Recovery from Domestic Abuse
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Pride Revisited
Last year, I wrote a story called Pride and Greed about how those two sins work together to create an abusive relationship. But now that I think about it, the story is not quite right. I mean, the story helped me to understand how Will and I “happened”, but it’s off somehow. The story is…
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Promise Me A Rose Garden
A few months after I’d left Will, I had worked through the grief stage and moved into such a euphoric state that I thought it would never end. I thought to myself, “So this is what I’ve been missing all these years!” and with a smile and artsy flourish of my wrist, I chucked my…
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You Can’t Make Your Abuser Abuse You
You can’t make your abuser abuse you. The responsibility for abusing falls directly on the shoulders of the perpetrator, not the victim. Yet so many victims (me too!) want to somehow make the abuse “our fault”. I think that I wanted to accept responsibility for the abuse because if I caused it, then I could…
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Depression After Leaving Abusive Relationship: Spiraling
Depression today has the same purpose as it had during my abusive relationship: to dull the good, feel the bad, and then try to fix me. But I’m not broken. My brain chemistry is broken. Domestic violence and abuse broke my brain.
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Dream World of Abuse in Relationships
I wrote this some time ago, before leaving my abuser: Poe wrote, “All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” Perhaps his statement sheds light on why abuse is so difficult to describe, so difficult to recognize, end, and admit. Living in abuse, I know that nothing is real. Every…
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Anniversary Anxiety Related to Domestic Violence
February 1st last year was on Monday. Will and I had gone to court the Thursday before, and I had told the judge I agreed that he could see the boys. That first weekend, he wouldn’t take them because he hadn’t received his paperwork and was afraid that I would call the law on him…
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One Year Out of My Abusive Marriage: The Moonlight Dance
The subconscious dance I participated in with my ex-husband steals my thoughts today. I want to look deep inside the belly of the beast inside myself and paint a true portrait of my abusive marriage with my own blood. I don’t want his blood – I cannot pretend to know what he was doing or…
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Last Year
I know there’s no “loser” in my brain. The words I speak to myself are so far from tired and depleted that I almost cannot remember writing that entry, almost cannot remember feeling that worthless and guilty.