A Personal Perspective

As a victim of abuse from childhood I always believe I was voiceless.  As a child, I had no voice against the abuse I suffered at the hands of my parents and others. I was raised in an atmosphere where I was consistently told how worthless I was.  Today after nearly half a lifetime I am beginning to repair the damage done during my childhood.  I know I am not alone, but in the company of thousands of other women that are walking this road alongside me. We will cry a thousand tears over the years of neglect, beatings, molestation and isolation we suffered as children.  Often the lessons we have learned in childhood are carried with us into adulthood, where we accepted abuse from spouses as the normal way of life.  We suffer over and over the lessons of childhood as our spouses carry on where our parents left off.  From early childhood on the message of love has come with the harsh abuse of a beating, or a verbal abrading that tears the spirit of the child apart.  As surely as the belt, switch, or coat hanger tears into the flesh of the child, the words that lash the spirit leave deep wounds.  Long after the flesh has healed, the spirit of the child does not heal.  The mind and spirit remain locked in the suffering.

  I spent my life believing I had no self worth, any human value other than to go from day to day until the day I would die.  I actually looked forward to that day.  Relishing the relief oblivion would bring me.  It has not been an easy struggle to get to where I am today.  It has taken a long time and I still do not feel safe.  I still suffer from nightmares that lead me into long bouts of insomnia.  The worst is the loneliness.  As a child I was always alone, even when out playing with others, or locked in the basement.  Inside I held secrets that kept me alone.  I could not tell anyone.  No one would believe me. Not back then.

  Now, with media and increased social responsibility, women like me can begin to find our way out of the darkness our childhoods locked us into.  We can find belief.  You see the one thing we were told repeatedly was that no one would ever believe us.  They were right, back then.   A child with belt stripes across her bare thighs, thick blood blisters from the cutting edge of the leather, was accepted.    Our bruises were not red flags of abuse; they were indicators of unruly children, troublemakers.

  When I first put this site up I wanted it to tell everyone about how hard it was to escape an abusive spouse.  I wanted to tell other women that it can be done.  Yet there are hundreds of sites out there for us to read that are all excellent and informative on legal issues and other resources available.  There was more I wanted to say and more I wanted to do to reach out to women that are struggling to survive years of abuse.

  When I left my husband and began my journey out of abuse I was ill equipped to survive the world as it is today.  It was as if I had lost 10 years of my life in a deep sleep.  I woke up in a world that had spun past me; I had no current job skills, and no confidence.  Worse of all, I had no belief in myself.  I had no faith in any of my abilities.  I did not know I had anything to offer anyone.

  The one thing I had ,that believed in me unwavering, were my children.  No matter what, they believed I would take care of them, provide for them, and love them endlessly.  The endless love I had plenty of, ability to do the rest was beyond me.

  These pages are reflections of my discovery into my own talents and abilities.  My poetry is my pain expressed in stanzas.  My artwork are reflections of memories and nightmares, some painful to look at, painful to remember.  Yet in all this I found my talent, my abilities.  I found the richness of expression.  For you, a survivor like me, none of this is beyond you. Finding the richness within life, and the healing of expression and reflection.  We are okay.  We are strong and resolved in our commitment to live a better life.  We are survivors, victors, winners over the abuse other inflicted upon us.  We are not evil, bad or useless flakes of society.  We are the women and men that bring a richer texture to this world by loving despite the pain we suffered.  We have rich compassion for the wounded and suffering.  We will not be victims again.

Please feel free to write me at Walkingdarklands@bizland.com anytime.