Raw

I’ve been stewing over today’s post for the last few weeks, unsure of where to go with it.  Which is ironic because, if memory serves, it was my idea to include this one. {some of you hate me right now don’t you?}  It seemed to sum up perfectly the idea behind the entire blogging challenge.  Be real.  Be honest.  Be unfiltered.  Write from the heart and be genuine.

Now that it’s time to write, I’m lost.  That’s not to say I don’t have ugly truths to share.  I have my fair share which I think, in part, is what binds a few of us together from our initial interactions.  We recognize our brokenness in the eyes of the broken.  Our luggage is the same shade of gray.  We know the weight of the burdens.

I usually deflect with humor and sarcasm…but to do that here would defeat the entire purpose of being real, wouldn’t it?  In the spirit of the exercise I’m fighting the urge to be witty.  It’s easier to be funny than it is to be real.

We all cope with our demons in different ways.  Some build walls so high that they become cynical…shutting down the chance to feel the anger or pain or hurt again.  I’m jealous of those people.  I wish I could allow the pain of the past to harden my heart so that I don’t keep making the same mistake over and over and over again.  I can’t.  I’ve tried.

Earlier this month, there was a case in Dallas where a judge basically blamed a 14 year old for getting raped and let her attacker off with a proverbial slap on the wrist.  This of course sparked a ton of controversy on the interwebs from all directions.  I’m not going to regale you here with the details because you can Google that on your own.  I stayed away from the controversy for the most part because there were too many triggers.

The judge was quoted saying “She wasn’t the victim she claimed to be.  He is not your typical sex offender.”

In other words… She deserved it.

A flood of emotions I had buried deep came flooding back to the surface as I read those words.  I ache for the girl… but mostly I ache for the girl I once was.  The girl that sat in a lawyer’s office justifying the actions of her abuser while my mother sat in stunned silence, aching for her daughter and fuming at the man {term used loosely} who was supposed to love and protect her.  The girl who flippantly explained that “he never hit me… he’d just throw me against a wall.”

Because I believed I deserved it.

I believed that if I were a better wife… a better person… the physical, sexual, emotional abuse would end.

I believed that if I were just somehow more perfect…. then the happily-ever-after-white-picket-fence life I was promised in fairytales and Disney movies … and in the example set by my own parents… could be mine and it was all my fault for not being the kind of woman that he deserved.

I believed that deep down he wanted to love me but I was the one preventing him from doing so.

I believed that I was the one at fault for the failures and that he was blameless.

I believed that his actions were normal even though I had nothing showing me this to be true.

I hid our struggles and his anger from everyone I knew.  Friends disappeared.  My relationship with my mother was strained for years as I shielded her from the ugly side for fear that she too would side with him and agree that I was damaged goods and no wonder a great man like him couldn’t love me.

{I know this would never be the case now, but then I believed this to be a very real possibility.}

I believed every lie the monster in my bed and in my head fed me until I reached a point where I began to question whether or not those in my world would be better off without me.  That too was the poison I was being fed…with a Glock 37 in my nightstand and the biggest concern being how angry he would be if I made a mess that he would have to clean up.

Something snapped in me – for the better – one afternoon as I ran my fingers across the cold steel of the only birthday present I had ever been given by him.  Thank God I fell on the right side of that fence and went sobbing to my family.  I couldn’t even bring myself to give full details and I don’t know that even she knows just how deep I had fallen.

I was, and am, lucky.  I had and still have a safety net that I could fall into.

So many aren’t.

So many struggle in these situations feeling like they deserve what they get.

It’s not ok.

It’s never ok.

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