roofed myself to do it, or got myself so inebriated that I could do this, and I still judge myself for this quite a bit. Immediately he starts saying, So what? I raped you? This is rape? I made you do this. And he was always so quick to label things. It was immediately defensive. It was immediately, I'm calling him this, I'm making him feel bad. Never mind that I'm sobbing and feel like dirty and disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So never once did he say, I'm so sorry. I know didn't realize you were gonna it was gonna affect you like this.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

There was no apology.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Like you didn't have fun, you had no fun in this.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

Oh no, it was you enjoyed that. You liked that that you and you thought that was great. You this was you picked him. This was your idea. I mean, that's the closest I've ever been to having any sort of sexual trauma, and it sucks because again, there's I put myself in that position.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

And you did it with somebody that you thought you could be safe with and that this was your husband, you know?

SPEAKER_00 14:40

Yeah, but I We moved back to Texas and things just continued to to be bad. He couldn't keep a job, he had these random, grandiose ideas, like one month he wanted to move to fucking Montana and build a home from scratch, literally from the ground, and the motherfucker couldn't even build a sawhorse, like didn't even know how to use power tools.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

So I remember him saying even he wanted to be a plumber or so many.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Yes, there were so many ideas, but this man had minimal drive. The job in Oklahoma didn't pan out because he didn't like somebody there, and it all it's all because Oklahoma Knights hate Texans. I don't even know if that's true, but I have a lot of Oklahoma Knights. And is that Oklahoma Knights? I got some Oakies, these that are some of my rider dies now as well that would fucking kill somebody for me. So like that's bullshit. But yeah, this was all just a continual thing. And then in the midst of that move, actually, Amanda, my best friend, died. She was pre-you, she pre pre-dated you as my best friend. She was incredible. But it really made me kind of wake up and I was like, you know what? I need to go, I need to go back to nursing school. I've been off my path for long enough. I had mentioned to him on multiple occasions. I mean, that was the whole reason I joined the military, was so that I could go finish nursing school. I was like, it's time to go back. I was working at the bar, trying to make ends meet, trying to have some form of money. And he was adamantly against me going back to school, but I was like, fuck this. And I just enrolled anyway. And the closer the enrollment got, the more tumultuous home got, the more toxic the the fights.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Because there was even times when he would like talk about Amanda as well of like, well, she used to say this about you. And he said things like she couldn't even defend herself anymore. You couldn't even ask her if you wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah, he told me that she didn't trust me to watch her children. He told me some crazy fucking story. Like one time she came over when I was out of town for work, like crazy. Wow. Crazy shit. Where I straight up I did not believe him. I called him a liar to his face. I was like, absolutely not. And I was like, she wouldn't do that. But it also got in my head. The mom saying, especially, again, this was all going to this was all extreme. And so I was coping in really bad ways. I drank far more than I ever should have in that relationship. I have a history in my family of alcoholism. So at this time, my coping strategy was that I was so isolated from people. I had you. You were one of the few friends that stayed with me. But right before, probably a few months before I even started nursing school, we got into a really big fight. And it was after I was drinking. We went out to a bar. I drank quite a bit and I got sick on the way home. I actually threw up on myself. That's how sick I was. Again, this is not something I am proud of. I hate this part of my life and the person that I was in this relationship, but this is what happened, and I'm gonna be real about it. Uh when we got home, he was so mad at me. He rips me out of the car. It's very cold. It was it was winter, and he grabs me by the throat and like chokes me for a second and throws me to the ground, calls me names, and then goes into the house, shuts the door, and locks it. It's 30-something degrees outside. It's winter. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And he he wouldn't let me in. The door is locked. And at the time, his dad was visiting and Fat Joe lived in the back room. We were always having people live with us too. And I'm banging on the front door, banging on the front door. And there are like these the top is like squares, glass squares, and I'm banging, banging, banging, and he will not let me in. I'm freezing. I have vomit all over me. I had just gotten up off the ground and I I just lose my shit. And again, I'm I'm drunk, like very drunk. And I start punching the glass and I punch it and it doesn't break. And so I try to use my elbow and it doesn't break. And so he had left a bunch of tools in the front. And I take one of them and I just break the glass open and I put my hand in and go to unlock. And when I do, all of the glass is like cutting my arm. I'm bleeding everywhere. I don't feel any of it. And he's on the phone calling the police, and he is telling me the cops are going to come and get you. You're going to jail. And then I go to the back. And I Moe had left her child there with them. And I went to the back and I tried to go through the back door because at that point I was shaking. I was cold. And my arm bleeding started to sober me up. Some like, oh my God, I'm bleeding. I'm cold. I just want to go to I just wanted to go to bed. I literally just wanted to get in the house and go to bed and clean myself off because I get vomit, blood, and whatever else. Right. I try to go through the back door, which was Fat Joe's room, and he meets me at the door. He's much bigger than me. He actually was holding my daughter and I was crying. I'm just like, please just let me go to bed. I just want to go to bed. And he shoves me so hard that my feet come out from under me and I land really hard on my back on the concrete while he's holding my child. And I start crying more and then he shuts the door and locks it. So there are three adult men in the house locking me out of my house because I was dr so drunk I threw up on myself, could barely stand up by myself, but I was the problem. And they locked me out. So I just sit on the back porch on a chair and I feel like a light in my eyes. And it's one of the police officers. And he's just like, Are you okay? And he looked at me. I said, I'm drunk. I just said it. I was like, I'm drunk. I just wanted to go inside. I'm cold. And he starts like looking at me. He's like, Did you throw up? I said, Yes. I threw up in the car on myself. And because my ex wouldn't pull over either, I told him I was sick.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

And he wouldn't pull over. And um, he saw my neck and he's just like, and let me tell you, when I was sitting there, you know how if you're drinking, like the it's fuzzy and then it starts to become more clear. And I had a constant thing with him where he would tell me I did things that I was when I was drunk, and I'm like, Did I do that? Like so out of character. So I'd never really had that. And I at that time I really didn't have blackout drinking issues. Like that hardly ever happened until after I had kids in chemo again, and then three glasses of wine, and I couldn't remember things. So like this hadn't happened yet. And I was just kind of I I don't know. And he just kept saying, Did he hurt you? Did he hurt you? Did he put his hands on you? And I was like, No, no, I just want to go to bed. No. And I was crying. I knew I was going to jail that night. And he's like, Do you have somebody you can call? And I said, Yes. And I called my parents and my sister. And so they took me into the ambulance and they bandaged my arm up a little bit. They're like, You're fine. If I don't want to, we don't want to give you a ride to the hospital. There's nothing we need to do there unless, you know, you want to pay for it. I'm like, we're good. The cop was like, just come down to the station tomorrow and talk to us and just we'll get your statement, but you can't stay here tonight. You need to go out with somebody. So I said, okay. And I went with my family. They were more like, fuck that guy. They were jumping on the fuck that guy train, you know. I didn't need that. I was in the wrong for drinking as much as I did. And I was in a place with somebody that had already shown me that click click boom relationship that I was putting myself in a bad situation every time I got drunk around him, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Because he was able to create whatever story he wanted and you'd believe it.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

I did. I believed I mean, I lived. I called it X Land for a while. Like his, like you and I would even joke because he would call you. He would tell you about me before I'd even call you. Right. That situation, too. Every situation that occurred, X would reach out to my closest friends. And so that scenario happened. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I felt awful about it. And I go and apologize. And when I'm apologizing, he he chooses that opportunity to deflate me more, tell me I'm lucky he didn't do worse to me, that he didn't shoot me. I'm again I'm crazy like my family. I'm an alcoholic. I'm a problem. And I just I was like, all right. I just kept I just took it for a little bit. But then I was like, I can never let this happen again. I do not want to be like this anymore. And if you are so miserable because of me and I'm so miserable because of you, I don't think we should be together. That was the first time I wanted a divorce. Not right then, but like within a few months. So I was in the midst of trying to get into nursing school. That night was a turning point for me. After that night, I was like, if I get arrested for something like this, I'm never gonna be a nurse. I will never pass a background check. I'll have a violent record. I don't want to do any of that. And nothing came of that. Nope. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:16

Well, I mean, you're going to hurt a memory that was told to you versus obviously you're owning up to what you do remember and do reflect on, but that that point for that for that part, that is not who I am.

SPEAKER_00 23:31

That is the worst parts of me. That is the most the lowest of lows that Crystal has ever been. If someone makes you feel that way or act in those ways that you would normally never act, it's called reactive abuse. I know that now I did not then. Get the fuck out. Save yourself because I started to see my path. Like I maybe was still with him, but I started seeing path going a couple of ways. One was with me or him dead. One was with me in a mental institution or in prison. Those were basically the options that we had. And so that's why that first time I wanted a divorce, that's why. It was like, I can't do this anymore. And so I decided to tell him I wanted a divorce and he immediately started crying. I think that night, even now that I'm actually thinking about it, I remember Ginger Spice's face just like completely defeated and like numb, just looked so depleted. I feel like that's what I look like. I was sitting on the bed and he came in there and he started crying. And that song that he promised to sing me, this specific song when we were gonna get engaged, he sat at the edge of the bed, what, two and a half, three years later, and fucking played it for me when I wanted a divorce. And I felt like such a huge asshole because I didn't care. He kept begging for another chance, begging. And then he suddenly was treating me so sweet. And he was, I'll do anything, I'll do anything. And so I was like, all right, let's try couples counseling, let's try therapy. And so we did. And the first, the first person we went to was, I'll never forget her, and I'm not gonna put her name out there, but we sat in her office and she's like, Well, why are you here? The whole the whole thing, right? And I didn't care anymore. In the past, I wasn't allowed to say when certain things happen, I had never told anybody about the gun scenario at all. But I just was at a place in our relationship where I'm like, if I'm not gonna be honest in counseling, then we're never gonna get anywhere. And even with the friends that I talked to, even with you, with everybody, because I was being told all, including again, he was telling me Sarah thought all these things about me, and her husband thought all these things about me. I was too much and I was a drunk and I was crazy. And, you know, again, he's told me my dead friend didn't think I was a good mom or could watch her kids, so there you go. But she just said, Why are you here? And he was like looking at me like, Well, you know, you need to tell her like you're the problem kind of thing. Like, and so that was the first time I was ever super honest, and I just started crying. I basically told her exactly what I said earlier on this podcast about him holding a gun to his head and what it made me feel. I don't even know if I made eye contact with her the whole time because I was just looking down, rubbing my hands. My feet were crossed, and I was just rubbing my feet together and rubbing my hands like so hard together the whole time I was talking and crying and saying that he told me it was my fault that he wanted to kill himself. I I don't even know how long I talked. It felt like forever. When I got done, I looked at him and she was like, Okay, what do you have to say? This motherfucker had nothing, not one word, because I just told the truth. The truth made him quiet, which was wild to me. I I really hadn't seen I'm like, crickets, crickets for the first time? Yeah, I mind blown. When that happened, that's when I realized I stopped looking at my hands and I looked up and I like looked at him and looked at her because I'm like, holy shit, like I just told the truth and nothing bad happened. In fact, he shut the fuck up, which was again so far from the reactions I used to get. And she looked at me and looked at him, she pointed at him and she said, I think that you need to get psychologically evaluated. And she pointed at me and she goes, and I think you may need some individual counseling and that you may you may have some PTSD. And I was like, because I had heard him having PTSD this whole time. I had heard him bringing it up.

SPEAKER_01 27:15

Well, yeah, he's going through all the things. He's had the tumultuous, you know, life and which granted it may be very much true, but you also were enduring it in real time yourself in your own ways and in your own marriage.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

Well, and it was hard for me to keep track of the things that he said he had PTSD with because Well, you're too worried about all his PTSD.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

You didn't even realize it was affecting you, and you were living in your own PTSD.

SPEAKER_00 27:42

Well, and you know, from the story he told me when he was a kid to I started noticing a pattern with that as well. Like he told me when we first met, like, no, I never killed anybody when I was deployed. No, I've never seen any anybody killed. Like, and then the different conversations he had and later in life, like he would be talking to people and telling them, yeah, I shot this guy and blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

And I'm And it was all selective. And then it was like, what happened to the little Mex the little Mexican girl? Or Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:09

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

It was like you were living, you're almost like you're stepping in and out of a like the the reality and the false reality that you were living in. I was living in X-Land.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

That's where I live. And so when she said that, Sarah, I when she told me and him what she said, I was like elated. I literally was like, Holy fuck, I'm free. Like, but he sees it. It's not just me. This is real. There was the first person that saw it. I wanted to fucking jump up and just hug her and say, Thank you. He did not want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Well, yeah. You're for you, you're like, I can work with this. We can work with this lady.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Yeah. And so we leave and he's fucking livid. He is calling her every goddamn name you could think of. What a fucking bitch. We're never going back to her again. Fuck that. Let me remind you, the only reason we're going to counseling was because that was I told him, I'm leaving you unless we go to counseling. But somehow he ends up back in control of now. We can't go to the only counselor that I have seen with him that sees exactly what I see, and we have to go somewhere else. So we end up going on base, but he makes it a requirement that he gets to go first without me, talk to the counselor without me, and then I get to go next.

SPEAKER_01 29:21

So whatever picture he paints, so you never shared with another counselor the situation that you shared with in the first counseling session.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

When we went on base, he told me that he would lose his benefits, he wouldn't be able to do reserves anymore.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

I hear this. I've I've heard that too.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah. So I couldn't bring it up. It would affect our livelihood and our future.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

It was so great. It was so great, Crystal.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Yeah, it was fucking fantastic, let me tell you. There was one other incident that was very similar with PTSD when we were going through this whole me trying to divorce him scenario. So I was trying to be separated from him. He really wasn't at the house much. And I was at my aunt's house and he wanted me to bring him the car. And I was like, no, it's my car. His truck wasn't starting. And I'm like, no, it's my car. You're gonna have to figure it out. And he's like, bring me the keys. And I said, no, I'm not gonna do that. We were fighting. Again, it was I was becoming very avoidant because I didn't want to be the bad guy. I didn't want to be the reason that he wanted to hurt himself. I didn't want to be any I didn't want to be any of that. And so he basically started alluding to hurting himself and ending his life in texts. And it wasn't completely direct. It was, it was more like, you know, that's it. Like, I've had enough. Nobody wants me here anyway, that type of thing. And then he just stopped responding to my texts. And so I called his parents. I was like, I need you to go to the house and check on him. I was getting to a point where I felt, because of the these things being said on a not super regular basis, but regular enough, that I was getting to a point where I felt like it was being used to manipulate me, to get me. Anytime you wanted me to do something, oh, I'll threaten to harm myself.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Sound now now sounds like you also were cautious in that you weren't the one to go and quote unquote be there to support him. And so you reaching out to his parents to me I thought it was the trigger. I thought it was the trigger of it, you know? Right. And then then but you doing that in that way is kind of revealing to his family what was going on, maybe. And so was there any backlash by bringing in his parent?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Absolutely, yeah. So I end up driving over there at the same time. I'm like, he's not answering my text. Please check on him, please call him. And they they always downplayed whatever he was doing and whatever was happening. So they said they would come, but they we pull up. My sister goes with me. She's like, You're not going by yourself. We have my daughter. There's no one to watch her. So she's sitting in the car, and my sister goes, I'm gonna go in. I don't want you to go in there. I don't want things to escalate. It was like, okay. So she went inside and it felt like an eternity. And I'm like, it my head is just spinning. I'm like, what if he he's dead? What if he hurt one of the worst things? I was worried, like I literally was thinking maybe he hurt her, hadn't hurt anything. She wasn't coming out. It was probably 10 minutes, and I was just like, I have to go in there. The car was on, and we were in the parking space of my house, like right in front of my house. So I leave my child, I go in the house, and when I go in, I look at my bedroom, and there was a huge hole in it at the top, and I immediately think it's a shotgun, like it got shot through, and I don't see anybody. And so I run to my room, my heart drops, I open the door, and my sister is standing there looking at him. He is sitting on the bed once again with a pistol in his hands on his lap. And I'm just looking at her and she looks scared, and I'm like, What's going on? And what what's the hole from? And he's like, I punched it. He looks at me and he goes, You make me want to kill myself. I just want to kill myself because of you. I don't even know what to say. I'm just like, okay, well, your parents are on the way. I'm gonna go. Please, like, I don't want you to do this. Think about our daughter. Like, I'm trying to talk him off the ledge, but I'm also trying to be cautious because I I'm the reason, right? Like he keeps telling me I'm the reason for this. Right. And so I tell my sister, like, let's let's just go. Once they get here, we'll leave. So his parents get there and they're kind of nonchalant, like, everything's fine. The very next day, my sister goes with me because I'm going back to the house and he's there. And again, I I didn't want to be alone with him anymore. I was just at that place. We go in, he's acting like ever nothing happened the day before. And and there's a gaping hole in my in my bedroom door. And he he basically tells me, I'm gonna take our kid and we're gonna go somewhere. And I said, You're not taking her anywhere. We hadn't even discussed what happened the day before. He was just a different person the next day. And I was like, Absolutely not, you're not taking her somewhere. You just threatened to kill yourself again, had a gun in your hand, told you you wanted to kill yourself because of me. And again, I never called the cops. My sister didn't call the cops, nobody called the cops, but then he's like, That's my kit, and I can take them if I want to. So they go to they were in the back of my sister's car this time. They go try to open the door, try to take the child out. And my sister gets in front of him and she's like, You're not taking them anywhere. And he called the cops and they come and they separate us to talk. But I'm like, You're not taking her anywhere. That's not gonna happen. You are you're not stable. And he's calling my sister names, he's telling the cops this and that. He gets to talk to them first. They pull me to the side and I tell them what happened the day before. I was like, he's not stable right now. I don't think he should be taking a small child when that's going on and I really don't know what to do. And they're like, ma'am, he has PTSD, and maybe you should do some research on that and be more understanding of his situation because he was deployed and he served our country. And I'm just like, Are you fucking kidding me? I never called the cops ever. The first time that they come, well, technically the second, the first time was on me, right? And I they were called on me. At least those cops the first time made someone leave, right? The second time, they're giving me a guilt trip about how he has served our country and he's got these problems. And so the cops basically left it as you can both stay, but neither of you can leave with the child. So we're just set, neither of us can leave, but we're her parents with the kid, and um, we're stuck in the house with each other. And so his parents, they got called again, stayed for a little bit. Did you just turn it? She stayed for a little bit, and then they all left. And then we were just together. But I will say this: I learned a lot in couples' counseling. Whenever they're doing that, they are treating your relationship, they're not treating you as an individual. I learned how to not be the click after his click. I learned not to get to the boom part. I never wanted to be in the situation again where I was punching in in glass and potentially going to prison or jail. I didn't never want to do that. I didn't want to be physical, I didn't want to do any of those things. And so I our counseling really started helping. And I actually put off school another few months. Up consciously, I knew that was my way to be independent and get out. If I had a job and we finally had money, maybe things would be good. And maybe like I just kept thinking maybe it'll get better. And things got better. I got into school and again, there was a situation with my family, stopped talking to them again for another year and a half. So he was happy and there was not as much pushback. And I was just in a place in my life where I'm like, I'm focused on school now, I'm focused on my child. And we had several months that were really good. It almost felt like a completely different relationship because we were going to counseling and I was taking what they said and I stopped escalating situations. Essentially, I became a doormat, to be honest. I just kind of started taking things, but it it made it to where he actually apologized because he would like run me over and then be like, I'm really sorry that I did that. And I was so focused on school.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

But I wondered if that also kind of saved you, quote unquote, being a doormat was able to kind of give you a step back to to be able to really see the pattern of behavior, you know, in him.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

I think for sure it did. It made me more observant. I started watching and listening and stopped reacting. And but because it was going good, I had just started school. I was just a few weeks in, and he's like, Man, I really never wanted to have just one kid. I want two kids. And because things were going so well, it was literally like night and day. I was like, Yeah, we could we could do that. So we started trying. Actually, we started trying right before that, I think. And on and off it happened as the relationship got was good and not good. So there was a few months. It was not a one one and done, one shot, one kill like it was with the first kid. It took some time. And um, it happened right as I started nursing school. And it's very intensive. It's four semesters with two summers in between, basically two years of your life. And the first semester is brutal. I was pregnant once again at the wrong time. I swear you love making things hard for yourself. I do, and but my son, I went through the first the first year and the first two semesters. I started going into labor the day before summer break, and I was taking my test and started going to labor. And then the very next day he was born and he was here, and I was able to spend the entire summer with him and then go back to nursing school.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Oh, that's nice.

SPEAKER_00 38:24

And I was not thrown off. But uh during that time, uh X decided that he was gonna go back active duty, and this time he was gonna go special forces. So my plans and my shit was on the back burner, on and off, or he tried to make it that. There were multiple times he almost derailed me. I think being pregnant was one I did get a lot of guilt trips about going back after after the second baby was born. I definitely didn't get any support from him and I wasn't speaking to my family at that time, so I had a couple of aunts that showed up for me and were really there for me and kept my kids for me regularly. But I made all of those plans. He never helped me with that. If I ever wanted to go out or do anything, it was usually phone calls or problems. And if I went out of town like to come visit you, the phones sometimes his phone would just be turned off or he'd pick a fight and then wouldn't talk to me all weekend. But I just was like, that's fine, it's okay. Don't react, don't do that.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

It always seemed to you that like anytime you had a gleam of light or anything that you were quote unquote like the rising star, I guess you could say it was like always an issue. He would pick a fight, or would want to pick a fight, or would want to dim your shine by doing something almost like a one-up tick in like his career or Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

I mean, I think that that was a perfect example. Like he was like, I'm going special forces. What does that mean for me? So I'm gonna have to stay home because I grew up in a family with my dad being special forces. I know what that entailed. And that's not the lifestyle I wanted at all for my family. You're gonna be deployed constantly at a moment's notice. The military comes first, especially in those scenarios. Your family comes second. I'm doing this to have a career in something I've wanted to do my whole life. You've changed your mind 87,000 times. And I've waited. And I have waited and tried to support multiple ventures that you failed at. I finished nursing school, I graduated, you were there, I fucking get a job before I even walk the stage stage, before I even pass my end clicks with the understanding I will do both, right? And because he's going special forces, he decides to go to airborne training right around the same time that I'm going to do that. Mind you, the whole time he's there, he's complaining about it. He's writing me, being very emotional, saying a lot of self-deprecating stuff too, with like one extreme or the other. It's either he's a piece of shit, he's the worst, he's unworthy, or I'm a piece of shit, you know. So I was trying to just pump him up and make him feel good and support him the best I could. But even when he was up there, whenever he'd get upset, he would just shut off his phone and not talk to me for a couple days. I'm at home with the kids, I'm working a summer job, I'm trying to make a little bit of extra money. I'm studying my ass off for the NCLEX. I let a friend from nursing school who was in a physically abusive relationship, we'll call her Hannah Montana. So Hannah Montana went to school with me and my friend Daniela, and those two were my like friends through nursing school that I stayed friends with. Well, Hannah Montana was in a very abusive relationship. We all saw it, and even X was there. So it was kind of a thing where she was trying to finish school, and I'm like, you can move in with me for a few months. And so she kind of became our friend. She started dating one of his friends from the military, and we kind of helped each other out. Well, when he broke his leg, I decided to drive up to Georgia with Fat Joe, his brother, in Hannah, Montana State, and helped with the kids. So I could go for like a week. I'm studying every night for the NCLEX. I'm trying to be there for X who he did shatter one of his legs from basically the knee down. He shattered it because he landed wrong. And I honestly, now looking back, I don't even know what the story was there. Like I really don't know what he did or what happened. I just know he hated every second of it and complained about it nonstop. And so he had a bunch of pins. I definitely saw the x-rays. Like he really was hurt. He really was in the hospital for a couple of weeks and he was being held because they have to do certain paperwork before they can just send him home after that. But while I was there, mind you, I just finished nursing school. I was essentially a nurse at that point. You know, he needed to bathe and he needed help with things, and he was kind of bedbound for a little bit because they hadn't put a cast on or done any surgery yet. He would just had a wrap. And so I told him I'd help him shower and I would give him a bed bath if he needed. And I tried to do that one time. And once again, the me making him feel sexually inappropriate came up. Like, I don't want you touching me like that. You're making me feel like that family member that touched me. And I'm just like, I've done this in nursing homes. Like, this is part of my fucking job.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

I'm literally just trying to help you.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Yes, this is part of my job. And even if it wasn't, like, you're my husband. We do have sex. This is not sexual. This is me trying to help. And I'm just studying, and he would tell me things like that. He would Were you immediately like turned off and like regretting even going? I never regretted going, but I I did feel like I emotionally shut down by the end of the week. I was just I had to focus on my enclex, and there's nothing more I could do for him. So we drove up there, we stayed uh I stayed a week. Uh Joe stayed in a hotel and I stayed, I slept by him every night in a in a fucking hospital chair. And so he finally made it home and I passed my NCLEX. I go start working at the hospital, and that summer we were doing all of like the training and stuff, and he comes home with a broken leg and his special forces at thirty two years old dreams that he had for, you know, the last year and a half or whatever, are shot now. His leg's fucked, he can't he can't go. And so, of course, our relationship basically ends up getting a lot better. Allows me to take care of the family and the rest is history, and we're still married. Just kidding. No, so much worse. I mean, we were already having suicidal thoughts and guns held and you know, physical yelling and screaming and now take an a leg that's now injured that basically ruined his quote dream. And I had my dream. I just made it happen for myself in spite of all the things that were thrown up in front of me. And yeah, I I was again non-reactive pretty much the entire rest of the relationship. I couldn't allow his spiraling to affect me. But in turn, sometimes it would make it worse for him. He would spiral further. Before it would almost like stop eventually because I just would not react at all. So he had nothing to to like feed off of. He couldn't make me the bad guy anymore at all. He was so much more angry. He was so much more vindictive and spiteful and mad at me. And so he basically just went down this depressed spiral and started drinking, saying horrible things regularly, once again calling my friends, calling our mutual friends, telling Hannah Montana, who's living with us his stories. And I'm like trying my best to just go along with it.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Was Hannah Montana privy of the relationship at that point, or was she starting to take sides?

SPEAKER_00 45:19

I don't think I ever told her anything serious because she was in a very physical relationship and she also had like self-harming things that sometimes occurred. And at the time I couldn't, it's so strange to look back on that and be like, I couldn't see any of that in mine, you know? But I looked at hers and I was like, oh, that's really extreme. Just like when I was a kid and my parents were pointing out the kids' families that their parents beat up each other. So that was our our relationship was fine and nothing was a problem. I never looked at both of our relationships and said, hmm, well, he gaslights you and he manipulates you and he makes you feel like nothing and he makes you feel worthless.

SPEAKER_01 45:55

And a lot of sitting here empowering other people and I literally got her out of that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

I gave her a safe space to live. Right. And she became friends with both of us. And so he once again, for um, I don't know how many times at this I lost count during the marriage, threatened to harm himself again. I said we're going to therapy again, and we did, and nothing got better. Therapy didn't help. We went for weeks, and I did like this therapist more, and she wasn't on base, which was nice, but I felt actually kind of bad. She wasn't equipped for this shit. She didn't know what the fuck hit her, honestly. We would go there, and I could tell like she just kind of got wide-eyed, and she's trying to follow some counseling way of counseling, and she's trying to work that out.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

I'm gonna have to study this.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Yeah. Let me get back to you guys on what I'm saying. But did you do this and did you follow the circles? Go and then they feed down to this, and you did you try these five things? And I'm like, he called me a cunt, and then he held a gun to his head, and then told me he wanted to kill himself. And so, and that was another thing that was told to me, even during like my training for nursing stuff, when he would get when he would start saying he wanted to hurt himself, he didn't want to be alive, which was a lot more regular during that that it was summer before everything really hit the fan. He would say, You're never gonna be a good nurse. Like you don't even know how to be there for people that are depressed or have PTST. But the wild thing was he would never go get help. I kept begging him, why don't you go to therapy? Why don't you go get psychologically evaluated? No, I can't, because then I can't own a gun, and then I can't do these things. So he would admit it to me or use it to talk to the cops, but he would never actually go and get a diagnosis.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

And that it sucked. And so the final straw was I was laying there one day and the baby was laying on me. They were about one, and the other child was five in the back room, and they were both sleeping. And I'm in the living room. I hadn't even unpacked because I had been running amok. Like came back, feet hit the ground running, dealing with him, helping him with everything. He's got to go to all these doctors' appointments, he can't drive, taking care of two kids, uh, past my NCLEX, going to training for nursing, figuring out where the kids go during the day. Like it was just a lot chaos. So all my shit hadn't even been unpacked from mind you, I'll say this. Ask my husband. I still have suitcase like from Costa Rica laying on the floor that I just picked stuff out of. Yeah, I'm bad about that. That is my toxic trait, guys. So I had a bag of all of my makeup and stuff on the table. I had two tables in that living room area, and he's walking through the living room, gets really mad at me about something again, don't know what it was, don't remember. That's I had just gotten to used to it at that point. But I was doing my doormat thing, right? He just starts yelling and he's screaming at the top of his lungs at me, and he starts calling me again, bitch, whatever the fuck he's calling me. And he's screaming so loud, he's just turning red, and he's like raging, raging. And I'm just staring at him. The the baby's asleep on me. I'm like, this is my life. It all clicked, like everything that had gone on had clicked, and I'm just like, this is my life. Like, did you start laughing? I did. I started laughing because I was like, You're a fucking joke. I was laughing at me, honestly, the whole scenario. I'm like, this can't be real. Remember when you were praying to God about why can't you find a love like this? And here the fuck I am with this. And I just Here's your love. Yeah. And I start laughing, but not like ho ho ho. It was like chuckling to yourself. Like I got this smirk, and I'm just like, because he's essentially throwing a temper tantrum, this massive guy with a child on your chest. I have a sleeping child on me.

SPEAKER_01 49:35

And you have another child sleeping.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Yeah. And so he that sets him the fuck off, right? Like over the edge. And he's like, stop laughing, stop. And he grabs two chairs, throws them against the wall, breaks them. And I'm talking dining room chairs, like decent, pretty heavy duty. And then he grabs all of my makeup and stuff that's in the bag and perfume, fucking throws it all over the floor. Very reminiscent of ginger spice.

SPEAKER_01 49:58

I was gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

And my fight or flight is broken, so I'm just like shaking my head, and I'm like, and somehow, by the grace of God, the baby stayed asleep. I don't know how. Then the goes to walk through this middle room and was my my child, my oldest child's room, who was five, and falls because of his leg. And when he does, that's when he starts sobbing, screaming, and crying. And so I go, I put the baby down, I come in and I'm like, hey, listen, can I please help you up? I was so calm. I'm like, I just want you to get up. And he's like, You don't love me. You fucking hate me. Get away, baby. He's just like screaming and sobbing. And I'm like, okay, well, when you're calm, I will come and get you up and help you up. Just let me know when you're ready. I do love you, you know, like trying to be nice. And I go back into the living room, and then all of a sudden I hear the door open from the back room, and my five-year-old walks in, and they're like, Mommy, why is everything broken in here? And why's daddy crying on the floor in my room? And that was like the ultimate click. Like, holy fucking shit. They're old enough to see all this. They want to know why. I can lie to them, which I'm a fucking horrible liar, or I can just be like, their dad did it. And that and that puts him in a bad light. And I immediately, all of the red flags and all of the, all of the things that I grew up with and the way that I am was directly related to the way that I was raised and what I thought was normal. And it I was like, I never want these kids to accept us as normal. I never want them to think this is okay that anyone can treat you like this ever. And I said, I was like, no, I'm really done.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

And that that was just because your daughter had stepped out and saw her dad sobbing, or did he do something to perpetuate?

SPEAKER_00 51:50

It wasn't just the sobbing. He started saying, I I want to hold my daughter. I want to see her. She's the only one that loves me. And that is when I mama beared. I was still very, very calm, but I went in and I said, We are not going to put our children in a situation like this. She's not here to comfort you. I'm here if you need help. And he's like, get away from me. You don't love me, calling me names. And I was just like, Okay, I'm gonna take the kids and I'm gonna leave. And granted, again, his leg is for all intents and purposes, it's broken. Yes, it's broken in several spots, but he had surgery. There are pins and things in there. It is still hard for him to walk on that leg, but he had like he could stand up, he could do things, he was capable, but I didn't want my kids seeing it anymore. They she's also five, and I'd learned a lot about development and things in nursing school and and their memories. And I remember my first memories at three. So I'm like, this shit's gonna stick. And to this day, she does still remember it. So it did stick, but I I decided no, I'm not doing this. The the fucking trauma, the generational shit stops at the right here. And so I took her and the baby and I put them in the car, and I drove fucking Walgreens. That's where I went, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. I called you, I called Hannah Montana, I called Daniela, I called, I think maybe one of my aunts, and I was just like, I'm ready to get divorced, I can't do this anymore.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

It was no longer just about you and how you wanted to live, but it was like how you wanted your kids to be raised, and so you were a lot more cautious about all of that. You had more and more conversations about how you wanted your kids to remember their childhood. You didn't want it to get worse and it be that they're now getting older and get to remember more and more and more.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

So no, absolutely not. And so I decided then and there at the Walgreens that I wasn't fucking doing this anymore. And I went back when he was calm and I told him I want to divorce. And I wish, I wish that I could sit here and say, and then we filed the paperwork and we got divorced and we co-parent well, but it got so much worse after that. If you or someone you know is in a domestic violence situation, please do not be afraid to reach out for help. Check out our blog at www.plotwiststillalive.com for national resources for domestic violence, suicide prevention, and how to get help if you're in an abusive relationship. Domestic violence is never okay. Please listen next Thursday for chapter three, X, the addiction.