A Real Person

When this picture popped up on my Facebook newsfeed, it struck me right between the eyes.  How many years have I wondered what I did to somehow provoke or encourage him to be angry at me regardless of what I said or did. I wondered how expressing my opinion could make him so upset.  It took only a short length of time for me to no longer be a real person. With each harmful word and each act of abuse, the real me regressed deeper and deeper inside until "I" no longer existed.

 

Getting ME back is a daily decision that I am worth saving. I am worth getting back. Who I was designed to be, with all my personality and characteristics, is worth resurrecting. I choose every day to allow more and more of me to surface. I am discovering that I have traits that I like!

 

I AM a real person and I will never let ME disappear again.

Relationships

I feel like it's time for me to get back into the relationship thing. It's been long enough, and I've put my love life on hold while I was healing and while I was aiding the children in their healing process. I don't miss what I had when I was married, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I do want someone to share my life with. My next relationship will be very different from what I had because I know so much more about myself and love than when I was 19 years old.

 

Now I will enter a relationship with my eyes wide open. My choices will be very different than the way I did things before. People may or may not like what I choose, but that is okay because I have learned that I am in control of myself and my life. I have the right to choose for myself, even if others don't agree. I will not be controlled again.

 

So, cheers to myself for taking the next step in my healing and choosing to have relationships.

3 Years and No More Counting

June 10th was the 3rd anniversary of my freedom. And, I've never felt better.

 

I graduated with honors from the Social Service Worker program in May of this year.  Since then, I packed up our house and moved us 1800kms to a new home - a new start, a new job, a new life.

 

I have officially left the past behind, physically and mentally.

 

I am stronger. Day by day I am getting my voice back. Day by day I am regaining my confidence. I had no idea just how depleted my confidence was until I moved here and started looking for, and going to interviews for jobs. I realized that I still have a low self esteem from the years of being called down to the dirt. But, I am working on it and becoming stronger every day.

 

I watched a sermon from Pastor Craig Groechsel yesterday and it began a life changing mind renewal for me. It is about feelings of inadequacy. I watched it twice and cried both times. It is a sermon that I want to watch every single day until I completely believe it.

 

You can find the sermon at http://www.lifechurch.tv/watch/altar-ego/1. It is absolutely worth watching.

 

Getting out of an abusive relationship, finding healing for self and children and moving on to a new life is a lot of work. It has taken me until this very moment to be able to say, it was a courageous move and I am a strong woman.

 

I will not count any more years since leaving. Starting this month, I have began to count the years that I have started this new life with my children. For the first time ever, I can actually say that I am proud of myself.

No Talking Back

I wasn't "allowed" to talk back. I lived in silence for years unable to express my opinions or rationale for doing or not doing something. When I was told to shut up, it was in my best interest to do so because it was easier to be quiet than to deal with that would come next if I didn't keep quiet.

 

To this day, almost three years after getting out of that silence, I still have trouble expressing myself, my thoughts, my opinions, and even my like or dislikes.

 

I still get stomach sick when I "talk back" to him. I call it talking back because it's voicing my differing opinion even though he's told me to stop talking. The worse part is not knowing how he is going to respond. In the last email I received from him, he called me "selfish" and "manipulative" and told me not to contact him again. So, I didn't. Then I realized that he is still controlling me, and I am still letting him.

 

I did reply, last night. I was assertive, but not mean. I haven't heard back from him yet and my stomach is in knots because I don't know what he's going to say. I know that I shouldn't care, but I still have a certain level of fear... even though I know he can't punch me from 1,319.5 kms away.

 

I'm further ahead than I was and I still have distance to go, but I'm headed in the right direction - and that's always a good thing.

No More Singing

I had a revelation when I was driving the other day and it completely turned my world around...

 

Ever since I got away from my abusive spouse, I sang songs that I identfied with about the situation I found myself in. It started with the song, "According to You" with a girl singing to her ex about how mean he used to be to her.  Then, there was "My Give a Damn's Busted" where the woman is singing to her ex about much she no longer cares.  Next came Kelly Clarkson singing to "Mr. Know it All", her ex that was very controlling towards her.  Then she sang, "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" where she was telling her ex that she is stronger since their relationship ended. 

 

I was singing that last song in the car... "Think you got the best of me, think you've had the last laugh..." and I suddenly stopped myself and said out loud, "I'M NOT SINGING TO YOU ANY MORE!" All this time, all these songs, I've been wasting my breath singing to my ex.  I'm not dismissing the fact that these songs were therapeutic for me, and they helped me get through a lot of garbage, but suddenly I got to another stage - no more sining to my ex.

 

The freedom that came with that revelation has been immensely healing for me.  It is amazing to recognize that another piece of the control has been broken and I'm even more 'me' than I was a few days ago.

Walking Away & Walking Towards

 

Walking away from an abusive situation is not the easiest thing to do.  I finally walked away just over 2 years ago, from an abusive relationship that had been going on for 11 years.  I thought that I was too weak to carry on.  I was degraded so much that I didn't see any worth or value in myself, and I felt like I had no more strength.  I was so tired of fighting, living in fear, and walking on eggshells every moment of every day.  I finally realized, from some far recess of my soul, that what was happening to me and my children was wrong - and that we, as a human beings created by God, deserve to be loved the way that Christ loved the church when He gave up His life for her.  The day I walked away was the first day in a long time that I felt I had the tiniest bit of value.

That's when the journey started and I started walking towards wholeness.

Avon Against Domestic Violence

This summer, the Avon item for their Speak Out Against Domestic Violence campaign was this necklace:

I bought one for myself and one for my daughter.  I explained to her what it was all about... 

She hasn't taken hers off yet.