Hey, hey, my Lovelies! I know, it’s been a minute and all I can say to that is life and healing have been consuming me lately in ways I was in no way prepared for. These last few months have, literally, been a blur as we are just a few days away from November. The month of October highlights 3 causes which are very close to me as they’ve each touched my life in varying ways. The cause I will be bringing light to and speaking on in this particular blog is Domestic Violence as it was, pretty much, a norm in my childhood home. I would suggest you grabbing a spirited beverage as this one will be heavy and possibly triggering to some as I know it will be for me but I want to bring awareness from both the perspective of a child growing up in the environment who becomes an adult experiencing it first-hand.
Being a GenXer, it’s no secret that I am a child of the 70’s and, unfortunately, domestic violence was very common place during that period. I grew up in an era where PTSD wasn’t acknowledged as being a real and true issues, boys were sent off to fight in a war they had nothing to do with and come home a few years later as biologically grown men scarred with trauma they didn’t know how to handle. There were no grief counselors for those who witnessed their best friends’ deaths or having to take the lives of the enemy, they were just supposed to ‘man up’ and get on with their lives. Yes, I bring up PTSD but not as an excuse to put your hands on another person out of anger, there is no legit excuse for it, I only bring it up to bring awareness to the fact these men fought mental battles most of us could never fathom and had to do it alone while being husbands, sons, fathers, and brothers.
The sounds I heard, bruises on my mother’s face I witnessed, and the tension felt in my childhood home are, unfortunately, images I cannot escape no matter how much I heal and work thru my own traumas. As a child, I was not privy to what the issues were to make my father react out of anger with his fists on the woman he loved, it truly wasn’t my place to know, that was their relationship and grown folks’ business. Since this started when I was very young, around 4 or 5 years old, it seemed normal to me as it was happening in other households. While it may have ‘seemed’ normal to me, it didn’t take away the bubble guts I got when I heard the raised voices in anger followed by the breaking of furniture. I will say that while I never actually witnessed my father hitting my mother, I did hear it along with her pleas for him to stop and then saw the aftermath on her face for the next couple of weeks.
Growing up in a house with domestic violence affected me in more ways than I could ever fathom. The first way it still affects me to this day is that when I hear raised voices, I retreat to that scared little 5-year-old girl and shut down. I am proud to say I handle confrontation better as I have found my voice and it only took me 46 years to do so! Do I still shake and get sweaty when I have to confront someone? I sure do but I find the strength to say what needs to be said and that’s miles from where I was even 5 years ago.
Another way it impacted me was becoming a people pleaser to avoid or even prevent conflict with anyone close to me in an effort for them not to be upset. The people pleasing aspect is something I still struggle with as I never want anyone to feel I’m not there for them but I also have learned to set boundaries because, as always, I’m a work in progress.
Over the course of my life, I have been to multiple therapists as I struggle with a whole lot of mental shit but I will own that I was afraid to actually say what was going on out of fear of having to wear a jacket which makes me hug myself while sitting in a pretty white padded room. The fact I struggled with my own mental health is how I became a victim of domestic violence in my own marriage. It wasn’t until after I was divorced did I realize that domestic violence isn’t just getting your face beaten in, it is also being broken down mentally, verbally, and emotionally by the person who is supposed to love and protect every aspect of your being. Due to the extent of the abuse my mother suffered and experienced, she had no sympathy for me when I shared the trials of my marriage because there were no physical bruises.
Going into my marriage, I struggled with my self-esteem and feelings of worthiness and put all I had to offer into my soon-to-be husband who, at the time of dating, was my protector and place of peace but the switch flipped with 2 simple words: I Do. I will own some of the issues within my marriage because I wasn’t being my authentic self because, if I was, I would have left within the first year but I stayed and tried to be who he wanted me to be as I didn’t want to be a statistic and get divorced within the 1st year of marriage. My eagerness to appease him must have been like blood to a shark as he capitalized on it and continued to break me because he knew I wouldn’t leave because, well, I couldn’t. My extended family didn’t know of everything I endured until after I was divorced because I felt as though I deserved everything he said to me. Looking back? No, I didn’t deserve to be belittled and lectured for hours on end because his family felt I was either too comfortable as I joked along with them or I was being stand-offish because I had been lectured the week before and was quiet this week.
I lost not only my voice in my marriage, I lost myself. In order to try to be a better wife (I wasn’t a bad one in any sort of the way), I got on antidepressants with the hopes of being the easy-going, meek wife he wanted but that was never going to happen as I was never going to be who he wanted me to be as he didn’t even know who that person was because he didn’t know himself. I have been told not that it couldn’t have all been bad as we have 2 beautiful daughters and people saw us outside of the home and we were happy. Yes, we appeared happy at every outside event because narcissists know how to perform and charm everyone in their presence so, I was always viewed as the ungrateful, problematic spouse.
Due to the trauma which still plagues me from my own childhood, I did everything in my power to make sure my daughters never witnessed the lectures of how displeased their father was with their mother’s actions. We all try to do and be better so our children are better but sheltering them from our issues affected them differently. There was no arguing as what I had to say never mattered and was turned around to make me feel even worse so, if they ever heard anything, they just thought their father was talking to me about his day. The way it has affected my daughters is that one of them feels their father left because she cried too much and the other shuts out people out of fear of getting too close to them and they leave, both have abandonment issues because their father left the home.
Domestic violence comes in many painful shapes and forms, one no lesser than the other as they both break the spirit of the individual experiencing it. The only request I have of each of you is this: if someone trust you enough to share what is going on in their lives, listen and be there for them, never turn a deaf ear to them as that only breaks them more because they feel even more alone and trapped in their situation. Is it hard listening to someone’s traumatic life over and over again? Hell yeah but no matter how easy you may think it is for them to just up and leave, have the understanding that it’s not easy at all. Also have the understanding that just because someone isn’t putting their hands on your loved one while their in the house doesn’t mean they won’t take their life if they try to leave.
If you need someone to talk to because others have turned a deaf ear, I am here to listen. Just because you don’t see bruises doesn’t mean abuse isn’t taking place. Be great, my lovelies!
