Letting go of unhealthy relationships

Here is another voice journal from a year and a half ago while I was still in my marriage. In this I talk about the desire for the one abusing me to disappear.... In my research and my own counseling for years I learned this is a very "normal" thought process of the one subjected to the constant verbal and emotional abuse, control, gas lighting and manipulation. We have a bond or trauma bond with our abuser(More on that in the next episode). The reality is we feel trapped and hopeless. As if there is no way out. We are scared and constantly told,

"We are nothing without them!"

"I'll take our kids from you..."

"We will never survive on our own, that we will come crawling back!"

"We are nothing without them!"

"You came with nothing you'll leave with nothing!"

"No one else will want us or 'love' us the way they do!"

I now know that was NEVER love! If you've fantasized about something happening so the monster never comes home again, you are not a bad person and there is nothing wrong with you. It is called survival. It is the way our minds and hearts feel and process the abuse. This, in our minds is the only way to be free of the abuse and control. Let's be honest, most of us are afraid to leave. One, because we believe the lies they feed us and two, we are afraid they will hurt us or kill us.

This was recorded 1 and a half years ago. I chose while I was still in the madness that I would prep, learn, talk to others, get professional counseling, my counselor was one of the best things that ever happened to me! She validated me and started me on the path of seeing my true worth. Not the worth that had been spewed at me from my husband and past abuses. She helped to show me I was stronger than that. I gathered an army of help and support(I was very blessed in that department), I bought many household items and furniture and stored them at different friends and families homes. I stashed cash when I could and I bought gift cards and stashed those as well. I took a women's self defense course 2x and became so passionate about it that I was invited to become part of the team to help other women. I was planning my escape. That was probably the smartest thing I did. I went through 2 attorneys. I fired the first one. She was a woman on a mission and she wasn't on my side. I decided that if I was going to go through something so scary that I needed someone who wasn't going to give me opposition. I had had enough of that over my lifetime! I should also say that it took me over 3 years to file. When I finally found the perfect attorney for my case, my papers sat in his office for a year. I was scared of the unknown and afraid of the monster I was up against. Tiny and I mean tiny step by steps I moved forward and became more empowered. Fear still gripped me tightly to the point I couldn't breathe some days, but I was determined. I would look at my beautiful children some days and cry. I wanted so much more for them! I wanted them to have a whole and healthy family. That obviously wasn't my choice because my monster wasn't capable of such things.

So today I sit in my very own office and write this.....and I'm free of him. Well....to some degree. We share children together. I'm just not his to control anymore. There is hope for you! You aren't stuck forever. It may take you a long time as it did me, but everyone's journey is different. Today as I remember wishing my monster to disappear and never come home.....honestly there are days I still wish that with him being difficult....it's just not a daily thought anymore. That feeling in it's self was torture. Take a tiny step forward of getting away from your abuser. That tiny step leads to bigger steps til one day you look back and see how far you've come!