When you've been in a relationship with an abusive person, they tend to beat you down, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. They control you, belittle you, make you afraid of anything and everything, and take away your self-worth. For whatever reason, you give them the power to do those things, as they cannot do that without your relinquishing the power to them.
Once you get the nerve the leave the relationship, you'd think that you'd take back all that power and things would be all hunky dory and you'd feel good about yourself again. WRONG! At least, not in my world. I've been slowly, ever so slowly, taking that power back and working to regain my self-worth.
It's been a little over 8 years since my divorce, almost 6 years since I've even spoken to that demon, yet I still have those feelings of inadequacies, the low self-esteem, and low self-worth. I never went to a therapist after the divorce, and I know I should have. I've thought about going to one now, to hurry up and deal with all the feels and hurts and everything. I just don't want to expose the hurts to someone in a professional setting. They don't understand me, there's not really enough time in the day for me to spill it all out to let someone who doesn't know me try to help me. Maybe I'll change my mind one day, maybe I won't.
I deal with it by the occasional blog here, and by talking about things with Brian and sometimes Steven. I think Steven is still dealing with some of what he experienced, but he talks about it when something comes up. I talk about it when things come up, but honestly I've been so happy the last several months that I haven't felt the need to discuss it. I did have a talk with Brian about it on Christmas Eve, spilled some tears and worked through whatever aspect of the memory that surfaced.
Yet I sit here, shedding tears now as I write this. I don't normally say I hate people but I hate that son-of-a-bitch. I hate that he did this to me. I hate what he took from me. I hate that I'm struggling to take back all that I lost emotionally. I hate the fucking scar on my face where he pushed me into a door after a fight, where I was trying to leave the house to get away from him because I was afraid he would kill me. I hate that I get emotional when I think about it, talk about it, write about it.
Sometimes it just doesn't matter how good you have things. The evil shit inside ruins it. And that's why I let it out - in tears, in words. And the photo above, if I were to speak to him today, that's one of the many things I'd say to him. But he is not worth it.
