Our lives tell our story. They begin at our birth, and they end when we die. They are constantly being written, sometimes by the choices we make, sometimes by the choices others make and the effects of those choices.
There are good parts, bad parts, terrifying parts, tearful parts, ecstatic parts, hopeful parts, and every type of part you can imagine in between. I don’t know how the past few years have been for you, but I’ve felt like I’ve been writing my story while riding a roller coaster that got stuck upside down. The thrill and fun of life had slipped away and I was hanging on for dear life hoping to make it to the end without falling off the ride.
I found this quote a few months ago. There is nothing about my life that I can go back and change, it’s all happened already. The consequences of choices that have been made have been and are being lived with. I can’t change any of that.
I’m learning that I don’t have to live with the festering wounds. I don’t have to ignore the trauma and the damage that it’s caused and “just get over it,” as I’ve been told in different ways so many times in my life. I can get help in healing those old wounds and in the healing process I can begin to write a new ending to my story.
The ending to my story will hopefully be one of mental and emotional healing, where I continue to work through the traumas of my past so they no longer affect my present or future. An ending where I am comfortable being me. I know it’s not always going to be easy or perfect, but I’m looking forward to writing this new ending to my story.
My hope for everyone in 2022 is that you don’t let your past define you. That you see who you truly are, who you were created to be, and find a way to be that best version of you that you can be.
In the movie The Greatest Showman Keala Settle sings, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of,” in the song This is me. The first time I saw that movie, that song brought tears to my eyes. The very thought that people might accept me as I am, with all my broken parts and scars, was too much for me to believe. I felt as if I was somehow responsible for how I became broken and got those scars; as if it were my fault that people treated me in ways that left me broken, shattered, and scarred when I put myself back together.
Growing up I was often told that I was too much or not enough which left me feeling like I always had to try harder to be who people wanted me to be so that they would love and accept me. In the process I hid who I really was. I became invisible and believed that I was worthless. My value was completely defined by how other people saw me because I saw myself as completely worthless, without value on my own.
In 2016, I wrote my book, Worthless No More. It was extremely healing to write it but I realized that I was still basing my worth on how other people saw me, not on any value I gave myself. After seeing the movie and hearing Keala Settle sing the song, especially the line, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of,” I decided that I needed to work on myself.
I have spent much time the past few years, and very intense time the past year and a half with therapists, working on myself. I now know that I am valuable as a human being. My value doesn’t change based on another person’s ability or inability to see it. I also no longer hide who I am or try to be who I think they want me to be, because, “This is me.”
If you’re struggling with knowing your own worth, I can tell you that you are extremely valuable just for the simple fact that you are a human being and living on this planet. You deserve to take up space. You deserve to speak your voice. You deserve to be who you are.
The answer is not always easy. Many people don’t even realize they or someone they love are the victims of domestic violence because it can be subtle and slow. The abuser is usually not going to start out right away by beating their victim, that would be too obvious; they have to first win them over.
In the beginning the abuser may shower their victim with gifts, they may seem too good to be true, showing much love and affection. This often is when somebody claims to have been “swept off their feet.”
After the victim is thoroughly invested and believes they can’t live without this person and the abuser can no longer keep up the charade of being a loving caring person all the time, that’s when the coercive control begins.
It will probably be small at first. A hurtful comment, when the victim says something about it the response will be that the abuser was “just joking” or that they are being “too sensitive. Who knows, it might be both.
It may escalate to isolation, maybe not blatantly by saying “You can’t hang out with that person.” It could be subtle. A comment about how much they don’t like hanging out with that person, can they skip the get together this time. The next time you want to go they might tell you how much they just want to spend time with you, with nobody else around, how special that would be, just the two of you. Pretty soon, you’ve cancelled on your friends so many times, they quit inviting you.
Another form of domestic abuse that usually progresses slowly is sexual coercion. This happens when one partner is in the mood for a little adult fun and the other says no. The one who wants to play is hurt and takes it out on the other person by lashing out in some way; pouting, telling them “I feel like you don’t love me when you say no,” giving them the silent treatment, etc. Over time the victim begins to feel like they are unable to say no to sex.
It might even escalate to sexual assault, rape, and physical abuse. Usually by the time it escalates to this level, the relationship has been abusive for some time.
Leaving also isn’t safe or easy. Victims can lose their friends and family when they leave their abuser; they can lose their entire support system. They can also lose their life. And the abuse doesn’t end just because the relationship does.
According to Battered Women Support Services, 77% of domestic violence related homicides occur upon separation. The same organization states that there is a 75% increase in violence upon separation for at least 2 years!
That means that for a huge percentage of victims, staying in an abusive relationship might actually be safer than leaving it. For those who do leave, the abuser still finds ways to be violent and controlling for up to two years. So leaving the relationship doesn’t mean leaving the abuser. It can be even worse if there are kids involved.
I hope that this post has helped you understand a little bit more about why so many people stay in abusive relationships. They aren’t easy to see, even if you’re living it, but especially if you aren’t. If somebody you know is in an abusive relationship, be there for them, listen to them, hear what they aren’t telling you.
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Domestic violence is also known as Intimate Partner Violence or IPV. It is defined as the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, and emotional abuse. I believe everyone should be aware of it, know what to look for in both the victim and the abuser. Be able to listen for what is NOT being said, see what’s happening behind the scenes. We can’t do that if we aren’t aware of it.
*Just a note to start with, all of the statistics and information used in this blog will be from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV.)*
1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men have been the victims of some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.
Abusers don’t begin by hitting their partner, they are usually charming and win over their partner with acts of kindness and love. Once the partner is attached the abuser will begin the abuse cycle by exerting various form of coercive control. These tactics can include isolation, degrading, micromanaging manipulating, sexual coercion, threats, stalking, and punishment as well as physical abuse.
The partner has now become the victim of domestic violence and may not even be aware of it because it was so insidious and subversive. The abuser will have broken down the victim to a point that they may feel helpless to leave. Sometimes the victim may fight back in what is known as reactive violence. The victim tends to see reactive violence as a way to get the violence against them to stop, a form of self-protection, or a way to restore the dignity that has been destroyed by the abuser.
Abuse victims will often attempt other means to end the violence against them before resorting to reactive violence. These tactics include negotiation, appeasement, threats to leave, or actually leaving the perpetrator, getting help from others, threats to expose the abuser, and threats to hurt the abuser emotionally, economically, or damage their property.
It is often difficult for the victim to leave their abuser for a variety of reasons which can include that they feel isolated, depressed, or helpless. They might be embarrassed of the situation, they might withdraw emotionally, they may be financially unstable, have religious or cultural beliefs that reinforce staying in the relationship, or feel like they have nowhere to go.
Also, many times, when the victim does finally leave their abuser, the abuse doesn’t end. The abuser continues with their attempts to control their victim. Sometimes, it is after the victim has left that the abuser murders them. Sometimes, the leaving is the most dangerous time in a domestic violence situation.
All of this is a lot to take in and might be difficult to understand for somebody who is lucky enough to have never experienced domestic violence, but there are almost 35% of women and about 31% of men in California alone that have experienced domestic violence. Become aware so that you can be a friend to someone who is hurting and an advocate to someone who might need it.
If you’d like more information or you need help in a domestic violence situation here are some resources for you to check out:
Have you ever loved someone who didn’t know how to love you back without causing you pain?
Have you ever had to end a relationship to save yourself?
Once upon a time I was a broken little girl.
My parents did the best they could while they dealt with their own mental health issues, but I had a terrible childhood. I often wondered if I was going to have dinner at night. I never knew if I was going to be yelled at or “beat with the stick” for whatever I did that my dad didn’t approve of, which seemed to change from day to day.
No matter how much they hurt me, no matter how much I lived on egg shells, no matter how much they belittled me and made me earn their love; they told me they loved me. They told me it was for my good. They told me it was to teach me a lesson.
What I got out of all of it was that love and pain went together. I learned that those who love you also hurt you. That set me up for some messed up relationships in my life. Significant others that told me they loved me, but treated me as though I didn’t matter at all.
I believed I didn’t matter. I believed it was my job to keep them happy. I believed my happiness needed to take a back seat to everyone else. I was a nothing, and I was treated as second place to everything else in my significant others’ life.
Many people ask why I stayed with them. Heck, I was married to one for five years! One reason is that when you learn that you are nothing, that you don’t matter, that it’s your job to keep others happy and put yourself last, that those who love you also hurt you, then the way they treated me was completely normal to me.
When I finally realized my worth; when I finally realized that my happiness mattered; when I finally realized that I mattered and I began to expect and ask people to treat me better. I asked them to speak to me with respect. I asked them to be my partner instead of my superior. I asked them to pull their weight in the relationship and not leave all the work up to me.
Guess what happened!
I was called names. I was told I was being emotional. I was told I was starting fights. I was told I was yelling. I was told that I was being too much.
What I learned was that I did nothing wrong by asking to be treated right.
A few days ago, my psychology class was learning about child abuse, the reasons for it, but more importantly, how it can be prevented and the impact it can have on the victims.
We watched two YouTube movies in class, that demonstrate, in a very emotional way, the damage that child abuse can have, but also the hope that is possible for a victims of child abuse to become survivors of child abuse. There are posted at the end of the blog.
The movies follow the story of a young girl named Zoe. She narrates the story with an internal monologue as we see what’s unfolding in her young life. She starts with this:
“Sometimes someone hurts you so bad, it stops hurting at all. Until something makes you feel again, and then it all comes back. Every word, every hurt, every moment.”
I am a survivor of abuse.
So many times throughout my life, I have felt numb, unable to feel anything at all; not pain, not love, not joy, not peace.
NOTHING. AT. ALL.
I was merely existing. Making it through one day to the next day, doing what had to be done, but I didn’t hurt.
I’m wrong, actually. I did feel something. I felt exhausted. All the time, everything I did required more energy than I had, but things had to get done so I did them.
No matter how tired I was, no matter how numb I was, I knew that I wouldn’t feel that way forever. I knew that things would get better. I knew that one day, I would feel something other than exhausted.
I hung on to the hope that moments pass. That I would feel again. And I have, every single time.
If you are in a situation that has hurt you so bad that it stops hurting at all, please remember that it ends. The feelings do come back.
And yes, when the feelings come back the first thing we have to do is process and heal from the hurt that brought us to that place this time, but it’s possible to heal. It’s possible to have an amazing future even with a scarred past. Our pasts DO NOT define who we are. We write our own stories.
If you are hurting, numb or feel helpless, or hopeless or want to give up on life, please call 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741.
If you are being abused please call: Child abuse- call or text 1-800-422-4453 Domestic Violence-call 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788 for Sexual Assault call 1-800-656-4673 or go to https://www.rainn.org/ to chat online.
We can heal from abuse and go on to lead, happy, healthy lives.
Here are those two videos I promised you. Get the tissues ready, but they are so worth the watch. Together they are about 30 minutes. The first one is 12 minutes and the second one is about 20 minutes long.
Last Sunday I completed another trip around the sun and celebrated my birthday with family. Yesterday is when I celebrated with friends. We spent the day in Santa Cruz, soaking in the sun, enjoying the delicious food, like a Texas Donut (thank you for sharing Bev!), watching a sea lion miss jumping out of the water onto the platform, riding the carousel that is 120 years old this year and generally having a fabulous time laughing and relaxing.
I thoroughly enjoyed myself and did NOT want the day to end. We even finished the day off with ice cream for dinner. Like I said it was a FANTASTIC day!
I haven’t had the best time since March 2020. When the world flipped upside down for everybody, my personal world also seemed to flip upside down and my mental health took a nosedive. I’ve shared that there was even a point that I didn’t even want to be alive any more in COVID world. My anxiety was through the roof!
Through talking with a counselor, a family member and a friend, as well as a LOT of time talking to God, I’m back to “normal”… mostly. At night, when I should be asleep, Anxiety still likes to sneak in and keep me awake with all the “what ifs” and “should’ves.” I don’t like Anxiety very much and I’m usually able to tell it to take a hike after a few restless minutes of a racing mind. I don’t always win though. Sometimes I lie awake from 3:00 am until my alarm goes off and face the day exhausted, hoping for a better night to come.
But yesterday. Those days I treasure. I can share with trusted friends what I feel. I don’t have to be invisible or make myself smaller so they feel bigger. I don’t have to say just the right thing to keep them feeling comfortable or to keep them as friends. They are my friends, through thick and thin; NO MATTER WHAT!
I’m so thankful to have such an amazing handful of people in my life that I can trust and call my friends. I didn’t get to be with all of them yesterday, but I’m thankful for all of my friends just the same. I would NOT have survived this pandemic without them.
Thank you to all my friends for being so AWESOME!!!!
Growing up I learned that it was good to be invisible. If I was invisible, then I couldn’t get in trouble. I couldn’t get yelled at. I couldn’t get beat with the stick. I couldn’t get dismissed. I couldn’t get sent outside. I couldn’t get told that I’d be given something to cry about. I couldn’t get ignored.
Being invisible was lonely, but it to me it was better to be invisible than any of the alternatives.
Of course when I was 5 or 6 years old, I didn’t realize what I was doing, making myself invisible, I was just trying not to be yelled at every time I didn’t argue or did exactly what I was told without talking back. By the time I was 7 years old, I was so good at it that when I cut my finger so badly that I needed stitches, I hid it from my mom for as long as I could, but it kept bleeding and eventually she noticed.
I learned that in order to get along and be loved, I needed to go along. I needed to agree with what people said whether I actually did or not. If I disagreed with them, they wouldn’t love me anymore and as a child, I NEEDED my parents to love me. I WANTED my parents to love me.
When I became a teenager, I became myself for a little bit, but not for long. I desperately wanted their love and acceptance. When I spoke my mind and said what I thought and how I felt that differed from their point of view I was rebellious, disrespectful, hateful, good for nothing…worthless. I couldn’t handle that feeling so I went back to being invisible. I went along to get along.
Once I starting agreeing with my parents again, I was the golden child, but who I was, how I felt, was once again, invisible. I didn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was their perception of who they thought I should be.
This has really messed me up in many relationships. In my mind, I believe that for people to like/love/accept me, I need to hide most of who I am and only let them know the parts about me that agree with them. I know understand that this is a completely messed up way to live. If someone doesn’t love and accept me for who I am then they don’t deserve me.
I’d like to say that I’m completely over this, that I can tell people how I feel anytime, but I’m still scared. I still worry about if they’ll like me or not. It’s difficult to break lifelong habits, even ones that hurt you. But I am a work in progress. I may always be a work in progress and that’s okay with me.
When most people hear about somebody being abused by an intimate partner, like a boy/girlfriend or spouse, they will often ask, “Why didn’t they just leave?” Or will say, “If that had been me, I would have just left.” People who are lucky enough to have never been in that situation have no idea how hard it is to just leave.
That’s a picture of me the summer before I started high school. The very next summer I would meet a boy that treated me like nobody had ever treated me before. He liked me, he told me he loved me. He asked me to be his girlfriend. He risked the wrath of my dad to see me. I was in LOVE.
It wasn’t long before he started criticizing me. Little things, like how pretty I’d be if I just wore make up, or dresses. He started letting me know how lucky I was to have him as a boyfriend because most guys wouldn’t want to date a girl as tomboy-ish as me.
It also wasn’t long before he started pressuring me to have sex with him. (I’m talking weeks here.)
At first it was on phone calls. I’d tell him no, I wasn’t ready, that I wanted to wait until I was married. (I had been taught that a girl’s greatest gift to her husband on their wedding night was her virginity.)
Then I was fighting his hands off when we were kissing. I was constantly moving them to where I was more comfortable. It was a losing battle, I eventually stopped fighting it and let his hands go where he wanted them to and do what he wanted them to no matter how uncomfortable I was, because, as he said, “if I loved him I would.”
For TEN months I put off the inevitable. I put off sex with him. Then one day he told me we were going to hang out with a friend of his. When we arrived, he had the key to his friend’s apartment and let us in. We were alone. He started kissing me as soon as we sat on the couch, then whispered in my ear, “I’ve waited long enough.”
I tried to get out from under him, but he was too big and too strong for me. He forced himself into me and did what he wanted. Because he loved me and he wanted to show me how much.
I cried.
I had been told for so long that my entire worth and value was wrapped up in my virginity and he had just taken that from me, so what was the point in anything anymore. I gave up fighting. I didn’t tell a single soul. I was too embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to know what I had done. I gave in, I gave up. I was worthless. I was lucky that this guy still wanted to be with me because nobody else would want me since I wasn’t a virgin anymore.
For a year, I kept that secret. For a year, he continued to use and abuse me. For a year I continued to die a little more inside.
Then I went on a double date with a friend, I was still dating my abuser, but he was in boot camp and she really wanted to go on this date, but not alone so I agreed to go with his friend. We saw the movie Sleeping With the Enemy. There’s a scene where Julia Robert’s character’s husband forces her to have sex with him. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
My date noticed. We went to the lobby and he asked if I was ok. I told him, “That’s what he does.” His response was, “Your boyfriend rapes you?” I just nodded. It was the first time I used that word to describe what he did to me. He raped me for over a year while I stayed with him because I felt too worthless to leave him; too ashamed to ask for help.
That is why people stay with their abusers, among other reasons.
I gave up. I got tired of telling him no. That is not consent. That is rape.
Giving in because you are afraid of what will happen if you say no is not consent. That is rape.
Saying no and your intimate partner doing it anyway, is rape.
Being told when or how often you are going to have sex in your relationship is not consent. That is rape.
Being told that if you say no, you don’t love them, is coercion, not consent. That is rape.
Just because you are in a committed, intimate relationship does not mean that you owe your partner your body at anytime unless you are a willing participant in the activity. If you are not a 100 percent willing participant, that is rape. You have the right to say no, even to your intimate partner. Your body is your body.
In 2018 a person that I looked up to growing up sued me for telling the truth. The truth I told was difficult for that person to hear and they had a choice to make, they could admit their mistake and ask for forgiveness, or continue to deny it. They continued to deny it, publicly calling me and others who shared the same truth I did, liars. They gathered an army of defenders on social media in an attempt to get me to back down. They sent me texts through various messaging apps to intimidate me and get me to recant what I said.
This person was a pillar in the Christian community I grew up in. They were considered a role model, someone to look up to, to admire, to strive to be like. When I told the truth and they decided to try to cover it up in lies and disparaging stories about me and others who had similar true stories as well as attempting to intimidate me into silence, I was shocked that anyone, let alone a person I grew up admiring, would behave that way.
In the midst of all of that, I was rocking out to whatever was on the radio one day and a song that I had probably heard before, but not paid much attention to came on. It was “How Did You Love” by Shinedown.
The part that really hit me was the chorus, it goes like this:
“No one gets out alive, every day is do or die The one thing you leave behind Is how did you love, how did you love? It’s not what you believe those prayers will make you bleed But while you’re on your knees How did you love, how did you love, how did you love?“
Every one of us will die one day and how will people remember us? Will they remember us as someone that they looked up to, someone who was always there for them, someone who was willing to fix the mistakes we make, someone who loves? Or are they going to remember us for being a liar, tearing others down, being a person that they want nothing to do with?
When the case went to court, the person who sued me lost. About a week later they died by suicide. Unfortunately when I think about them, I don’t remember how they loved. I remember their intimidation tactics first. How they bullied my friends and I to try to change our truth to fit their narrative.
I have a good friend that I am lucky to have in my life who says, “If they wanted me to tell a different story, they should have given me a different story to tell.” (Sorry if I butchered your quote, Daisy.)
All of that to say this: I want to be a person who is known for loving others and myself. When my life is over, I want people to look back at me and the part my life played in theirs and be glad I was a part of their story. I want them to say that I loved well.
I know I’m not perfect, I’m human after all. I will make mistakes, my hope is that when I realize my mistakes either on my own, through therapy, or people pointing them out to me in a loving way, that I will be able to see them for what they are, and if necessary, make some changes.
I also know that moving forward in life, it’s alright to let people know if they’ve wronged me as well, as long as I do it in a way that lets them know how what they did affected me. For example I might say, “I feel violated when people invade by privacy by snooping around my in my journal.” It’s okay to call people out on what they’ve done wrong if it’s going to protect or help others. I mean, even Jesus got angry in the synagogue and flipped tables over and told those people what they were doing wrong.
Essentially, here’s what I learned from that experience and that song; what is important in life is how did you love? I want to be remembered for being a loving, caring, accepting person, who does whatever it takes to protect others. Will I make mistakes along the way? ABSOLUTELY! After all, I’m only human. I hope to learn from those mistakes and love better, become more caring, and more accepting.
Most importantly, what I’ve learned is that I am a valuable, lovable human being who deserves to be treated with respect, kindness, and value. As Keala Settle sings, “There’s nothing I’m not worthy of.”
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