Blood is not thicker than water. Sometimes, it’s tainted.

Over the last year, my daughters and I have struggled. While I was struggling through the end of an abusive relationship with their father, he continually put them and others in the middle of it. He even went as far as telling our 18 year old daughter that she had no choice but to be in the middle and to choose a side. What kind of parent could do that to their own child? Why would you tell your child they needed to choose between two of the most important people in their life? The really sad thing is that this was not the first time he did this to her.

Most people view abuse as beating, punching, hitting, but it goes so much further. Abuse is financial control that keeps someone else under your thumb because they have no other means of survival. Abuse is using that kind of control to mentally attack someone, convincing them that they are worthless. Abuse is continual reminders that someone is not enough, can’t do enough, will never be enough. Abuse is using children as a means of control. Abuse is attempts to pit children against the other parent. Abuse is breaking someone down and feeding fake apologies over and over. Abuse is sexual control, including rape and sodomy within a relationship. Abuse is and always has been so much more than beating and my daughters and I lived with every spoke on that damn wheel.

After nearly 20 years, I sought help. I found us safe, temporary housing and while housed there, I secured safe, permanent housing for us. I started finding myself and living a life with my children that we had been denied. We have gone to different places, had new experiences, laughed and cried, fought, hugged and we’ve done it all together.

During this last year, I have felt this insane need to justify my choices, as well as my daughters to my family. I didn’t talk about the things that went on in my house. I didn’t tell my family about the things that we had been through or the pain it had caused us. Boy, do I wish I had. Nobody should ever have to justify ending a relationship. Grown children should not be guilted for refusing contact with an abusive parent. I should not have to repeatedly state that I haven’t kept them from him. I should not have to repeat that when one of my daughters did take it upon herself to go see him, she was asked what the fuck she wanted and came home heartbroken. None of this should need to be explained to people who are not and have not been directly affected by any of this aside from their self appointed involvement.

It makes me sick to be told that my ex is so distraught by what we “did to him”. I’m sorry, but I did not sodomize him, I did not put him down, I did not spread ugly rumors about him, I did not threaten suicide as a sympathy plea, I did not do any of the shitty things that he did. I simply left, after asking him to be decent for the sake of our children and he threatened to throw all of my belongings out. How dare I? He got the house, the cars, the dogs, his 65″ television and 3/4 of all of the other things in the house. The kids and I left with some of our clothes, a few pieces of furniture and not much more, but we somehow have wronged him.

I cannot even begin to express how I feel about his pathetic sympathy pleas or my family’s refusal to even try to understand that my children have made a choice and I will not force them to see their abusive father. I cannot express how very sick it makes me that they feel a need to shame me or my kids, especially with the knowledge that they themselves have been in unhealthy relationships. It amazes me that someone who refuses to see their own abusive father can attempt to tell someone else that they should be in contact with an abusive parent. I can’t begin to express how pissed off I am that they have had the audacity to tell my children that I have “twisted” them. They have no idea how many times I had to correct things that their father said to them because it not only was a lie, it was one that was detrimental for them to continue to believe. They have no idea how hard it was all of those times to simply state that their father was “confused” or didn’t have all of the information, rather than straight up calling him a liar or jackass.

I have worked very hard to be the bigger person. I haven’t asked for a dime in child support from him. I haven’t asked him for help. I haven’t talked shit about him to everyone that will listen. I haven’t spread rumors about him. I haven’t followed him around town like a creep. I have focused on bettering my children’s lives as well as my own. I have remained focused on what we are doing, moving forward and living happy lives. I have done none of the things that he has and yet, somehow I am still vilified. I was asked today why certain family members were not invited to a get together. By the same family members who have tried shaming, guilting and putting down everything that we have been doing. Blood is not thicker than water. Sometimes, blood is tainted. I’d rather have an extended family of people who are not related by blood but are there to celebrate the good with us and support us through the bad than have blood relatives in my life who are nothing but toxic.

At 37, there has been nothing easy about rebuilding a life. There has been nothing easy about being a single parent. There has been nothing easy about doing these things without the support of most of my family. It is always easy to look at these shitty things. It is sometimes harder to remember that I am showing my daughters that it’s okay to be strong women. It is sometimes harder to remember that they still love me and think that I’m doing okay, but thankfully, they remind me sometimes. Every day is a new kind of struggle for me, but every day I get out of bed. Every day, I remember that I am setting an example for my children. Every day, I hope they know how much I love them and that some day they will know that even when I was only an okay mom, I tried so hard.

Why don’t you just leave?

“Why don’t you just leave?” is such a loaded question. Over 19 years, I was asked that question so many times. 

Some forms of domestic abuse seem to be more socially acceptable, some are just too humiliating and shameful to ever just come out and talk about. Most abusers though are master manipulators, so sometimes even if someone does speak up, they get responses like “That doesn’t seem like him/her”.

I spent 19 years in an abusive relationship and there is no single descriptor for the type of abuse that was happening. People usually see abuse as one thing, physical, emotional, psychological, sexual, but the reality is that it’s usually some combination of the types, not just one. Abusers like control and power. That control and power comes from fear instilled by more than one of those forms of abuse.

If you’ve been on the receiving end of abuse, you too become a master of sorts. You learn how to read vocal tones, body language, how to hide your emotions and hold your tongue. You learn that you are not going to win battles with your abuser because no matter how wrong they might be, in their eyes, they are right and nothing you can say or do will change that.

I live in a rural area where public transportation doesn’t reach everywhere. My abuser isolated me from friends and family, the very support system that most people need just to get through every day. A lot of people just give up when you keep canceling plans or say you can’t. They don’t know what’s going on inside the house. So the isolation is furthered. Sometimes it’s lack of transportation, sometimes it’s a matter of refusal to fight, sometimes it’s false accusations that you’re too tired to fight. 

Living with abuse is like leading a double life. At home, you are under scrutiny, being shamed, humiliated, told what to do, when to do it or how. When I tried speaking up for myself or my children, my abuser’s go to phrase was “Would you just shut the fuck up?”. In public or the rare social settings, my abuser acted like a loving, doting significant other and father. 

Because of that double life, when I finally left, my family belittled me. They felt sorry for the man that put me and my kids through emotional and psychological hell. They pitied him and stood up for him and I was seen as an uncompromising, selfish bitch. Despite the fact that my children are young adults, capable of deciding whether or not they wanted to continue contact with him, I was accused of keeping him from them. It was and continues to be a choice that is up to them.

I stayed because my support system dwindled, because the side he chose to show the rest of the world made him look good and made me look bad, because I was fearful after so many threats, because he controlled every aspect of my life.

Before you ask someone why they don’t just leave, the better question to ask might be what can I do to help? I didn’t have a safe place to go, I didn’t have people to help me, I had no means to leave. When I left, I spent 2 months in a dv shelter, while he threatened and lied, trying everything he could to regain some modicum of control. 

I knew I was in an abusive relationship long before I ever left and the worst question anyone ever asked me was “Why don’t you just leave?”.

How?

How can I be the mother you want and need when nothing is the same?

How can I be your partner, when you continue to grip your past so intensely? 

How can I get back to normal, when all I’ve known is chaos and turmoil?

How can you love me, when you don’t know me?

How can I start to rebuild, when I don’t know where or how to start?

How do I make things better for you, when I don’t even know how to make them better for me?

How can you say you love me, when you don’t listen with your heart?

How can you be offended with a name, when it was you that called me an asshole?

How do I stop my mind from racing, when there is always so much at stake?

How do I stop the hurt inside, when I don’t know where it’s all coming from?

How should I apologize for changing, because my life has changed and I can’t be who I was?

Empty promises and broken dreams.

Scattered lives, ripped at the seams.

Waiting for me to try to act tough,

Ignoring until things got rough.

Now I have nothing left to give,

But I do have my life to live.

You do things you say for me, 

But it’s you who needs to want them,

What a shame that you don’t see.

While my heart was breaking,

When it was yours for taking,

You chose to be blind to what I had to say,

Chose to ignore the rope that began to fray.

Abuse is…

Abuse is not just a punch, kick or slap.

Abuse is not just yelling and obscenities.

Abuse is force and control and power taken from another person.

Abuse is taking away choices.

Abuse is an attack on your soul.

Abuse is taking control from someone else’s body so you can brutalize them.

Abuse is isolating.

Abuse is vindictive manipulation. 

Abuse is lies.

Abuse is making someone else feel crazy, anxious or lost.

Abuse is entrapment, with no option to leave.

Abuse never just stops, no matter how many empty promises are made.

Abuse makes you question everything, but above all, it makes you question yourself.

Abuse isn’t just a bruised body. It’s hurt deep in the heart and damage in the soul.

Abuse attacks your character and then pulls others into the attack in some way.

Abuse attacks your mind leaving you feeling empty, broken and unworthy.

Abuse never has one specific set of rules. It’s not done by one specific group of people or another. It doesn’t just happen to weak women. It’s such a loss of self and voice and it happens gradually. What you see is not always what is happening within a house or family. If you or someone you love needs help, reach out, it’s there.

If you…

If you tell a woman that she can’t, watch her as she does it and so much better than you could have ever expected.

If you tell a woman that she won’t, watch her do it and stand in awe of her determination and perseverance.

If you tell a woman that she is worthless, you may bring her down for a while. She might even believe you, but after a while, she is going to realize you were wrong. She will know her worth and let it shine.

If you tell a woman to figure it out, she will. Once she does, she will realize the help that you could have offered, the suggestions or advice that could have helped that you didn’t feel like giving.

If you forget to tell her that she’s beautiful, there will always be others in her life that will lift her up and remind her of it. Her family and close friends, that know how beautiful her heart and mind make her.

If you manipulate a woman, she may not call you on it every time, but never be foolish enough to think that she doesn’t comprehend what you were doing each and every time and how hurtful it is that you thought she was so ignorant and malleable.

If you call a woman hurtful names, she may forgive you that trespass, but do not think that she will forget.

If you use your words or fists to hurt a woman, the words “I’m sorry” will not make it better every time. Those behaviors may break her down for a while, but eventually, she will bounce back and sorry will lose all of it’s meaning. You can’t undo bruises that you make to the heart, the mind or body once you put them there.

A woman can be a gift, full of surprises and wonder. If you deliberately hurt her, you will lose her in one way or another. She doesn’t always need your guidance or protection. She doesn’t need to be reminded of mistakes. She doesn’t need or want manipulations, accusations or hurtful words. If you hurt her, she will inevitably find her shine, her spark and when she does, she will be a force to reckon with. She is strong and capable of so many things, and it is not her flaw if you were foolish enough to overlook that.

 

Today, I wore black

Today, I wore black. I wore black to mourn for my nation, for all of the great things it is, for all it has been and all that Americans have strived and fought to make it.

Today, I wore black because I am a woman. I wore black because I am a woman who has been sexually assaulted and has repeatedly dealt with men who have felt that they have had a right to say or do as they please to me, my body and my mind. I wore black because I’d rather be a nasty woman than a woman who allows men to just step all over me. I’d rather be called Miss Piggy than live up to the unrealistic standards of beauty within our society, if that isn’t clear, I’m fine with who I am and it is not my problem if someone else is not. I have been employed by a man who made sure that skinny, “pretty” women were the faces the public dealt with, while the less desirable women were given grunt work in places where they would remain unseen. At the same place, I was paid less than male counterparts and often worked twice as hard. I received no raises, while I watched male counterparts receive them. I was told that there would never be a female driver working at this place of business because women and I quote “couldn’t do it as well as a man”.  I wore black because I’m a woman who is morally opposed to abortion, but thinks that other women have a right to choose and that topic was not only covered during a presidential debate, but covered so poorly and with such ignorance. There was discussion of changing laws surrounding this topic, and should that happen, I will wear black to mourn for the women who are forced to have back alley abortions as a result, which are physically and emotionally unsafe in comparison to the options available to them now.

Today, I wore black because I have friends and family who are veterans. I wore black because our president elect has spoken so freely about veteran’s benefits, calling them “entitlements”. They are entitled, for putting their lives on the line, for injuries and the mental ripple effect caused by wars that other men started, but never had to come face to face with like our soldiers.

Today, I wore black because I have friends and family who are Hispanic, as well as of African American descent. I wore black because those people are lumped into exclusive groups of “all”. “All” African Americans were lumped into “the blacks” by our president elect and despite the fact that he will be taking the seat that has been filled by someone of African American descent, spoke through out his campaign about how “all the blacks” have poor education, live in deplorable conditions and poverty.

I wore black because children I know, though they were born in the United States and legal citizens, have last names that reflect their Hispanic heritage and more so, are proud of it. They are and should be proud that they know their Mexican heritage, but our president elect has even made being born from Mexican descent (in general) a “bad thing”. He wants to build a wall to keep illegal immigrants out. Historically speaking, walls have only been built to be torn down (if you think I’m incorrect, please by all means look up Berlin Wall). There are laws in place for legal immigration, but to build a wall and to so brutally verbally  condemn an entire group of ethnicities would seem to go against all that our nation was built on.

Today, I wore black because I have watched my friends and family in the LGBT community struggle, not only with being honest with themselves, but with the world. I have watched and supported the struggles to legalize marriage in order to ensure that they are given the same basic legal rights when they file taxes, apply for insurance or in the eventuality that death should occur. Simple rights, that people all too often take for granted, that they were denied for decades simply because of what happens in their bedrooms. I have heard the anti-LGBT propaganda being spewed by the vice president elect, seeking to undo all of the progress we have made to provide some of the most basic of human rights to this community.

Today, I wore black because the last time a man came into power and sought to segregate and mark an entire people based on their religion (as well as race and sexual orientation), he committed mass genocide. He sentenced those people to horrific deaths. If we refuse refugees based on their religion, deport legal citizens, based on their religion that have come from war torn and often impoverished areas, how will it be different? Marking them only makes them targets for racial profiling, for people who are intolerant and xenophobic.

Today, I wore black because I have disabled friends and family and find it despicable and deplorable that anyone would mock someone with a disability. Some of these friends and family were born this way, some it happened with age, others because of environmental factors or car accidents. Any type of disability is out of a person’s control, it is who they are and to mock anyone for it shows a disgusting flaw in character.

Today, I wore black to mourn for all that we, as a nation stand to lose with this president elect in office. I wore black because we, as a nation have come so far to overcome ideals that oppressed so many people for so long to have any of that taken away. I wore black for fear of the protesting that will be ahead, for the inevitable riots that have followed protests recently.

Today, I wore black because of all of the hatred that I have seen over the past several months revolving around this presidential election and because most of it came from the very man that is now, our president elect.

 

Hot Mess

I am without a doubt, a hot mess. Within the past few weeks I have helped my sister in law and her family arrange a slideshow honoring the life of her mother who passed away after a long battle with a neurological disease that over a span of a few years simply eroded everything that was her. I’ve listened and tried to support my best friend when she got the news that her father, a man I grew up calling my “other father”, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. This week, she called to tell me his outlook is bleak at best, with an estimated six months to live. Her son has been extremely depressed, not only contemplating suicide, but placing a gun into his mouth, unsure about whether it was loaded or not and pulled the trigger. I can only be grateful that the gun wasn’t loaded. I have played referee in my own house between two warring teenage girls, one of which is going through her own struggles with depression that goes hand in hand with an under active thyroid. Whether it’s one or both of those things, I’ll probably never know, but it does make life in my house tense, to say the very least. My own mother has been suffering anxiety attacks, one of which I helped her through during her visit to the dentist office. It’s jarring to walk into a room and see the woman who raised you reduced to a quivering, sobbing human unable to control her emotions over something so simple as needing an extra appointment to have fillings done.

Through all of these things, I have been trying to get through with a little grace, a little sanity left in tact, but every day the strength that I draw on seems to be dwindling. I’ve found myself in tears more than once this week, feeling completely lost and insecure as I try to help those around me that I care most about. This is not my typical I’ll get through this, I know what I’m doing, I’ve got this post. This one is the one where I say I feel lost. I’d love to say I know how to help my daughter, my best friend, my mother, my sister in law, but I’m at a loss. The only thing I can do right now is hold on tight and hope that when things start to look up that my sanity is still in tact and I’ve grown in some way through these experiences.

Catch 22

There is a catch 22 when it comes to parenting and many things that come with adulthood. We are often tossed into life unprepared in some way or another. We’re expected to know who we are, who and what we want to be and how to handle every situation, but most of us don’t. Not everyone is willing to own up to that, but I am. I have a good idea of who I am and who I’d like to continue to grow to be and yes, I am definitely still feeling it all out.

My daughter is 17 and in just a few short months, she’ll be considered a legal adult. She’ll be old enough to vote, go to war, smoke cigarettes. Like her mother at that age, she thinks she knows everything. Oh what I wouldn’t give to know everything again! What a blessing it would be to know how stupid adults must be and have the freedom of a young life stretching out in front of me.

For nearly a year, I have struggled to get her over those last few hurdles that she needs to face before adulthood. I’ve struggled with helping her find a job, pushing to remind her that she is a senior this year and once that’s over with, education becomes her choice. Like any other mom, I’ve struggled with teaching her the skills that she’s going to need like picking up dirty clothes, washing clothes and dishes, how to manage money (kind of hard to do without an income, no?)…Each hurdle I’m faced with an insurmountable resistance.

Now, to be fair to my daughter, she has an under active thyroid which affects her moods and has been dealing with depression. However, since things are rarely fair to me, I am going to be honest and say she has been caught lying multiple times, not just to me, but to other people as well. She appears to be compliant with certain requests or advice that’s tossed her way by myself, her therapist and a few others who care about her and mean well. That appearance is usually short lived and then we start back at square one again.

I am not just her mother, I am a person. I am flawed like anyone else and as I said before I’m trying to feel it all out for myself, and my children. I am, to be frank, doing the best I can without screwing up too much, just like most other parents. Here is that catch 22. Choosing to be a parent or getting surprised, we all get into this not knowing exactly what we’re doing 100% of the time. We are, in the best of times, wise from life experiences that are both good and bad. I have shared as much of my wisdom with my daughter as possible and because I’ve made a lot of bad choices in my life, my biggest hope is that she is able to learn from them before she needs to. I am doing my very best, but I get told far too often that my best isn’t good enough. When I seek out help, I’m told to “deal with it”. This doesn’t just happen with parenting either, this is the catch 22 of being an adult. You go about your life, trying to do your best to make the world a little better and sometimes you need help along the way, but sometimes when you’re unsure and need help, you’re told to deal with it.

I struggle every day to give my daughters what they need not only to be able to survive but to thrive. And then I struggle against thinking I’m a bad parent because I have children and a mother and friends and family who all criticize my parenting. And then I struggle when I have to push my daughter in ways that feel completely foreign to me. After I push, I struggle again to try to remind myself that I’m doing the best I can and I’m a good mom when those same people criticize me again for taking another approach.

I dealt with a very grouchy 17 year old yesterday who decided to stay up all night, yet again. I picked her up from therapy, promptly, only to find that she was in a “mood”. She took her mood out on me, on her sister, my dogs, even my doors. This morning I was met with resistance when she decided she wanted to stay home from school and I had to remind her that she simply can’t miss any more days. Why? Because she lied about being sick for over a week, to me, to three different doctors, to her father, to her therapist….And then I was met with the grouchy 17 year old again. And after I dropped her off at school? I bought myself breakfast (because morning drinking is socially unacceptable), came home, sat down and cried. This has been going on so long now, I just keep hoping for some middle ground, some peace, a little less resistance, a little more of the love and respect and patience I have shown returned to me.

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Fingertips trailing,

Soft words spoken in the dark.

My head on his chest,

His heart beating quietly beneath.

My fingers entwined with his,

Silence in the loud world of my mind.

A few quiet moments,

A lifetime of love spoken,

Without words.