Family

Some of the damage can’t be repaired

Originally posted 2014-04-11 12:35:08.

May-you-find-comfort-and-peace

 

Ah, it’s Friday. This week has been on full blast. With my husband taking a class at a local college to events with the local chapter of Special Olympics…we normally stay busy. But we take it like it is.

Some of the abuse I was victim to has had a lasting effect on our lives. Some of which is a daily reminder of what I went through. Even though I have been through so much I still look at it as being fortunate that it wasn’t as bad as some that I have seen. Some of the abusers have taken the lives of the people they were supposed to love. Love can be so complicated sometimes. Part of the abuse I endured was while I was pregnant with my son. I can remember my mother telling me that he changed me, brainwashed me, because I wasn’t one to let someone run over me like that. After many years I took one of my drivers licenses and then another that I had taken after I finally left him for good and compared the two. Two completely different people. I didn’t recognize myself. Its been about 15 or so years since then and I still see some of the damage on my outside. What’s inside …well that seems to still be lurking, stirring, like a witch’s brew boiling with heat from below. That pain and damage is beyond repair. I will never go back to who I was before that toxic relationship. I have had to learn how to cope with being a special needs parent while being the single parent to two children in a town less forgiving to people who chose to see blindly to the color of human skin. I know it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I am of Irish decent. I am proud of it. My children aren’t the only children whose parent are of Irish decent. Think about the men and women of the early ages. A lot of them were unseen relationships. Like the relationship of Tony Todd’s character in the movie Candyman. They loved each other. That’s all that mattered to them.

Today, 2014, though in this city it isn’t a rare occurrence to see interracial relationships and their offspring. This city is diverse. I live in an area that is majority military, Marine Corps mainly. I still feel and see racism towards relationships like mine.  The one thing I regret is the pain my children have felt. Even my special needs son knows what it is to be racist. He of all people really shouldn’t know that pain. He already has enough to endure.

When you damage a woman by abusing her you really have no clue what you have done. You think oh she won’t leave me she loves me or needs me. She won’t be able to survive on her own with the children. Part of my reasoning like many other women is not growing up with my father. I wanted my children to grow up with someone I did not. Unfortunately that did more to poison them than what was good for them. I think they would have been better off having one of those moving statues like on the Las Vegas strip than what they did have, obviously.

It is strange how that same person who had one girl before my two children and then two more girls after. Five children, one boy, 4 girls. I can only imagine what it is like growing up with him as the father/father figure in that household. I tried to warn the girl that he got with after me, while he was with me (same girl). She always told me he didn’t treat her like that. Words familiar to mine at times. What was I to him if I was the only one to fall victim to him? I was the first white female for him (that I was told). Was I an experiment? Then to the crap I went thru by some of the other family members…to this day they have to wonder why I haven’t let them visit. His father is the only person I ever trusted enough to let him take my children with him and his family.

From the hands of my abuser I have had my nose broken, several times. My eardrums ruptured more than I can count. My head and body took just as many hits as a punching bag at the gym. Not all damage was seen with the naked eye. There were days you would never had imagined just 12 hours or so before I was repeatedly beaten. He drank so much I don’t know if he knew consciously what he was actually doing. I mean that side of the spectrum is one I can’t sympathize with. I truly hated after the beatings when you would see a bruise or blood he was so quick to help. But I was told that I was wrong when I would refuse it and didn’t let him help. You put them there. Why on earth would you think I would want your help trying to ”heal” it? You would give me cocoa butter to try to minimize the appearance of the bruises especially since I am so pale skinned.

I have had to learn all over again how to trust a man. Soon after leaving him I didn’t really want a relationship. Then the next was one that was on drugs. I had that ”I can fix him” mind for some reason. Just as I did when with the abuser thinking I could help him change. Some of the people treated me like a slut. Hit it and quit it. I felt that was all I deserved. That since I wasn’t with him anymore this was the best it would get. I am still a soul in repair and will remain that way til the day I die. Never returning to the person I was before. Gaining insight to so much more and after all the pain, isolation, the beating myself up because he made me feel like I wasn’t worth the air in my lungs.

People say, just leave. Sometimes, leaving is more dangerous than staying. In their eyes, you belong to them. You are their property and no one else can claim it. Is there a scientific reason for the minds of abusers? Has anyone ever done research to see what the differences are between someone who doesn’t abuse to someone who does?

My children are a success. Both in life and in love. Both Global Messengers for Special Olympics, giving back to some that have endured many things. Some that even have more than we do. But one thing is for sure, you can’t take credit for their success.

The two of them have a bond you will never see, feel or understand. Regardless of our past you could have done more than you did. You knew where my parents lived. You also knew that if you set foot on their property you may not set foot back off the property but that never stopped the mailman.

 

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