Abuse Hides in the Dark. Turn on Your Light.

About Relationship Abuse


  • Turning Inward: Trying to Fix What Isn’t Broken

    “While I know well the wish to somehow make things work, obsessively turning inward, demanding of our selves a new or better way to end the abuse, in actuality we are ‘allying with the abuser’ and abusing ourselves. This unholy alliance is what keeps the abuse going — his infiltration of our thoughts and feelings,

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  • How to Stop Panicking Over What May Happen

    How to Stop Panicking Over What May Happen

    Is it possible for me to stop panicking over what may happen? I’m panicking now. My internal panic machine wants to take over. It is hard to slow down or think. The source of the panic is my fear of what may happen when Will comes home. All good panics have, at their root, an unknowable, unanswerable question. Hence, the

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  • Panic Machine

    I’m trying so hard not to panic, not to allow my strings to get caught up in the machine swirling in my gut. The panic machine is in fully operational today. It’s whirring and purring to me: He’s going to get mad about the money. He’s going to be upset that you don’t cook all

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  • Homecoming

    I just found some song lyrics that help me express my feelings as I head into Will’s homecoming. They’re written by 5 Finger Death Punch and are from the song “Never Enough“. …” I’d rather you hate me For everything I am Than have you love me For something that I can’t [be?] “… I

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  • Beauty

    Beauty

    I was just on facebook reaching out to people I don’t know asking them to be my friends. Kind of nervy, but seeing that yesterday I revealed my facebook identity to some of my current friends, it seemed to be the next step. (I’m not telling Will’s family or “his” friends anything.) I suppose I’m

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  • Who Spoke The Pillow Talk? Remembering Abuse

    Who Spoke The Pillow Talk? Remembering Abuse

    Were we really that sweet to one another? Did he really treat me well sometimes? Even if he did, he doesn’t now. The sweet memories are gone.

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  • Perception Deception

    I was talking to a friend today who told me she had read the blog and could completely relate – almost like I was writing about her experience instead of my own. Many of you who read this blog tell me the same thing. In fact, my business card says, “Read my journals…you’ll think I

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  • The Abuse Is Incessant, Hurtful and Real

    The Abuse Is Incessant, Hurtful and Real

    I wish I had stopped this long ago, but I didn’t. And now that I am trying to stop it, I wish that I could wave a magic wand and make it all better. I wish that saving my soul and saving my marriage was not a process – a long process.

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  • The Gift of Being Right

    The Gift of Being Right

    “Why did I marry him?” implies that my fear of worthlessness was in place before I knew him. Maybe I married him because he validated my fear; maybe he truly was the hero I was looking for. In essence, he told me that I WAS RIGHT.

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  • The Beast Under My Bed: What If My Husband is Right?

    The Beast Under My Bed: What If My Husband is Right?

    He makes the money. He schmoozes for the promotions, he works his ass off goddammit so he can come home and work like a slave around here, too. I’m always breaking stuff, always buying more than we need, always wasting the good life he’s providing for me by crying, fearing, cringing, and hugging the walls…

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