Victim blaming

Really love this article on victim blaming: Victim blaming and american culture

A few interactions over the last week got me thinking and then I read this article and I remembered a vow I made to myself. When I left my ex-husband who was physically, sexually, emotionally and verbally abusive with me I promised myself I would not continue to perpetuate the rape culture and acceptance of domestic violence and victim blaming that runs rampant in our society. I knew the only way to do that, was to speak up and speak my history and truth.

It's been slow and hard. I have various posts, now hidden for the protection of my children's privacy, that express bits and pieces of what I went through. But then I stopped talking because people would start commenting on how they never would have believed it. There was a bit of victim shaming in these comments, how could a guy who seemed so great to the outside world do anything like that? Surely you must be making it up J?! But then I was shared this article today and it reminded me, silence only furthers victim blaming and shaming.

Women don't speak up. When they do it is usually the first few times their spouse lifts a finger against them and normally, they aren't believed. And then their abuser conditions the victim, through more abuse, fear, threats, withdrawing of love and finances and support leaving them unsteady and emotionally beaten and worn out. As the years progress in some cases such as my own, it grows in intensity and pain. The good ones know how to do it without leaving visible prints and the few times they do, they have you so terrified you don't leave the house until they fade and you have every excuse in the book as to why your life is picture perfect but you're just feeling under the weather. I learned how to protect myself by hiding and becoming an introvert. One friend only ever knew the real truth of my marriage, she would get pictures each and every time date stamped sent via email because we'd had the discussion . . . I could not leave and risk my children being raised in that without me there to shield them (though he was never physically abusive with them) but if anything ever happened to me and I disappeared she would know the local authorities to submit the documented proof of years of abuse so that he would not be able to get away with it and our children would be protected.

Living that way is horrible. And once I escaped I swore i'd never live under the threat or fear of it again and after realizing not everyone believes you or is comfortable with it, you stop talking. So slowly over the last year I've began opening up again. BK knows the truth, his family knows the majority of the truth and the acceptance and lack of judgment they have showered me with overwhelms me. It is balm to my soul to know that I am not viewed as a victim. As BK reads through the still very emotionally and verbally abusive emails that get shot my way from the ex, he see's the truth in my words and realizes the things I survived are nothing anyone would ever want to make up and yet he loves me none the less. I am a survivor. A warrior who didn't survive by fighting back, but by protecting myself and leaving when I finally could protect myself and all the children.

And so I say to the world - if you want your story to heard and believed and validated, remember so does the person looking back at you and listening. We all have our stories. We all have our pain. We all have the choice to stand up, start walking or crawling or running, and we all have the choice to refuse to accept the past as a way to define us and shutting us down. I refuse to be silent. I refuse to let others discomfort with the reality of my past equate me into someone they must shame or spread doubt about so as to feel bigger and better about themselves. I also refuse to be the cause of other women who are still in those situations, scared to leave and stuck enduring a life no human being ever should. Nope, I stand up and choose to help stop the end to domestic and sexual abuse. We all have a choice. What's yours?