Tag: #strength #survivor #letter #victim #lovedoesnthurt

Domestic Violence-After the Abuse

Domestic Violence isn’t just bruises and blood. The broken doors, shattered pictures, or holes in the walls.

It’s the life after.

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It’s the bad days.

It’s the fear.

It’s anger and feeling ashamed.

It’s always looking over your shoulder, checking the back seat of the car when you get in, triple checking every window and door to be sure it’s locked.

It’s your family. How they don’t understand what you went through, they may try but they will never understand.  They don’t understand the worthless feeling you have deep inside somedays. How no matter how hard you try to get ahead you always feel like you aren’t enough.

It’s guilt. You feel guilty for bringing your family along on this emotional roller coaster. Guilty for needing help. Guilty for not being strong enough to leave.

It’s trying to remember your identity before the abuse. Imagine looking at your reflection then someone shattering the mirror with a hammer, but instead of a hammer it’s a fist and the shards of glass are the pieces of who you were. You are frantically trying to put the pieces back together but everytime you get close the hammer slams down on the mirror again. And this cycle repeats over and over. Breaking the tiny pieces of glass down until there is nothing.

It’s the feeling of disappointment. You’re disappointed in yourself and you feel like you disappointed your family. You did not turn out to be their dream of what a daughter should be.

It’s the child in the morning begging you to stay home with them because you are always gone at work but you have to financially support him. Missing out on events a mother shouldn’t miss.

It’s the social anxiety. Your friends not understanding why you don’t want to go out to bars or feeling out of place around them.

It’s going to work and putting a fake smile on, coming home making dinner, putting your child to bed after spending a measly hour and a half with them.

It’s breaking down the minute the lights turn off, when you can finally let the tears you’ve been holding back for so long fall.

It’s feeling anxious or overwhelmed when someone raises their voice at you. Trying to avoid the flash backs it triggers.

It’s the mental war you have with yourself every time you look in the mirror. Trying to rebuild your self-esteem brick by brick after someone took a wrecking ball to it every single day. Trying to scrub off the disgusting words that were branded into your skin.

It’s the struggle of not letting other people’s words or feelings affect you when they bring up the past.

It’s making it through these bad days and overcoming them.

It’s the reality that you will NEVER be the same.

Because Domestic Violence is Hell, and Hell changes you.

It changes who you were.

It changes who you could’ve been.

But if you have clawed your way out of the depths of Hell….

You are not weak

You are not a victim.

You are a SURVIVOR.

A Letter to His Next Victim

Dear Future Victim,

If you are reading this, its probably already too late. You are already trapped without even knowing it. He already has his grasp on you.

I am sure he has told you his sob story:

How he was abandoned by his drug addict father.  How he didn’t see him until he was 16 years old. How he was raised in poverty and wasn’t loved.  He had to fend for himself and sleep on benches in the baseball field. That he grew up missing meals because his mother couldn’t afford to feed him. She was always off dating new guys and neglected him.

My personal favorites were his war stories. He will tell you he drinks because of the bad memories, the alcohol helps him sleep. He will break your heart when he tells you about how he had to blow up a school with children inside and watch them die. How his troop was on a convoy and they missed detecting an under ground explosive device resulting in the tank he was riding in blowing up and the tiny pieces of his best friend’s body getting splattering all over him. He was the only survivor. He will tell you stories that sound like they are out of movies, spoiler alert-they are.

He will get close with your family. He will act like the perfect man. Loving, caring, genuine. Don’t be fooled its all an act. He will tell you how amazing you are. Create a life with you, move you out of a loving home. Slowly his drinking will become an issue, the bottle will matter more than you. He will hide bottles where you least expect it (hint: check under the hose storage box). He will humiliate you in public when you ask him if he really needs that next jack and coke he ordered. He will slowly isolate you away from your family and friends. He will leave you alone all night while he is out with other girls spending YOUR money buying THEM drinks. He will make you feel like you deserve what happens to you next-the physical abuse. He will tell you that you made him hurt you. You shouldn’t act so controlling and mean. You shouldn’t be insecure, those girls are just his friends. You will lock yourself in different rooms trying to hide from the abuse but he will kick and punch his way through the doors. He will make how much bigger he is than you well known. He will slam your head into the ground over and over until the pattern of the carpet is imprinted on your forehead. He will tell you multiple times how he hopes you die. He will hold a knife to his throat and to his wrists threatening to kill himself if you leave him. He will break anything in his path like a tornado running through small town. He will kill dogs you have and he will make his best attempts to kill you. After those blow ups happen you will come home to the holes in the walls covered, the mess of the fight cleaned up, dinner made and your favorite flowers on the table. He will apologize and profess his love for you. He will set his trap and you will walk into it with a smile. You will think this is okay because he is sorry and promised it won’t happen again, but it will.

I am sure he has told you about me. The evil baby mama. The girl who ruined his reputation. The spoiled rich bitch. The liar. He will show you pictures of a little boy who he will say is his son, but it isn’t, its his little brother. The son he claims to have an amazing relationship with has no idea who he is. And no, he doesn’t fly back here to see his child every few months. The truth his he couldn’t even tell you my sons birthday. No matter what he tells you, his family doesn’t see that child either. The majority of them haven’t ever even met my son.

So, please if you are reading this,leave, get out, run.

Sincerely,

The Survivor