Steps for Leaving an Abusive Relationship Part 2

If you are in an abusive relationship and feel like all hope is lost you're not the only one! Here are some Statistics to make this more real to you...

• One in 4 women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime.
• Women experience more than 4 million physical assaults and rapes because of their partners, and men are victims of nearly 3 million physical assaults.
• Women are more likely to be killed by an intimate partner than men
• Women ages 20 to 24 are at greatest risk of becoming victims of domestic violence.
• Every year, 1 in 3 women who is a victim of homicide is murdered by her current or former partner.

* Taken from SafeHorizon

So, in Part 2 I will be discussing ways of getting help or offering help to loved ones.

First up Acknowledging and Getting Help -

Acknowledgment - 
If you think you're in an abusive relationship the first step to acknowledgment is to understand abuse, if you haven't read Part 1 you can find it HERE to help you understand if you're being abused.

It took me several YEARS to finally come to terms with the fact that I was being abused. My ex-husband rarely left bruises on me but he certainly had no issue inflicting a plethora of emotional abuse on me. As well as disconnecting me from my family and loved ones, so I had no one to talk to about my situation.

* This is one of the first steps many abusers take. It puts you in a vulnerable position, because there is no one to see you changing or becoming more introverted.

Getting Help - 

 If you have someone in your life who you know you can talk to about your situation, without them making mention of it to your partner, talk to them and tell them you feel threatened. Not everyone will be receptive to helping you or even acknowledging that you are being abused. If there is no one in your life who can help you then it's time to move onto community outreach programs.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline

at

1-800-799-7233

*I can't stress this part enough, you you don't trust them not to talk to your spouse then MOVE ON. Find someone who never talks to your spouse. Often times abusers become more aggressive when they feel that they have been "outed".

Helping Loved Ones Get Out
You genuinely care about the safety and happiness of your Son/Daughter/Friend/Mother/Father/Whatever. The toughest part of loving someone is telling them they need help. But the problem isn't really about the person you're trying to help. It's about the abusive party. You need to understand that they may be so controlling that your loved one may never have the ability to leave the house without threats of harm to themselves our your loved one. Sometimes it's treats against pets, children or personal property. Regardless of where the threats lie, they are seen as very real and very unnerving.

Taking Action -
The first step in taking action is always first contact. Remember, your loved one thinks they are good at hiding the abuse. Be gentle and careful in your wording, but before that it's really about One on One time with your loved one.

*Unless you come from a VERY open and close family I would say an intervention should only be used as a last resort. Sometimes first contact about the situation can be all they need. 

First Contact - 
The best way to get first contact is to have the most trustworthy family member or friend (preferably of the same sex as the party being abused) make plans to participate in a one on one activity that you know the abuser will not be able or willing to interfere in. Examples: Girls Day, Shoe Shopping, Pedicures, Spa Day. The activity should be borderline repulsive to keep the abuser from wanting to participate. This may still be a challenge, make the activity out to be a celebration of some sort, if necessary. The hard part is going to be finding the right words to say. Not everyone is in a similar situation, the most important part, however, is to make it be known that you are willing to help in ANY way necessary, or at least to the the best of your abilities.

A little bit about my experience - 
All through out my abusive relationship, I tried to ask, beg even, for my in-laws help and they in turn would either, turn it into a situation where I was to be punished for my actions (i.e. Calling the  authorities) or just simply told to get some space (i.e. Rent a motel room). They were sadly, so blinded by they're love of their son that they couldn't see that the problem was him, not me. The breaking point happened when my mother came to visit while my ex-husband was out of town. She originally came to keep me company, which then forced her to see what was really going on.

We had recently purchased a new home and my spouse was refusing to pack up and move our belongings from our rental to our new property. This caused my mother to pull up her bootstraps and help me move everything in while he was away. She had decided that she was willing to dedicate as much time as possible to help get everything in order. Which inevitably lead to my spouse arriving home from his trip and proceeding to continue the abuse cycle in front of her. This included down right nasty remarks, all the way to coming home drunk at 4am, banging on my (separate) bedroom door and more than once breaking into it using the full force of his body.

She finally came to me and said "It's time to leave. You can't live here anymore." Luckily for me I had saved enough money and was secretly working a job that paid me enough to afford a place of my own. I had been planning my escape from him for over a year but figured I would end up being murdered by him before I would get out. It's hard to acknowledge the fact that I felt that threatened in that situation, but looking back it seemed like I had only two options, Run Away or die.

*Like most of my stories, this is only the beginning and a very small snippet of details leading up. I feel it's helpful to give you some insight into what I've been through.

 In part 3 I will be explaining a few ways to make your transition out of the living situation more safe and easy for everyone involved.

I thank you all for reading. Please feel free to comment!

Steps for Leaving an Abusive Relationship Part 1

It recently came to light that some of you may want help getting yourself or a loved one out of an abusive relationship. I'm going to do my best to give you an overview of what I reccomend to do, to get out and keep yourself safe in doing so.
*Results May Vary

First things first, you need to assess whether you are actually in an abusive relationship. Abuse can come in many different forms. In no particular order -

1. Withholding - Money, food, shelter, attention, affection or anything else a rational human being would deem necessary for life or a healthy adult relationship.

2. Emotional/Verbal Abuse - This means calling you fat, stupid, or worthless, among other things.

*My ex-husbands favorite was to call me "trailer trash", "fat" or a "loser".

3. Physical Abuse - This is slapping, punching, kicking, hitting, biting or any other kind of physical conduct you find to be intrusive (rape, molestation, erratic driving, etc.)

And last but not least, #4 I haven't heard of many other people having to deal with but it was my evil ex's favorite was what I like to call -

4. Embarrassment Abuse - This method of abuse consists of being in a public place, basically being pushed to your breaking point and once you've hit the wall and say something in response, they get loud or make a scene so that YOU look like the abusive one, in order to publicly shame you.

*My evil ex had the tendency of erratically driving in order to raise my blood pressure and then move into verbal abuse to basically tell me I didn't deserve to be alive. By the time we had reached our destination, I was content on keeping my mouth shut and not fueling his fire. We start walking up to the building and he begins screaming at me in front of a family with 2 pre-teen/teen daughters who did NOT need to see a man screaming at his wife. I could write and entire blog about this incident, so I'll just leave it at that.

Overview - Abuse is one in the same with being bullied. Even if I failed to mention the way you are feeling bullied, please don't feel invalid in your feelings. You deserve to be happy and no one should be able to control that.

And on that note if you identify with any of these behaviors in your spouse, I suggest you seek help immediately! Read part 2 for ways to seek help and a way out.

It's Not Your Fault

It really hard to not place blame.

When you are a survivor of emotional abuse you always feel like you must be the reason that things have happened. I like to relate it to Stockholm syndrome, you are so brainwashed that you think it's your fault. But it's not.

I sat having a very long conversation with Scotty tonight. We traded stories and came up on my recent situation with my ex-husband. I began telling him about my ex and how I wanted to blame him but couldn't. No matter how young a had been at the time I felt like I should have known better. Should have known better than to fall into his web. I honestly don't feel like I had a chance, but I should have known when someone wanted all of my time that something should have been wrong.

I was an impressionable 18 year old. I had no idea what an addicted personality looked like. I just thought he was sad. Very sad. Someone who needed a someone to show them they cared.I tried so hard. So hard. It was like climbing the mount Everest of emotional issues. I really thought for once in my life I could make it to the top of this peak and go back down. And I did, just not in the way I had imagined.

He had been married and divorced by the time he was 26. And I know I can't talk, I'm 25 in nearly 2 weeks, and going through a divorce. But his was different. He claimed all kinds of aggravated assault, not that I deny it. But I fear that due to his abuse he was perpetuating the cycle of abuse. I had stood clearly in the ground of giving everyone their own fair chance and doing my best to show everyone I meet that I love them. I'm not one to let someones emotions change my attitude towards life.

My childhood wasn't the greatest. My parent's were divorced by the time I was 9. I was uprooted and taken to another state far from my father. And sequestered to be around my mother (whom I love and adore) and my Nan. I never really remember having too close of a bond with my Nan. She always seemed very cold, calculating and intelligent. When she spoke it carried a certain weight. She and had never really had much common ground and for some reason she seemed to get a certain amount of pleasure out of making my life hell. She was hell on wheels and had a knack for demeaning my sense of anything, fashion, music, humor. It was hard to be around her. She would chase me through her house and call me names, lock me in my room and not feed me. It was a strained existence for a child. I was never aloud to have friends over and often when I did she would find a reason to have them sent home.

None the less, I took her cold hearted ways and did my best to not turn into her. It's hard to spend a large amount of time around someone abusive and not adopt some of their angry tendencies. I suggest to anyone going through or just getting out of an abusive situation to take a look at yourself and do what you can to heal yourself. It's hard in the moment to not return the same vicious words that are spewed at you by an abusive loved one. But remember that you need to start everyone with clean slate and do your best to treat them better than you want to be treated.

I'm rambling now...Have a positive week!

The Maiden Voyage

Every time I start something I feel like I'm smashing a bottle of champagne against a ship, we wont know if it will be like the Titanic or something slightly more successful. But here goes nothing everything.

I met my ex-husband on my 18th birthday. How and why we met doesn't matter. What matters is that I was a sweet, naive and socially adventurous girl. And what he seemed like was an equally socially adventurous, sweet and handsome guy. But what I couldn't see was the damaged creature that lived within.

I'll never know why he was so damaged under the surface. He came from a loving set of parents, with a good moral background. He really seemed like the whole package. He was there for me when my grandmother passed away, and comforted me when I really needed it. But he has a dark side that would quickly creep in snatch my feet from beneath me and leave me bewildered. I thought I could fix him...I thought.

I never really thought things would escalate between us. I thought he just needed some TLC. Everyone gets kicked around in life, shouldn't some love fix the hurt? I can't really explain to you why I stayed or why I thought things would change. He just seemed like the only real thing I had going on in my life.

He slowly crept into my mind like a virus. He planted little thoughts into my head and made me feel like he was the only person who could give me what I needed. He was almost an emotional drug dealer. He would give me my fix and then up the price while my back was turned. He made it hard to know was truth and lies. I became uneasy with my family and friends. I became paranoid, everyone was after me he said, but not him. He had my back. At the time I had no idea that he was slowly separating me from anyone who would have seen the signs of abuse.

He always came off so cool and collected almost a Bond like figure. Smooth and on the money with a quick whit and a gleaming smile to match. What people didn't see was the man he was at home. An abusive alcoholic who's favorite past time was telling me, with a plethora of large words, that I wasn't good enough to exists. He always said that anyone who thought he was a good guy "Didn't know him very well", and it was true. It was a laughable quote in the beginning but slowly it became a dark unshakable truth. No one who knew the man liked him. He burned every bridge he got close to.

I'm going to leave this post at that. I'm a few days from my first divorce hearing and due to his continuous harassment I'm a shaking crumbling mess, but more about that in the next post. The good news is I finally figured out how to block his number from contacting me which gives me a great sense of relief but also a weird sense of loss, almost like losing a race. But that also, is something he put into me. That giving up on things makes you a loser. But I'm going to leave you all on this note. Leaving an abusive marriage doesn't make you a quite or a loser, it makes you survivor. Just remember this is your first step to a second chance at a wonderful life. And if you're still in an abusive marriage I hope my words can help you get to where to need to be to leave.

Love yourself first, and lets start a survivor cycle to end the abuse cycle.
Love always,
Cheesecake