Alleah Taylor, the ex-girlfriend of Chad Wheeler, is speaking out for the first time after allegedly being attacked by the former NFL player last month. In an interview with “CBS This Morning” on Wednesday (Feb. 10), Taylor detailed the traumatic incident.

“I still have to regularly get my concussion checked… I have bolts… and a steel plate I’m gonna have forever in my arm,” she said on the show. “I’m gonna have to deal with this the rest of my life.”

Taylor dated Wheeler for six months and told the outlet they’d never had so much as an argument prior to the attack.

“We were, like, best friends,” she said. “We did everything together… I even introduced him to my family. We would babysit my nephew together.”

However, Taylor noticed a change in Wheeler on Jan. 22, when he texted her saying he’d shaved his head.

“He loved, just loved his long hair. Refused to cut it. And it surprised me, and it worried me,” she recalled. “I came home, and Chad was trying to play it off as if he just kinda cut his hair. But then, as time went on throughout the day, he started going downhill emotionally.”

Taylor later told police she believed this was the beginning of a “manic episode” for Wheeler, who suffers from bipolar disorder. Suddenly, she said, he “snapped into a dark place.”

“He stood up and he told me to bow down,” Taylor tearfully recalled. “I asked him why and he didn’t respond. He just told me to bow down again, and I told him no. And he immediately grabbed my neck… That’s when things began.”

Taylor said she blacked out twice while Wheeler choked her. When she regained consciousness the ex-Seattle Seahawks player was allegedly drinking a smoothie.

“I had touched my face… I looked down, and there was blood on my hand,” she said. “I remember getting up and running to the bathroom. Chad was standing by the bed, by the doorway. And he was sipping his smoothie and was like, ‘Wow, you’re still alive.’”

Taylor then locked herself in the bathroom and called 911. When police arrived at the scene, they said it took three officers to restrain Wheeler, who is 6’ 7” and weighs over 300 pounds.

“He went and ate dinner after doing this to me,” Taylor added. “And he didn’t take the same approach with the cops as he did with me.”

After the incident and Wheeler’s arrest, he was dropped from the Seahawks, which said they “strongly condemn this act of domestic violence.” Earlier this month, Wheeler pleaded not guilty to two domestic violence-related charges and one count of resisting arrest. Taylor made a point to face Wheeler in court, saying, “I didn’t want him to think that he had that power over me; that I wasn’t going to defend myself.”

“I thought, ‘How easy would that be for him and his legal team to be able to say whatever they want without having to look me in the eye?’” she added.

Taylor told the court she believed Wheeler was a threat to her safety. However, he was still allowed pre-trial release after posting a $400,000 bond. If convicted, Wheeler faces eight to 12 years in prison.

“I have to say the hardest part of all this wasn’t the surgeries. It wasn’t any of that. It was getting a call from my niece and nephews,” Taylor said. “They thought they had lost me… and the pain in their voice… I will never forget that.”

See Taylor’s interview below.