Abuse Hides in the Dark. Turn on Your Light.

Staying in Abusive Relationships


  • Crisis Writing

    Remember to Write the Good Things Too Not too long ago, I was talking to my sister about how I tend to reach out to other people when I’m embroiled in an emotional crisis, but as soon as things smooth out, the people who were my support stop hearing from me. Until the next crisis.…

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Crazy-Making In Short

    Crazy-making is your abuser’s ability to throw you off balance and keep you teetering. Abusers accomplish this by saying one thing and then swearing they said the opposite or didn’t say it at all, by talking the talk but not walking the walk, by claiming that you are crazy and unbalanced, etc. If you’re a…

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Angel-Speak Decoded

    Angel-Speak Decoded

    IF the souls of my unborn children were passed on to me BECAUSE they needed to “pass through” some sort of physical existence before going on to do better things, then I truly am blessed. And now I’m crying. It hurts so badly. Knowing I’ll know my children “later” is a sorry substitute for the…

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Cycle of Abuse Video

    I wish I knew how to explain all of this without sounding like a crybaby or that I’m blaming my abuser for everything. I really wish I could come across as someone who knew exactly what she was doing and knew exactly what she was talking about and had the answers for everything…not that I…

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Just Like I Thought: I am a woman who…

    Just Like I Thought: I am a woman who…

    My mother asked me to complete this sentence: “I am a woman who…”. And I am having a horrible time with it. I realize the exercise is to help me define myself, and I am fearful of doing that. What if I’m no one? Or worse, what if I’m no one special?

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Anonymity Compromised

    Anonymity Compromised

    My husband found my website and blog. I figured he already had found them, but I suppose he just wasn’t interested or didn’t make the connection between what he saw me doing at home and what was going online…or whatever. At first he was angry, but now he isn’t. At least, that’s what he says,…

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Thinking About It

    The idea to make a website documenting the verbal abuse and my reactions/thoughts relating to it came to me around the time I realized it was happening – about October or November of last year (2008). I never hid the fact that I was making a website about verbal abuse from my husband. In fact,…

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Change Through Resistance Feels Like a Fight

    Change Through Resistance Feels Like a Fight

    Maybe it hurts because it’s supposed to hurt. He meant to hurt me. “Goodbye and good luck.” I think he meant to threaten me, too. The “good luck” part was not lovingly said, you know. On a high note, this could be the first time he’s ever wished me good luck in anything.

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • I Just Don’t Trust Him

    I Just Don’t Trust Him

    Maybe I’m being too cynical. Maybe he really does want to improve our communication; maybe he really does want to fix “our” problem. Maybe I really should just “get over” my trust issues and let him back into my heart and mind.

    +✢+✢+✢+


  • Abuse Is a Web

    Abuse Is a Web

    Making verbalabusejournals.com is a healing process for me. Writing the pages, updating my entries (both past and present), sharing resources that have helped me…all of it serves to remind me that even now I struggle in the web of abuse. I sometimes feel like a butterfly re-cocooned in spidery fibers waiting to be the main…

    +✢+✢+✢+