I lost my way when I was 11 and an only beginning to find it now. Recent events taught me that although I had come a long way I still have a long way to go. I sobering reminder of the lasting damage that is caused by having to live with domestic violence.
To give you the coles notes version. my father died when I was 9 and I had a new dad by the time I was 11. He was nice - at first. Then it's like someone tripped the breaker and the lights went out. He because abusive. Starting with verbal assaults and character shattering comments and moved in to physical and sexual abuse and moved in to psychological abuse (where he would play mind games to see how bad he could mess you up). He drank, he smoked, he got high. I think the last 3 or 4 years of their marriage I never saw him sober. He at least usually gave me a warning before unleashing an attack. I was most of the time able to escape to my bedroom which I had equipped with a lock so I could lock myself in. No one else had a key. I had hidden it in my piano under a piece of wood. By the time I was 14, I was completely broken. I tried to kill myself and drink myself away and give myself away - desperate for love. Of course none of this worked. I still got A's (or else) and was on sports teams and involved in music. To look at me, you wouldn't know my torment.
He terrified me. He would walk into a room and I would shrink.
My mom knew all of this but wasn't able to do anything to help me...she couldn't even help herself. Their marriage ended when he got tired of beating on me and my brother and turned on her.
I was further lost - no longer motivated by fear, I wasn't able to find motivation anywhere. I was in a string of abusive relationships furthering my demise up until the last person I was seeing before I met my husband.
I ran into him while I was engage in the grocery store and - My husband can attest to this - I literally froze upon seeing him. I dropped all my groceries right there in the middle of the isle and walked out of the store.
He's worked hard (along with others) to help coax me out of my shell and horrible survival techniques that will take me a lifetime to unlearn.
I've come a long way and was recently employed (I no longer am) by a women who was a female version of my ex-step-dad only she didn't hit or molest me. But in all other senses she was like him. I knew her next move and it pissed her off. Because of my experience I was able to out fox the fox...for a time. But when you live in a toxic and fear driven environment, then you either have to escape it or take it. I wasn't willing to take that again. I took it a little bit and she was equally a great manipulator but I was able to deflect some of her tactics some of the time. What was interesting is that when I found myself in a situation I swore up and down I would never allow myself to be in again....that same fear that paralyzed me the first time around still gripped me...but not as bad. Before I was unaware that I was being talked in circles...now I was aware of it and it was almost like I was out-of-body watching it all happen.
I eventually quit. She "didn't understand why" and there's no way to tell her. I said it was constructive dismissal and work place harassment. She didn't understand the first term, so I told her to go look it up. (yes I dare talk back - politely of course)
Time does indeed heal all wounds....some just take a life time.
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