International Women’s Spread Ashlynn Stone

Introducing my writing mentor, longtime friend, and an all around badass, Ashlynn. 

Kaylyn Gabbert: What was it like growing up undiagnosed with bipolar disorder? 

Ashlynn Stone: I didn’t know any different. I thought all kids ripped their hair out, had nervous ticks, felt they couldn’t breathe, had racing hearts and sweat profusely. I didn’t know any better. I took no notice to the fact that I was the only person I knew who did things like that. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized something was different about me, and even then, I was still more than five years until my diagnosis.

KG: What’s it like being a published author? 

AS: It’s incredible! I started my writing journey just typing my hand-written journals. By the time I finished, my Word document was the length of a full-length novel. I went through the worksheet and filled in any holes and edited the crap out of it. I didn’t realize at the time that writers should always have someone else edit their work which is why Lithium Realm: My Bipolar Hell had so many mistakes in it. It was after that book, though, that I learned I was a novelist. I know a few who publish their work in magazines. That’s awesome, but I have too much to say to fit in one article.

I cried when I published the book, but that pride was short lived. The same day, I had come home from a local craft show with a Triquetra charm. During that mile-long walk, I had imagined a world involving mind-reading, superhumans along and how they intertwined with people who lived in their area. After running into the apartment, I took off the pentacle from the chain my husband had given me and replaced it with the new charm. (The triquetra charm has been around my neck, with the exception of less than twenty evenings.)

I got right to work. I typed about the superhumans. I typed about the protagonist. I made up a world, a coven… a mystery. In a month’s time, I had the first draft of what became three large novels.

Fast forward to another life when I’m remarried and have an infant, I blew the dust off of the three-book manuscript and poured my heart and soul into them. My infant child was an excellent sleeper so I had a tremendous amount of time to work. In a six-month’s time, I had not only split the manuscript into three separate books, but I also perfected and published book 1, The Coven—The Triquetra. Two months later, I had it published as an audio book. Nine months later, book 2, The Coven—The Transformation was published. The same month, I published an erotic novel and a book on publishing using a specific platform. Sadly, I couldn’t keep up the momentum as I had personal trauma to deal with prevented me from writing for a year. Finally, though, book 3, The Coven—The Tacitus came out nineteen months after book 2 did. Another personal trauma set me back 1.5 years with the publication of The Coven—The Absconded, book 4’s publication.

While working on The Coven Series, I took a break and wrote the first draft of what I hope to become a series. My goal was to pick it back up once all four Coven books were finished. That didn’t happen. That leads me to the next question.

KG: You recently became a victim of domestic violence. Would you consider sharing your story?

AS: I will talk about it briefly because I’m trying to get over it and by reliving it over and over again, that’s making it so hard.

My ex and I were together the better part of eight years. I met him when we were both drunks, however I sobered up six months later. He did too, until he relapsed. Repeat the sober/relapse cycle more times than I can count.

From the beginning, he began ripping apart everything I did. I figured he was simply set in his ways, although he was thirteen years younger than me at 25 years old. He lived through manipulation. In fact, that was the basis of our relationship.

He sobered up for almost a year when our daughter was born which lasted a week after our marriage. The manipulation increased. He slowly began working in intelligence comments when talking about my intellect. Again, thirteen years younger. My experience alone has me winning an battle of the wits. It took a while, but it got to the point where I wouldn’t even make simple decisions without checking with him first. He hated coming home from work and dinner wasn’t started. That’s because I knew if I took the initiative and picked something ahead of time, I would get scolded in a very harsh manner.

I tried talking to him about the way he treated me. He gaslit me and turned the problem around on me, making my feelings out to be the problem. It got to the point where I tried not to have any feelings because when I did, they were stupid, I was stupid, I was too emotional, etc. Simply put, no matter what I did, felt or said, I was always wrong. He was always right. He was superior to me, and I believed it.

Our daughter was only a couple of months shy of two years old when neighborhood violence drove us out of the dangerous city we lived in. Using my credit and my money alone, we purchased a house in one of the most sought after townships in the county we live in. Exactly four days after we moved into our new house (December 16, 2020) he began drinking heavily; more so than I had ever seen.

By September, I was a fucking cunt every day. He made it clear on more than one occasion that he wanted to put a knife through my head, rip his hands into my chest and pull out my beating heart so I would shut up, I was a fucking whore who would fuck any man who walked by.

Until recently, I thought I had become a victim of domestic violence on October 21, 2023. I was reminded of the previous three years. My ex husband is an alcoholic and throughout our entire (almost) eight-year relationship, he spent more time drunk than sober.

On is a narcissist, so thinking back, it comes as no surprise that he started small. Verbal and emotional abuse were the first two he began with. He learned my limits and pushed them until that became the new norm. Then he pushed them again, and again until he was telling me that he wanted to put a knife through my head or to go slit my wrists and it was normal for me; I let it roll off my back.

Four years into our relationship when our daughter had just turned one, the abuses changed to mental. He slowly worked into conversation about how stupid I was, how I needed to keep quiet because nothing I said was intellectual. He reminded me about other women he dated who he could actually carry on conversations with because they had intelligence. If I talked to a man standing behind me at the check out line in the grocery store, I was accused of sleeping with them. Come to think of it, I was accused of that whether it was man or woman. It got to the point where I stopped leaving the house, which eventually upset him since I wouldn’t even go to the grocery store without him with me so he knew I wasn’t cheating on him.

I recognized his need for me to change. What I hadn’t realized was that he was slowly drilling his control and manipulation into me at a pace so slow, I didn’t notice. I had simply become a shell of my previous, happy and chipper self.

In August 2022, my ex tried to kill himself which landed him in a psychiatric hospital an hour away. With him gone for so long and so far away from his family, that gave me the opportunity to not only request a civil order of protection and emergency custody of our daughter, but to win both. I also filed for divorce.

He wasn’t discharged to his own apartment for two weeks before we were back together. Almost immediately, he went back to drinking and the abusive behavior resumed. He wanted to continue with the divorce. We had our final hearing in my house, only six feet away from each other. We lived as husband and wife and less than six months after our divorce was finalized, we were remarried.

Our two guests hadn’t even left and he already began speaking to me in an abusive fashion. He got drunk that night, calling me, “Fatty Fatty Cunt.” At some point around then, he threatened to put a knife through my head again. He threatened to break my nose and made it clear that the only thing I was good for in his life was carrying “his” daughter.

Sure, I could have left him, but he had me convinced that I would financially fail since my main source of income is Social Security Disability Insurance. The number one reason why women stay with their abusers is financial. I fell into that statistic. I was so brainwashed that he managed to convince me of that.

Despite the fact I worked in a police department for many years, I didn’t recognize anything he did as domestic abuse. It would have been obvious had it gotten physical, but I didn’t recognize any of the other signs.

My ex sobered up for a couple of weeks, and then in May 2023, he relapsed again, only this time, he didn’t stop. He landed a job earning almost $75,000 before mandatory overtime. He got so angry with them that he quit on the spot, leaving my income our only income for six weeks. That was when he was hired for a six-figure a year position in the same field. Not a day went by that he didn’t remind me that my Social Security was nothing but welfare. Because we had to live off of it in between his jobs, I slowly realized that if it could sustain a family of three on Social Security, I should have no problem with an him out of the equation… especially knowing he had a $30/day drinking issue.

By mutual decision, I filed for divorce October 6th. Our daughter went to her grandmothers on October 20th, thankfully. That night, my husband was drinking at his apartment, although he lied and told me he was on a date. I also had a peeping Tom that night who stared at me through the garage window. I called the police and during my one-hour wait, I called my husband to tell him what was going on. He rushed home. Although I knew he was drinking, he blamed me for not only breaking up his fictitious date, but also for the non-existent woman refusing to ever see him again. He took that anger out of me. He called me fat a million times. He called me a “cunt” in so many variations even more times than that. Before he accused me of lying, he told me he hoped I slit my wrists and took off, driving his van, drunk as a skunk.

Not even realizing the happenings of the night before were dysfunctional, I texted him in the morning, asking if he was okay. He lied, leading me to believe a woman slept in his van with him. Throughout the day, I asked him to come home so I knew he was safe and so he could get food, but each time, he made it as far as the garage before calling me a fucking whore of a cunt and leaving. Each time, he had a significant amounts of vodka in him.

This part is hard for me. At about 1pm on October 21, 2023, six hours after his first response to me, he came home, sat in the chair across from me and demanded the keys to my safe. The only thing inside the safe of importance to him was my gun. He made it clear he was going to kill himself. I refused, earning me one of his vulgar pet names reserved for me. I went to go into the house from the garage.

He hovered over me. “Do you want to shoot yourself or do you want me to do it for you because I’m going to take your daughter and you’ll never see her again.”

That was the moment that I was thankful she was 90 minutes away. He indirectly threatened my child. I can’t remember what I said to diffuse the conversation. I only remember him leaving while calling me a worthless piece of shit of a wife.

After he threatened to hill himself earlier in the day, I called the Sheriff's Department for his suicide threat. Since it was in text message form, they took it as a credible threat and issued as statewide “be on the look out” for him. They never found him, but each time he returned, I called the Sheriff's Department. Each time, they said they would send someone out to do a welfare check. Once my ex heard me on the phone with them, he left.

He had arrived home without me knowing and when I returned to the garage, I found him sitting in the

seat across from me. He was infuriated. He jumped up and despite the fact I was on crutches, I ran inside, beating him with enough enough time to lock the door. I happened to be on the phone with the dispatcher at the Sheriff's Department who told me to look out the front window. When I did, I watched my ex backing out of the driveway.

After a deep breath, the dispatcher assured me that the deputies were en-route. After getting off the phone, I returned to the garage again. I closed the door behind me and my ex met me there, mere feet from me.

His expression made his intentions clear; he was going to kill me at any moment. Since I was on crutches, I had to put my phone down to reposition in any way. The moment I put it onto my workstation, he ran to me, with four bottles of vodka in him, and snatched my phone up.

“Now, who’re you gonna call for help?” he snidely asked.

That phone was my fucking lifeline! I needed it or I was sure to die. With the later hour and the fact the neighborhood houses are far apart, no one would hear me if I cried for help. That phone was necessary!

Forgetting the tremendous bone spur pain in my foot and my need for crutches, I leapt from my chair and ran to the edge of the garage where, with a lot of effort, I slid my hand in between the palm of his hand and my phone. The moment he realized the location of my hand, he squeezed the phone as hard as he could, not only crushing my hand to the point of pain, but also cracking my screen. I lost that battle.

He ran to one of the inner corners of the garage where I swiftly met him. I punched him in the stomach as hard as I could, but he wasn’t phased. Using my bad foot, I stomped on the top of his left foot with every bit of strength I had. My hope was the pain it would cause would make him drop my phone, but he didn’t feel it. The only recourse I had left was bashing my knee into his balls, but even that proved to be moot. I knew I was screwed.

Throwing my hands in the air, I screamed, “Screw it. Kill me.”

As I walked away from him, he ran towards me from behind and wrapped his arm around my neck, repeating, “How do you like it?”

The force of his body slamming against mine forced me to bash into the plastic, industrial shelves in the garage. What he didn’t realize was his left hand was in a position where, not only could I unlock my phone, but I could call the last number I had dialed.

The moment the dispatcher answered the phone, I strained my voice, saying, “He has me in a choke hold. He has me in a choke hold.” I proceeded to give him my name and street name. By then, they had already known who I was. The dispatcher told me that deputies were in my neighborhood and they will have them respond. Upon hearing that, my ex ran to his car and took off. The dispatcher remained on the phone with me until he was certain I was safe.

**side note. I had trouble swallowing two days later and went to the emergency room. I learned that not only did my ex have me in a choke hold, but he had also strangled me. Since finger prints hadn’t yet formed, the deputies nor I knew. The doctor told me that my adrenaline had been so high that I didn’t remember it.

Less than thirty seconds after my ex backed out of the driveway, the dispatcher told me that the deputies had him. He had almost hit one of their cruisers. He admitted to being drunk, and they found an empty bottle in his van, as well as one with a broken seal and a small amount removed from it. He also admitted to a couple of altercations at my house. I believe with the fact I was on the phone with the Sheriff's Department throughout the day, they believed me. I’m grateful they did.

My ex was escorted to the county jail on a Saturday night, which meant he had to wait there until his arraignment on Monday morning. I knew I was safe until then. In the months that followed, he pled his charges down to next to nothing. I couldn’t afford to have him in jail because I wouldn’t get child support, so I agreed to the plea deal. His OVI case is on hold until April where I’m sure he’ll be found guilty. Despite my time working as a police dispatcher in New York, I can’t begin to guess what my ex’s punishment will be. I am certain of two things, though. First, he won’t go to jail as it’s his first offence and because he’s doing everything the court is requiring to do. The second is that my ex will never have the opportunity to do something like that to me again.

I understand that my situation is minor compared to so many other women. I don’t want to know the statistics of those who don’t make it out alive. My ex now lives 90 minutes away. Myself, along with six other non-family members, all believe when he gets drunk again (because he will,) he will come here. He will come for me and there will be one of two ways I’ll be leaving—ambulance or hearse.

I’m Ash.

I am a victim of domestic violence.

I survived.