I Am Jane Doe…A Story of Survival

Who would have thought that, I Latoya Johnson, a successful hairstylist with celebrity clientele, who traveled the country styling hair for major fashion shows, magazines and video shoots would be labeled a survivor of molestation and rape.  Who would have thought that, me, a powerful women who worked as a promotional and marketing director for a record label would be a victim of domestic violence and suicidal. And who would have actually fathomed, me, Latoya Johnson, an independent and successful woman, would be lying here in the hospital as a Jane Doe with a gunshot wound to the head, and my brain and my humanity holding on for dear life.  Who would have thought, it? Not me…Not in a million years. But that is who I am. That is my life, and what I had become. A survivor. I survivor of circumstance. A survivor of pain. A survivor of life. So sit back, and relax as I take you on a journey to finding myself again. Finding my way from being a Jane Doe in an ICU, to Latoya Johnson a women of destiny who navigated her way from pain to purpose.

As I stated before, life was good.  At only 26 years old, everything in my life was doing exactly what I wanted it to do.  I was in my prime and making waves in the industry as the woman to know, and someone who got things done.  I was a busy woman, and I loved it. I loved everything about it. The fast pace. The power moves. The business meetings, and most importantly the person who I had become with nothing, but hard work and God on my side.  But of course, with my life shining so brightly, I would eventually learn that with the good, you sometimes attract the bad, which was the case, when I’ll call him “Steven” walked into my life.

Steven, had his own struggles that he was battling, but he was handling them, and had been drug free for several years when he came into my life.  He was a good man. I loving man, and one who made me feel special, so it made it easy to see past those flaws and welcome him into my life without reservation.  But I think the naiveté of my age, didn’t prepare me for what happens when a good person who used to have a drug problem, relapses into a total stranger with demons so big, that I even with all my experience in business, could navigate through.

PCP, Love Boat, Wet or Water, whatever you want to call it.  There are so many names for this very dangerous drug used to perform autopsies on dead people. The thought of someone smoking this was unfathomable to me, but Steven did, and through it we journeyed through a dark and vicious game of Russian roulette with both of our lives.

To be completely honest, growing up, I would kind of put myself in a different category than my friends who were dating men who were abusive to them.  With all that I had accomplished, I knew that would never be my life. I just knew a relationship like that could never written in the book of destiny.  That is until I was dropped with a fist to my face, and found myself lying in a puddle of blood from my busted lip and nose, and a man standing over me like a madman who was cocked and ready for me to react, so that he can inflict that pain on me again.  It was really nothing that brought this on. All couples have disagreements, and from what I recall, what we talked about didn’t warrant him doing what he did to me. But the drug turned him into a monster, and it was at that moment, that Steven wasn’t Steven anymore, but a stranger, a shell of the man I loved, but the spirit of something controlled by the evil of the drug.  

I didn’t tell anyone what happened. Revealing all truths, I could have, because my mother and stepfather were at home, but I was in shock and embarrassed that it even happened, and I didn’t want to try to explain to them, what I didn’t even understand myself.  I was confused, and trying to understand what I did wrong and how I ended up looking like boxing contender, instead of the successful woman that I was. So like a thief in the night, I slithered out the back door, and stayed at a friend’s house until I could figure out what to do about what was now my life. As I walked to my friend’s door, I rehearsed a thousand times in my head the lie I would tell her about why I was all battered and bruised. I fell, no…I was trying to move something and something heavy fell on my face. No, that wouldn’t work. I didn’t know really what to say, and I really can’t remember what I told her.  All I know is that it was enough for her to not ask any more questions. Steven was my love. He was my everything, but I knew that him hitting me wasn’t the love that I was used to or even looking for. I was not the people that I talked about. It was me, so how was I, Latoya, the woman who had it all together, now a victim of her circumstance.  

I didn’t leave him.  I stayed. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t know how to end it.  I didn’t know how to cut the love off, and with that decision came more beatings, and more paranoia from the drugs that had now taken over his mind completely now.  He would do all sorts of irrational things. I remember one day so clearly in my mind where we were driving down the highway, and all of sudden, he would start yelling "Boo, roll the window down, just in case they start shooting at us. Lean your seat all the way back. So the glass doesn't get in your face and eye's." His paranoia was at an all-time high, and because I didn’t want to set him off, I was careful in the way that I responded, and then asked what he was referring to, because I didn’t see anyone around.  His paranoia heightened, as he began banging on the dashboard screaming louder and louder. He looked like a crazed madman sitting on the other side of me, so I did what he said rolled my window down and lean my seat all the back with my foot barely touching the car peddles, and said a silent prayer all the way home.

One would think that after that moment that I would have left, but to be honest, I believe that I was trapped in the memory of him. The Steven that used to bring me flowers. The Steven who made me feel special. The Steven who I would fall asleep with as he held me in his arms.  That was the Steven that I kept seeing when I saw him, but living in that delusion cost me something. It cost me my peace. It cost me my dignity, and if I didn’t snap out of it, possibly my life. I think that the breaking point was when I took him to a job interview. Everything had been perfect that day. To be honest, we hadn’t had a day like that in a long time. The conversation was good.  We were vibing, and the conversation was light, and we were even joking and laughing. Something that hadn’t been a part of our life in a long time. He made what I thought was a joke about how cute I would look pregnant with his child. Not thinking, I said, we are no way we are ready for a baby, and before I could even finish my sentence, the light in his eyes, turned cold and black, as he started punching me all over, and yelling "You are going to stop taking birth control today and have my f**king baby! You hear me! Do you f**king hear me!?” All I could do was ask him to please stop hitting me, before we crash.  But that didn’t deter him, and he began to hit me harder yelling that I better not crash. By the time we made it to his interview, my body was completely bruised, and my life would never be the same again.

I was scared to death, and knew I had to get to out of the relationship, but was afraid that he would get high one day and retaliate. He wasn’t stable, and all I could think about was how he could come to my job or my home, and kill everyone around, all because he wanted to kill me.  So I started at that moment planning an exit strategy, but little did I know that the one I planned would not be the one that life planned for me.

Darkness called me by name on the evening of May 7, 2007. That night I was working my restaurant job, when Steven called and asked if I could pick him up.  While I wanted to say no, I knew the repercussions to that response without an escape plan in place. So, I said yes, and unknowingly landed in the middle of his madness, that he incited earlier in the day with a group of guys.  As we drove down the road, a white SUV rode pass us, and he subtly instructed me to watch out for it. There was no panic that would make me think that it was nothing more than a car in the way, until a flood of bullets began to hit my car from every direction. From the front, the sides, and unfortunately, one with my name from it eased through my back windshield, then my headrest, before hitting me in the crown of my head causing me to crash. Ironically, my boyfriend and his friends walked away with no injuries, the shooters were long gone, and I, Latoya Johnson, someone who had nothing to do with this fight, was fighting for her life with a bullet in my head that was meant for him.  

Tuesday, May 8, 2007, at 12:42 am was the day my Life Change forever. May 8th was the day that I had to learn to live a new life way different than what I had imagined.

I was admitted to Prince George County Hospital, in critical condition, and my family was told by the surgeon that the bullet couldn't be removed due to its location. It had landed inches of way from the middle of my brain, and landed on a vein near two main arteries. I had fragments behind my left eye, and my forehead, so instead of taking a chance of me bleeding to death, they chose to be safe and leave it, letting my family know that the next 24 hours were critical, and would determine the quality of my new life, if I survived at all.

I was placed in a medically induced coma. While my ex was being escorted around by police in a bullet proof vest for his protection. I was hooked up to all kinds of life supporting machines, with homicide detectives floating around my room. While he walked away, and didn’t even take a thought to check if I was alive or even ok. After 5 days being in the ICU, I was finally out of the woods, moved out of ICU, and began to have visitors not long after they transferred me.  I still really wasn’t aware of what happened to me. I had been out of it since the shooting. But the look on my friend’s face who visited me one day took me into a tailspin. All I remember saying is…Girl I don't know what happened, but I'll be out of here in a couple of days and back to work. Her look said it all, as she explained to me that it wasn’t that simple.  I tried to get up to inquire further, only to realize that I couldn’t move my right side, my left side was extremely weak, and my right hand was balled up in this tight fist, as if I had a stroke.  Tears rolled down my face, as I struggled to open my hand, only for it to grow together and tighter. What happened to me!?!  I yelled.  But she just sat there in silence for a brief moment, before telling me that I was shot in the head.  I laid there in disbelief, before running my fingers to the top of my head, feeling a bump, as my fingers slipped into a small hole on my crown.  

All I could think about was, why?  I thought. Why is this happening? I had did everything right, but I take it doing it right has nothing to do with your destiny.  Doing it right doesn’t mean that if you dabble with danger that daggers won’t eventually hit you. No, I didn’t know how this happened?  Or did I, but was in denial of the fact that after that first punch I should have left him in the first place, instead of reminiscing on what was.  She later told me that Steven went to jail. Not for the mess he got me in, but because of the drugs that so callously ruined our lives.   

I was no longer the same. Instead of the woman I knew, I was not an invalid who had to have people take care of me. My body was in shock, and the bullet had scrambled my brain affecting the organs and how they functioned. I was a 26 year old infant, who had to be fed, changed, and learn to walk all over again, and having to be taken care of in that way left me humiliated. Imagine going from being this independent woman to having someone feed you, change you and dress you, and to control your every move. To put you in a strait jacket, like you are crazy, instead of understanding that my life would never be the same again. I laid there traumatized, as the doctor told my family and I that it would take a minimum of 5 years for my brain to completely heal, and said don’t expect the old me to return, because I will never be the same woman again.

It was tough for me, change after change, and trying to get people to see what I was going through, but they didn’t understand. To be truthful, they didn’t even really even understand my words…literally. In my mind I would be speaking in complete sentences, but frustration set in when I realized that no one understood a word I said. I was speaking in puzzles, fragments, and for them to not understand me sunk me deeper into depression. A depression that I never thought I would find my way out of. My personality changed. I was explosive, and just said whatever came to mind.  I couldn’t control it, and eventually had to stop watching certain shows on television due to the immense emotional reaction I would receive. Then after 31 days, I was released from the hospital, and even made some progress, but not nearly enough, as I still need someone to dress me, still in pampers, because I couldn’t control my bodily functions, and I couldn't pivot when I stood up.  

Adjusting to home life wasn’t easy either, my family had to assist me with just about everything. My medications, I had to be carried around the house, I couldn't even write.

The only things I could do was feed myself and color. Coloring became my solace, and helped me remain calm and eased what felt like brain oozing migraines that plagued my life.  Since childhood I had always suffered with migraines, but now with my brain injury, to even walk 10 steps with my physical therapist would send my pain through the roof, and me left in tears. 

But days turned to months, and I began to adjust a bit to my new life.  What choice did I have, I couldn’t just sit around feeling sorry for myself.  But as I began to find comfort in my new zone, my stepfather suffered a massive heart attack and died sending me into a deep dark depression.  After everything I experienced, there was no denying that I needed to talk to a professional counselor. I had a lot emotions bottled up inside that I never really dealt with. My relationship, the shooting, the rehabilitation, the death of my step-father, I needed to get help before I lost myself completely. I got help, and got better bit by bit, and for the next eight years, I woke up every other morning in agony. The migraines never got under control, and the nausea, motion sickness, dizziness and being sick was beginning to wear on my confidence level. That is until I was introduced to Total Life Changes (TLC) products. These products literally saved my life, and helped to alleviate some of the pain that I was experiencing. Something that no prescription medicine has ever been able to do, and through those changes I became a representative of their products, and became a walking testimony of what they can do and how they can change your life.

Looking back, if there were any lessons learned from this ordeal.  It is that there are no mistakes in life. Everything happens for a reason, and I am living proof that miracles are possible. While it’s easy to stay in our bubble of denial, please don't ignore the signs that come into your life to warn you of trouble.  Choices have consequences, whether it be good or bad, they do, and while I wish that I could have worked mine out differently, I can’t. But what I can do is use my story to help you do the right thing. To help you love yourself enough to leave, and most importantly, help you to understand that love should never hurt.  I am lucky to still have my life, but someone else was not so lucky, please take heed of that, and please believe in the power of you. And if you believe in yourself and that strength that you can do anything, even leave a relationship that is not healthy for you and your life. So if my story helped one person do that, then I have done my job, and I can rest easy knowing that all I endured was not in vain.

Now at 37, I have beaten incredible medical odds, and overcame a host of challenges. I went from an Adult infant, who couldn't sit or stand without falling over to walking up and downstairs. From standing on my own for a few seconds, and not being able to form complete sentences, to giving a speech and standing for over an hour. From being washed up in bed, to taking a showers. From walking a few feet to over a 1000 feet. I went from unpredictable to faith filled, and not only giving myself hope, but allowing everyone else around me to see the workings of God in my life as well.