Victim or Survivor

Domestic Violence is a topic so many people are afraid of, and so many people just take for granted that the only "real" domestic violence is the kind that leaves scars that people can see. Just as bad, and quite possibly worse, are the scars left behind from the cutting remarks, the "jokes", the total feeling of loss of control that a person experiences when they are abused. There was a time in my life, when I questioned why any person in this world would stay with someone that made them feel bad about who they were. That made them feel "less than" in every conceivable way.

Then, I met my Prince Charming. I loved him heart and soul. There was nothing in this world I would not have done for him, there were no limits to the amount of giving that I would do to make him happy. Looking back, I realize the very first arguments that we had were about his tendency to call me stupid, or put me down in subtle ways. He always convinced me I was overreacting, and honestly looking back I still can't swear I wasn't. I do know now though, that those words, whether they were truly just jokes, or whether my feelings were as he told me "being carried around on the tip of my nose", cut me deeper than any knife ever could have. The damage those words inflicted on me, I will carry parts of it forever. The cuts made by his words carved their way into my very soul. Since I left there have been many nights when I came so close to calling, that I came so close to just going home. Then I would look around at my eight year old son, and remind myself, I did not want him growing up and thinking it was perfectly okay to destroy someone else, to hurt them so bad emotionally that they couldn't be fixed.

So, I had done what I had to do. I had left. It had taken so many moments, when I was reduced to nothing but a tearful ball of battling emotion. It had taken mornings when I honestly did not know if I could pull myself up to face another day. It had taken seeing the man I loved stand in our living room with a gun to his head, and knowing that one of us probably would not leave that room. Even when we both did, it took a week for me to leave. When I left, he took my child and swore I would not ever get him back if I didn't come home. I went back, long enough to get my son and leave again. Reading this so many would say, why would anyone miss that? The answer truthfully lies in the fact that I loved him. Heart and soul, I loved him. There were just as many good moments as there were moments that gave me nightmares, but I decided at some point I had to show my son that your relationship should never be what woke you up in the middle of the night screaming. It should not be the cause of nightmares so bad, that even when you awake from them all you can do is rock yourself and cry. A legitimate fear in a relationship should never be, "Will he eventually kill me, or himself?" I had those fears. I felt that heartache. Still to this day I miss the good times, I miss the way he could tell a joke and everyone in the room would burst into laughter, I miss the way that he could make me feel like the most beautiful woman on the planet. But, there are so many hurts, that will never heal, I still cry when I think about burying my Daddy alone, because my husband said he would not go because he hated him.

The main purpose in me writing this article is to tell all the people out there in an abusive relationship that when they tell you if you leave the hurting will end, it is not true. The truth is you will still hurt; there will be scars that you will carry with you forever. There will be times that you would give anything just to feel their touch one more time. But, the one thing that will change is that when you leave, you will begin to find yourself as a person. You will begin to discover that you are really not as bad, as stupid, or as incompetent as you have been led to believe. When you leave, you will begin to find a side of yourself that you may not even recognize, and learn what it feels like to actually be proud of who you are and what you do. It is an amazing thought, and an even more an amazing reality, but one of these days you will learn to love yourself. And that is what makes it worth the leaving. When you do find that point that you realize, no matter what the cause or the reason, you did not deserve to be treated the way that you were, that is when you will begin to heal. To move forward in a life that will truly be yours. To build a life that you can be proud of. That moment when you stand up in a crowded room, proud of who you are, the things that you have accomplished and the life that you have built, that is when you know you are no longer a Domestic Violence Victim, instead you are a Domestic Violence Survivor.