Trigger, this post is about abusive relationships.
I find everyone has a secret, some dark history, some hidden shame, some mistake they feel has only marked them and they wish for nothing more than for this mark to stay hidden. But every now and then someone shares their secret and finds that someone else shares the same shame. No matter your secret, I am sure more than anything else that there is someone, somewhere, who carries the same weight you carry. Shed the idea that you alone suffer in this shame.
This is me, sharing mine.
Three years ago, almost to the day, I left an abusive relationship that lasted five years. I am newly 27 years old and I am ashamed to say that I spent 5 years of that time being torn down by someone I loved, and who I believed loved me.
I went into the relationship already broken, with the mindset that the treatment he displayed was normal. My step father drank, he stole money from my mother’s wallet countless times, he yelled and hit things, he would back me into walls and spit in my face. This was normal. This is what men did. What example was I given to think otherwise? With the exception of my first boyfriend, I fell into a cycle, the cycle. The cycle of abuse. My second boyfriends mother would hear us screaming and would yell down for me to agree with whatever he was yelling about so he would stop. Because submitting myself to him and telling him he was right even when he wasn’t was better than defending myself. Normal, it must be, why else would she not stop her son’s behavior if it weren’t ok?
And then him, my third boyfriend. him. Five years I put up with continuous cheating, check ins, curfews, isolation, screaming matches at all hours of the day. Because that’s what boys do.
NO.
NO NO NO. NOPE.
I broke that cycle. The day I realized my son was growing up in a home that would teach him that this was normal. And something in the back of my mind was whispering that it wasn’t normal, none of it was.
We got away. I packed my Subaru with what it could fit, left all of my furniture, dishes, my babies changing table and the tv, and I left. It was scary and rushed and hard but I did it.
I had to change my phone number and literally not contact him again, I blocked ALL of his friends and family online. I locked my profile down. I moved again and again and I got away from him and his version of “Normal”.
A year later I met the man that would become my husband and he has a different idea of normal. His normal is kind in all situations, forgiving and warm, open hearted and full of laughter. This is my new normal. Sarcastic dad jokes and family meals at a dinner table in our cozy home. This man is helping me break the cycle by showing a new normal to our children. One of calm and light.
The hurt is still there, still lingering and I find that I still get triggered from certain phrases and arguments with my son. Some scenes from movies make my heart clench as some dormant fight or flight response kicks on. I still react out of fear to things my son does or says and it is a constant work in progress to identify triggers and stop myself from falling into the pattern of emotions and reactions that were my old normal.
I have a long way to go before I am ok, before the trauma truly feels over for me but I’m working on it, I recognise it and I have named it. Abnormal. Abuse. Because that is what it was and that is not normal and that will never be ok.
1 in 4 woman are or have been in an abusive relationship, I imagine the numbers are even higher if we were taught what to identify as manipulation or isolation control from our partners, emotional abuse, narcissism, and projection. These are all things that I learned first hand and could still not identify for years.
We need to do better in changing the norm. This post is the first in a series I will be writing on abuse and how to handle and identify it.
Stay safe and reach out if you need to!
A Mom in Maine 