The Day I Lost My House—and the Life I Thought I Was Building

I’ve been holding this in for a long time.

Sometimes the trauma sits in my chest like a cinder block, and this morning it was just too heavy not to write about.

Last year, I signed over my house.

The one thing I had left—my safety, my security, my anchor in a storm. I didn’t want to. Every cell in my body screamed no. But someone I trusted… someone I loved… someone I thought loved me back… convinced me it was the right thing to do. That it was just temporary. That we’d do it together, because in a year we would be getting engaged. That we were building something bigger, something real.

But minutes—minutes—after I signed it over, he used his sobriety as a weapon to throw me out. Suddenly I had to leave immediately or he would start drinking. What was I to do, I loved this man with everything I had. I honestly didnt know I could love again this hard… when he mentioned drinking I spiraled into a panic.

But now, I had no backup plan. No money. No safety net.

He pressured me into signing an apartment lease: how? I just signed over everything I had. He set me up specifically and intentionally to drown. I couldn’t afford an apartment lease. His solution for me, his girlfriend who he wanted to marry… was for me to move into a climate controlled storage unit. I tried so hard work together… not to show my panic.. and the only place I could find on short notice was a commercial basement office. No windows. No kitchen. No shower. Just fluorescent lights and damp air. I was mortified. My anxiety went so high I couldn’t even pee. I was frozen in panic, absolutely gutted.

But he?

He was excited.

He picked out furniture for me and sent me links to buy it… which had to now come out of my long term medical savings. My van, which I loved… I had saved for, I wanted so badly I was kissing goodbye by spending the money on this lease. He knew it. He told me this was “great” and we’d “pursue our dreams later.” In fact during the unpacking, he was smiling and saying “This is the Dana I needed to see”. It was so hard to hold back my tears.

I had just given away the money I’d been saving for that future—my future, our future. The money I needed to live. And now I had to dip into my long-term medical savings just to survive. I couldnt tell anyone or it would have made him look awful. So I lied to everyone and told them it was an “office”… made a point to leave at 5 and suck back in the side door each night, and cried myself to sleep. There were many days I just never turned on the lights. Just laid there in the dark crying… wondering why I was being punished. What was so wrong with me. I would turn on the lights to send one photo to keep him from showing up… but sometimes I just forgot. He would show up and find me in the dark crying on in the middle of the afternoon… how did it affect him?

He was on cloud nine.

I was in a basement wondering how my life had collapsed so fast.

And I wish I could say that was the end of it. But it wasn’t. That moment was just the tip of the iceberg—the part where I realized I was never safe with him. That he had been pulling away for months. That he’d been lying. That he was already cheating when he made me hand over everything to someone who had sexually abused me. That he wanted to escape, and didn’t care what it cost me.

If I could take back meeting him, I would.

The second he entered my life, everything started to unravel… but I was so blinded by love I just couldnt see it. He made me feel like I was always too much and never enough.

“Dana, im trying to accept you… for you.. and all of you…” I will probably need therapy to unburn this from my mind… the pained way he used to say it to me like I was some major inconvenience and not something he cherished. If he needed me to move into a damp moldy basement so he could sleep with his ex-wife each night… I suppose he didnt cherish me much at all now.

And now?

I’m completely dependent on my family. I lost my home, my savings, my sense of safety. All for someone who promised me a future and left me in a basement. Someone who convinced me to give up everything I had—because he said we’d do it “together.”

But here’s the thing. I got out.

I’m not in that basement anymore. I’m in my own home now—a real one. A safe one. With light, and color, and my dog. I’m creating again. Building Dove Recovery Art. Finding myself again.

And how did I survive?

I leaned on the people who really love me.

My family. My true friends. The ones who saw me collapsing and said, “We’ve got you.” They pulled me out of that basement—literally and emotionally. They helped me start over in a new city, in a real apartment, in a space that feels like me. I ignored him when he made fun of me for wanting a “luxury apartment”, and calling me “selfish and disrespectful” for wanting my puppy… as even though the apartment was partially for him… remember? The thing he really really wanted? Well I knew we were at the end (really hoped so anyway), and decided this time… I would make decisions that made “me happy” and needed to stop thinking of what made “us happy”. And then… they got me the greatest gift of all: my puppy. So I’d have someone to love, and someone who would love me back without conditions, without games, without ever making me sign anything away just to prove my love.

I didn’t rebuild my life alone. And you don’t have to either.

And I’m not writing this for him.

I’m writing this for anyone who has ever been manipulated, coerced, or convinced to give up their power for someone who didn’t deserve it.

I am writing it for me… because I need to forgive and I do not want to. But I know from my expierence in the AA 12 Step program, that I dont get to move on unless I do. I dont get peace, serenity, and calm thoughts unless I do. I also know from my program the best way to feel better is to help someone else.. so I am writing this for both of us to bring us a little closer to that forgiveness:

You are not alone.

You are not stupid.

You are not what they did to you.

You are what you build from it. And now, I am going to tell my story. What I went through, every step of the way. Through Trauma, Heartbreak, Medical Crisis, Suicidal thoughts… all of it. And I am going to tell you how I survived it all.

With Love,

Dana and Nicky.