Cassie/Diddy Hotel Assault Video

Somehow, I hadn't seen this yet ... and I wasn't prepared for how much this took me back to my own experience. 

This is Cassie, trying to escape while Diddy is showering ...

 *WARNING - VIOLENT CONTENT*

(In case you're wondering why she's just laying there, it's not because he hit her/shoved/dragged her so hard she's unconscious - it's to show she's no threat - as well as just feeling defeated 😢 And yes - I know  because of prior personal experience.)

In 2006, I was in an almost identical situation in a hotel, trying to escape my exhusband while showering, who also ran after me in a bath towel.

It's been a long time since I told the story because I'm happily remarried now to a wonderful man for 8 years now - who would never even think of laying a hand on me or trapping me in a hotel room.

And I'm not going to go into too much detail now, but I will say I am because she's not alone AND because, as mentioned recently, I've been struggling in my faith - and I'd forgotten how I got out of this situation was truly overly-coincidental/miraculous.

My husband at the time was living in Florida, and I had run back to Kentucky to escape him.

However, he'd been sober for six months and had been in therapy - his therapist even vouched for him. 

Over that summer, he stayed with his parents nearby and did seem changed.

Then for whatever reason - me just wanting to see the man I married again, I guess - I agreed to meet him in Atlanta in September for a weekend.

At first, everything was fine, romantic even.

Then he asked if I was still intent on divorce.

I said I wasn't sure yet, there hadn't been enough time.

At that point, he locked the hotel room door.

He told me that while I slept, he had gone down to the desk and switched his debit card for mine, so I'd be responsible for the bill. 

He then pulled out a yellow legal pad with the names of everyone in my life he'd been in communication with - family, friends, coworkers, bosses - everybody. 

He then said that if I tried to leave, I'd be charged, plus he'd call everyone he'd befriended and tell them lies, like that I was stealing from the company, from my grandmother, anything you could think of.

I was denied food, water, and if I tried to get water myself, was pushed.

He just kept going on and on about how sick I was, that I needed him, nobody else would love me the way he did.

By Saturday night, I figured the best way to handle this was to pretend to go along - pretend I agreed with every word he said.

So I asked if it was okay, now, if we went downstairs to get a drink to calm my nerves.

We went down to the bar and while he ordered at the other end of the bar, I wrote on a cocktail napkin "Help me. Call police. My room  # is XXX."

However, when he came back to the end of the bar with the drinks, he flipped over the napkins and found it, shredded it, and put the pieces in his pocket. 

When we got back upstairs, it was the first sexual assault. 

I just laid there, completely resigned, feeling powerless, looking up at the ceiling, praying for it to be over.

Sunday morning, I had a plan.  I would pretend to be out of my mind crazy, rocking back and forth, muttering to myself.

Finally, he decided I was good, sitting there rocking and muttering, and he went to take a shower.

Then I bolted - debit card at the front desk, legal pad of people he was going to contact he said he had in his back pocket be damned.

Unfortunately, however, he ran after me - in a bath towel - just like Diddy did to Cassie

As a quick idea, this is a smart idea with an abusive partner - pretend to be asleep, drunk, or crazy and then wait until they shower to leave -  but remember, they're always watching/listening (or they incredibly somehow have friends willing to do so for them).

I really don't understand why these types, male or female, always seem to have friends who are willing to help stalk/harass the target for them, but it's apparently very common, especially online.

I once had a real-life friend ask myself and Mark to follow her ex, during a custody case, to see if he got drunk again, and we were like "Um, no, I'm sorry. We'll help support you, but we can't do that."

That, of course, keeps themselves out of legal trouble and let's you take the fall, plus it's just creepy. 

So of course when we said "No," we never heard from her again.

That was fine - we felt like resources for her rather than friends, anyway.

Back to the hotel and me bolting, so I made it out the parking garage, but he banged on the window, standing there in his bath towel, and said:

"I'll kill her. I will kill your daughter or have my Eastern Kentucky friends do it.  (Meaning my daughter.)  Think about that.  That's your choice. Get back in that hotel room or she's dead."

Then he walked away. 

I sat there, so completely mind and body effed, not knowing what to do.

Then there's a knock on my window again.

I look up expecting to see J, but it's a man, a stranger. 

He says: "I heard the whole thing, are you okay?"

I said, "Yeah, I'm just crazy, he's right. No one will believe me anyway."

He said "No, no, honey.  Even if you were, nobody that loves you should ever talk to you like that. Do NOT go back in that hotel room.  Run.  Go to the police."

Me: "No, I came here willingly and that'll be hard to explain. I don't have the most supportive family in the world - a couple of them will say I deserved it. Maybe I do? He's already been in communication with my boss, my coworkers, everybody, charming them as he can be."

Man: "No, he's making you believe he has all the power and you have none, it's a lie.  Do NOT go back in that hotel room now, okay? I'll be praying for you."

But I did.

The moment I came down that hallway and he saw me, I was dragged the rest of the way into the room by my shirt collar.

I was sexually assaulted again, this time violently, then kicked as I lay motionless on the floor. 

He said "You think you're so smart, but I got you! I completely outsmarted you and had you fooled, didn't I! I did it! I fooled everybody, even a therapist!"

I just lay there for about an hour - not moving, not saying a word.

Then he came back in the room and said:

"I didn't do this to you. I couldn't have done this to you, could I?  Did I? Knowing your mom used to trap and lock you in. And what I just did. No, I did not do this!"

At that point, I got a rush of adrenaline.  

I don't know, something about him wrestling with remorse, but  then ultimately denying to himself what he'd done.

So I stood up, pushed him against the wall with my forearm across his throat and said:

"Yes. You. Did. And you are the last mother-effer who ever will."

Then I grabbed my suitcase and tried to leave, but he grabbed me, spun me around, grabbed me by the front of my hair, and slammed my head against the wall several times.

I got away and grabbed his shaving kit bag near me and started hitting him with it, grabbed my suitcase to run again.

The zipper on the bag scratched his arm, so he said "Ha, see this?  I'm gonna call the police myself and tell them YOU hit ME.  I'm the ones with marks on me."

I slumped down in the floor, defeated.

On Monday, he gave me my card back, but not until I agreed to come back to Florida that next weekend, or he'd get his friends in Eastern Kentucky to not just eff me up, but kill my daughter.

I do and go to the ATM and he's right behind me.

I start to drive away from it, pull over, get out of the car and sit down in the grass ... and vomit.

I look over to the ATM, and lo and behold, that same man is going through it. He pulls into the parking lot next to it, gets out (staying about 20 yards away), pulls down his sunglasses and says "You okay?"

I mouth, "I'm fine, just crazy (twirling my finger to the side."  Thank you, go on."

He shook his head "No" and then did his hands like prayer, "I'm praying for you."

J sees him and starts to walk over to him, but he jumps in his car and speeds off. 

I start to drive home, but my arms are shaking so badly that my elbows are hitting the car seat behind me and realize I'm not ready to drive, so I pull into a Target parking lot, J right behind me.

And not 5 seconds later, a cop pulls in.

I'm thinking "What's this fresh hell, now?"

But lo and behold, that man who coincidentally had seen J threaten me twice, had called the police..

He ordered J to back up, stay the eff away from my car, and go sit in his car.

J tried his charm, but to no avail. 

The cop told him to go sit in his car, now, or he'd arrest him.

The cop got down on one knee, as I sat in the car, and gently spoke to me, asked me if I was okay.

We decided that I would have a hard time explaining that I'd come willingly to Atlanta to that hotel room, that I'd slept with him willingly the first night, and that would get used against me in court.

So he devised a plan on the spot.

He was going to sit in the car with J, tell him whatever he wanted to hear, but make it very clear he was not to contact me again

HOWEVER, what he was really doing was keeping J distracted in order to give me a 20-minute head start back to Kentucky, whereupon I would call Domestic Violence, especially if I ever heard from him again after the cop told him not to.

And so I did.

And J did.

And DV helped me get a divorce. 

(And he did make good on his promise to smear me to everyone I knew, sending flowers to my boss and coworker.  My coworker believed him, my boss didn't. There was no money to steal. However, my coworker was very competitive with me and feared I would get promoted instead of her. When my boss took another job, I left rather than compete with my coworker. I was broken, didn't want any trouble or to fight anyone. My former boss even visited me at my new job for a while, but we unfortunately lost touch.)

That is one of two times in my life where I felt God cared.

There's a whole slew of others where if he's there, I don't know where he was. 

Maybe I was just lucky that day, who knows.

Regardless, thank you to that man-angel who saw it all - remarkably twice - and the cop who helped me that day. 😊

And Cassie?

Glad you got away finally, too 🥲

People?

When someone tells you someone is abusing them, first look at the power dynamics of the relationship -  who has the most power and support, the accuser or the accused - and if they're on short end of that stick?

Believe them.

And I can't tell you after that how many predatory, power-abusing people came my way while broken, that vulnerability rings like a dinner bell to some people, like blood in the water with sharks.

If recently out of a situation like that, find support somewhere - someone WILL believe you, even if you're not sure you believe yourself/still blaming yourself.

Also, though justice would be nice, but don't make it the goal because that's not always gonna happen in this world - the main goal should instead be your own healing from trauma, so that you can move forward 😊