As I sat there, I realized that I had never really called my first real relationship abusive. I mean it was abusive and I knew this but to actually say out loud, verbally, with my mouth, my voice, my words that “I was in an abusive relationship” was new. New and filled with its own set of heavy revelations. It was stunning. Not stunning like attractive or amazing but stunning like it left me a little dazed and stupefied.

My mind reeled with questions. How could I have allowed myself to be treated like that? What made me accept his treatment as normal? Why is there still apart of me that attempts to rationalize the fact that he only hit me a few times as somehow meaning it was ok? Why have I like so many aptly dismissed all of the verbal and emotional abuse as not abuse at all? And where did I put these feelings? How had I been so numb and how did I not realize I was numb? How did I recover from this woundedness?

As I read and reread I considered publishing as “author unknown”, wishing this story wasn’t true, wasn’t mine. In that moment of reveling and revealing, here I sat face to face with my truth. At nearly 42 I had outlived my abuse…nearly…because the truth is I never really thought about it, think about it, dealt with it. I had put it away in some box, in some closet in a room in my mind with a sign on the door that said DO NOT ENTER…CONTENTS OF NO USE.

But the truth is he took a piece of my SOUL without me even noticing. He stripped me down and left me naked without the best parts of me. He had somehow convinced me that I deserved what he was giving. That I wasn’t beautiful or worthy of being chosen and that I couldn’t have a man of my own. That what he gave was love. That he was good for me but that I wasn’t good enough…and I believed him until I decided not only that I wouldn’t I couldn’t if I was ever going to have an experience great love….