My Story
It Didn’t Start With Me
While
some of us experience the sting of Domestic Violence relationships in
adulthood, my story of violence began in infancy. And by the time I was in
grade school, I learned that acts of violence were expressions of love, while
relationship survival was fawning, acquiescing and the denunciation of my
observations, thoughts and feelings. In fact, some of my most prominent
recollections of familial interactions are shroud in the pain of violence,
betrayal, and denial.
Growing pains
I
carried with me the stain of dysfunctionality, well into adulthood, and instead
of becoming an aggressor, I chose what I thought to be the lesser on the
Domestic Violence spectrum in both my personal and professional relationships.
I had no real practice of setting boundaries, as I seldom did, and likewise no
standards in the quality of relationships I accepted. My only real recourse to
offensive behavior from others, was either to pretend that it didn't happen or
to simply accept it. I rationalized these responses to disrespect or personal
violations, by holding on to the crumbs of affection I received here and there
from my interactions, always just enough to keep me there, and likewise keep me
starving.
I
met insults with smiles, infidelity and drug addictions with compassion, and
dismissed physical violence, no matter how big or small, as being just another
episode, until the residual effects of the cycle of this behavior wore me out
completely and I almost drowned in the heaviness of my own unhealthy coping
mechanisms toward the volatile behaviors and projections of my socializations.
This trend would continue endlessly, until only in my thirties, I was rundown
almost to the point of exhaustion. Prolonged and repeated trauma scenarios left
me deluded, shattered and wounded in ways, that band-aids and simple dressing
weren’t going to remedy. If I was going to change the trajectory of my painful
circumstances, it was time to face the truth and do the work. In this process,
I realized that I developed the learned pathology of protecting people who did
not treat me well. A trait perfected since childhood.
journey toward healing
For
a really long time I had lost myself to the painful and inevitably destructive
cycles of violence, where for most of my
life, I lived in self-denial and repression. Today I speak and live in my
truth. I know now that Domestic Violence and volatile relationships aren’t only
harmful to us, but that they also affect those who care, and likewise, threaten to change us in ways imperceptible.
Fortunately for me, it would be the series of those changes that ultimately
saved my life and helped me begin the process of breaking my own familial
pathology of violence.
Everything we face can’t be changed, but nothing is changed until it is
faced
-James
Baldwin
Healing
is hard. Speaking our truth of the pain and violence and hurt we’ve faced at
the hands of our loved ones is hard. And finally, seeking professional help
when we need added support is also hard - yet they are all very necessary steps
in the process of reaching deep inside those wounded places of ourselves, to
find and heal the core of the trauma that holds us in bondage to dysfunctional
and otherwise unhealthy relationships, so we can start the process of promoting
our own wellbeing.
As
a survivor who has dealt with Domestic Violence almost all my life, I make my
healing journey intentional. It is a continual cognizant effort to abstain from
reverting to the all to familiar self-sacrificial behavioral patterns that
prioritize others wants and needs before my own. I am constantly building
healthy “no muscles” and rejecting crumbs when I recognize them. I am embracing
my truth and the reality of dealing with things and people as they are, without
romanticizing scenarios. After burning in the fire of dysfunction almost all my
life, I am paving a violence free path for myself, becoming both wiser and
stronger in the process.