Several months ago, I was embroiled in a bit of a family drama. I received a vicious e-mail from a cousin, who I do not know, about one of my blog posts. This blog post expressed my love for experiences we had at our beloved family cabin, but also expressed hurt that the cabin was gone. Having someone completely belittle my experience and viciously attack me about a heartfelt blog post, made me sick and sad. Knowing that 'family' could be this heartless and unkind made me sick to my stomach. It also triggered old traumas, old hurts.
Since rape and domestic violence in my late teens and early 20's, I have suffered from PTSD. More than 20 years later, at times, I expect this hurt, this pain, that I carry deep within my body, to be gone. I often don't realize how easily triggered I am, nor recognize when I begin to shut down. The e-mail that I received and the actions of other family members in this same clan made me question myself, made me shut down and hide. I felt overwhelmed and felt that I had no worth. The same feelings and insidious messages my abuser had instilled in me. I recently read that one symptom of PTSD is the feeling that your world is about to fall down around you at any moment. One trigger can set me into this feeling and throw me into complete panic. With the events that happened back in February, I have slowly begun to realize how easily I am still triggered. Abuse and trauma never completely go away.
Many traditions and philosophies have a message of 'acceptance', of learning to accept those things we cannot change. This philosophy, while helpful for some, can be harmful at times for those of us who have suffered from abuse. When we have the type of body trauma and anxiety that comes from deeply abusive and invasive experiences, it is really hard to accept those things we cannot change. It can take years to heal from traumatic experiences and jumping to 'acceptance' or 'forgiveness' can, at times, suppress the real healing that comes from feeling the rage, the sadness, and the loss of innocence and trust.
With each trigger, I learn that my trauma lies deep within my body, mind and spirit. I wonder about the very public victims we have heard about the past
year: the women who were raped by Cosby, the young victims of Josh
Duggar, the many victims of campus rape, the ex-wife of Bill O'Reilly, and
more. How are they faring? Are they easily triggered? Do they shy
away from intimacy and struggle with this many years later? Do they have
a hard time trusting anyone? Do they carry their trauma as wounds to
their souls and have they been given a chance to heal? My heart hurts for them. This long term hurting and healing is often forgotten in discussions about sexual and domestic violence. Media doesn't focus on the fact that abuse is a wound on the victims' soul, a wound that can be re-opened, that can refuse to heal. Sometimes, they talk about the hypocrisy of the perpetrator, but we forget that years later, there are still victims of these crimes that are facing ongoing life-changing hurt.
I also feel deep sympathy for 'public' victims as they not only have their own trauma from the abuse, they are also re-traumatized by people in the media who minimize their pain. The media has been rife with examples of this cultural need to require victims to shut up, accept, forgive and move on. We hear public figures call abuse ' a mistake' while trying to minimize the impact, the deep hurt that the victims are subject to for the rest of their lives. My call to the media, to public figures who speak out, is to think before you speak, think of the victim and the trauma they endure and then re-endure when their abuse is made public by choice or by chance. My call to all of us is to be kind, to think about the impact that your mere words can have on someones life, be it a nasty e-mail or a hateful comment on social media. There are so many of us out here, wounded and trying to heal. We could do with more compassion and a little less judgment and denial.
I feel my trauma deep in my mind, my body and soul. I have worked hard to heal. But, that trauma is still there, at times, lurking beneath the surface. Sometimes I don't even recognize it when my wound is re-opened and raw. This wound is not visible to the outside, but it is there nonetheless. There are millions of us walking around with similar wounds that at times become infected and life threatening be it through suppression and minimization of pain or through new abusive and hurtful experiences. All of us need to do more to prevent our lives and our children's lives from being shattered by abuse. We need to stand up to those who want to shut us up, who want to deny our experience. As we all work to prevent and heal from abuse, we need to hold our hearts open for others who are hurt and wounded. Remember that our trauma is a long term wound and that we must be gentle with ourselves to move forward. Together, we can heal, grow, and work towards a world where abuse is rare, not common, and those traumatized are supported, not suppressed and re-traumatized.
Showing posts with label domestic violence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label domestic violence. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 27, 2015
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Our Tragic Legacy of Hiding
Since last week, I have been in heavy 'musing' mode, struggling to find the words to thoughts that overwhelm and disturb me. So many times I come face to face with the issue of secrecy, hiding and shame and it seems like it is beyond my abilities to address it. It is so deeply embedded in our society and our families. Our ability to communicate and listen, to confront, and to soothe is so badly damaged that people are literally dying both quick and long deaths because of it.
This post is for the woman living in fear of a husband who abuses her, who hides this from everyone because he is a 'well respected' member of his community and no-one would believe her; a woman who suffers more than anyone should ever suffer without community to support her.
This post is for a man with mental health issues who lives in perpetual suffering in his head; who fears reaching out because 'men just don't do that'. Even if he did reach out, the methods of 'care' are sadly lacking because of our deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry and our inability to find better options. Options that may be more available if we, as a society, had just learned how to question, how to look deeply and confront wrongs and find better answers.
This post is for the sexual abuse survivor who tells small parts of her community her story, only to be shunned, ignored and sometimes even ostracized; a survivor who learns that hiding is better because that's the message society gives her. This survivor loses key supports by isolating and those who 'know' are often left to carry a heavy burden themselves, without community, without communication; sickening whole communities of people.
This post of for the gay teenager living in a small religious community, who hides a major part of who he is for fear of ostracism and sometimes worse; a teenager who may become addicted to alcohol or drugs or even kill himself because the price of hiding is just too great.
This post is for the person who grieves the loss of a close loved on in secret because our culture puts a 'timeline' on grief and looks down on long term expressions of grief ; a person suffering in silence instead of sharing a load that may be made lighter just by the sharing of it.
This post is for countless others who hide parts of themselves, who hide parts of their stories, because there is no support out there for them; who, when they do share their stories, are often ignored or diminished in sometimes deeply wounding ways.
We are as sick as the secrets we keep, the shame that we hold on to and are terrified to share and release. This shame isolates all of us and teaches us to shut our hearts down in the face of pain. It separates us from other people; diminishing our sense of community by closing all of us down to the pain and trauma that is merely a part of human experience.
We learn from this culture that some things must be hidden. Our deep hurts, our grief, our traumas, our addictions, our illnesses all must be hidden away. We are taught to 'hide' and 'move on'. Our children are taught that tough situations must be hidden, that its better not to talk about major trauma. This hiding and suppression is deadly to both children and adults alike. Those of us that refuse to hide are often ostracized. Hiding our trauma often leads to addiction, physical and mental health issues. The traumas that happen to one person often affect entire communities with a dark and dysfunctional weight, a legacy of shame and pain.
We cannot afford to keep hiding. Our children deserve so much more than the society that they are born into. They deserve communities of support where they can express things that torment them without fear and surrounded by love. Without expression of our deep sadness and trauma, we can never experience real joy. All of us deserve a place where we can be open about trauma, where it is not a 'dirty little secret' that we carry around while it silently kills us. We can no longer run from those things that make us uncomfortable. Those who are suffering deserve so much more than silence and avoidance. We all deserve so much more.
This post is for the woman living in fear of a husband who abuses her, who hides this from everyone because he is a 'well respected' member of his community and no-one would believe her; a woman who suffers more than anyone should ever suffer without community to support her.
This post is for a man with mental health issues who lives in perpetual suffering in his head; who fears reaching out because 'men just don't do that'. Even if he did reach out, the methods of 'care' are sadly lacking because of our deep ties to the pharmaceutical industry and our inability to find better options. Options that may be more available if we, as a society, had just learned how to question, how to look deeply and confront wrongs and find better answers.
This post is for the sexual abuse survivor who tells small parts of her community her story, only to be shunned, ignored and sometimes even ostracized; a survivor who learns that hiding is better because that's the message society gives her. This survivor loses key supports by isolating and those who 'know' are often left to carry a heavy burden themselves, without community, without communication; sickening whole communities of people.
This post of for the gay teenager living in a small religious community, who hides a major part of who he is for fear of ostracism and sometimes worse; a teenager who may become addicted to alcohol or drugs or even kill himself because the price of hiding is just too great.
This post is for the person who grieves the loss of a close loved on in secret because our culture puts a 'timeline' on grief and looks down on long term expressions of grief ; a person suffering in silence instead of sharing a load that may be made lighter just by the sharing of it.
This post is for countless others who hide parts of themselves, who hide parts of their stories, because there is no support out there for them; who, when they do share their stories, are often ignored or diminished in sometimes deeply wounding ways.
We are as sick as the secrets we keep, the shame that we hold on to and are terrified to share and release. This shame isolates all of us and teaches us to shut our hearts down in the face of pain. It separates us from other people; diminishing our sense of community by closing all of us down to the pain and trauma that is merely a part of human experience.
We learn from this culture that some things must be hidden. Our deep hurts, our grief, our traumas, our addictions, our illnesses all must be hidden away. We are taught to 'hide' and 'move on'. Our children are taught that tough situations must be hidden, that its better not to talk about major trauma. This hiding and suppression is deadly to both children and adults alike. Those of us that refuse to hide are often ostracized. Hiding our trauma often leads to addiction, physical and mental health issues. The traumas that happen to one person often affect entire communities with a dark and dysfunctional weight, a legacy of shame and pain.
We cannot afford to keep hiding. Our children deserve so much more than the society that they are born into. They deserve communities of support where they can express things that torment them without fear and surrounded by love. Without expression of our deep sadness and trauma, we can never experience real joy. All of us deserve a place where we can be open about trauma, where it is not a 'dirty little secret' that we carry around while it silently kills us. We can no longer run from those things that make us uncomfortable. Those who are suffering deserve so much more than silence and avoidance. We all deserve so much more.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Our Trauma Lives
As you leave jail today, you leave the place that kept us safe from your harassment for a blessed 6 months of not worrying about what lies around the corner or on the other end of a phone.
The legacy of trauma that you left our little family lives.
It lives in the sleepless nights of one you traumatized. It lives in the ways that I learned to numb myself. It lives in dreams deferred. It lives in our anxieties, in our sadness, anger and depression. It lives in the ways that we have all learned to protect ourselves in our own unique ways. Sometimes we learn healthy ways and other times, we don't. We shut down, we get ill, we get tense, we get angry.
And it's a funny thing about trauma, I think that I have moved on and found peace. Then, something hits me and my rage and resentment comes back. It comes back and consumes me. I try to breathe and let go. Forgiveness does not come easy. I know that holding on to that rage is only punishing me, but it comes, without warning. Then, if I am not aware of it and work through it, it turns into all consuming depression.
The legacy of trauma that you left us lives.
It lives in our strength sometimes. The passion and creativity that one of us has used to heal and dance through the pain. It lives in the beautiful writing and creativity of the other. It lives in my ability to help others through that pain when they are going through similar issues. It lives in my deep respect and compassion for others. My deep pain has opened my heart to others in a way that it might not have opened without the trauma. It has given our girls an awareness of others struggles and with that, compassion and respect. They have not let that trauma turn into hatred. Instead, they love others with open hearts. Their trust of others may not be completely intact, but at least they can still love deeply. You have not completely destroyed our tender hearts.
The legacy of trauma that you left us lives.
But, we will not let it take us down. We will keep putting one foot in the other. We will dance through it. We will write through it. We will love each other through it. We will take the ugliness and transform it into something beautiful.
You will not destroy us. We will not let you.
The legacy of trauma that you left our little family lives.
It lives in the sleepless nights of one you traumatized. It lives in the ways that I learned to numb myself. It lives in dreams deferred. It lives in our anxieties, in our sadness, anger and depression. It lives in the ways that we have all learned to protect ourselves in our own unique ways. Sometimes we learn healthy ways and other times, we don't. We shut down, we get ill, we get tense, we get angry.
And it's a funny thing about trauma, I think that I have moved on and found peace. Then, something hits me and my rage and resentment comes back. It comes back and consumes me. I try to breathe and let go. Forgiveness does not come easy. I know that holding on to that rage is only punishing me, but it comes, without warning. Then, if I am not aware of it and work through it, it turns into all consuming depression.
The legacy of trauma that you left us lives.
It lives in our strength sometimes. The passion and creativity that one of us has used to heal and dance through the pain. It lives in the beautiful writing and creativity of the other. It lives in my ability to help others through that pain when they are going through similar issues. It lives in my deep respect and compassion for others. My deep pain has opened my heart to others in a way that it might not have opened without the trauma. It has given our girls an awareness of others struggles and with that, compassion and respect. They have not let that trauma turn into hatred. Instead, they love others with open hearts. Their trust of others may not be completely intact, but at least they can still love deeply. You have not completely destroyed our tender hearts.
The legacy of trauma that you left us lives.
But, we will not let it take us down. We will keep putting one foot in the other. We will dance through it. We will write through it. We will love each other through it. We will take the ugliness and transform it into something beautiful.
You will not destroy us. We will not let you.
Friday, October 3, 2014
I Survived..
In honor of Domestic Violence Awareness month, I have decided to share my story and break the silence that accompanies domestic violence. This post is in honor of someone I knew who lost her life to domestic violence. Domestic violence is deadly and I hope that no-one ever forgets that. I am lucky enough to be sitting here writing a blog post, but many are not that lucky.
Going away to college when I was 18, I was filled with big dreams. I was filled with excitement to get away from the small town I grew up in and experience life with new hope away from the troubles of my teenage years in high school. I never had a romantic relationship in high school and I looked forward to maybe finally finding someone. Things did not start well the first few months in college due to a few very traumatic events. However, the one thing that came out of these few months was my friendship with my 'soul' sister, my best friend, Heidi A. whose friendship still endures to this day even after her untimely death almost 7 years ago.
At the beginning of my third quarter in college, Heidi's friend, X came up to visit. I was immediately drawn to him. He and Heidi were not currently in a romantic relationship, but had been in high school in Texas. Why I was so drawn to him, I am not sure. Anyone meeting him at that time would immediately sense that something was 'off' about him, but I thought he was charismatic, funny, sweet, and was so different than anyone I had ever met. Don't get me wrong though, I also knew he was 'off'. Within a few short weeks, he and I were romantically involved. He was traveling and living in his car with his dog. The three of us took trips to the ocean and explored the Northwest together. Heidi and I were left several times in strange cities, for many many hours, wondering where he had wandered off to. We wondered at some of his behavior and our roommates even staged an intervention to try and get him banned from our apartment. This early time was also punctuated with weird mind games that he loved to play on Heidi and I. Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking, but at the time, I was swept up in some romantic ideal that told me that he was just 'misunderstood' and had so much to offer the world with his creativity, his music and his ideas.
My first quarter of my second year in college was a quarter of growth and friendship. Heidi and I lived in an apartment together and would hang out for hours and hours every night with our friend, Matt listening to music and talking. X was gone for this semester. He had traveled to Kansas and then back to Texas. My parent's divorced during this time, which caused some upheaval and strife. I ended up going to Texas with Heidi for Christmas and re-connected with X. I loved his 'nonconformity' and the fact that he would not adhere to any social norms. After we returned to Olympia, he followed shortly after. What followed were several months of tumult and strife that culminated in me leaving college and taking off with X. Within several months, I was pregnant. X started physically abusing me the summer before I found out I was pregnant. He was increasingly paranoid about everything and often this paranoia led to hostility towards me. At the beginning of this pregnancy, I once thought the child had died because he hit me so hard in the back that I started bleeding the next day.
I went back to college and isolated myself from my best friends, Matt and Heidi and from everyone else, including my family. I know now how concerned they were about me. I knew I was living a nightmare, but I did not know how to get out of it. I thought I could somehow help or change him and that he would be better. Ironically, my mom was the director of domestic violence programs for the state of Wyoming. My family knew what was going on, but felt powerless to stop it. I remember vividly a letter my mom sent me early in my pregnancy, pleading with me to leave him and sending a big packet of handouts about domestic violence. I ignored them. X was becoming increasingly delusional and paranoid. Violence was an at least weekly occurrence. On my birthday that year, I came home from school and he held a knife to my throat. I broke free and took the bus to a movie and stayed at my worried friend, Heidi's house that night. Of course, I told no-one the extent of what was happening to me. The pregnancy culminated in X becoming almost completely catatonic, me having the baby and both of us leaving Olympia and going to our respective parents houses. (One thing to note about this time period was that there was a doctor who I saw regularly throughout my pregnancy who had to have seen bruises, but never said a thing. I do not know if him saying anything would have helped, but I would like to think it might have.)
Amazingly, after all that, I ended up getting back together with X when our daughter was around 6 months old. During our absence, he was hospitalized and medicated. Alternately, I went with our daughter and lived with my dad and recuperated from the nightmare that was my pregnancy. That winter, the three of us headed back to my college. Some of this time was somewhat of a 'honeymoon' period for us. However, although the violence had stopped, the narcissism and mind games were still there at times. Deep down, I knew that I wanted more than this. I knew that he hadn't really changed. Even though some thought that his mental illness caused his violence and abuse, I knew that it did not. I knew that even when he was medicated, he could still be self centered and hurtful. He did not work and his grandiose dreams of being a musician were never realized. We moved to Portland, and that summer, I fell in love with three different people. I obviously was trying to get away from him, but did not know how. I did try to leave him after falling particularly hard for the last of the three people, but he left and X was still there. Within 2 weeks, we were back together. I do not know why I kept being drawn back to him, but I do know that my self esteem was shattered. I do know that perhaps I felt that there was nothing better out there for me and that perhaps, he was all I had and all I deserved.
Fast forward several years, we were living in Fort Collins and my oldest daughter was about to start kindergarten. I was relieved as I felt that I could start working again and maybe get on the path to finally leaving X. The summer before my daughter started kindergarten, I found out I was pregnant. This was extremely hard for me as I did not know how to survive on my own with one child, let alone two. At the same time, X was told by a psychiatrist, who saw him for 15 minutes every 6 months, that he could go off his medication. X became increasingly paranoid and verbally abusive. One thing I did know is that I could not put my kids through this anymore. It was enough for me to go through it, but to have my kids go through it was another thing. My youngest daughter was born and things were not any better with X. In fact, they were getting worse. I started to go to an incredible domestic violence support group and therapy with the leader of that group. The light came on. Finally, I realized that not only could I get out, I had to. Our lives depended on it.
I told X he needed to leave. It was several months before he finally left. However, he did not stop his abusive behavior towards us. He would not leave us alone. I still cared for him as if he was a child and worried for his physical safety now that he was on his own. I cared for him for years and it was hard to let go of that. But,I slowly started to let go. Without the financial support of my family in these early years, I do not know if we would have made it.
Many of these periods throughout our relationship could comprise a book, instead of a mere blog post. I will be spare in details, but, I finally started to move forward, in spite of all of the hurtful things he continued to do to us. It wasn't easy. I was not easy to be in a relationship with while I healed. Today, we all still feel the effects of the things he has done. His abusive behavior did not end. As recently as this year, we had to get another restraining order due to harassing phone calls. But, we move on. The effects of domestic violence last a lifetime and there is never a time that I will be completely 'over it'. Nor will my children. It is like a scar that is healing, but never fully healed. For my children and others, I would impart the lesson that there is hope. I would also impart that no-one ever deserves abuse and that you cannot change your abuser even when you desperately want to and think you can. And for those who love someone who is being abused and/or see or hear it happening, act. Do something to help. Offer financial support. Offer emotional support. Call the police. Do something. Most of all, do not abandon someone who won't leave their abuser. Their staying may baffle you, but your support and the support of others could be the key to them finally leaving. And finally, in spite of all this, I do not regret our relationship because it gave me two amazing young women that give me so much. I would not trade that for anything.
Going away to college when I was 18, I was filled with big dreams. I was filled with excitement to get away from the small town I grew up in and experience life with new hope away from the troubles of my teenage years in high school. I never had a romantic relationship in high school and I looked forward to maybe finally finding someone. Things did not start well the first few months in college due to a few very traumatic events. However, the one thing that came out of these few months was my friendship with my 'soul' sister, my best friend, Heidi A. whose friendship still endures to this day even after her untimely death almost 7 years ago.
At the beginning of my third quarter in college, Heidi's friend, X came up to visit. I was immediately drawn to him. He and Heidi were not currently in a romantic relationship, but had been in high school in Texas. Why I was so drawn to him, I am not sure. Anyone meeting him at that time would immediately sense that something was 'off' about him, but I thought he was charismatic, funny, sweet, and was so different than anyone I had ever met. Don't get me wrong though, I also knew he was 'off'. Within a few short weeks, he and I were romantically involved. He was traveling and living in his car with his dog. The three of us took trips to the ocean and explored the Northwest together. Heidi and I were left several times in strange cities, for many many hours, wondering where he had wandered off to. We wondered at some of his behavior and our roommates even staged an intervention to try and get him banned from our apartment. This early time was also punctuated with weird mind games that he loved to play on Heidi and I. Looking back, I wonder what I was thinking, but at the time, I was swept up in some romantic ideal that told me that he was just 'misunderstood' and had so much to offer the world with his creativity, his music and his ideas.
My first quarter of my second year in college was a quarter of growth and friendship. Heidi and I lived in an apartment together and would hang out for hours and hours every night with our friend, Matt listening to music and talking. X was gone for this semester. He had traveled to Kansas and then back to Texas. My parent's divorced during this time, which caused some upheaval and strife. I ended up going to Texas with Heidi for Christmas and re-connected with X. I loved his 'nonconformity' and the fact that he would not adhere to any social norms. After we returned to Olympia, he followed shortly after. What followed were several months of tumult and strife that culminated in me leaving college and taking off with X. Within several months, I was pregnant. X started physically abusing me the summer before I found out I was pregnant. He was increasingly paranoid about everything and often this paranoia led to hostility towards me. At the beginning of this pregnancy, I once thought the child had died because he hit me so hard in the back that I started bleeding the next day.
I went back to college and isolated myself from my best friends, Matt and Heidi and from everyone else, including my family. I know now how concerned they were about me. I knew I was living a nightmare, but I did not know how to get out of it. I thought I could somehow help or change him and that he would be better. Ironically, my mom was the director of domestic violence programs for the state of Wyoming. My family knew what was going on, but felt powerless to stop it. I remember vividly a letter my mom sent me early in my pregnancy, pleading with me to leave him and sending a big packet of handouts about domestic violence. I ignored them. X was becoming increasingly delusional and paranoid. Violence was an at least weekly occurrence. On my birthday that year, I came home from school and he held a knife to my throat. I broke free and took the bus to a movie and stayed at my worried friend, Heidi's house that night. Of course, I told no-one the extent of what was happening to me. The pregnancy culminated in X becoming almost completely catatonic, me having the baby and both of us leaving Olympia and going to our respective parents houses. (One thing to note about this time period was that there was a doctor who I saw regularly throughout my pregnancy who had to have seen bruises, but never said a thing. I do not know if him saying anything would have helped, but I would like to think it might have.)
Amazingly, after all that, I ended up getting back together with X when our daughter was around 6 months old. During our absence, he was hospitalized and medicated. Alternately, I went with our daughter and lived with my dad and recuperated from the nightmare that was my pregnancy. That winter, the three of us headed back to my college. Some of this time was somewhat of a 'honeymoon' period for us. However, although the violence had stopped, the narcissism and mind games were still there at times. Deep down, I knew that I wanted more than this. I knew that he hadn't really changed. Even though some thought that his mental illness caused his violence and abuse, I knew that it did not. I knew that even when he was medicated, he could still be self centered and hurtful. He did not work and his grandiose dreams of being a musician were never realized. We moved to Portland, and that summer, I fell in love with three different people. I obviously was trying to get away from him, but did not know how. I did try to leave him after falling particularly hard for the last of the three people, but he left and X was still there. Within 2 weeks, we were back together. I do not know why I kept being drawn back to him, but I do know that my self esteem was shattered. I do know that perhaps I felt that there was nothing better out there for me and that perhaps, he was all I had and all I deserved.
Fast forward several years, we were living in Fort Collins and my oldest daughter was about to start kindergarten. I was relieved as I felt that I could start working again and maybe get on the path to finally leaving X. The summer before my daughter started kindergarten, I found out I was pregnant. This was extremely hard for me as I did not know how to survive on my own with one child, let alone two. At the same time, X was told by a psychiatrist, who saw him for 15 minutes every 6 months, that he could go off his medication. X became increasingly paranoid and verbally abusive. One thing I did know is that I could not put my kids through this anymore. It was enough for me to go through it, but to have my kids go through it was another thing. My youngest daughter was born and things were not any better with X. In fact, they were getting worse. I started to go to an incredible domestic violence support group and therapy with the leader of that group. The light came on. Finally, I realized that not only could I get out, I had to. Our lives depended on it.
I told X he needed to leave. It was several months before he finally left. However, he did not stop his abusive behavior towards us. He would not leave us alone. I still cared for him as if he was a child and worried for his physical safety now that he was on his own. I cared for him for years and it was hard to let go of that. But,I slowly started to let go. Without the financial support of my family in these early years, I do not know if we would have made it.
Many of these periods throughout our relationship could comprise a book, instead of a mere blog post. I will be spare in details, but, I finally started to move forward, in spite of all of the hurtful things he continued to do to us. It wasn't easy. I was not easy to be in a relationship with while I healed. Today, we all still feel the effects of the things he has done. His abusive behavior did not end. As recently as this year, we had to get another restraining order due to harassing phone calls. But, we move on. The effects of domestic violence last a lifetime and there is never a time that I will be completely 'over it'. Nor will my children. It is like a scar that is healing, but never fully healed. For my children and others, I would impart the lesson that there is hope. I would also impart that no-one ever deserves abuse and that you cannot change your abuser even when you desperately want to and think you can. And for those who love someone who is being abused and/or see or hear it happening, act. Do something to help. Offer financial support. Offer emotional support. Call the police. Do something. Most of all, do not abandon someone who won't leave their abuser. Their staying may baffle you, but your support and the support of others could be the key to them finally leaving. And finally, in spite of all this, I do not regret our relationship because it gave me two amazing young women that give me so much. I would not trade that for anything.
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