As a survivor of domestic abuse I would like to enlighten you to the different forms of abuse. 

Believe it or not too often abuse starts in a less noticeable forms before becoming physical.

For me, the abuse started out as emotional, being manipulated and gas-lit. 

I stayed for ten years while the abuse built and took new forms. 

For me, I was able to leave after the abuse became physical.

While I was able to get out, I stayed for far too long.

I understand that many don't get the chance.

I choose to end the cycle for myself.

I choose to help others.

<3

 

"My advice is stay until you can't, only then will you be able to leave for good."

It took me a long time to realize what that meant when I first heard it.

But what I gather it means is that until you're ready you will stay.

Until you're ready to be done, you will return again and again.

So, stay until you can't. Get out while you can.

 

So, I stayed for ten years.In the beginning I wasn't sure how much I wanted to stay. I have wounds that hadn't healed from childhood and I was afraid of being alone. I decided that it was better to stay somewhere that I felt I needed to fight for love than to walk away. I fought for the love and acceptance of a man that would later scream in my face "I don't care!" while i cried to him that I felt like he didn't love me. It wasn't until after I left that I was able to see everything that was wrong with the relationship. With myself and with him. I was convinced that he loved me. Even through the screaming, abandonment and lying. I was convinced that the bare minimum and sometimes less than where acceptable, what I deserved better yet. My self worth was at an all time low when I left. There was one thing that I knew for certain, that was the fact that I needed to get out of the relationship.

I needed to leave if I wanted to live. 

By the time this particular relationship ended I had been wiped of my identity. I didn't know who the person in the mirror was anymore. I was begging for hygiene products, feminine products, food, the bills weren't being paid. He out right told me that my job was inadequate and I had nothing to bring to the table to help, that I should be a stay at home mom, and that I had nothing to worry about. He said that he had everything figured out. I allowed myself to believe him. Little did I know,

I had everything to worry about.

I was scared to leave but scared to stay. I thought that if I left he would hurt me, or worse, our child. I wasn't sure how I would leave because I didn't have a job, I had no savings, and I had been out of reach with my family for so long that I wasn't sure where I could even run to. Not to mention my mental health was severely damaged. I felt absolutely insane and was on the verge of self-harm and suicide. I didn't trust anyone, not even myself. I thought that I was the problem, after all that is what

my abuser told me time and time again, "You're the problem!"

So, I believed him. I checked myself into a mental hospital. There, I was diagnosed with anxiety, PTSD, and severe depression. I spoke with several counselors and social workers during my stay. I thought I was crazy until one of them told me that sometimes the wrong person is sent there. There was so much happening internally that I began to spiral outward. I started displaying behaviors that were out of character. Anger was my main tool until i suppressed all emotions and became mute for a little bit. I was so traumatized that I barely spoke, and when I did I spoke simple words like; yes, no, thank you, please. That was a very dark time for myself. I often prayed for the end of my life, crying myself to sleep quietly. One night,

my abuser told me I was crying too loud and he pushed me out of our bed. 

There was a point that I knew I wanted to leave. I knew I needed to get out. I would tell my abuser that I didn't want to be with him anymore. That what we had was faulty love. Our son was about six months old the first time I told him I thought we should split up. He looked at me with complete sincerity and told me I would be the worst mother ever if I split our family up. 

I stayed for about another year, that was when I started believing I was the problem. 

There were times that my basic needs were not being met. I was left without food, no personal hygiene supplies,

no feminine products resulting in me using actual baby diapers during my cycles,

no heat in the dead of winter in upstate New York with a newborn,

no hot water because the gas bill wasn't being paid.

But I wasn't allowed to question where is money was going to. That would always end in a screaming match between the two of us.

There were times when I was manipulated sexually in order to get things for the house, for example; a Christmas tree the year after our son was born. I was told that I had to give him what he wanted in order to get what I wanted.

This left me feeling degraded and disgusted with myself.

The day that I left him he threatened to pull me out of our eighteen month old sons bedroom by my hair, then proceeded to grab me by my throat and push me out of our son's bedroom, into the hallway, and then the bathroom.

He screamed at me to pack my things and get out of our house because he thought that I had stolen from him. 

When I tried to take our son with me he grabbed him and tried to push me off of our second story porch. Luckily that plastic railing held and didn't give completely away or I would have landed on the stone walkway below us. 

It took the abuse to become physical in a manner that made me fearful for me to say that's enough and walk away. 

When I left, I wasn't sure what would happen. I knew that life could get better.