This is a topic that is very near and dear to my heart. One that I have experienced myself and have done a lot of research on so I could better understand how I could have been so brain washed and belittled for so long and no longer had a voice to defend myself. The topic I'm referring to is emotional abuse. It's a topic that many don't talk about and it's a topic that many can't see when they are experiencing it themselves (at least not right away).
If you would have told me 6 years ago that my partner was abusing me I would have come up with every excuse in the book as to why they were doing what they was doing. They're doing it because they love me, They are doing it because they want to raise the children up right, they are doing it because they are strict in their ways, they are doing it because deep down inside it's coming from a caring place. These are just a few of the reason's I told people but most of all...these were the reasons I told myself every single day just to get by. To believe that the person I was with wouldn't hurt us on purpose, it had to be coming from a place of good, right? WRONG!
I had the opportunity to talk with a young woman that was telling me a little bit about her current relationship she was in. I immediately saw myself in her. The naïve, young, lost girl I was nearly 6 years ago. She had no idea what she was explaining to me was abuse. She just thought it was what you go through in a relationship. This very interaction led me to writing this post. You see, when you have been emotionally abused even years later you can still feel that you're doing something wrong by opening up and talking about it. Emotional abuse is tricky and manipulative. It doesn't happen in a way where it's easy to detect. The abuser is very smart about the way they go about it. They make you feel loved, needed, special at first. All the while they are taking away, little by little who you are. You don't see it right away and you try, OH YOU TRY SO HARD TO MAKE THEM HAPPY. But nothing is ever good enough. Nothing you do will ever be good enough because they don't want you to be strong, they don't want you to have confidence, they don't want you to have a voice or realize your potential because if you do...they lose all control. That is the big key factor here, CONTROL. They will take it away from you little by little until one day you are so sick with fear every time you know they are going to come home that you feel like you are having a heart attack. You are sick with fear that the children are going to say the wrong thing or talk during dinner when they aren't supposed to, you are sick with fear that you are going to cook an amazing dinner, set the table and have everything ready for when they get home, but they aren't going to care. They are going to go straight to playing video games and play them until they are ready to come to the table. They do this because they have worked all day and deserve this time (so they tell you). All the while you sit at the table with your children, while dinner get's cold (trying to keep the quiet so they don't get put to bed without food and you have to sneak some into them later that night) and you wait....feeling like nothing you do matters. Feeling like you aren't seen or cared about BUT you find yourself apologizing TO THEM for maybe the meal not being what they wanted and maybe that's why they didn't come in and give you a kiss or are choosing video games over you and your children. But by this point you have lost your voice and you can't find the strength to ask them to come to the table....so you just wait. You wait with a sick feeling in your stomach, you wait with pain in your chest, you wait with sadness in your heart because nothing you do will ever be good enough.
This is just a piece of my story. I was the victim of emotional for about four years. I left this person four times before I finally left them for good. This is actually more common than you know. The average woman will leave her abuser seven times before they leave them for good. Many people that look in from the outside can't imagine why the person would stay, they can't imagine why they wouldn't just walk away from it all but when you are in it, when you are the victim and you are trying to save your family. When you are trying to hold everything together without setting off a ticking time bomb...it's not so easy. You are scared, by this point you rely on this person (they have become "your person"), even through the pain and sadness you still made the vows and commitment to walk through life with this person. So you try and you try and you try. You apologize every day for more things than you can imagine and you hide evidence that your family had visited because if they see this, they won't talk to you for weeks because one of the most common signs of emotional abuse is for them to isolate you. Take you away from friends, loved ones and family. This helps them to keep all the control. This makes it possible to keep you exactly where they want you. We started out with two vehicles and as time went on we went down to one, we both used this vehicle at first and then I started to need to have reasons to use the car. If these reasons weren't what they saw fit, I wasn't able to have the vehicle that day. Isolate...isolate....isolate. Watch for these signs, they are very good at having reasons for everything they do and a lot of the times they will make you feel that they are doing it out of love or for your own safety. They are not!
Next month it will be 5 years since the day I left. It is a date I will never forget. It is a day I will never forget. I remember every single detail of that day. Everything that was said, every tear that was shed, every fear that was felt. That day was the best decision I could have ever made and to say it was hard would be an understatement. Even though I knew by now that what was going on inside the four walls of our home was not ok...it still hurt and it still took a lot of strength. I will never forget the words that he yelled at me that day as I was leaving (the words that my daughter heard him say to me), the words that haunted me for years but were also the words that gave me the drive to do what I'm doing today with my life. You see, they need to make sure they beat you down, take away your confidence (not that I had any at this point any way) and make you feel like you are nothing without them. At the hope that you will come back to them. The words that still drive me today to be the strongest, kindest, independent and most humble person I can be are the words they threw at me, full of hate and anger to get me to stay under their roof, under their power (control).
I now want to talk to the victims out there of emotional abuse. I know your pain. I know how scared you are. I can feel it all over again writing this post. But you have what it takes, you are strong and you can do anything you want in this life. You don't need someone in your life that's bringing you down, that's emotionally hurting you and maybe even your children. I know it doesn't feel like it but you have the strength to leave TODAY if you want to. It may seem like you can't, it may seem right now like you do need this person to survive but you don't. When I left, I had been a stay at home mom for 4 years. I didn't have recent work history. I didn't even have the confidence to think I could get a job. I had three children at the time and I was SO SCARED! But with the support of my family and friends I was able to leave a very poisonous relationship that was slowly killing me. I turned my whole life around in 8 months. I got a full time job, I started renting an apartment for me and my children and I started day by day seeing just who Shandra was and what she was capable of and I tell you this today because if I could do it, YOU CAN TOO. I believe in you. I know you have the strength to move mountains if you want to and you can become whole again. Find yourself again and grow back into that confident person you were before. I'm a big believer that your life experiences do not have to define you. But choosing what you do with them after is where the true magic happens. That is why I'm reaching out today to share a part of my story. In hopes that I can help just one person see that you don't have to live in fear any more. That you are worth so much more and YOU CAN DO IT.
XOXO
Shandra
