Effects of Abuse
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Abuse Makes Me Wanna Be a Banshee
I read that victims of abuse are not abused because of who we are. We’re abused because of who we are NOT. I am NOT whatever person my husband wants me to be or thinks…
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Stop Saying ‘It Makes Me Sick’
My sister tells me to stop saying “It makes me sick” because she’s afraid “it” (the abuse) really will make me sick. Once upon a time, “It makes me sick” was a kind of heart-sickness,…
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Expectations
Like many of our “good” conversations, my husband and I talked for over three hours last night. I went to bed at 3:30am, tired of course, but also daring to hope that MAYBE we opened…
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Work to Undo
I’ve got two boys that are going to be their own men in a few short years. I have a lot of work to undo. And hey – if you have a second, send a…
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Wish in One Hand…What Goes in the Other?
I must stop wishing him to “feel the way I feel” because in order for him to feel like me, I have to act like him. I don’t care if he feels like me or…
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Can't We Talk?
I don’t want him out of my reality, but if co-existing in a mutual reality means that I have to hide myself and rely on hoping that he’ll be nice to me, then any mutual…
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at least
i am no longer a mess but i may be becoming a new kind of crazy. hazy. unpredictable. but no longer unfortunate. no longer in ruins. edging out of the confusion i dare look to…
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It's too hard
My thoughts hurt. My heart aches. My body is tired. I’m breaking into tears on the outside, but breaking into pieces on the inside. This is too hard. I want to give up even caring…
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Gaslighting Abuse Means War
Perhaps I am so important to him that he feels we should be as one mind. Unfortunately, this thought seems to translate into we should be of his mind and “my mind should disappear and…