"The soul usually knows what to do to heal itself the challenge is to silence the mind." - Caroline Myss
Once there was a girl who floated through life feeling as though she had been drugged by emotions she failed to recognize. She often wore a smile for others but underneath the mask was something she failed to understand. One day her state of heart gripped her in a most unyielding choke-hold as she sat in her car in a busy parking lot, feeling as though she had become a prisoner to hopelessness. In that moment, it would have been a death sentence if she had attempted to drive.
Would it seem weird to say that fear bought me freedom as I stand being just me, telling a story? Would you laugh and say, wow that was weird? Probably.
Yes, just like every girl she became a woman through all the steps and paths that each and every girl takes to become a woman. But maybe her's didn't turn out as prefect as one would hope yet still she believed she needed the ups and downs to be who she is now. It wasn't always worse. She had a great life too, in a sense.
She had big dreams too. Just as every girl dreamt of a beautiful future with someone beloved. To live her own version of fairytale. She did too. One would have called it perfect till jealousy, envy, anger and sadness ran over. She doesn't quite blame anyone. But most of all her fear to lose everything took over her and destroyed what she dreamt of.
One day she found herself glaring at her steering wheel for dear life as if it will feel her terror and turn all by itself to save her from the unearthly death she is about to step into once again like a cycle. Alone in a parking lot, surrounded by passing strangers who were oblivious to her state of personal catastrophe, she felt as though she was trapped inside of a horror movie, desperate to find the pause button somewhere. But, there was nothing to be found and no one was coming to sweep in and save her from this nightmare. But before those steering wheels turned, she felt eyes on her cocoon of a car's window. Surprised she slowly turned her head as if she was about meet her own custom nightmare.
But her eyes met similar pair of hazel eyes on a beautiful girl who simply smiled and ran toward the beautiful sandy beach in front of her. Her innocently smiling face reminded her of the little girl she once remembered running around smiling just like that with her mother. As if possessed she stepped outside her cocoon and walked following the little girl in daze. With her shaky feet she stepped into the sand, bare feted, loud heart, mind numb. The waves in front of her felt so free to her. She was enchanted by its call. The water called her, the cold deeming blue stared back at her, mocking her. It was offering something she has been craving. In that moment she felt the need, the taste of freedom she craved so much. Her shaky feet moved faster, before soon she was running to the water that was offering her, her own freedom.
That girl was me.
I was a young girl once, who fell in love in an instant, naively so. Enjoyed every day with my beloved one as if he was my air, my start and end, and someone who thought everything was going to work out just about perfectly fine. Amazingly, it almost even did.
I was taught to be honest, to be brave. I learned watching my idol, my mother. I was told I could win the world with me my heart. Or so I thought.
When my mother left this world I had 2 little siblings to take care of while my father was busy from work. I use to cry for the whole night and sometime miss school for not being able to wake up in the morning and my siblings would get scolded for it. But they never blamed me, neither did my father. How could he? He knew how no one would be there to support us, only to mock. He couldn't remarry either. He loved my mother too much for that. His eyes said enough. But how long could it go on like that. That's when I thought now is the time to stand up for their life as my own. At some point of life I remembered something my mother had told me.
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass but learning to Dance with it." And I kept repeating it like a mantra.
A smart kid; that is what they called me. Sometime well talented was added too. I wasn't the sharpest I knew but I was not a fool either. My dad called me the spark of our family. My sister was still small to understand what was going on but I knew she looked up to me. When I found out I was talented in designing at an early age just like my mother, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I wasn't able to enroll in the best university but I was fine with whatever was given to me in life. I was the most positive person I knew, of course after my mother. I got my degree with perfect score, entered an amazing job with amazing people. I was finding my happiness, I felt it. I wasn't a failure anymore.
Then I met who I thought was this wonderful guy. Our eyes met in between a gathering and instantly there were those unbelievable sparks people speak of. We would just talk for hours, simply getting to know each other better, and I slowly realized at a certain point that I was in love with him. He would understand and support me, and being in a very difficult period of my life, I really appreciated that. We got together as our families approved it, and I must admit that things weren't as accidental as I thought it was. People later let out how they arranged him to meet me, possibly get me to finally tie the knot. So it was kind of arranged yet love? Sounds conveniently perfect, don't it? I thought so too, yet maybe it was my turn to finally find my happy ever after. I believed my mother was right. I overcame my storm. He wasn't the so called theoretical perfect guy, he was nice, funny and understanding but he also had his flaws too. I accepted them because I knew I had them too. Everyone does. After all, problems were an inevitable factor of life, and I was totally willing to help him through that and anything that followed. I only wish I knew how deep that meant.
Finally I was proposed to marry the most special person in my life. I was happy, truly happy. People used to envy just how perfect we were. But I guess that's where the flaw itself was. Nothing should be too perfect. I forgot that imperfection is something that makes things perfect.
In short my life was perfect until somehow, someday, maybe I became more accomplished than my beloved. Maybe he wanted me to be dependent, to be below him or just always be beside him. I'm not sure. But I was never born like that. My mother left the lessons she taught me in life, how I could forget it and change? She meant me to be strong and independent. I knew deep down I didn't want to change. I couldn't and thus my fears took over me. I didn't want to lose my happiness. Neither who I truly am. But was it the right thing to do? The struggle had begun.
A simple fight. Continued to desperation, hurt, shouting and then like a slow poison turned into abuse. I don't really know how things started to be honest. I just know that, slowly, he started giving me some "rules". I still tired with all I had, found the love in them, or tried to. Accepted all of the flaws. But it was never enough. Never enough for him or me. But I still believed my mother's words and kept my hope strong. That was all I had.
There was a time the story would not have been so tragic. In fact, in the beginning, I convinced myself that maybe it was magic. Suddenly his mood would change and he'd surprise me late at night. He'd bring flowers and my favorite chocolate, claiming his 'big feelings' wouldn't allow him to lose me from his mind. It was easy to romanticize it. I had always valued my privacy and independence, but I suppose in those early moments I wanted my desire to be so overwhelmingly desired even more.
Before long the paranoid questions, always followed with that look of suspicion in his eyes. He suspected why I never got pregnant. He never questioned himself and I couldn't tell him the truth with how violent his outrage was. Even with the truth out, his fingers pointed at how I failed make him man enough. He refused to believe that it was not my fault or job to make him feel manly enough. He almost accused me for it all, he felt like I was the reason to his failure. I hurt his pride, that I wasn't there for him. Eventually, it progressed to him grabbing my hand in anger, which led to my fingernail painfully dangling from its bed. "It was an accident," Of course.
He was sorry, apologetic and vomiting with excuses as he wiped my tears and joked to make me laugh by nicknaming me 'wimpy'. He was always strategic that way, throwing humor into the scenario in order to distract me from the reality of the absolute hole of twisted devastation I was stepping further into.
Slowly, he started getting irritated at my work, isolated me from my family and friends. My colleagues found it disturbing how I was. I only ever went to any events with him. I barely ever went to any gatherings of my own. But I accepted it. I must admit that it is partially my fault. I allowed him to do so. I was so in love with him at that point that I would have done anything to keep him happy and into my life. Isn't that what you do to keep the one person you love so much happy? I knew my father did it, my mother did it. I thought he did it too. I was only fooling myself.
During the first period, he made it sound as if I was the one who wanted to be there with him all the time, so I avoided my friends. Before I realized that he was actually manipulating me, convincing me that I was the one who was isolating me. In reality, he just slowly convinced me that they didn't care for my happiness. I did not believe him at first, so I kept seeing them, until he just did not allow me to see certain people anymore, "because they have a bad influence on you, and I only want the best for you."
At first I really thought that if I did not listen and obey, he would be hurt and leave me. I thought he just felt jealous. With time I realized that he would have never been hurt by me. He was only trying to prove his manly dominance. Because he didn't understood how I felt. He wasn't about to go anywhere. Because he needed to prove his so called "love" for me, I was the foolish one to think that. I failed to understand the violence in fear of losing him, but he would never leave me.
The first slap came when I dared to say how I really felt like. Smack, right on my face. I thought it was some kind of joke, or at least I convinced myself that it was. Apparently I got worse and worse at being what he wanted me to be. He thought I did not put enough effort in our relationship, he thought I did it on purpose.
Not long after, I found myself branded with a carpet burn on my forearm from him pulling me across the floor in a fit of rage. He went to war against anything which stole a solitary second of my attention from him. And so he was even more resentful of my beautiful work. I failed to keep count of how many works he destroyed, how many times I was close to being fired. My most amazing job turned into a brutal curse to me.
Most of his abuse followed the verbal path. Once he rattled my car keys in my face as I attempted to escape another one of his seemingly never-ending rants. He turned to me and, staring deep into my eyes, released a sadistic chuckle and said, "Now, that just being disloyal." I never understood how he found loyalty in caging me and me accepting it.
I remember thinking there was an unusual absence of light in his eyes. I thought it was me being delusional. Then there was the time he purposely put his foot in front of my tire as I tried to drive away. It was clear he wanted to be injured. There he was, hobbling on one foot in hopes that I'd feel pity for him, turn my car around and stay. Even surprising to me, I did. He wore his swollen toe like a badge of honor.
I was SCARED. Both for my life and his. Because despite all, I loved him, I cared too much. Even hurt I wanted him to be fine. Because that is what love meant to me. The unconditional unreserved feeling that can even drown a person, but I was only drowned with his obsession.
Every episode was always followed by something comically explosive. He'd often stage the most romantic scenes; make vows of forever and promises of safekeeping. Then cry for forgiveness, bed to patience, ask for trust. It was a seductive cycle of being force-fed abusive verbal abuse which seemed to have been custom made in the pits of hell, always followed by sprinkle of exhilarating flattery as desiring as the heavens. Always an attempt on my self-esteem that was already sinking in quicksand. It was a chaotic apocalypse.
At a point, I was only numb, deaf to words, blind to the pain. A frigid doll, he called me. That I was vain of any feels or desire. He never realized that I was just drained. I was never enough for him. For him to simply do what he asked me to do, and always say he was right. At first I could manage to do that, but at a certain point I just couldn't find the strength anymore. So, I ignored him, his advances, his world altogether.
It's easy to judge, isn't it? Easy to say, "Man, what was wrong with that girl? I would never tolerate behavior like that." "She has shameless. She is a bad influence. Didn't her mother teach her anything?"
I now felt so far from the person in that relationship that I find myself judging my former self. Though, we are only fooling ourselves. We often judge each other until our ego's appetites are satisfied, until we feel superior and perhaps until we are convinced that maybe our own life isn't so much of a mess after all.
I stared to question who I was. I was starting to forget the girl who fought the world for her family. Who believed in her mother's words above all. I was failing to recognize who I am anymore. I was not the successful designer anymore, nor the positive confident girl. I wasn't someone who believed my heart could win the world anymore.
Suddenly one day all of the past came back to me clear as water and it hit me deep inside. I once again heard my mother's repeated words like a guideline, "We all have an unsuspected reserve of strength inside that emerges when life puts us to the test."
I needed to feel myself again. Fell alive again. Just me, myself and my life. I wanted to feel free again. To simply feel alive again. And a deep throat cutting choke of water, desperate struggle to breathe for 10 minutes was what bought my senses in check.
It wasn't until I formed an unbreakable bond with the reality of my own worth that the willingness to tolerate another second of the misery was just gone. I knew another compromise would never be made. He could have made extreme efforts to retaliate, quoted poetry and sang song like Michel Jackson to shame, or jumped up and down with his hands over ears, but I wasn't going to budge because I had become rooted in the reality of freedom for myself and for life.
No, it won't be easy. I knew that. I will have to fight the world for what I desire. I will have to struggle a lot. I will be hurt more. Maybe will lose myself in the crowds of horror. But the desire of freedom was so powerful I was ready to risk anything. Even my life. Because for me it was worth it.
Love doesn't provoke you to sob in a corner. It doesn't put a fist through your wall. It doesn't desire to shatter any part of you — not your phone, your windows, your ambitions, your self-worth or any of your other relationships. It has no desire to isolate you. It doesn't steal your keys for the purpose of forcing you to stay and endure further misery. It doesn't mock you as you cry. Neither does it blame you for everything.
It doesn't violate your privacy. It doesn't stay up into the wee hours of the night scouring every shred of information on your computer. It doesn't rummage through your things in search of a reason to incriminate you. It doesn't become obsessed with success to overpower you, high from its ability to intimidate or control you. It doesn't provoke you to curl into a ball with cried of desperation or leave your heart on the floor to be stepped on. Those things are born of obsession and the driver of obsession is nothing more than fear, love's illusive and dangerous opposite.
Was he bad? Maybe. Was he cruel? I'm not sure. Was he torturing? I don't know. Maybe I was only over reacting. Fights happen right? It was only one or two times, right? I mean I know I can be a bitch sometime. But we're still the perfect little couple, right? I was so confused, because I love him and I hate him and I don't know what to do. Not sure if I even did something wrong. But one thing I was sure of, I am not the victim type.
He did lose his bet at one point. Possessiveness turned into obsession turned into desire into a struggle of rage and fear. The hit, I felt it, not on my skin, in my self-worth.
Then one night it was all too much for him, too much to the point he almost kills me. He did hit me, but it was only few times. Never deliberately, just accidents, right? He was nice too. He was kind too. He loved me too, right? Even though I am well brought up, have a loving family, an amazing job, fantastic group of friends, loved by so many. Yet nobody saw this coming. Only because no one though a man feeling not manly enough by his wife was something important. Because a man should be above a woman. And that was natural.
Yes, my husband was abusive to the point for me to almost suicide or being killed. I tried but maybe it was never enough. And finally I gave up. But it was not my life but his. I gave up on him. I gave up my trust in him. I gave up the hope. Hope of a life with him in it.
He was arrested, sentenced. People said I was free but I wondered, was I? When I came home and saw all the proof of him that stayed behind, the demeaning looks from others, the pity in their voice and the whispers of the society. I wondered how I'll survive in them. But then again I reminded myself what I once believed and what bought me so far.
I must not Fear.
Fear is a Mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total Obliteration
I will Face my Fear.
I will permit it to Pass over me and Through me.
And when it had Gone past
I will turn the inner Eye to see its Path.
Where fear has gone,
There will be Nothing...
Only I Will Remain.
******
{These words are inspired by a person who was very close to me a long time ago. This is her story that inspired me to write in my point of view. I have seen much of a struggle a woman have to face and much too how they survived and soared. I originally wrote this when I was only 14 and she was a divorced career woman then. She told me because she saw me struggle with my problems. In a hope to inspire me, she told me. Now I'm 17 and I never really got to share her story up front.This story gave me hope and so I wanted to share it. Oh, and what of her? Let's just say she got her happy ever after in her own little world.}