Life is full of happiness and little things that make us smile. It could be the beautiful painted colors of the early morning sunrise or the child's laugh of perpetual joy that seems to sweep through the entire room for a split second. It's the gentle breeze against your skin on a hot summer day or stepping into a warm and comforting building in the middle of winter. But there are gaps in the valley of happiness. Gaps of darkness, pain, grief, regret. Gaps that make a person wonder how they ever survived up to this very moment they are living, and fear the imminent return into the void.
I smile every day, or at least I really try to find something to smile about every day. Strangers looking in may see just a normal woman in her early twenties trying to figure out what she wants to do with her life. Just going with the flow of things until something seems right enough to pounce on a given opportunity. This is partially true, but there's so much more than that. I really am trying to figure out what I want in life, but most importantly I'm trying to figure out who I even am. I've had enough lemons thrown at me in life that I could be the proud owner of a mighty fine orchard. I've seen darkness. In fact, I was in love with it.
In 2011, I was just your average overdramatic and slightly awkward high school senior - excited and nervous about what the world may hold for me on the other side. I wanted to be accepted and loved, though I never really knew what that was supposed to look like. My parents never had much of a healthy relationship. As far as I'm aware, neither ever raised a hand to the other, but there was so much yelling. At four years old, I thought it was normal to just scream at the people you cared about instead of having calm and collected conversations about disagreements. I was around so much anger all the time that I became engulfed in it, even after their divorce, and needed counseling to "talk about my feelings" when I was in elementary school. When my dad passed away in 2006, I moved in with my mom, where I was once again exposed to the constant fighting and belittling that happened between her and my sister's father. After he sexually assaulted me later that year and their divorce was finally finished, my mom rekindled with an old friend from high school, which eventually turned into an actual relationship. The details of that long and winding road will eventually come into play in later articles, but for now, let's just focus on the fact that there was once again a constant exposure to emotional and verbal abuse - things that I eventually programmed myself to think was normal.
Fast forward back to 2011, where I found myself dumbfounded by someone who I thought was a godsend. But once again, there's these little gaps in life that are overflowing with never-ending darkness that seem to consume us, even if they are from our pasts. We got along perfectly fine in the beginning - just your typical honeymoon stage that seemed to be ripped out of a sappy fairy tale. Petty arguments eventually turned into screaming fits; screaming fits eventually turned into something ripped out of a nightmare.
I don't particularly remember the content of the argument that led up to the first time he actually hit me. I just remember standing there in shock and utter disbelief. "Did that really just happen?" It didn't really hurt either, at least not until later - maybe because I was too shocked to physically feel anything. I remembered talking about abuse of different kinds in some of my classes at school, and telling myself that I would absolutely never put up with someone raising a hand to me. But he loved me... right? "Well if you just stopped pushing me, it wouldn't have happened. I won't do it again." That's it. No apology. Just an empty promise from someone who swore they would take a bullet for me; who swore that they were the only person that would ever want to consider calling me theirs. So I stayed.
Eventually, the minor marks and welts turned into dark and disgusting bruises. I started wearing nothing but sweats and hoodies to school in order to avoid unwanted questions. I started lashing out on my friends and family and isolating myself until they just stopped questioning me. I thought that maybe, he was doing it because I deserved it. Maybe, he really loved me and was just doing it out of fear of me leaving. Maybe, I would never meet anyone else and he was telling the truth when he said that no one else would ever even attempt to put up with me. Maybe, if I left, he would kill me. It's amazing and sickening what you force yourself to believe when you're actually experiencing it. So I stayed.
The physical violence eventually turned into sexual force. I remember a few times that I threatened to leave, in which he responded with threats to kill me, publish inappropriate photos of me, pawn me off to his friends, etc. I was terrified. I was paralyzed with fear. So I stayed. Over time, I realized what he was really capable of, when he nearly killed me and had to perform CPR to resuscitate me. "You owe me your life now," he would tell me, as tears of hatred and betrayal ran down my cheeks and onto his bed, which I would later be yelled at for because of "leaving your nasty makeup stains."
It was because of someone else that I was actually able to strike up the courage to leave. A friend - or at the time, an ex-friend - had gone to the school counselor about concerns that she had about me. At this point, I was completely suicidal and knew exactly how I was going to end this twisted nightmare I couldn't seem to wake up from. Seeing that people truly cared - even the ones I wasn't even talking to anymore at the time - somehow opened my eyes to see that I could leave, and I could live. So I left.
Maybe eventually I can start to go into more details of what happened to me - the individual events and stories that add together exactly why my mind seems to be so messed up at this point. But for now, I tell a generalized version of my story in hopes that it will show people that they're not alone, that they have ways to get out, and that this isn't normal behavior by any means whatsoever.
If you or someone you know is experiencing abuse of any kind, please, seek help. It's out there. It may seem like a 1000-mile walk up the iciest stairwell in existence, but it's there. I'm easy to talk to, if you need a listening ear, so feel free to reach out to me at any time.
Live. Love. Survive.
With Love,
Em
