Who Knew?

My daughter’s story I want to thank my mom Dr. Hill for bring awareness to this cause. I hope my story will inspire any person being abused to go seek help there is no shame in it. My story began when I was a child growing up, I watched my mother being abused. As a child those images are forever etched in my mind. I never understood why this was happening to her and more importantly why she stayed. It was something never talked about it was just swept under the rug. You will never know how that made me feel. My mom was the strongest person I knew but weak when it came to this situation in my head. I just wanted her to stand up for herself hit my dad back. I am not sure if she ever did cause my brother and I would only see the aftermath of the fighting. As a child I knew that I was never going to be in any relationship where a man thinks its ok to put his hands on me and I stick around to see if he will change or if things will get better. I look back on the person I became nothing to be proud of. I the woman became the abuser physically and mentally. My husband of 18 years went through hell and back with me. I felt I needed to prove I wasn’t going to like my mother, that I am stronger for striking the first blows. I used to throw things at my husband, pop him upside his head, cuss him out all when I felt I wasn’t being heard in an argument or when he had a smart-ass comment to make. I didn’t see then that I had a problem. My husband decided to tell my mother what was going on and she scolded me for my behavior. That was when I stopped throwing things at my husband and putting my hand on him did things change. I was always told by him that my words cut like a knife, that became my new way of trying to control the situation. This is not to say my husband was perfect far from it, early in our marriage I felt that he was mentally abusive to me. The way he treated me for many years broke me as a person which in my head justified what I put him through. One day we got into a huge fight and our youngest daughter watched her father beat and choke me almost unconscious, he said it was because of all the abuse he had taken plus other things going on in our marriage at the time. It was then I realized I was just like my mother in the fact that my kids had to live what I lived as a child. Many years and divorce later I went to counseling for my anger issues and try to get a better understanding about myself. I had to face myself in the mirror and break down that person to the core and the root was my childhood trauma. I make no excuses I only try to be better than I was the day before. As I continue in therapy, I have new break through’s which are hard at times. I have had to go back to my ex-husband and apologize for a lot of things I had done and said. I didn’t know what a healthy relationship should look like. I am proud to say that my ex is also in therapy and we are the best of friends. I believe we had to fall apart to fall back together. Abuse in any form is not ok whether you are the one being abused or if you are the abuser SEEK HELP. 

#ameasureofabuse