H.onesty – My Turning Point with Domestic Violence
15 years ago, I watched my ex put a cast iron skillet through our dining room table. It was a deep wood almost black with layers of thick teal tinted glass. It was one of the pieces I loved most in our house that never quite felt like a home. We never sat at it during dinner and talked about our day. Breakfast was never spent around it cheerfully discussing plans. So much like me it stood there undervalued and broken by the domestic violence that raged on around it. Even so it had always been one of my favorite pieces because of the potential it held. Until it didn’t.
During the good times I imagined us around that table. I envisioned a love that felt like home. A home without holes in the walls. One where I wasn’t walking on eggshells every moment of every day. A home where I could visit with friends without a timer on my phone and a threat in my head. A home where I was enough and where my daughter wouldn’t grow up thinking that what her father and I had was normal.
My daughter, 3 years old at the time, was running around barefoot. Curiosity spurred her: towards the noise of the table breaking, towards the glass spread across the kitchen floor like stars in the night sky; little, tiny pieces of my hope shattered like every single dream I’d had since I’d fallen in love, and towards the violence my children were growing up surrounded by.
H.onesty – Closing the Door on Domestic Violence
When he walked out that day I snatched her up before she could run across the minefield. I put her down for a nap and then I cleaned up. Shaking sobs made my hands clumsy. I picked up the glass leaving streaks of blood on the larger shards that cut into me as I removed evidence of his anger. He called later that day to apologize that “I had made him so mad”. Over time he’d convinced me everything that happened was because of my behavior. I took him back time and time again and apologized as if the domestic violence I lived with was my fault. This time though my hope was as broken as the table that had symbolized it.
One of the hardest things about leaving an abusive relationship isn’t where to go. It isn’t learning how to provide for yourself again, and it isn’t even the fear of retaliation from your abuser. Don’t get me wrong. Those things are there. They are valid concerns, and they are part of why so many, including me, stay.
What kept me there though through so much? Hope. I kept hoping that the little moments where he felt like home would grow. Hope made it possible to believe the impossible dream that the potential I saw in us would become reality. It was hope that made it so easy to convince myself that the domestic violence I lived with would end.
What did I need to finally leave? Honesty. I had to be honest with myself that it wasn’t going to get better. The honeymoon phases where I felt cherished kept getting shorter. I felt broken more times than not. He filled my days and nights with emotional and narcissistic abuse. I had to be honest that I wasn’t at fault and that I didn’t deserve the things he did and the ugly words he spoke. Honesty that if my daughter ended up in an abusive relationship one day that it would be my fault for not finding the strength to leave. I had to be honest with myself that, just maybe, I did deserve respect and that I was worthy of a love that was healthier than one covered in pain.
H.onesty – Finding Myself Again After Domestic Violence
After leaving my ex the process of earning my freedom back and finding my self-worth took years. Finding myself after all the trauma I’ve lived is still an ongoing process. Therapy helped me learn that I could be so much more than I ever thought I could be. I’ve learned through pageantry that self-imposed limits are the only ones I have. I have achieved more of my dreams in the year and a half that I’ve been doing pageants than I did in the 7 years I lived with him and the following 8 years we spent on again off again until I’d healed enough and found the strength to go to court and a restraining order finally brought me peace.
I’ve talked to girls and women in the 6 years since then about domestic violence. That the red flags everyone jokes about are what could possibly save their lives. I’ve shared my stories and explained the knowledge I’ve learned about the laws that are in place to protect the abused and the resources available to those that need help to leave. And thankfully; some I’ve helped find the honesty they need to know they’re better off without their abuser.
In July I’ll try to earn the right to become part of the International United Miss family as their International United Ms. I’m drawn to the system for so many reasons but one of my top 3 reasons that this is the only system I’m competing in this year is their H.E.R.O.I.C initiative. Every word abbreviated resonates so deeply within me as key beliefs towards what helped me leave my abuser, stay free, and implement when speaking to others about domestic violence.
H.onesty – Thriving After Domestic Violence
These days my self-reflections bring forth a more fulfilling bit of honesty. I’m far from perfect. I still have days where doom and gloom sneak in trying to corrupt my positive thoughts. Thankfully I can recognize that as past trauma triggering me and send the negativity packing. There’s still a little voice in the back of my head that tells me “I can’t”. With therapy it’s getting quieter as the years go by and I’m learning to not listen and to recognize that it’s just intrusive thoughts creeping in because of my past traumas. I’m honest with myself on what needs improving and I work each day to make myself the best version of me that I can be. The best part of my life now? It’s having the ability to honestly say without a single doubt that I am worthy, I am loved, and I am more than enough.
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