Everything I did was for my husband.  Any ideas or suggestions on my part would end in Bill physically or emotionally abusing me.  I always felt my life depended on making a perfect meal.  When he didn’t like it, he would knock me out of my chair and force me to eat “that crap” off the floor. There was never a choice in how I wanted to style my hair. My choice gave him the excuse to take the scissors to my hair and cut it the way he wanted. Choosing my own eye shadow was disastrous. Bill rubbed it all over my face and forced me to wear it out in public.

I was never allowed to go to the doctor by myself (he had to be able to give false reasons for my bruises and scars) and especially when I was pregnant. While the doctor was giving me a pelvic exam, Bill would watch my face and make sure I wasn’t enjoying it.

When I finally got the nerve to leave my abusive ex-husband, one of the many questions I kept asking myself was, “Why did I submit to so much abuse?”  I couldn’t help but wonder why I didn’t walk away from it the first time he slapped me across the face, dragged me by my hair to the bedroom and raped me.  Why didn’t I call the police and why didn’t I run away?  Why did I take it, day after day, year after year?

Dr. Heyward Ewart author of “Am I Bad?” explained it so well for me:

“All people cross the line from childhood to adulthood with a secondhand opinion of who they are. Without any questioning, we take as truth whatever our parents and other influentials have said about us during our childhood, whether these messages are communicated verbally, physically, or silently.”

As I started to re-visit my childhood and my past, I was able to take a long, hard look at the child I used to be—the little girl who still lives inside of me.  I began to know what she thought, what she saw, what she heard. By seeing those things, I was able to understand her decisions to submit to abuse rather than stand against it.

When I was a child, I learned the rule, “Speak when spoken to.”  In other words, shut up unless you have broken a bone or are bleeding to death. My parents entertained friends and relatives all the time. There were always adults in our house. When the adults were gathered around the kitchen table, I was sent outside to play.  They were always talking about adult stuff so I was not allowed to hear such things. The rule was,  “Stay outside until we call for you. Don’t talk to us unless we talk to you.”

Interrupting the adults with, “So-and-so called me a bad name” was not allowed and I was told, “Stop acting like a baby”. “I fell off my bicycle and scratched my knee” would only receive a glance at the scrape and told, “Stop crying over such a small cut and tough it out.” I got a harsh stare from my dad and warned I’d better have a good reason for coming into the house. I never really knew what a “good reason” was and what would “allow” me the right to speak, so I submitted to the rule and remained the good little girl.

When my uncle started to molest me, when I went inside the house to use the restroom, I didn’t speak. The fear of being told that I wasn’t important enough to break the rule and the fear of rejection and not being believed, spoke louder than the abuse. I found a secluded spot outside, crawled into a ball and cried while I waited to be told I could come back into the house.

Another rule I learned was “Obey your mother and father.”  I knew that meant, “Do what I say or else”.  The “or else” meant beatings with a belt, a slap against the head or the most horrid of all, finding your own stick off the tree to be hit with.  I didn’t endure much physical punishment, but my brothers did. I saw the whippings because they were done in front of all of us, and I heard their stifled cries of pain because they were told, “You’d better not cry or I will give you something to cry about.”  Looking up at an adult with a weapon in his hand was a scary sight. I chose to be the good child and to obey my parents.

When I saw my dad molesting my sister, I obeyed him. He told me not to tell my mother so I did what he said. This was so traumatic for me that I dissociated it for twenty years. I always thought I hid within myself because I saw what he did, but it was being told to “obey” and the fear of not obeying that caused me to protect myself with dissociation.

I was also taught, “Respect your elders.”  But what happens when an adult doesn’t respect a child? My first day of kindergarten, the teacher was calling out our names and we were told to raise our hand and say, “Here!” The teacher called out the name Patricia.  I didn’t know my name was Patricia because I was always called Patty Jane.  She moved closer to my desk and kept calling out “Patricia” and I could tell she was getting louder and more irritated.  She stopped at my desk, grabbed my ear and pulled me out of my seat, demanding to know why I didn’t respond.  I was terrified, in shock and crying, explaining that my name is Patty Jane.  She slapped me in the face and told me to respect my elders and warned me that the next time she said my name, I’d better answer or else.

I was sent home with a note pinned on my dress.  I don’t know what the note said, but I remember trying to explain myself to my dad. I told him how my teacher pulled my ear, yanked me out of the chair and smacked me. He looked at my face, told me there were no marks, and that I needed to respect my elders and stop embarrassing my family. I got a smack to my butt and told to go outside and play.

As I grew older, there were many adults in my life who harmed me and molested me.  I was afraid to tell my parents. I was afraid to tell anyone.  I didn’t want to embarrass them. Would I be told again that I deserved the abuse and there was no excuse for not obeying my elders? I felt my pain would not be validated and I would be sent “outside” again.

By the time I was physically abused by my first husband, I’d already spent my entire childhood being a “good girl” following the rules of not resisting and not complaining.  I never knew how much pain I was suppose to endure because none of my pain was important enough for anyone to pay attention to.  What was the limit?

Bill’s rejection was just as painful as the fear of being rejected by my parents. The fear of embarrassing him in front of others, like family, friends or even the police, was a rule I had to obey.  Making him look bad in front of others meant I would be spanked, invalidated and abandoned.

Children learn from birth to cry and scream when they are hungry or in pain or fear. Healthy parents stop the crying by taking care of their child’s needs. I learned how to stop crying through fear and submission. My pain didn’t matter and I didn’t have a voice.

Teaching a child rules to live by should be for the child’s good, not just to make the child less of a hassle. The rules I learned taught me to be a submissive person—an adult with no personal boundaries, no limits to what people could do to me.  I was in fear of being rejected and not able to protect myself because I was an adult still thinking like the child I was.

I am not a piece of property.  I am a human being with feelings, emotions and thoughts. I feel pain and rejection and abandonment.  But, I didn’t believe this until after I started to see the reason I believed these lies.  I am no longer the submissive child/adult I used to be. Now I know I’m a valuable person, worthy of a life free of abuse. I’m able to recognize the false beliefs and lies from my childhood, live in the truth of who I was meant to be.

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Now that you’ve heard my experience and thoughts about this, I’d love to hear yours. Please comment below and don’t forget to subscribe to the comments so you can continue to participate in the discussion. If you would like to protect your privacy, you don’t have to use your real name. Email addresses are never made public.

Related Posts:
Domestic Violence: The Signs I Missed
Power Trip: How To Journey From Overpowered to Empowered
Standing Up For Myself: Re-claiming My Self-Worth
Perpetuating the Abusive Cycle

Patty Hite is a facilitator of Overcoming Sexual Abuse. A survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, Patty has been tenaciously pursuing her healing for over thirty years. She’s a passionate advocate for all survivors and dedicates her life to inspiring emotional wholeness in others. As a former victim of spousal abuse, she’s delighted to have found the meaning of true love, a respectful relationship, and support with her late husband, Lonnie. She’s blessed with four children and six grandchildren.

[read Patty's story here]

The day we got married, Bill greeted me in our kitchen with a slap across the face that was so hard it knocked me to the floor. He grabbed my hair and dragged me into the bedroom where he raped me. Afterward, he told me that now I belonged to him and I would do what he said, when he said it, and how he said it.

When he finished, he told me to get a washcloth and wipe the blood off of him. My blood. He then told me to clean myself up, cover up my bruise and to stop crying. Like a robot, I did what he said. It wasn’t until I looked in the bathroom mirror that I could actually believe what he just did. The man I married, the man I loved, just raped me and beat the crap out of me.

I wish I could tell you that I fought him while he was raping me. But I didn’t. I often had fantasies of fighting back and he was the one on the floor with me standing over him and kicking the hell out of him. But that was only a fantasy. The truth is, I became totally helpless, submissive in fear. Instead of trying to figure out how to escape this torment, I convinced myself I needed to be a better wife.

I’ve often asked myself why I submitted to that abuse? Why didn’t I fight back? Why didn’t I walk away or go to the police? Physical and emotional abuse was the norm in my childhood home. My dad ruled the roost. Although I never saw him physically abuse my mother, he verbally and emotionally abused her. And she submitted. He would go to the bar, mess around with other women, and then come home and accuse my mom of having affairs. I heard him yelling at her in the middle of the night. The next morning, she would make him breakfast and he would treat her like a queen. My parents groomed me to submit.

I believed that a woman stands by her man, no matter what. My dad repeatedly raped my sister and I witnessed it. My mom stood by my dad and sent my sister away. I believed that family business—adultery, incest, and abuse—remain in the home. Cover up the bruises and put on a happy face and pretend that life is good and wonderful. I believed that asking for help was a sign of weakness and that crying, complaining and getting angry was not allowed. I knew that if I did any of those things, more punishment would follow.

By the time I became an adult, I knew my place in the world. I was to be the submissive wife and I would do anything and everything in order to please my husband.

This became the norm with Bill. At night, when the kids were asleep, he abused me in the most sadistic ways. He always found a reason to hurt me—if the mailman said “Hi” to me, if a button was missing on his shirt, if my mascara was smeared—any reason to let me know that I was a failure and I needed to be punished. I would make him breakfast the next morning wearing a smiling face for my kids. Bill would greet me with a morning kiss and tell the kids what a wonderful mother and woman I was—a copycat of my childhood. It was so familiar and I knew what to do and how to act.

I used to believe that there were no warnings that Bill was Satan in disguise. During the six months we dated, he seemed to be everything I could possibly want in a man. But the truth is, there were warning signs from the very beginning. The signs were everywhere, but at the time, I didn’t see them for what they were since they were familiar and normal.

I mistook attention, jealousy and possessiveness as signs of love. I had a distorted belief of what a husband, marriage and love should be. I was so caught up in the abusive world and the false beliefs that come from that world, that when abuse was going on around me, I ignored the signals that were as loud as a fog horn or as bright as a neon sign.

Before we ever started to date, Bill was grooming me. We worked together, (that is where we met) and in the lunchroom he would point out the failures of my friends—people I had grown up with and now worked with. As soon as they were out of earshot, he would tell me about their weaknesses. In front of them, he was charming. They were users or they were bad parents or they would always take advantage of me. I never saw these bad points in my friends, but after a while I was convinced. Bill was the only good, honest person in that whole company and I shouldn’t waste my time on such riff raff. He separated me from my friends.

It was the same with my family. They were too good for me. My brother had too much and flaunted it. My sister had too little and was trash. My mother was too close and wouldn’t let me grow up.

In truth, I became his property. It didn’t take long before I realized that I was not capable of making decisions about people and I couldn’t trust anyone but him. Not only did my body belong to him, but my mind and my soul had his name imprinted on them and I was nobody. I became no one. I no longer existed.

As I look back on those times, I could honestly say that his jealousy made me feel all warm inside. To me it meant that he loved me so much and was afraid to lose me. Separating me from my friends and family meant that he was watching out for me and wanted to spend every waking moment with me. I was his girl. I was special.

The rest of my marriage to him was abusive in every way. There were no more hidden signs. They were out in the open now. I knew I was going to be beaten before it even happened.

I started to have flashbacks of my childhood. I started to see the familiar patterns. The false beliefs that I learned so well started to reveal themselves. I knew inside that these lies were the beginning of finding the truth of what a normal, healthy life should be. The more I healed, the stronger I became. I started to realize that I did have a choice. I was able to decide what was right and what was wrong.

Hopelessness and helplessness was being replaced with hope and strength. I needed to get out of this hell. I was strong enough to make plans and I was strong enough to leave. It took me three years to plan my escape and it was my friends and family who helped me do it—the same ones I walked away from. They saw the signs from the beginning and were waiting for me to give them the sign. The sign that said, “It is time.” The sign that said, “Help Me!”

Now thirty years later, with healing from my abuse, I am able to discern the signs. The more I heal, the more signs I see:

1. Abusers are extremely possessive and jealous. Those are not emotions of love. They are efforts to control. An abuser will not share you with anyone. They have to own you.

2. Abusers separate you from family and friends. If they can keep you away from supportive people, then you won’t tell others. (Deep down I knew this was wrong. Walking away and hurting my family and friends, kept me in shame. This shame kept me from asking for help.)

3. Abusers have rigid expectations of relationships. There is no compromise. You will behave accordingly and agree to agree with him/her. (I dressed the way he wanted me to. I cooked the way he wanted me to. I spoke the way he wanted me to. I pretended my marriage was wonderful—the way HE wanted me to.)

4. Abusers blame the victim. “He wouldn’t get angry if only I would do what he wanted me to.” (I was convinced early on that I was to blame for his behavior. I would get him so angry, that he couldn’t control himself).

5. Abusers act like they have a double personality. They can be overly charming or exceptionally cruel, generous or selfish. (I never knew what personality he would be. I spend most of my time trying to see what “mood” he was in and then trying to change it. I knew before the abuse happened. It was like a fog was surrounding me. I would prepare myself emotionally for what would happen that night).

6. Abusers are con men or con women. In front of others, they are charming and convincing. Cool and collected. (This was so confusing for me, because he would be so happy while entertaining others, but the moment they left, I got blamed for their faults. If someone said something wrong, I heard about it all night. I wouldn’t dare make excuses for them or their behavior. I soon learned to try and not entertain. Stay away from other people all together.)

7. Abusers stop calling you by your name. By separating you from your name, you are no longer a person. You are a piece of property. (The last time he used my name was the day we were married. From that day on, I was addressed differently: “Get” (Get me something to drink.) “You” (You did this and You did that) “F*&^*ing” (F*&^*ing Whore, Bitch, Good for Nothing, Piece of Shit, Worthless Piece of Crap, etc)

When I separated myself from abuse, I had every right to not trust any man. But, throughout the years, I’ve learned that life isn’t about living in fear. My life started when I began to learn to trust myself. Now I trust myself to see the signs and to listen to their warning. I’m not afraid of being around people because I’m not afraid of being hurt. Now, I know I can walk away before the danger starts. Abuse isn’t love; love allows me to make choices and decide what is best for me and who is best for me. The more I heal, the more signs I see now and especially the ones that were there all along.

Does this resonate with you? Please join in by leaving your thoughts and feelings about this topic and don’t forget to subscribe to the comments.

Related Posts:
Power Play: How To Recognize an Abuser
The Fear of Being Re-victimized
Life-Saving Anger
The Myth of Unconditional Love
Dating After Sexual Abuse: Is This Love?

Patty Hite is a facilitator of Overcoming Sexual Abuse. A survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, Patty has been tenaciously pursuing her healing for over thirty years. She’s a passionate advocate for all survivors and dedicates her life to inspiring emotional wholeness in others. As a former victim of spousal abuse, she’s delighted to have found the meaning of true love, a respectful relationship, and support with her late husband, Lonnie. She’s blessed with four children and six grandchildren.

[read Patty's story here]

by Christina Enevoldsen

Blame has a bad reputation. People say it’s useless and unproductive. It’s been accused of preventing people from moving forward. It’s been blamed for keeping people in victim mentality. I was one of those people who blamed blame. I spread rumors about blame, believing them to be true.

I quoted things like:

“If it’s never our fault, we can’t take responsibility for it. If we can’t take responsibility for it, we’ll always be its victim.” Richard Bach

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.” Douglas Adams

On my healing journey from childhood sexual abuse—and all the other abuses that accompanied it—I’ve discovered many of the so-called keys to healing or moving forward actually prevented me from any progress. My childhood was already so filled with lies that I was desperate for the truth. Though the truth is very often painful, it’s also been the only thing that has healed me. Lies kept me imprisoned to the effects of abuse, but the truth sets me free.

I’ve learned to question everything, especially the “truths” that “everyone” knows and distributes so freely. I started to wonder, if they are so true and so many people know about them, then why is the world so messed up? So my truth test is to look at the fruit of those truths. What actions do those beliefs produce? Do they end in freedom or bondage? What do those “truths” really mean?

One of the “truths” about blame that I questioned was, “If I don’t accept the blame, I can’t change anything.” Does that mean that if I didn’t break something, I can’t fix it? If I didn’t make the mess, I can’t clean it up? (Any mother knows that’s certainly not true!) But I tried for years to apply that to my abuse. I accepted the blame under the false belief that I had to accept “my part” in it so I could move forward.

The truth is that I can place the blame on whoever perpetrated my abuse while still taking responsibility for picking up the pieces of my life. I can know it was my abusers’ fault and still have power to improve my condition. I don’t have to blame myself or take ownership of a problem to fix the problem. I wasn’t the problem, but I am the solution.

But my tendency to accept the blame instead of placing it on my abusers started in my childhood. I couldn’t believe that my parents were the problem. If I thought that, my world would have collapsed. If they were the problem, then they would never love me. On the other hand, if there was something wrong with me then I could work to fix it so there was hope that they would love me. But until then, I didn’t deserve their love anyway. I struggled to be perfect, but I failed. My parents didn’t fail me; I failed them. I was to blame for how they treated me.

Blaming myself gave me a sense of control I needed—that I was desperate for. I hadn’t figured out the key to not be treated so badly, but I would figure it out and stop being abused. I just had to try harder.

To accept that I was helpless, powerless, and that there was nothing I could have done felt like death. It was a matter of survival not to acknowledge that my caregivers were faulty and that they would never love me. I needed to accept the blame for their cruel treatment.

Since I believed I was inferior, I found many other abusers who confirmed my belief. I married an abuser and had abusive relationships with bosses, pastors and friends. Many people who saw my cycle of abusive relationships judged me for being a victim and “allowing” it. I “deserved” whatever I had coming to me. They were disgusted with me and I was disgusted with myself. People said the same thing in different ways:

“You can’t blame anyone else until you do something to change things.”
“You deserve what you tolerate.”
“You must have wanted it since you kept going back.”
“You were 50% to blame since you knew what he was like.”
“It’s not his fault since you did something to provoke him.”

I was told that since I was the common denominator in all my abuse—my childhood and later abuse—I was the problem. Supposedly, the remedy to that was to accept the blame so I could make the necessary changes to myself and my circumstances. I was supposed to stop being angry with others for their mistreatment since I was really the one at fault for allowing it.

The problem with that was that I got angrier with myself. I already thought I was a pathetic loser that didn’t deserve love and now I was lower than that. That didn’t motivate me to change the circumstances or myself. I felt incased, trapped in my powerless tomb. What good would it do to leave my abuser? If I deserved the abuse, why should I fight it? And since I wasn’t worthy of love, what was I leaving for? There wasn’t anything better. Taking the blame for my own abuse only kept me in the abusive cycle. It wasn’t the key that I was told it was.

Accepting blame is only helpful if I really am at fault. If I keep getting fired from every job because I’m on Facebook at work, blaming my boss won’t help me; blaming the company or my co-workers won’t help me. Blaming others in that situation will keep me in the cycle of employment problems until I recognize my responsibility and do something to change my behavior.

Accepting responsibility for things that are my fault can help me not to repeat the cycle, but accepting responsibility for things that are not my fault can also keep me in the cycle. The truth set me free. I needed to see who truly deserved the blame and when I did, I was free from the destructive cycle.

Before I understood the cycle of abuse—the build-up, the explosion, the honeymoon—I misunderstood the “provoking”. I thought it meant I was to blame for my abuse. In reality, I unconsciously knew the cycle and the build-up was agonizing. I knew it was coming, but WHEN??? I had to get it over with and get to the honeymoon part of the cycle, which is what I lived for.

I still believed I was the helpless child that I was during my original abuse, so the only choice I thought I had was when I’d be abused–not if. It took a lot of time to start to see where my thinking came from so I could see the true choices in front of me. But I’m not responsible for other’s actions. Believing that I am comes from misunderstanding boundaries and taking responsibilities that were never mine to take. It’s unhealthy to accept the blame for anyone else’s feelings or actions.

But why the need for blame at all? Blame is said to be a wasted and negative experience. Is it really necessary at all? This is another common sentiment about blame:

“We can sit for years and talk about blame and it gets us nowhere, except to become bitter, resentful, angry, vindictive people. It happened, it’s over and done with and there is no use in continually hashing it over because nothing will change the past. I resolved to change today and tomorrow and let the past go.”

There is some truth in this statement, “It happened, it’s over and done with and there is no use in continually hashing it over because nothing will change the past.” It’s true that placing the blame on the abusers doesn’t change the past. But just because it can’t change what happened doesn’t mean it does not serve a purpose.

The truth about blame is that it’s helped me—but only when I used it through the lens of truth. As long as I thought it was a useless tool, I misdirected it. Sorting out the truth from the lies helped me to use it correctly so I could move forward in my healing process.

Related Links:
What About Forgiveness?
My Parents Are Dead (To Me)
Life-Saving Anger
A See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil Frame of Mind

Christina Enevoldsen is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Christina’s passions are writing and speaking about her own journey of healing from abuse and inspiring people toward wholeness. She and her husband live in Los Angeles and share three children and four grandchildren.

[read Christina's story here]

Does this resonate with you? Please join in by leaving your thoughts and feelings about this topic and don’t forget to subscribe to the comments.

by Linda Pittman

People used to tell me I was pretty but I never believed it. I always felt like they had an ulterior motive. I thought they said those things so that they could use me or because they pitied me or were being kind. I was wary, suspicious, and distant.

I did not like to look at my body. I did not know how to pick clothes or hairstyles that would make me look good. No matter how I dressed or did my hair, it didn’t make much difference.

I was too skinny, too awkward, I did not measure up to the people I admired—the ones with self-confidence, the beautiful people, the ones who did not have a dirty, ugly secret like mine. I kept the real me hidden away from the world. If they knew the real me they would be so repulsed so I became a person I thought they wanted to see.

I realized a while back that my oldest daughter looks a lot like I did when I was younger. I put my daughter’s pictures and my pictures side-by-side to compare our looks at different ages. We almost look like twins. She is absolutely beautiful. Why is it that I can see her as beautiful, yet not see myself that way?

It is sad to realize that the way I pictured myself was so distorted by all the feelings of shame and self-loathing from childhood sexual abuse. I learned to sabotage myself just like the important people in my life had done to me. I believed I did not matter, that I was a placeholder in my family, the youngest child. The tagalong kid. The afterthought. The invisible one.

I built up my courage to explore other possibilities. I began to believe the messages of hope and acceptance that wiped away the shame and guilt. It wasn’t my fault; I am not dirty or shameful. I was a victim of horrible shameless people who never saw me. There were many people who manipulated and used me and fed me lies, for their own selfishness. I had accepted their view and I only saw what they saw in me. Even when I told my secret, people reacted with revulsion. I interpreted their revulsion, as I was repulsive.

But I was separate from what happened to me. The things they did to me were ugly and now I can see the ugliness came from them. I am a really beautiful person, inside and out. I am the beautiful person that my husband says I am and my children look up to and my friends cherish. I can look at me and know I am beautiful! Yippee!

Related Posts:
How Can I “Be Myself” If I Don’t Know Who That Is?

Having experienced healing from sexual, physical and verbal abuse, Linda Pittman has found joy in encouraging others in their healing journey and tells people that it’s never too late to start. She’s been married to her husband for twenty-one years and has four adult children.  

Does this resonate with you? Please join in by leaving your thoughts and feelings about this topic and don’t forget to subscribe to the comments.

Christina Enevoldsen

by Christina Enevoldsen

As the co-founder of an organization that deals with healing from abuse, I’m supposed to be very enthusiastic about healing. I’m the one who yells “Hooray!” for those small victories and I spur on the weary survivor.

Most of the time, I love that. I do it whole-heartedly. But what happens when I’m the weary survivor? What if I think that the healing process sucks and I just want to go back to bed and pull the covers over my head? What if I don’t want to hear another thing about sexual abuse or family betrayal or the effects of trauma or self care or anything that reminds me of such evil in the world or the constant struggle to overcome it?

That’s what happened recently. After experiencing the usual rough beginning that most survivors talk about, I’d been feeling really good for the past year or more. I’ve had an occasional minor bump, but I took it all in stride. I thought the healing path would be smooth for the rest of my journey.

I’ve lost my footing a time or two. I used to have a tendency to want to go faster than I was ready for. I was driven to “get normal” as quickly as possible. I was impatient to get to the next part of healing since I thought I was pathetic to be so messed up. It didn’t matter that I always thought that I’d feel better at the next “healing level” but never did. It was never good enough.

But I dealt with that. I’ve accepted that there are some things about me that might be a little “off”, but I SURVIVED years of living with a sexual predator at the most vulnerable time in my life—my childhood—and I was all by myself with my pain. I think being a little “off” in some areas is a normal response to what I experienced. Those aren’t character flaws or a signs of weakness. Actually, they’re a sign of a struggle—a struggle to survive another day. I picked up some “weird” ways of coping, but damn it, I’m alive to tell about it. And I’m not ashamed of my quirks; I’m proud that I was creative and resourceful and did whatever I had to in order to get through it. And I am getting through it.

I watched a movie about a man who was trapped in a crevice while hiking in a remote area. He had the choice of dying or cutting off his arm to free himself and he chose to live. Do I think he’s a freak for missing an arm? No, I admire his courage and ability to face that choice and do what was necessary to live. He’s a hero. So I can’t look at the one-armed man one way and myself another way. So now I know I’m strong.

But I do have weaknesses and that’s okay too. The abusive system that I grew up with and continued in for many years taught me that weakness meant death because only strong people are valuable and worthy of life. Only people who earn their way are deserving of love and approval. So I despised my weakness and my entire existence seemed dedicated to covering it up. That fear drove me to work and work and do and do and my healing was powered by that same fear of not performing well enough.

I’ve had a lot of people who have been very supportive of my healing journey. Even though they’ve never asked me “How much longer?”, I used to be afraid they were wondering that. I feared not recovering quickly enough to fit their schedule. They admired my determination and perseverance, but how long would that last? Would their admiration turn to disgust? I figured they’d grow tired of cheering me on and then reject me for being weak the same way the dysfunctional people had before.

But I’m not in that system anymore. I don’t let others determine my value since I know the truth about me now. I have the same worth as the most emotionally healthy person or someone who has never been touched by the things I have. I’m just as important if I’m weak or strong, sick or well. For those who disagree, they are deceived by the same abusive system of inequality that I used to be in and I don’t need their fickle support. But no matter how I’m treated, I’m important and valuable. I love myself—weak or strong. Those fears aren’t chasing me through my healing anymore.

So I’ve had my healing struggles. I’ve tripped a few times but nothing knocked me down.

That was until just recently. As I look back, I don’t even remember the issue or memory that triggered it. That’s funny considering all the fuss it caused. Whatever it was, it was painful—and with the pain came anger. I’ve been angry about all of this before. I’ve been angry that issues come up without my control and at inconvenient times (when else is there? When IS a convenient time? If I DID have total control over when something surfaces, I’d choose NEVER!!)

I’ve been angry about the injustice of the evil tentacles of abuse invading every part of my life without respect for any boundaries. The effects seem just as invasive as the abuse.

I thought I passed the most treacherous parts of this journey. I thought I should have “earned” an easier time. After my rough early life and abusive twenty one year marriage and how bravely I’d faced the healing process thus far, I thought I deserved to float on clouds for the rest of my life. I wanted to scream, “When will it be bleepity-bleep OVER?”

Even if I couldn’t be finished now, I wanted to know WHEN I would be finished. I felt desperate to know where I was on the healing map–some chart that said, “You are here” with a red arrow so I could see how far I’ve come and how far I still had to go.

I felt as though all of my progress meant nothing—that all my hard work only yielded temporary results. In my emotional state, I discounted any progress since it fell short of where I wanted to be or expected to be. I saw all I still had to face instead of how far I’d come.

So I cried and shouted and pouted for a few days. I complained to the people closest to me. I cried some more and then I examined what caused my breakdown.

I realized that I still thought of this healing journey as a temporary thing. I thought there would be a definitive end to dealing with the majority of my issues—like checking out of rehab. After that, I thought minor issues might pop up again periodically that would be easy to face. I told people that I considered recovery a life-long journey, but I didn’t really believe that like I thought I did. My expectations collided with my reality and I was devastated.

But now I’ve finally made peace with the journey. It’s not the healing process that I got angry about or angry with. I was actually angry that I was abused in the first place—that I was denied a happy, healthy childhood and my adult life is a fight to overcome the effects. My anger toward the healing is like anger toward a doctor trying to put me back together after a physical trauma.

Where am I in this journey and how much longer is it? I don’t think that’s relevant to me anymore. I don’t think there is any way to know where I am in the healing process anymore than there is to know how long I’ll live. Healing is a lifetime commitment the same way all growth is so I’ll keep healing as long as I’m alive. I’m healthy and whole even if I’m still working on issues. I am excited to get up most mornings, I’m optimistic about my future, I’m surrounded by healthy people, and I’m good at taking care of myself. I love myself and I love my life. So it’s not the life I could have had if this never happened, but it’s a great life anyway.

Christina Enevoldsen is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Christina’s passions are writing and speaking about her own journey of healing from abuse and inspiring people toward wholeness. She and her husband live in Los Angeles and share three children and four grandchildren.

[read Christina's story here]

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Christina Enevoldsen

by Christina Enevoldsen

When my daughter was eight years old, she spent the night at a friend’s house. She and her friend spent hours swimming in their community pool and Bethany came home with her face, arms and legs red and burning. I was irate that the girl’s mother allowed Bethany to be exposed to the sun for so long, especially without sunscreen. Arizona, where we lived at the time, had the second highest rate of skin cancer in the world. Bethany blistered and peeled for a week. That mother failed to provide her with basic protection and I was so angry that she was so careless with my daughter.

When I look back on that incident, I still feel awful for how much Bethany suffered that week. I eventually discovered far worse things touching my daughter than the sun’s rays and this time, I was the one who left her exposed.

When I was fifteen, my boyfriend told me we needed to talk. Sixteen year old boys don’t usually have conversation on their minds, so I took it seriously. We had been dating about six months or so and I couldn’t imagine what he would consider so important. My parents let me close my bedroom door so we could have some privacy.

We sat on my bed as he revealed that he had molested his female relative sometime before we met. When the abuse occurred, the girl told her mom so most of his family knew about it. My boyfriend thought it was behind him, but the girl was talking about it again and he was worried. The girl’s parents suspected he was molesting her again, but my boyfriend claimed she was just having nightmares. It caused a lot of division; some relatives tried to protect her, while others tried to protect him.

When I sensed that my boyfriend felt threatened and I heard that some of his own family members turned against him, I felt so sorry for him. I considered his confession an indication of his trust in me and thought of it as a test of my love. I wasn’t going to fail this test. If he needed my support, he would have it. He was charming, thoughtful, considerate, and generous and I wasn’t going to lose him over something that was in his past. In my mind, the gravity of the offense was irrelevant since it wasn’t happening again, either now or in the future. No one who really knew him would doubt that.

When my daughter, Bethany, was about one year old, I discovered blood in her diaper. I didn’t want to think about why my baby would be bleeding, but I guessed the source. My husband tearfully admitted that he had molested her but promised it would never happen again. He seemed very remorseful and I thought that since I caught him, he wouldn’t feel safe repeating the abuse. He seemed afraid of losing his family so I thought that fear would stop him.

A few months or maybe a year passed and I had a sick feeling that I knew what was happening. I came home to find out that Bethany’s dad had molested her again and that he bought her a little yellow outfit because he felt bad.

This time, I was angry. He thought he could make up for what he did by buying her something. I knew he wasn’t going to be able to stop without help, so we met with our pastor. I’d only ever known one person who talked about sexual abuse before this, but our pastor seemed to know something about it. He talked as though this was something that could be handled very easily. He said a prayer and told me to just focus on our marriage.

I accepted the pastor’s confident assurances that no further harm would come to Bethany. My assignment was to focus on my marriage and learn to trust my husband so I could save my daughter from his advances. Any suspicion on my part would only divide us and put Bethany in harm’s way. It was all up to me.

I tried to do everything I thought would help my relationship with my husband. I never said no to sex and I listened to everything he said.

After twenty-one years of marriage, I was emotionally exhausted. In spite of my best efforts, he still wasn’t happy with me and I was done doing everything his way.

Shortly after the divorce, when Bethany was nineteen, she told me she wanted to talk. I already knew by her tone that she was going to tell me her dad molested her. All those years, I didn’t know if she would remember those things since she was so young. If she did remember, I wondered if she would be mad at me for staying with her father after the first time I discovered the abuse. I felt so guilty that I hadn’t stopped it from happening the second time.

It hadn’t stopped. She wasn’t safe. I didn’t protect her. I was shocked.

I called my ex-husband. When I told him what Bethany told me, his defiant response was “Yeah, so?” My daughter confronted him after I did and he showed the same lack of remorse. He only offered the excuse that he was abused by his parents.

We discussed the possibility of reporting him to the police. Bethany was still adjusting to the divorce, so she decided to wait until she was certain she was making the right decision.

Over four years passed and Bethany called me around midnight. Something was weighing on her and she needed to talk. She was ready to report her dad. Since it was going to be a matter of public record, she wanted to tell me exactly what he did to her so I’d be emotionally prepared to hear her testimony.

The things Bethany revealed made me sick. When she disclosed her abuse to me after the divorce, my impression was that her dad had done his best to resist, but occasionally gave into temptation. In reality, he abused her daily. On many occasions, he planned in advance to be alone with her. I also imagined that all he did was fondle her. Yes, that’s bad enough, but how did I think a little fondling would leave blood in her diaper? I had minimized the abuse in my mind in an effort to protect myself from the truth—and the guilt that came with it.

First, I was nauseated by what her father did to her, then by what I had done—or rather, neglected to do. Denial, mixed with naiveté about abuse issues, kept me from delving deeper into the molestation of his female relative before I even married the man. I was in denial when he told me it had stopped. Both times. But even after Bethany told me about the years of abuse when she was nineteen, denial kept me from anything but surface acceptance.

I was disgusted with myself. Being a great mom was so important to me, but I was a failure. I made Bethany vulnerable by marrying a man I knew abused another little girl and then I had allowed him to stay after he abused Bethany. Yes, I had been fooled by my husband, but I had also fooled myself.

Bethany was facing one of the most difficult times in her life, so no matter how I felt about myself, I couldn’t focus on that. I had failed her in her childhood and I was desperate to do better.

Yet my feelings about myself were in the way of doing what was best for Bethany. To be available to her, I had to stop punishing myself through my sabotaging thoughts. “Who was I to help her when I wasn’t there for her as a child?” My guilt would never let me be a healthy support.

I couldn’t let anything I did in an effort to “help” be a way to “make up” for what I’d done. No matter what good things I did for Bethany now or in the future, I could never change the past. Forgiving myself was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but removing my offense toward me freed me to support Bethany instead of digging myself out of my guilt-hole.

I faced the hard feelings I had about myself, but I still hadn’t faced what led to the choices I made in the first place. As long as I put my issues aside so I could “put my daughter first”, I still acted out of my brokenness. Leaving Bethany in danger was the result of my unresolved pain from childhood sexual abuse and neglect. As long as I was still thinking and feeling like an abused little girl, I didn’t have any power to help my child.

My first abuse memory is when I was about one and a half years old. My uncle got me alone and starting touching me in a sexual way. Terrified and confused, I squirmed and kicked. He mercilessly grabbed my legs, held me down and threatened me. My pain didn’t matter; he would have his way and I was terrified.

I had many abusers after that—the primary one was my father—but the lesson I learned from my first abuse was that I had to comply OR ELSE! Resistance was dangerous and useless. After that, whenever I felt threatened, I froze. As I got older, I still carried the belief that I was at everyone’s mercy. I still felt like a powerless child.

When I discovered that Bethany had been abused, I vegetated on the couch for two days. Finding blood in her diaper was finding blood in my diaper. I was transported to my own abuse with the same feelings and response: I froze as though my only choice was to lie still and stay quiet.

I didn’t feel capable of making my own decisions or of taking care of myself. I looked like an adult, but I was a fraud. Part of my attraction to my husband was that he was a take-charge kind of guy. I didn’t have to make any decisions with him.

When we turned to our pastor and he took command, I was comforted not to have to decide the best course. My assignment to work on our marriage gave me a sense of control. It was the same illusion of control that I clung to in childhood. In my mind, the abuse was my fault. Dad wasn’t bad; I was. If I tried really hard to be good, I could stop him from hurting me. That belief kept me from being swallowed by hopelessness, rage and terror.

I disconnected from my body and emotions during my abuse. My numbness prevented me from grasping the physical or emotional injury that was thrust upon me. Feelings weren’t allowed in our home and there was no safe person to confide in. I grew into adulthood as the walking dead.

Even motherhood didn’t awaken my feelings. I was cut off from Bethany’s pain, too. When she hurt herself, I ordered myself to scoop her up and soothe her. Comforting care didn’t come naturally. When I discovered her abuse, I was disconnected from it. I didn’t feel its gravity and I interpreted that to mean that it wasn’t very serious.

Believing those lies helped me survive my childhood, but they endangered my child. The truth freed me:
1. I was powerless when I was a child. Compliance was a smart response then, but I’m not a child anymore. I’m empowered to use my voice and actions to protect my life and anyone else who may be in danger.
2. I never had any control as a child and there wasn’t anything I could do to prevent my dad from hurting me. I didn’t do anything to bring it on myself and the abuse wasn’t my fault. Placating and appeasing abusers doesn’t stop them. I’m empowered as an adult to really affect change through direct actions instead of passive ones.
3. Shutting down my feelings during the trauma was the only way to help myself. There wasn’t any protection or refuge then, but there is now. It’s safe to feel. I listen to my feelings, express them and respond to them. Now, I feel compassion for myself and can empathize with others.

I continue to work on issues as they surface and I’m in a much better position to be a healthy, supportive mom now. Facing my own pain and healing from it has shown me what I can do for Bethany. I’m modeling healthy behavior to her and treating her with the respect and love that she always deserved.

My healing work resolved things within my heart, but it didn’t resolve anything in Bethany’s heart and it didn’t entitle me to a new relationship with her. She still needed to address her own pain, recognize my part in it and choose how that would affect our relationship.

Bethany’s working diligently on her healing and doing very well. My decisions from the past could have permanently damaged our relationship, but as we work through our issues, we’ve become much closer than most mothers and daughters I know. Today, we work together to defeat our common enemy of abuse and its effects.

Related Posts:
UNDERprotected
Straight Talk to Parents About Protecting Children From Sexual Abuse
Understanding My Abusive Parents Didn’t Heal Me
The Truth About Blame

Christina Enevoldsen is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Christina’s passions are writing and speaking about her own journey of healing from abuse and inspiring people toward wholeness. She and her husband live in Los Angeles and share three children and four grandchildren.

[read Christina's story here]

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Christina Enevoldsen

by Christina Enevoldsen

When I was ten, a psychologist who worked for the school district took me out of class to talk to me. I had always known there was something wrong with me; I knew I was different, marked in some way. I was sure that when people looked at me, they recognized that too. She confirmed my fear when she singled me out in a class of thirty students.

I didn’t have the words to tell her my dad was doing bad things with me. I didn’t even know the things that were happening weren’t normal. I couldn’t define why I felt so hollow.

I knew the psychologist wanted to hear something, so I told her I was sad because I didn’t have any friends. That wasn’t true in the sense that I didn’t have playmates. I was shy, but I had friends. The truth was I was completely alone. Since I was different, there was nobody of my kind. No allies. There was no one understand me or share my pain.

I especially felt like a stranger in my own home. My mom wasn’t very touchy-feely or comfortable with emotions. My dad was very touchy-feely stuff, but in a creepy way. Though my mom held me at arm’s length, she tried to placate me and comfort me through food. Especially chocolate. I LOVED chocolate.

When I started to gain weight in my teen years, my dad restricted my eating. I had to hide my chocolate consumption so I sneaked around as though I was having a secret love affair. I planned rendezvous with my love and the secrecy became part of the excitement.

As an adult, my relationship with chocolate continued. When my memories of the sexual abuse surfaced, I binged on hazelnut candy bars, chocolate chip cookies and rocky road ice cream. I preferred spending time alone with chocolate to being with friends. Chocolate never rejected me. It was faithful.

There was a little voice inside my head telling me I had already suffered enough and I deserved a little chocolate cake or a few truffles. I was entitled to be nice to myself. But how much chocolate would it take to make up for the sexual abuse? How many cookies would equal the amount of love I never got? I could buy out every bakery in the world and still feel the loss.

I was doing to myself what my mom had done to me when she gave me chocolate to stop my crying. It was as though I sent myself away to deal with my pain on my own instead of hearing it out, instead of being my own friend.

I defined chocolate as love the same way a hug expresses love. When I was enjoying its creamy goodness, I didn’t think, “Well, I can’t have love, so I’ll settle for chocolate.” Chocolate was my only contact with my mom’s attempt at love. It wasn’t my pain I was running from or covering up—at least not the pain of abuse—it was the pain of being alone. I was comforting myself the only way I knew how.

The truth is that chocolate isn’t love. Chocolate could never be my true friend; it would never love me back. I thought I deserved chocolate, but I really deserved to be protected and validated and comforted. No edible substance is capable of doing that. My pain wasn’t caused by chocolate depravation so mountains of chocolate couldn’t remove it.

I needed to face the source of my pain. I faced my past before that, but I faced it intellectually, as though I was making scientific observations. I was emotionally distant from myself the same way my mom had been.

I was dependent on chocolate until I learned to depend on myself. When I learned to connect with me and show myself the compassionate attention that I really craved, I no longer craved desserts. By myself or surrounded by loved ones, I’m never really alone since I have me.

It took me a long time to finally get to the bottom of all the things that kept me addicted to chocolate. Like so many other issues that surround abuse, there were layers to discover. Every layer helped to loosen its hold on me, but the bottom layer was the foundation to all of it. Now that I have a healthy relationship with me, I have a healthy relationship with chocolate.

Christina Enevoldsen is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Christina’s passions are writing and speaking about her own journey of healing from abuse and inspiring people toward wholeness. She and her husband live in Los Angeles and share three children and four grandchildren.

[read Christina's story here]

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Christina Enevoldsen

by Christina Enevoldsen

Just a note: Sometimes I believe things because they are true; other times I believe things because an alternate truth would be painful. One of the indications that I’m invested in a particular belief as a coping method is that I defend that ‘truth’ as though my life is threatened. When I notice inordinately strong emotions about a point of view, I ask myself: “What purpose does this belief serve in my life?”; “Do I NEED to believe this?”; “What if it isn’t true?—then what does that imply?”’ “How did I come to believe this?”

My intention in writing this isn’t to convince anyone to come to the same conclusions I have. This issue isn’t just about this issue. I could have written this about many things stored in my belief system.

When I was about eight or nine years old, my mom told me that the bad things in my life were because I was meant to do great things. “Special” people had to go through special training. They had to endure hardships—more than “ordinary” people. They had to experience shame and degradation so they wouldn’t be puffed up in pride. They had to experience pain so they could learn compassion for others. They had to be broken so they could become stronger in those broken places.

It’s something she said on several occasions and it appealed to me. The abuse told me I was worthless, but my mom redefined it: The abuse wasn’t an indication that I was nothing; it was an indication that I was special. My mom had some kind of “higher wisdom” that provided a reason for my pain. I wasn’t suffering without cause; there was something noble about my abuse. I wasn’t a victim; I was a hero.

I learned from an early age to call it something else other than the violent and traumatic death of my innocence. My father also redefined my abuse. He told me that we were “having special time”. He said the abuse was love. I preferred his version since the alternative was that I was living with a monster and that my father abandoned me and his fatherly role.

I was terrified of abandonment—not only from my father, but from God. I thought the only possibilities were that God was either involved—and the abuse was meant as a good thing—or that he completely abandoned me. I preferred a God who passively or actively participated in abuse to one who abandoned me.

Believing those things when I was a powerless child helped me to cope so I could and would want to survive. But they weren’t the truth. The abuse gave me false messages about myself and to believe that my abuse was part of some bigger plan was to pile more lies on top of lies.

I wasn’t born to suffer just so others would be spared or comforted. My abuse wasn’t “worth it” just because I’m helping others now. The abuse devalued me, but I couldn’t earn my worth through being a savior to others. I had to deal with my shame instead of covering it with noble deeds.

I wasn’t selected by God or the universe to be abused. My abuse wasn’t about me; my abuser didn’t even see me as a person, but rather as an object. Masking my pain with grandiose ideas didn’t heal me. I was treated as though my existence didn’t matter except as an instrument of pleasure. I had to look at the ways the abuse told me that my existence didn’t matter and that I was only an insignificant object. Confronting those lies released me from the need to see myself as more important the “regular” people. I’m at peace knowing my true value instead of needing to have a “special” position.

My abuser wasn’t an innocent pawn in the universe’s hands. He had a choice. He wasn’t serving some divine purpose or serving me. He was a nasty self-serving pervert. I had to acknowledge and express the pain that my dad gave me attention to serve himself, even if it meant destroying his daughter. Believing that we are all just helpless participants in the hands of Fate prevented me from resisting more abuse. That belief robbed me of protective anger and of my boundaries. As long as I believed that it was all planned, I remained a powerless victim.

Even if I ended up being a strong, healthy, happy, compassionate person who helps people, my abuser gets no credit for that. The saying, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is a lie. The abuse didn’t make me stronger. The abuse left me in a weakened state and it was only because I’ve worked on my healing for years that I’m functioning now and in a position to offer hope to others. Good didn’t come out of the abuse; good came from the overcoming of it. I don’t know who I would have been if I’d never been abused, but I know how many of my resources have been spent rebuilding my own life and I wonder how much more productive I might have been if I hadn’t needed to do that.

Some people point to the work I do now and say, “See, without your abuse you wouldn’t be doing what you love so much.” But my life isn’t defined by the sexual abuse or any other type of abuse. I consider my purpose to inspire and encourage people to be who they were created to be so they can find fulfillment and discover their own unique place in the world. Healing from sexual abuse is necessary to do all those things. If I hadn’t been abused, I would still be doing something similar to what I’m doing now—helping people get to where they want to be.

I was born with the gifts that equip me to inspire and encourage others. My abuser didn’t give them to me. They are ME. They are part of my uniqueness. No experience—good or bad—can change who I am.

Why was I abused? Because people have a free will and some people make horrible choices. But knowing or not knowing the reason why doesn’t settle anything or change the past. I still have healing work to do and I’m determined to continue.

Christina Enevoldsen is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Christina’s passions are writing and speaking about her own journey of healing from abuse and inspiring people toward wholeness. She and her husband live in Los Angeles and share three children and four grandchildren.

[read Christina's story here]

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 by Bethany Ruck 

When my last boyfriend and I began dating, we would see each other once a week. The in between times were filled with hour-long telephone calls before bed, a lot of getting to know you time and even more of the sickening, “No, I miss you more” fluff.  One night the conversation led to just the right place, where I could tell him about my childhood sexual abuse. I remember prefacing it with a warning that I had something very serious to say; then I told him. He didn’t seem to have much of a reaction, so I assumed that he didn’t feel comfortable asking questions. Okay, change of subject. I guess he didn’t want to talk about it, so I went about the rest of the phone call as normal. The topic of sexual abuse didn’t come up again until much later in the relationship.
 
A year down the road, when I decided that I wanted to report my father for sexually abusing me, I sat my boyfriend down and told him my intentions. Our relationship had turned significantly more serious by that time, so I wanted his support. Instead of support, I was met with an attack. “If I would have known you were sexually abused I never would have dated you.” he said. I was shocked! I never fathomed that he would react like that, especially since I specifically remember telling him about the sexual abuse a year prior. The relationship soon ended, but not without further hurt.
 

Comfortable with Emotion
Crying is healthy. It’s an expression of emotions. Something yucky on the inside is trying to come out, so let it! My boyfriend did not see it this way. Instead of letting me cry he would yell at me, telling me to stop. We were living together at the time, so when I needed a good cry I never had a safe place to do it. I couldn’t express my emotions because he was always there. Finding a partner who is comfortable expressing their own emotion and hearing mine is a prerequisite for a healthy foundation. 
 
Supportive of My Healing
Healing from sexual abuse is not a quick fix. It’s a long road with bumps, low visibility and a whole bunch of people trying to cut you off. Embarking on that journey without a healthy support system is impossible. With my last boyfriend, I wasn’t looking for someone to hold my hand through the healing process. I just wanted someone to say every once in a while, “You can do it!  Great job. Keep going!” Instead of being my cheerleader, I got torn down for my efforts. He only saw how my past abuse affected him, instead of how beneficial healing was to both of us.
 
Isn’t Abusive
I know this sounds so obvious, doesn’t it? But it’s so often overlooked. I thought I knew how to recognize abusive behavior. All I had to look for was someone who didn’t molest children or didn’t give me that creepy feeling, right? WRONG! Perpetrators generally have patterns of abuse that span over several areas. In my case, my boyfriend used his words against me, manipulating and playing on my weaknesses. Every time the relationship turned south he would tell me that a few days prior he had been shopping for engagement rings, in hopes that I would see what a grand gesture of love he was trying to make. In one fight I remember being referred to as “damaged goods” because of the abuse I had no control over.
 
In the end, I didn’t get what I wanted out of this relationship. Instead of love, I got rejection. I firmly believe that love is an action, not some gushy feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when that special someone comes near. He told me all the things I wanted to hear, but his actions showed me that he was more concerned with himself than with loving me.
 
I wish I would have seen clearly going into that relationship, but I’m now better equipped to do so in the future. 

Related Posts: 
Sexual Abuse Invaded My Marriage
Is This Love That I’m Feeling?
Power Play: How to Recognize an Abuser
Prince Charming Was a Murder Suspect
Dangerous Men, Red Flags, Victim Mentality
Emotional Abuse and Identity Hunger  

[read Bethany's story here]  

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Bethany Ruck is cofounder of Overcoming Sexual Abuse, an online resource for male and female abuse survivors looking for practical answers and tools for healing. Besides helping abuse survivors see the beauty within themselves, she enhances the beauty of others as a professional make-up artist and has worked in television, film and print.

[read Bethany's story here]

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