She Flies

It is an extremely rare week that I am not asked why I do what I do. Why do I put myself out there? Why do I have HUGE dreams that sometimes sound unrealistic? Why do I care about people so much? This is why.

I've definitely met my share of crappy people in this life, but I've found many are much more beautiful than they seem. 

When our hearts ripped apart and we have been beaten and broken and become our own worst enemy, some strange thing slowly begins to happen. We learn to fight. We find our worth and it's nothing to do with what we have, but what we give to both ourselves and others. That transformation is what I live and breathe for.

When I left a very volatile marriage six years ago, I pretty much figured my pain and biggest problems were now behind me. What I found was that what had been imprinted in me after all those years, did not let up in the least. I needed no "batterer" to me feel worthless. I needed no abuser, because I had long since become my own. 

You see, we make broad assumptions when it comes to telling people/women that they should of left once abuse starts and so it's their own fault. What most people don't understand is that manipulation and abuse that partners ot other people we should be able to trust, are very smart and very patient. They plant the seeds of doubt. They isolate so the only influence and opinions you have daily, are theirs. 

So there is a point where you start to not trust your own thoughts. Maybe you're dumb or crazy or just can't see how awful you are. Then it escalates, slowly. Eventually the abuse does not have to come from any outside source, we become them. I ponder every day why even after being thrown across the living room and sustaining injures I'll never recover from, while my child watched from the corner, that 

I still wanted him to come back. I could try harder. I could be better, just give me one more chance.

Some victims truly know no other life. The environment they were raised on was full of abuse, addiction, absent parents that only took notice when they did something the parent didn't like. They grew up hating abuse but living in it is the only thing they know how to do to survive. As adults the imprint develops a mindset that unless you want to have nothing and be a piece of shit, you must accept and never forget your place.

Long story short (sort of), leaving my marriage led to a much harder task, and that was rediscovering my own capability. I knew how to be a wife. I knew how to make his coffee and what to wear and do so he would not be upset. I didn't know what I wanted in life. I didn't know what things I actually enjoyed and which had I been conditioned to do and accept just because. e. It took a lot of love and bravery to break free from my very destructive thinking patterns. Though, I wont lie, they can still catch me off guard in vulnerable moments. 

However now it's easier to identify it as a lie and discard it as such. Confidence and love truly strip these lies of their power. But how do we go about believing these positive things about ourselves? You don't. You tell yourself, speak positive words outloud, even if you don't believe them yet. Substitute the negative lie with a positive statement. 

My dream for many years has been to make my reality possible for other women. The problem with leaving is that it's hard. Going it alone is nearly impossible no matter your willpower. Women need support, access to training and education, and childcare. They need encouraging "tribes", judgement free. They need truth, rediscovery, and to be told they can give their selves permission to want to feel good, look pretty, and aspire to their own dreams. They need their pain acknowledged and to know its okay that healing is slow, that setbacks are reasonable.